Currents spring 2018: The Food Edition

Currents

*

(Hint: It’s about food)

Pepperdine University, Spring 2018

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CURRENTS MAGAZINE

SPECIAL EDITIONS

the

FOOD

edition

CULTURAL DISHES

FOOD WASTE

FARMERS MARKETS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: E

ver since I was young, I associated family with food. My mom, dad and I would eat at the dinner table every night and talk about how our day went. My extended family would gather at my grandmother’s house and eye the many dishes she spent all day preparing. Food always brings my family together.

My eyes opened to a new and different environment after moving from Redondo Beach, California, to Southeast Michigan when I was 6 years old. There was no longer grandma’s cooking, the cheap but flavorful taco stands, or the Japanese curry restaurant that I loved more than candy. Instead, I learned about the Polish Paczkis, a 425-calorie filled doughnut eaten before Lent, and the famous German fried chicken that you could only get 45 minutes away at Frankenmuth, a little Bavarian town.

I quickly realized how diverse food was and how each dish could tell a story. My appetite for wanting to explore the world and what it had to offer grew. Through the food I came across, I learned about other people and their cultures. For me, food became meaningful.

Through this magazine, I hope to share a taste of the diversity and culture that food can provide. Food can bring people together, regardless of our different backgrounds. It can shape who we are as individuals and who we are as a community.

This issue explores local fresh-produce vendors, cultural dishes and

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the different ways social media and technology influence the way we view cuisine. We also delve into the deeper topics of food insecurity, food waste and eating disorders, all of which still have great impacts on society today.

I am so grateful to have the opportunity to create a magazine where I am able to work with amazing writers, photographers, designers, artists and editors, as well as my advisers Elizabeth Smith and Courtenay Stallings.

Thank you so much for always teaching, inspiring and cheering me on. I am forever thankful for everything you taught me.

Through these pages, I hope you experience how connective food can be. In a time where it may feel like we are growing apart from one another, food can provide us with a means of coming together. Gather your family and friends and share your experiences, stories and backgrounds and feast on God’s gifts to us.

Enjoy.

Chad Jimenez,

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Staff

CAROLINE LAGANAS, ASSISTANT EDITOR

GABBY GONTA, ASSISTANT

TERRA ATWOOD, PHOTO EDITOR

KARMA SALVATO, ASSISTANT

NATE BARTON, LEAD DESIGNER

MARIA VALENTE, ASSISTANT

COVER DETAILS: DESIGNER: NATE BARTON PHOTOGRAPHER: TERRA ATWOOD MODEL: RANDY MATA

DESIGNER: NATE BARTON PHOTOGRAPHER: CHAD JIMENEZ

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MONICA AVILA, SOCIAL MEDIA

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CONTRIBUTORS TERRA ATWOOD NATE BARTON MIKAELA BISSON MADELINE DUVALL RACHEL ETTLINGER GABBY GONTA CAROLINE LAGANAS ALLISON LEE

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MICHAELA MEYER PEAU POROTESANO KELLY RODRIGUEZ KARMA SALVATO CASSANDRA STEPHENSON MARIA VALENTE KAYIU WONG SHERRY YANG

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IN THIS ISSUE:

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C u lt u r a l F o o d D i s h e s C o l l e g e S t u d e n t s S h a r e W h at dishes mean the most to them

Food Insecurity Hardships and Solutions

L A F u s i o n R e s ta u r a n t s Foods fused together with a purpose

I n s ta g r a m F o o d T r e n d s How social media i n f l u e n c e s w h at w e e at

Farmers Market Finds Profiles on Local Vendors

Coast to Coast Comparing West and E a s t C o a s t f o o d c u lt u r e

25 31 34

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Food Waste

The fight for Food Recovery

Subscription Boxes Ingredients sent straight to your door

46 50

E at i n g D i s o r d e r s Student Accounts a b o u t t h e i r b at t l e s

Symbols in the Seder A Look into the Traditional Jewish Dinner

F o o d S u s ta i n a b i l i t y A Q&A on The Future of Food

‘Ethnic’ Dishes Why is ‘Ethnic’ Food A trend?

SUGA SUGAR R

B BU UTTER TTER

FLOUR

1/2 cup of culture 3 cups of community

BY G A BBY G O N TA PHOTO G RA PHS BY T E RRA AT W O O D A N D C HA D J IME N E Z MODE LE D BY RE E D W ILLIA MS

w Dishes from various cultures may be made with different foods but they all have one central ingredient in common: community.

“If I had to have one meal before I die I would choose this twice over,” senior Reed Williams said about his mother’s homemade crayfish fondeaux.

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Of Cajun and African American descent growing up in Texas, Williams said he has experienced a melting pot of different food cultures but always comes back to this traditional Cajun dish.

“It’s a cheese paste, fondue style, but it has your crayfish, your spinach, your mushrooms, it has shrimp, it has

CULTURAL FOOD DISHES

whatever you want in it,” he said.

Holidays are especially centered around food for Williams, who remembers big gatherings with family and friends.

“Thanksgiving and Christmas at the Williams’ household have a lot of cholesterol, I can tell you that,”

he said with a laugh. “My mom also makes this macaroni and cheese that will literally clog your arteries the second it touches your tastebuds.”

Senior Katherine Anderson fondly remembers the family tradition of baking her favorite Italian dessert at Christmas each year.

VA NILLA “My favorite thing to do is take the biscotti right when they come out of the oven and you dip it in coffee ... it dissolves a little bit so when you put it in your mouth, it just crumbles,” she said.

Anderson says a major part of family baking is a balance of sticking to the recipe while also knowing when to stray from it to make your dessert unique.

“You use Crisco, sugar, eggs, flour and vanilla, which is the central ingredient, but you always have to go way over the amount that they say to go because it makes it sweeter and better,” she said.

Anderson said these holiday baking sessions have carried on across generations and she doesn’t plan on stop-

EGG

ping them now.

“It would be my great grandma, my aunt, my mom and my grandma. The females in the family would always carry on this tradition, so I look forward to doing that with potentially a future daughter,” she said.

