Dinner and a Recap
Tonight for dinner I made shell pasta. For sauce I used some regular tomato sauce in a jar and added it to the (imitation) crab meat that I had leftover from Friday's crab cakes. To this I added a lot of pepper and heated it up in a sauce pan while the water boiled and the pasta cooked. Before mixing the pasta in with the sauce I added some olive oil to keep it from sticking, some Italiano spice, and a little bit of Balsamic vinegar just because I like it. Then I mixed it all together in the pot and dished some on my plate along with some salad. It was a quick and easy meal, pretty tasty, and pretty healthy. I think it took about 15 minutes with boiling water and all. Now I have two relatively large portions as leftovers in my fridge which will come in handy for lunches at school. This way I don't have to prepare a wrap or a sandwich. I love leftovers :)
In my geography of health class we have been discussing food security for the past couple of weeks and today we talked about farming in BC. Since the 1930`s the amount of farmland (in acres) has approximately doubled while the number of farmers has decreased from about 100,000 to about 60,000. This is not surprising since we always hear of mechanization and the large farms or agricultural corporations buying out the smaller family based businesses. This information is always represented in such a negative and sad light, but when looked at from a food security perspective, it is a positive advancement and change in our society since these large agri-businesses will have higher production rates and in turn, produce more food. One main reason for the increase in the amount of farmed land (and this does include ranch land but not greenhouses) is the addition and use of fringe lands, areas with soils that are only suitable for things like ranching and weren`t used in the past because other, more suitable land was available. Another interesting thing mentioned were some of the issues (or not??) associated with the ALR, how it inflates real estate prices, how it can be substituted (high quality land close to cities being sold to developers and lower quality land in other regions being protected instead), and how no body really knows about it or what it really does. So it was another interesting hour spent talking about food and food related issues, on Thursday we will discuss the conflicting ideals between struggling fisheries and fish stocks and Health Canada's advice issuing the population to eat more fish for health reasons (omega 3's etc.). I'm guessing it will end up being a communication issue. Health Canada not interacting with Fish and Wildlife and each department is just looking out for themselves, thinking of the ideal situation (ie. eating at least 2 servings of fish each week (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/choose-choix/meat-viande/index-eng.php), disregarding all the other factors, such as the increased pressure put on already suffering fish stocks, encountered when put in practice.
In my geography of health class we have been discussing food security for the past couple of weeks and today we talked about farming in BC. Since the 1930`s the amount of farmland (in acres) has approximately doubled while the number of farmers has decreased from about 100,000 to about 60,000. This is not surprising since we always hear of mechanization and the large farms or agricultural corporations buying out the smaller family based businesses. This information is always represented in such a negative and sad light, but when looked at from a food security perspective, it is a positive advancement and change in our society since these large agri-businesses will have higher production rates and in turn, produce more food. One main reason for the increase in the amount of farmed land (and this does include ranch land but not greenhouses) is the addition and use of fringe lands, areas with soils that are only suitable for things like ranching and weren`t used in the past because other, more suitable land was available. Another interesting thing mentioned were some of the issues (or not??) associated with the ALR, how it inflates real estate prices, how it can be substituted (high quality land close to cities being sold to developers and lower quality land in other regions being protected instead), and how no body really knows about it or what it really does. So it was another interesting hour spent talking about food and food related issues, on Thursday we will discuss the conflicting ideals between struggling fisheries and fish stocks and Health Canada's advice issuing the population to eat more fish for health reasons (omega 3's etc.). I'm guessing it will end up being a communication issue. Health Canada not interacting with Fish and Wildlife and each department is just looking out for themselves, thinking of the ideal situation (ie. eating at least 2 servings of fish each week (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/food-guide-aliment/choose-choix/meat-viande/index-eng.php), disregarding all the other factors, such as the increased pressure put on already suffering fish stocks, encountered when put in practice.