June Forums

June 12

Speaker: Ethan Kegley

Title: Food In the 21st Century: Its Waste and How to Stop It
Abstract:

When I was in 9^th grade I had a General Sciences teacher who started his first lesson of the year with the old adage: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Of course my classmates and I had to argue with him. We got what we thought were free lunches every day.  Provided by our parents and sent to school with us. We thought that if he were to buy us lunch it would, necessarily, be a free lunch for us. We were not, all of us, so naïve as to think that nobody paid for the lunches we ate. We were, on the other hand, stubborn and little educated. I was 15 years old then and the second half of my life has been a journey of food (and other things). After reading such books as “If You Love this Planet,” “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” “Botany of Desire,” “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” at the age of 29, I finally decided to change my life. I stopped eating cake, cookies, chips, candy, and stopped drinking soda and other sugary drinks. I also tried to start eating as locally as possible, stopped buying imported canned food and started making everything I could from scratch. I will discuss the waste built into our modern food system. How unbalanced food subsidies are. The way modern food production has shaped the way we eat. The hidden costs nestled deep within our food choices. Some common and or popular foods and what the alternative to them might be. I want to emphasize that each of us has the power to vote with our wallet, every time we go to the cash register. Come and learn a little something about what we often include in our diet and why we don’t have to anymore.

The forums are held in the Café Bastille 3, Taipei City, Daan District, Wenzhou Street, No.7 溫州街7號 (in the basement of the café). It’s close to Daan Forest Park (not the one at Gonguan) near the intersection with Hoping East Road. They start at 8pm.


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