The time set aside for cooking is another element to the experience, and in the midst of the modern-day, two-minute-and-30-second microwavable meal, Anderson says the Italian way is much different.

“A lot of the food that you make in the Italian culture takes a long time,” she said.

“It’s not an easy, quick process. How can I do this in 30 minutes to an hour? Biscotti takes all day.”

But the Italians don’t seem

CHEESE

to mind. Anderson described how the commitment and attention to detail in their cooking translates to their characteristics as a whole.

“Because you have to reserve time for it, I think that speaks to the kind of people that come out of the Italian culture, it’s very hard-working and not afraid to take time on things and make it to the best of their ability,” she said.

On the other hand, junior Elizabeth Hsueh said she prefers the classic, quick egg and tomato Chinese dish that has stuck with her since childhood.

“It’s basically just egg and tomato, there’s onions and if you want to put a little meat in it you can, and you just eat it over rice,” she said.

Although simple in composition, Chinese dishes often include specific foods that represent different elements of wellness in life.

“You’re always supposed to eat fish at Chinese New Year because it represents prosperity and health and happiness for the upcoming year,” she said.

Hsueh said she remembers the family bonding that happened over sharing the different foods everyone would bring during the celebration.

“The food is important but it’s also the community ... everyone will spend the day together preparing the food and there’s a strong emphasis on family,” she said.

Hsueh said sharing one’s food traditions with others

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“It’s the company and people that matter.”

can create intercultural bonding as well.

“One of my really good friends is Mexican and so over the summer she said, ‘I’m going to take you to a really good Mexican restaurant and you’re going to take me to a really

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CULTURAL FOOD DISHES

good Chinese restaurant,’ and it was a cool cultural swap,” she said.

Whether or not the experimentation ends up fitting your taste, Williams thinks being open to trying new foods with others increases

overall understanding of the culture.

“You get to sit down and enjoy it or not enjoy it but at least you’re trying something different ... you don’t have to like everything, but it’s the company and people that matter,” he said. GG

“It’s a cheese paste, fondue style, but it has your crayfish, your spinach, your mushrooms, it has shrimp, it has whatever you want in it.”

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(A Hidden-In-Plain-Sight Community)

BY RA C HE L E T T LIN G E R PHOTO G RA P HS BY T E RRA AT W O O D FO O D A RT BY C A S S A N DRA S T E P HE N S O N

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FOOD INSECURITY‌

F

or Pepperdine University alumnus Amoni Henderson, class of 2017, a negative bank account balance forced him to skip meals and go hungry for nearly three months.

Henderson found himself thousands of dollars in debt after several roommate agreements fell through, forcing him to take on more housing financial burdens than he was able to meet, he said. On top of having trouble finding a job post-graduation, Henderson found himself deeply in the red and created a GoFundMe page in an attempt to alleviate some of his expenses.

“I’m doing a lot better after my GoFundMe. I definitely am not starving anymore, so it’s good,” Henderson said. “I can eat and pay most of my bills and stuff like that. It’s still just a struggle to get income, obviously, because it’s hard to get that up.”

His GoFundMe was able to generate $4,420 from 115 donors. He said he hadn’t spoken to some of the people who donated in nearly a decade, and was touched by their contributions.

“What helped me personally the most wasn’t anything I did during the situation, it just happened to be my previous friendships and people that I talked to in the past, Henderson said. “... You never know when you’re going to need people.”

Henderson currently freelances as an art production assistant, but is still seeking full-time employment. He said he even went as far as applying to the McDonald’s down the street from him to

try and get any income possible.

Henderson is not alone.

For Pepperdine students, a required meal plan and on-campus housing for the first two years at Seaver College is an expense some can’t afford on campus. At $15,320 for a double-occupancy room and meal plan, according to the cost of attendance for the 2018-2019 school year, the expense can force those without the appropriated funds to choose between the cost of food, shelter and gas, and it can place a significant financial burden on those students’ families.

There are several clubs and Pepperdine Volunteer Center (PVC)-coordinated service opportunities to assist communities facing food insecurity outside of the Pepperdine bubble. In LA County alone, the percentage of families facing food insecurity is at 12.3 percent, according to the County of Los Angeles Public Health.

But on-campus food insecurity is rarely seen or heard about, and it’s a growing problem, said Samantha Newman, junior and head of advertising at Pepperdine’s branch of Swipe Out Hunger, an on-campus group that strives to bring awareness and alleviate the impact of food insecurity.

“Pepperdine has this huge issue where it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s Pepperdine,’ you see these sports cars, you see these super expensive things, so it’s like, ‘No way would anybody have food insecurity,’” Newman said.

The United States Depart-

ment of Agriculture defines food insecurity in two stages: Low food security, which “reports a reduction in the quality, variety or desirability of diet with little to no indication of reduced food intake,” or very low food security, which “reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.”

Henderson’s food insecurity, although only temporary, would have fallen under the very low food security category.

Low food security affected 29.2 percent of households with incomes less than three times the federal poverty level in Los Angeles County in 2015, and very low food security affected 11.3 percent of households — or, to put it in concrete numbers, nearly 217,000 homes in Los Angeles County.

On college campuses alone, about one in five students skip meals to afford the costs attributed to their education, according to Swipe Out Hunger.

“The students facing the greatest hardships are those from low-income backgrounds, those who are undocumented, those who have children, first-generation college students and former foster youth,” Swipe Out Hunger wrote on their website of the campus hunger problem.

“Even students who have a job, participate in some kind of campus meal plan or utilize other financial assistance like Pell Grants experience food insecurity.”

Someone who is food insecure doesn’t know where they

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will get their next meal, said Andrea Harris, senior director of Student Administrative Services and a member of the Student Care Team.

The Student Care Team is the biggest source of support for those on campus who are personally affected by food insecurity.

passed away, leaving the child, a Pepperdine student, to fend for themselves financially for the first time.

