EE318 Exam 1 Readings

CORE IDEA Ugarte, Rodrigo. “Studying Food Acquisition: Lessons from Santiago de Cuba and South Los Angeles.” Items (SSRC).

People don’t just shop at the nearest store. Travel for cultural foods and shop on the way home from work.

CORE IDEA: Mitchell, Stacy. “The Great Grocery Squeeze.” The Atlantic, December 1, 2024.

1936 Robinson-Patman Act dismantled under Reagan

CORE IDEA Khan, Nurayn. “Food Apartheid: Bridging Disparities in Boston.” Harvard Political Review, February 14, 2023.

Boston, redlining, 30 min trip to 90 min, solutions: Fresh Truck and Fresh Connect

CORE IDEA Rivera, Diana. “Should We Still Be Saying ‘Food Desert’?” HealthCity, February 28, 2023.

1/3 of Mass families food insecure; introduces food swamp and critiques the term for ignoring structure

CORE IDEA Cullather, Nick. “The Foreign Policy of Calories.” The American Historical Review 112, no. 2 (2007): 337–64.

Atwater Calorimeter, made populations legible, food becomes instrument of power and the world food problem became open to intervention

CORE IDEA Simmons, Dana. On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2025.

Minnesota Starvation Experiment, hunger is deliberately produced and used to control people. Post WWII hungry people were cast as incapable and Cold war food aid was both humanitarian and political

CORE IDEA Yates-Doerr, Emily. The Weight of Obesity: Hunger and Global Health in Postwar Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015.

“Rica” Bodies as commodities, imported weightloss approaches, kilos vs pounds confusion

CORE IDEA Popkin, Barry M. “Contemporary Nutritional Transition: Determinants of Diet and Its Impact on Body Composition.” The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 70, no. 1 (2011): 82–91.

Drivers: liquid calories, subsidized animal foods, salt, frying, supermarkets. UK coordinated policies vs US uncoordinated

CORE IDEA Nuttall, Frank Q. “Body Mass Index: Obesity, BMI, and Health: A Critical Review.” Nutrition Today 50, no. 3 (2015): 117–128. 

History of BMI cutoffs and its flawed as a metric

CORE IDEA Behrens, Paul, Thijs Bosker, and David Erhardt, eds. Food and Sustainability. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Chapter 6: "Climate Change"

Energy + Agro over 90% of emissions, climate explains about 1/3 of yield variability, smallholders hit hardest

CORE IDEA Behrens, Paul, Thijs Bosker, and David Erhardt, eds. Food and Sustainability. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Chapter 8: "Nutrition"

The 5 phases of nutrition transition, communicable vs NCD, double burden

CORE IDEA Ringler, Claudia, Mure Agbonlahor, Jennie Barron, Kaleab Baye, J. V. Meenakshi, Dawit K. Mekonnen, and Stefan Uhlenbrook. “The Role of Water in Transforming Food Systems.” Global Food Security 33 (2022): 100639.

By 2050, half the population and half of grain production could face water stress. 70% of withdrawals go to agriculture. Seven action areas.

CORE IDEA Brause, Holly. “The Uncertain Future of New Mexico Chile: Can a Heritage Crop Adapt to Water Scarcity?” Gastronomica 22, no. 4 (2022): 26–36.

Three adaptions (fallowing, drip, breeding) each with a trade-off for flavor and terroir

CORE IDEA FAO. Understanding Food Insecurity. Food and Agriculture Organization, 2024.

FIES, four pillars (availability, access, stability, utilization),

CORE IDEA Harvey, Fiona. “Global Water Crisis Leaves Half of World Food Production at Risk in Next 25 Years.” The Guardian, October 17, 2024.

Blue/Green/Grey water, water scarcity impacts womens safety (sierra leone), no collective action, water artificailly low for some and high for others

CORE IDEA “Everyday Environment Podcast.” Episode 137: “Too Much of a Good Thing: Plant Perspective on Climate Change.” August 14, 2024.

short-term benefits (CO2 keeps stomata closed —> plants hold more water) vs long term stress (closed stomata makes plants hotter, stress makes plants vulnerable)