“All of a sudden somebody who’s had their money coming in all the time from their parent has nothing,” Harris said. “So it could happen out of nowhere to any of us, and that’s something that I think people don’t realize.”

For Henderson, housing expenses nearly doubled when several roommate and sublease agreements fell through, which was something he did not see coming. Since he is a Pepperdine graduate, he would not be eligible for the Student Care Team’s services.

However, Henderson said his parents were able to step in and help carry the burden — something they had never done before, since all of his college expenses were paid out of his own pocket or through scholarships up until this point.

“It was surprising as well that my parents were willing and able to help me for a couple months,” Henderson said. “But they have their limit, obviously, and I felt like I didn’t want to ask for more money because I know they didn’t have it.”

Pepperdine’s Food Insecurity Community The Student Care Team receives recommendations from members of the community about students who are dealing with food insecurity at all five of Pepperdine University’s schools, Harris said.

“Our standard practice is to contact the student and find out the nature of the situation,” Harris said.

“A lot of times there’s a lot more going on and our goal is not just to address one issue, which is the most obvious one, but then provide a more holistic support structure for that person.”

Food insecurity can be an ongoing problem in someone’s life, but it can also surprise students following a significant change in their life that may affect them not only emotionally but also financially, Harris said.

Over this past academic year, Harris has seen several cases where a parent has Providing Resources for Those on Campus PVC Environmental Justice Coordinator and member of the Green Team Charles Wyffels said he has tried to use the community garden, located below the practice soccer intramural field up the road from Towers and Rho

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FOOD INSECURITY

Parking Lot, as a source of food for those he knows of on campus who are food insecure.

But the Pepperdine junior said he wished he could do more to serve the community using the garden and the abundance of fresh, organic and healthy foods it produces each year.

“We have a community garden on campus. Last year me, partnering with Green Team, we harvested a bunch of potatoes from there, which we shared with somebody on campus,” Wyffels said.

In cases where a student finds themselves in a financial bind for the first time, leading them to question where funds will come from to go toward purchasing food, Harris or a fellow Student Care Team member will step in and provide resources and solutions for that student.

For most cases, a member of the Student Care Team will provide the student in question with a gift card ranging in value depending on their need to a grocery store nearest to them, Harris said.

The Student Care Team has also set up a network where students, faculty and staff can share on-campus events, like some Board events or Student Government Association town halls, that feature free or discounted foods with those on campus who are food insecure, Harris said.

Faculty and staff can also use their Dine with a Student pass on a student known to the Student

Care Team as someone facing food insecurity to give that student a meal free of charge.

For some, it may mean applying for financial aid for the first time, or reaching out to nonprofits for additional financial assistance.

“We’ll work with them to find a more long-term solution to their situation, and sometimes it could be working with financial [aid] to apply when they’ve never had to apply before because of the different circumstances, and also to work with other local nonprofits to get them assistance,” Harris said.

The Student Care Team is made of only staff because a lot of the cases the team takes on require access to confidential materials that only staff should have access to, Harris said.

For some members of the community, helping those with food insecurity comes from more personal financial contributions. Harris said she has personally bought students in need $50 worth of groceries from Nature’s Edge to ensure they have access to the food they need. She also said a faculty member brought that same student into their home and cooked meals for him.

“A lot of that is personal, you’ll see people doing ... which I think is so moving to see,” Harris said.

Newman said food insecurity is a problem that is receiving attention from the administration, but students also have a responsibility to step up and take action toward eliminating

on-campus food insecurity.

“I just really want to emphasize that it is an issue at Pepperdine,” Newman said.

“There’s such a mindset and stereotype for Pepperdine students, and so many people discredit it and think, ‘Oh, it’s not here, we don’t have to worry about it,’ but the student next to you hasn’t eaten for two days.”

Swiping Out Hunger Swipe Out Hunger, which was established on Pepperdine’s campus in 2014, is one of the clubs on campus dedicated to assisting those who are food insecure. The club hosts two campus-wide events dedicated to providing service to the food insecurity community in Los Angeles, but they hope to expand that to also include the food insecure community on-campus as well.

“We plan out the bi-semesterly event of the sandwich drive, and then we also at the end of the year, we do meal point drive,” Newman said. “We get together, figure that out and we’re actually also talking about on-campus food insecurity,

so we’re just kind of figuring stuff out and how to navigate that.”

What started as an annual sandwich drive turned into a full lunch drive with donations of fruit and snacks from Sodexo, and this past year, the Swipe Out Hunger team was able to distribute hundreds of lunches to the Midnight Mission on Skid Row. “This last semester, we actually made 500 lunches, which was amazing, so it was really, really successful,” Newman said.

They also organize the annual meal point drive, where students can donate up to $50 worth of leftover meal points at the end of the year, Newman said. The total amount of meal points eligible for donation increased from $25 this past year.

“Then if they have more that they want to donate but it exceeds the limit, we encourage them to buy food, nonperishable foods from Nature’s Edge, chips, whatever, and then they can donate that as well,” Newman said.

With the donated meal points, the Swipe Out Hunger team purchases food from Sodexo and donates it to a local organization of the club’s choosing, New-

man said. In past years they have donated to the Conejo Valley Food Bank and the Midnight Mission.

food insecure on campus, we’re just trying to figure out more of a subtle way Recovering On-campus to reach out to Food them so that they The Food Recovery Net- can identify that they are work, another national non- indeed food insecure,” Xue profit organization, formed said. its Pepperdine branch about a year ago and is another Reaching Beyond the Pepon-campus organization perdine Bubble trying to prevent food waste Week of Hunger and by bringing recovered food Homelessness is an annuto those who need it, said al event the PVC hosts to the club’s president and ju- fundraise and garner donior, Alexavier Xue. nations for severely under“What we do specifically privileged communities of as a university chapter is that Los Angeles, said junior we try to arrange different Dominique Galloway, one educational events to teach of PVC’s hunger and homepeople about the effects of lessness coordinators for the food waste as well as do- Ventura County area. ing the actual food recovery Galloway coordinated where we partner with Star- an event where students bucks a lot to recover their brought food to a church on leftover food,” Xue said.

Skid Row, spent time with At recent food recoveries parishioners and hosted a from the on-campus Star- karaoke night with them. bucks, the Food Recovery She also organized an event Network was able to re- on the topic of food districover and donate almost bution, where students sep100 pounds of food to local arated into groups and were homeless shelters, Xue said. educated on food insecurity.

In the future, Xue said she “We had an upperclass hopes to be able to prioritize group, a middle-class group that food to those facing and people who are impovfood insecurity on campus. erished and we said, ‘You “It’s hard for people to live on $1 a day, and this is admit that they’re food in- the food that you’re eating secure, but we are aware that today,’ and it was able to there are people who are show them that it’s not like

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it is at Pepperdine, basically,” Galloway said.

By partnering with organizations like Food Forward in Ventura County, which takes produce accumulated through donations from farmers to more than 300 organizations across Southern California, Galloway was able to talk farmer’s with stands at local farmer’s markets into donating their excess produce.

“It’s healthy food, it’s fresh food, it’s not garbage, it’s not something I feel like homeless people are used to eating,” Galloway said. “It’s something that’s better quality so it’s kind of cool to just be in that experience.”

As far as lending a hand to those not enrolled at Pepperdine University, Harris said the Student Care Team’s resources don’t extend that far; however, by serving a student, the team is indirectly alleviating some of the pressure off the student’s family.

“It’s typically the people on campus because we don’t have the resources to support people at home, but I will say as a caveat to that that we have an emergency fund through the student care team that we know will have benefitted somebody and their families,” Harris said.

Some of the situations students find themselves in that contribute to their food insecurity aren’t isolated to purchasing food, Harris said. If a student is food insecure, providing assistance for that student takes the pressure off their family back at home.

“So let’s say their family has issues back home. That they themselves have to pay for gas, and all the gas money that they use to commute to campus is money that their family doesn’t have,” Harris said. “So we’ll say here’s $100 to pay for your gas. Then we know we’re indirectly benefitting the family, but our number one goal is to directly benefit the student.”

Newman said a lot of Pepperdine students are given a privilege of time or money, and if they have the resources to give back to the homeless

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and food insecure communities, they should take advantage of that ability.

“I have such a heart for the homeless, and I can’t blame everyone for not having a heart for it, but I just really want to encourage people to just give what you can when you can,” Newman said.

When it comes down to supporting those facing food insecurity onor off-campus, Henderson said to have an open heart and mind toward those individuals.

“People should just be nice to other people,” Henderson said. “Be a good friend. That’s what helped me.” RE

FOOD INSECURITY IN AMERICA: • As of 2016, 41.2 million Americans live in food-insecure households.

• 12 percent of households (15.6 million households) are estimated to be food insecure.

• Households with children report food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children.

According to the nonprofit feedingamerica.org

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BY K A RMA C HRIS T IN E S A LVAT O GRA P HIC BY N AT E BA RT O N

T

he F-word is often a word that is frowned upon in today’s top kitchens.

No, not that F-word. The other one.

Fusion.

It’s a culinary buzzword. However, in several

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seasoned chef ’s circles, fusion is considered a dirty word. Chefs prefer terms like “globally-inspired” or “mash-ups,” according to the The Wall Street Journal and News.com.au.

The reason behind the fiery feelings for the word is

LA FUSION RESTAURANTS‌

the confusion that the concept often creates—known as “fusion confusion.” It is an entirely misunderstood idea that gets lost in translation. The problem with the word is that it doesn’t tell the whole story.

The idea of fusion cui-

sine isn’t about dumping a bunch of ingredients into a pot and mixing them together to make “Franken-food.” It is about fusing or combining ingredients and cooking techniques from dramatically dissimilar cultures to create culinary

concoctions that will shock your taste buds.

“Fusion food can walk a fine line,” said Plated’s Culinary Manager, Suzanne Dumaine, in an article on Plated.com titled, “What Chefs Really Think About Fusion Food.” “When the two cuisines enhance each other, it can be brilliant and delicious. When they don’t … it can just be confusing or gimmicky.”

There is no one reason for the fusion food craze.

“People can experiment with classic cultural dishes they love,” said Michele Nock, Seaver College graduate student, “while also providing a new and modern take on it.”

Fusion cuisine’s continual growth in popularity proves that both novice and experienced foodies crave dishes that contain cultural flavor and international flair.

“I feel like people are open and want to try cuisines from other cultures,” Nock said. “And fusion allows you to sample various flavors at once that, if done right, compliment each other well.”

For many chefs, cooking is about discovering those flavors that will explode in your mouth, leaving an everlasting impression not only with your tongue — but with your spirit as well.

Food is supposed to give you amazing taste memories, however, if the wrong ingredients are brought together, it could result in an epic disaster. But, if the concoction clicks — it could become a worldwide sensation!

Some familiar cross-cul-

tural mash-ups that have made an impact in the culinary world include recipes like: “Taco Pizza” (Italian/Mexican); “Hawaiian Pizza” (Hawaiian/ Italian); “Korean Tacos” and “Korean Burritos” (Korean/Mexican); “Philadelphia Rolls” ( Japanese/ American); “Japanese Fish Tacos” and “Beef Teriyaki Tacos” ( Japanese/Mexican); “Barbecue Chicken Pizza” (Italian/Tex-Mex); “Bulgogi” (Korean/BBQ); and the popular dessert, “Cronut®” (French/American).

A few lesser-known hybrid dishes include: “Wasabi Mashed Potatoes”; “Kimchi and Avocado Quesadillas”; “Mexican Spring Rolls”; “Gigantic Ramen Noodle Burgers”; “Sake Soy Guacamole”; “Smoked Salmon Breakfast Burrito”; “Ramen Fries’; “Sushirrito”; “Nutty Jam Pizzas”; “Tallarin Saltado” (Beef with Tomatoes, Pasta, and Chili Sauce); “Avocado Ice Cream Sandwich”; “Chai-Spiced Shortbread Cookies”; “Chocolate Beer Buttercream Cookies”; and “Cruffin,” (a combination of a croissant and a muffin).

Although Wolfgang Puck, Austrian-American celebrity chef and restaurateur, is often credited with starting the fusion food trend, the roots of fusion cuisine have been around for centuries. This trend “became popularized in the 1970s,” according to Exquisite Taste Magazine.

Restaurant-goers in search of new tastes don’t have to look too far. The LA and surrounding areas are rich with choices when

it comes to offering globally-inspired cuisine and unusual mash-ups.

In addition to Spago, there is the famous Kogi BBQ Taco Truck bringing together the flavors of Korea and Mexico and birthing the Korean Mexican taco movement. Using Twitter to start a food revolution, Kogi is an iconic taco truck in the LA area that put Chef Roy Choi on the culinary map. Their competitor, Cha Cha Chili, a small restaurant in LA, gives the food truck a run for their money.

Over on the Ventura side, there is Rock Chef Rolls, a Mexican/Asian fusion food truck that is located in Westlake Village. Chef Alberto Vazquez serves items like “Kobe Beef Chili with Garlic Texas Toast Points,” “Seared Ahi Tuna Bites with Jasmine Rice and Pickled Baby Tomatoes,” “My Mahi Mahi Tacos ‘Baja Style’” (Grilled Mahi Mahi with Avocado Cream, Mexi Slaw, Queso Fresco and Cilantro Vinaigrette topped with Crispy Onions), and “Pretzel Bites with Stout Fondue.”

Streets by Bistro Orient & Sushi Bar in Thousand Oaks serves up global street food with a Vietnamese twist. Two items from the menu include the “Superman Burrito” and the “Red Philly Roll.”

Craving a Cronut®? If so, DK’s Donuts & Bakery in Santa Monica bakes the Double Decker O-Nut,

“I feel like people are open and want to try cuisines from other cultures, and fusion allows you to sample various flavors at once that, if done right, compliment each other well.”

—Michele Nock tions and unique creations including the WOW-Nut, LA’s first half-waffle and half-donut hybrid. They also deliver and ship their mouth-watering, divine delicacies straight to your door!

If you prefer the original pastry that started the phenomenon, check out Dominique Ansel Bakery at The Grove in LA. It is Ansel’s first and only West Coast location. Ansel is the creator of the Cronut®, the sweet treat that swept the nation and took the cooking world by storm. In addition to the famous pastry, the bakery carries inventive creations made exclusively for LA. “I don’t think it’ll die down anytime soon,” Nock said. “I’m sure it’s been around for longer than most people realize. Also, it’s fun to experience new food with friends, so the experience alone can be enjoyable if nothing else.”

KCS

their own twist on the Cronut®, along with serving up several more crazy concoc-

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to COAST T S A CO

BY ALLI SON LEE AND KAYI U WON G ART BY MAD ELIN E DUVA LL

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COAST TO COAST

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ood is a cornerstone of culture.

When it comes to defining the foods of American culture, there are distinct cuisines and food options that vary from one part of the country to another. We left the comforts of Los Angeles’ taco trucks and In-N-Out burgers to spend this spring semester in our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C, for Pepperdine’s study abroad program. Here’s our take on how two multi-cultural, global hubs differ in their grub.

What D.C. has to offer: If anyone can understand the need for easy access to a wide variety of food options, Pepperdine students living on the Malibu campus without a car would be the first. LA offers some of the best food options that are open late; but it’s not always worth the drive. Sometimes it takes asking all your friends who have a car just to take you across the street to Chipotle.

In D.C., you can almost always find a public square lined up with food trucks one after the other. Food trucks are catered to businesses for their employees to have plenty of options right outside their building. The convenience and options for lunch should be considered when deciding on a job offer.

Coffee shops are all around the city, sometimes up to four on the same block. The abundance of coffee shops only speaks to the needed space to meet

with potential employers or business partners. With networking engrained into the daily lives of D.C. residents, coffee shops also serve as a place to get to know new acquaintances better.

As the center of American politics and a hub of global business, D.C. is the epitome of a hustle-and-bustle city. Everyone always seems to be on the go, catching the Metro before everyone else gets off of work or rushing back to the office to work your second hour of overtime.

Around every corner, you’ll see food that is advertised to be quickly prepared, or food on-the-go. Most of the fast food places you find on the West Coast such as Jack-in-the-box or Del Taco aren’t considered the

healthiest options for the road. However, the East Coast offers a wider variety of healthier options on the go: Sweet Greens, Pret-AManger and Roti. Sweet Greens offers seasonal salads that are made of whole produce delivered the morning of, making salad-haters give salad a second chance. PretA-Manger isn’t your basic grab-n-go coffee shop, as they provide customers with fresh and natural sandwiches, soups and coffee. Roti is essentially Mediterranean Chipotle where one can customize wraps, rice plates and salads with modern Mediterranean toppings and flavors.

Time is valuable when you are a full-time intern during the day and a fulltime student at night in the

D.C. program. However, despite the endless options for fast food in D.C., constantly eating out is not healthy for a college diet or a limited college budget. This spring semester, we had to factor in grocery shopping and preparing our own meals into our busy schedules as the most cost-efficient method to eating and surviving in D.C. This experience has given us a taste of what it means to #adult and how to achieve a successful worklife balance. Having Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods just a 10-minute walk from our D.C. house made groceries easily accessible, but it was also a race to see if we could finish our food before it went bad in the fridge.

Over the course of this past semester of experimental cooking, we learned that cooking is truly an endless cycle of trial and error. We learned from our mistakes of putting too much water in the rice cooker, taking out our pizza from the oven when it was still half raw, and putting way too much oatmeal in our homemade oatmeal raisin cookie dough.

We can happily report that we have significantly improved our cooking over the past three months and that we can now make pretty delicious chicken curry rice and pork dumplings.

Cooking for ourselves is a personal coastal difference for us because our interest in it was not sparked until our move to the East Coast.

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“ONE CAN’T FULLY EXPERIENCE A PLACE UNTIL YOU GET A TASTE OF ITS LOCAL FOOD CULTURE” What LA has to offer: In America, cities have a large variety of cultural food options.

In LA, if you are craving a certain type of cultural food, you can often find the best options in one central location. For example, if you are craving Chinese foods like dim sum, boba or literally any noodle or rice dish, you can easily find these dishes in a majority of the restaurants in the cities of Alhambra and Monterey Park in the San Gabriel Valley.

If one was craving Japanese food, Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo is the place to go for a concentrated range of high-quality ramen shacks and sushi bars.

For those irresistible Mexican food cravings, one can satisfy those savory tastebuds with fresh-off-the-grill taco trucks in Central LA. It doesn’t stop there; LA is famous for cultural neighborhoods, such as Koreatown, Filipinotown, Chinatown, Little Armenia, Thai Town, Little Ethiopia and Olvera Street,

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COAST TO COAST

where one can go to eat specific cultural cuisines.

This centralization of cultural foods is not as prevalent in D.C. Cultural food restaurants are much more spread out and randomly located. Unlike the wide variety of cultural neighborhoods in Los Angeles, cultural foods are not conglomerated together in one area.

You can find a Thai

restaurant and an Ethiopian restaurant right next to each other in D.C., but then no other diverse restaurants in the surrounding fivemile radius.

There have been many times we’ve left the CCB at midnight with a strong craving for boba and ramen, the perfect comfort foods for a late night of studying. We’ve found that one post

in a Facebook group page or a group text to friends can really rally up a crew to head over to the late night food culture in LA. For instance, cafes and restaurants in Sawtelle open late to cater to college students who get out of class late or simply need a midnight snack.

On the contrary, D.C. is much like Malibu: If you don’t eat at dinner time, you don’t eat at all. Most restaurants close after 8 or 9 p.m., making it difficult for college students to find late-night food options.

One can’t fully experience a place until you get a taste of its local food culture. If you’re ever in the D.C. area, take advantage of the food trucks and coffee shops around every corner. If you’re in LA and haven’t taken the time to explore the concentrated cultural centers, branch out to try unique types of ethnic foods. However, no matter which coast you’re on, cuisine makes each destination unique. AL, KW

Instagram: Food, filters and photos

BY MIK A E LA BIS S O N PHOT O G RA P HS BY T E RRA AT W O O D MODEL ED BY MA DDIE BLU ME , DA N IE L K IBU U K A , N IN A S P RE N G E R

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Do it for the 'gram' now applies to what we put in our bodies.

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erched atop a chair in her dining room, senior Hannah Cooper leans over the table to get the perfect picture of her meal.

“She does this all the time,” her roommate, senior Mary Mattingly, said. “I’m not allowed to eat until she’s taken a picture.”

Cooper, a Nutrition major, runs the Instagram account @califoodielifestyle in her spare time.

“I started a food blog because I was gluten-free,” Cooper said. “It was a way for me to reach out to other people that were gluten intolerant. Once I got to college, I switched over to Instagram. It was a quicker way to reach people.”

Cooper credits her switch to the amount of time people spend on their smartphones. Since she originally started her online food blog in high school, Instagram has become one of the most downloaded apps in the world, with about 800 million active users as of September. Within the world of Instagram, you’ll find the subculture of food bloggers.

One example, New Yorkbased food blog @feedyourgirlfriend, has over 120,000 followers. Another account, @instafood_lover, has over 400,000 followers. While

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dietitians and nutritionists teach you how to cook the best meals for your body at home, accounts like @ plantbasedjane, with over 180,000 followers or @ earthyandy, a plant-based mom with over 800,000 followers, focus on the healthier side of food blogs.

Each individual can find an account that fits their wildest food dreams, no matter the nutritional value.

“I think a lot of it started out from indulgence, with crazy concoctions of desserts or fried foods. People saw those and lived vicari-

INSTAGRAM FOOD TRENDS

ously through the pictures,” Cooper said. “But now with the new healthy mindset of things, you can see how a lot of food Instagrams are switching over to more healthy but still aesthetically pleasing foods. It caters to the different side of the spectrum, where people are on Instagram to find ways to eat healthy.”

Despite the newer, healthier side of Instagram Cooper finds herself drawn to, the indulgence side still has fans of its own.

One repost from a famous Instagram account and a restaurant may draw

lines around the block, curving through city streets, filled with people who want to try the latest food trend.

Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York nearly “broke the internet” with their watermelon soft serve served in a watermelon slice this past summer. The previously mentioned @ feedyourgirlfriend posted a photo holding the slice and racked up over 5,000 likes, resulting in Ansel’s selling out of the soft serve. Thanks to their social media popularity, Ansel’s has since opened up a West Coast location and their first ever restaurant at The Grove.

This goes to show that people all over the world are traveling and seeking out the hottest trend, then waiting hours to get it, but is it always worth it? Cooper said no.

“It’s fun, you get to go take pictures at all these places, but at the same time, you’re paying a lot more,” Cooper said. “I’ve been to that place where you can get black ice cream and drove downtown, and I stood out in that line, and I waited for 45 minutes for charcoal ice cream because it was trending, and I wanted to get that picture. In the end, it didn’t even taste good and was not worth all the money.”

Cooper is not the only person to feel this way. A recent article from Zagat, a restaurant review guide, reported that 60 percent of

“Oh, I have a million new places and meals saved on Instagram.” diners is the U.S. use social media to look at photos of food, and 75 percent of those diners have chosen a restaurant based on photos alone.

In the same report, Zagat said that 44 percent of diners take pictures of their food to share on social media, and among those polled, 60 percent admitted they have stopped friends from eating to take an “Insta-worthy” photo first.

Cooper is not the only one who’s been drawn in by the photos she sees online of trending hotspots.

Senior Lauren Gottschall is a self-declared Insta-food connoisseur.

Gottschall spends her weekends at

the hottest LA restaurants. Armed with a folder of saved places on her Instagram, she is never short of new dining possibilities.

While she does not run a food blog like Cooper, she often posts these meals on her Instagram Stories.

“Oh, I have a million new places and meals saved on Instagram,” Gottschall said. “I mostly send them to other people, so the amount of food I look at is pretty endless, I think I send my sister and boyfriend at least two to three pictures a day.”

Gottschall has only made a small dent in the hundreds of photos she’s saved, saying, “It’s definitely up over 50. Honestly I

might even be lowballing it. But for sure somewhere up around there, I try to go to a new place at least every two weeks.”

While some people are disappointed when reality doesn’t live up to the picture perfect image they first found, Gottschall rarely runs into that issue.

“More times than not, I end up loving something on the menu,” Gottschall said. “I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been like, ‘oh my gosh this is awful,’ but there have been times where I built it up in my head a lot, and it could have been better.”

People like Cooper and Gottschall, the “foodies” of Instagram, are constant-

ly posting photos of new meals to their accounts.

While Cooper’s focus is on the healthy foods she loves and how to make them at home, Gottschall’s is full of images including everything from rainbow grilled cheese to cotton candy made to look like Marie Antionette’s head.

The world of food-oriented Instagram accounts truly has something for everyone; it just might cost you a drive downtown and a pretty penny. MB

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DISO R D E R

BY C A RO LIN E LA G A N A S PHO TOGRAPHS BY T E RRA AT W O O D MO DE LE D BY MA DDIE BLU ME DA N IE L K IBU U K A N IN A S P RE N G E R * * TH E MO D E L S D O N O T H AVE E ATI N G D I S O R D E R S * *

This isn't about food.

This isn't about skin and bones.

This is about stories and battles.

E

very eating disorder is a distinctive experience – these are the accounts of Pepperdine students who live with them every day.

Mackie O’Malley, Freshman Freshman Mackie O’Malley ended up at Pepperdine because of her therapist.

“Sasha is the reason I’m at Pepperdine,” O’Malley said. “She was an alumna.”

Sasha White received her master's degree in Clinical Psychology in 2005 from Pepperdine's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

White gave O’Malley a rock with a cross she drew on it and told her to look into the university.

“Being here reminds me of her and what I’ve been through,” O'Malley said.

“There’s so much more to the story that people don’t understand.”

Doctors diagnosed O’Malley with anorexia nervosa before her sophomore year of high school.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by weight loss, difficulties maintaining an appropriate body weight for height, age and stature, and, in many individuals, distorted body image, according to the National Eating Disorders Association.

“I couldn’t fathom it,” she said. “I realized it was more than losing a lot of weight from playing lacrosse and field hockey. It was a problem and concern. It was an illness.”

After her diagnosis, O’Malley realized the extent of her disorder when she went to the grocery store with her mom to get food.

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“It was the scariest moment of my life,” she said. “It was a concern to walk down the aisles and pick up foods that I was not comfortable putting into my body knowing that I would have to put on weight.”

O’Malley spent the next two years in and out of high school.

“My freshman year and senior year were my only two full years of high school,” she said.

She was hospitalized four times.

“I wasn’t allowed outside at the first hospital I went to in New York,” O’Malley said.

“It was just a matter of putting weight on me.”

She left after two weeks.

A few months later, she returned.

“It only got worse,” she said. “They transferred me to another hospital for about six months. We ate six meals a day and in order to go outside, we had to make weight consistently.”

After O’Malley left the

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hospital, she relapsed.

“The whole reason it started was because I felt this lack of control in my life,” she said.

“It was just this vicious cycle. I kept getting sick again because I wasn’t getting the right mental treatment that I needed.”

Things began to turn around her junior year, when O’Malley attended a treatment house in Texas.

“I had around-the-clock care and that’s where I met Sasha,” she said. “Even though I didn’t make the weight strides I did at the other facilities, the mental strides helped me be on my own.”

Texas was the final treatment facility O’Malley attended.

“It’s been about two years since I’ve fully started recovering,” she said.

After she left, O’Malley graduated high school — on time.

“I did whatever it took to be able to walk with my class,” she said. “I’m grateful

EATING DISORDERS

every day that I kept going because I think it showed me that time doesn’t stop just because something happened in your life. You just have to keep pushing.”

The push for recovery continues. O’Malley said she takes it one step at a time by eating six meals a day with friends and ensuring she has at least two rest days from exercise a week.

“I know that every time I don’t listen to my eating disorder, I’m just validating that I need to be here and I deserve to be here,” she said.

The validation also comes from the rock White gave O’Malley during her treatment. O’Malley keeps it in her dorm room.

“It’s always a part of you,” O’Malley said. “But I know that every year, the voice will get quieter. Every year will get better and that’s what I’m looking forward to.”

O’Malley wants people to know: “It’s not about the food. It’s about the external conflicts that you internalize,

and it’s a form of self-harm.

Don’t be afraid to make sure that people are OK. Just hear them out.”

Anonymous, Sophomore While other students worried about what to pack for studying abroad, one student, who wished to remain anonymous, had another concern.

Doctors diagnosed the student with orthorexia a few weeks before studying abroad.

“It’s not recognized yet as a national eating disorder, but it’s a form of anorexia that is an obsession with healthy eating and healthy lifestyle,” she said.

The student was a gymnast for most of her life and switched to competitive running when she was 14.

“I was always extremely active,” the student said.

“I was raised to eat healthy, so that’s always been in my mentality.”

Her eating disorder began after her senior year of high

school when she stepped onto the scale, she said.

“I never saw myself that heavy before,” she said. “I never needed to lose weight, but it was the number that triggered [the eating disorder].”

The summer before she attended Pepperdine, the student said she downloaded the MyFitnessPal app.

“That’s when the calorie count started,” she said.

She lost weight until her parents intervened.

“They told me, ‘You’re getting out of control.’”

The first semester of her freshman year, the student said she stopped her unhealthy habits.

“I went home for winter break and lost six to eight pounds without even trying,” she said. “I thought, ‘Now that I took that weight off, I need to keep it off.’”

Her thoughts led her to revert back to calorie counting second semester. By the time she returned home for the summer, her situation worsened.

“I was overexercising to overcompensate for eating something I felt bad about,” she said. “I only ate fruit and salad for lunch with no dressing.”

She stopped going out to eat with friends and would no longer touch foods she loved as a kid.

“It became a fear of food,” the student said. “For the longest time, I didn’t even know I had a problem.”

It got to the point that she weighed herself multiple times a day, she said.

“Whatever the number said would determine the

way I would eat that day,” she said. “My weight and exercise were my identity for a while. It was all I thought about. I didn’t want to admit it was an eating disorder.”

The student stepped onto the scale again and weighed 90 pounds.

It wasn’t until her grandmother told her she needed to get help that the student said she received treatment.

She underwent a program where she visited the hospital from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., attended group therapy and ate two to three meals in there every day.

munity I’ve been surrounded by,” she said. “It’s been refreshing to be surrounded by people with healthy relationships with food. They don’t even know they’re inspiring me.”

With the return to Malibu approaching, the student said she isn’t afraid.

“Now that I’ve been abroad and dealt with uncertainty, I’m not too nervous for next year,” she said. “I’ll struggle forever but it will get much easier.”

On the hard days, the student reminds herself of a question her therapist asked

“I’m grateful every day that I kept going because I think it showed me that time doesn’t stop just because something happened in your life. You just have to keep pushing.”

—Mackie O’Malley

“My parents considered not sending me abroad,” she said.

When she realized the program was not the treatment she needed, the student said she went to a nutritional therapist instead.

“She is exactly what I needed,” the student said.

“Her philosophy is not living a life of restriction, which has been amazing for me.”

Her parents decided not to restrict her from studying abroad.

“This first semester abroad was rough because there is so much uncertainty every day,” she said.

Despite the uncertainty, the student said going abroad helped her.

“Being abroad has really helped because of the com-

her via a weekly FaceTime call.

“Do you want people to remember you for your skinny legs and arms or how you impacted their lives?”

The student wants people to know: “You don’t need to fit the stereotypes to be going through an eating disorder.

So many things we think are good for us, like over exercising and calorie counting, are so triggering and can lead to eating disorders without us even realizing.”

Emma Stenz, Junior Growing up, junior Emma Stenz was always the tallest girl in her class.

“I thought, ‘If I’m going to be tall, I have to be fit,’” Stenz said. “I’ve always been image-conscious.”

An athlete her entire life, Stenz never worried about what she ate until her junior year of high school.

“I started to be unhappy with my body,” she said.

With a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, Stenz restricted herself to 1,000 calories per day and ran four miles on top of her daily three-hour basketball practices.

Sedentary teen girls between the ages of 13 and 18 need 1,600 to 1,800 calories per day, while active girls require 2,200 to 2,400 calories each day, according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010.

“I had no self-love or forgiveness during that time,” Stenz said.

Within a few months, her mom, teachers and friends confronted her about her severe weight loss. She went to receive treatment about six months later.

“I was diagnosed with an eating disorder, but because I didn’t weigh two pounds less than I did, they didn’t consider me clinically having one,” she said.

Her situation was still severe.

“The doctor told me, ‘If you keep this up, you’ll be hospitalized in two months and dead in a year,’” Stenz said.

The words petrified her.

“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor,” she said. “That was the start of my self-awareness for recovery.”

Stenz saw a nutritionist and clinical psychologist until she attended Pepperdine.

“I learned that eating disorders go against all logic

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and human nature and not worrying about food makes life so much easier,” she said.

Her first year at Pepperdine wasn’t so easy, though.

“Freshman year was hard because the Pepperdine population is so beautiful,” she said. “I was in the midst of all of these women advertising dieting and mentally it was hard to stay strong.”

Since Pepperdine is close to LA, Stenz said there is also a strong pressure from the media to body shame and treat food like it’s an enemy.

“It makes girls who never thought about how they looked or what they ate to start doubting and questioning themselves,” she said.

But LA isn’t the only place that evokes inner uncertainties — returning home to Dixon, California, is always hard for Stenz.

“That was the place I had all of those problems,” she said. “When I go home, it feels like I’m back in that mindset.”

Despite the challenges of her freshman year, Stenz said Pepperdine has become a new home.

“I’ve found a lot of solace in Pepperdine,” she said. “The Christian environment, strong morals of people and great friends I’ve made have helped me.”

But bad days are still present.

“On hard days, I’m an anti-social, grumpy person that doesn’t want to be touched or looked at,” she said. “Just because I’m not underweight right now doesn’t mean I can’t have bad days.”

Even though every day is

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a struggle, Stenz said she reminds herself of her body’s capabilities.

“Physical activity and using my body for a purpose, that’s what helped me,” Stenz said. “The point of having a body isn’t the aesthetic. It’s using your body to enjoy life.”

Stenz wants people to know: “So many eating disorders are hidden, and you can’t tell. It’s not a rich, White girl problem ­— it’s universal. You don’t have to be diagnosed to be struggling with something. You should always be checking in on yourself mentally and physically.”

Anonymous, Senior When she returned from studying abroad, one student, who wished to remain anonymous, wasn’t the same.

“Coming back from abroad, I was dealing with depression, which I’ve always dealt with and taken medication for,” the student said. “But I was overeating and using food to cope.”

Upon her return from abroad in April to December of her junior year, the student said she gained 30 pounds.

“I didn’t feel like myself,” she said. “I felt like I was in somebody else’s body.”

She decided to go to the doctor when she returned home for Christmas.

“I was in absolute tears and said, ‘I cannot look like this. This isn’t my body anymore.’”

The doctor prescribed her a new depression medication ­with the side effect of an appetite suppressant.

“When I saw that it

EATING DISORDERS

would help suppress my appetite, it made me really happy,” the student said. “I didn’t want to be miserable and starve myself, but I’m not starving.”

When she returned to Pepperdine second semester, the student went to the gym every day and cut sugar out of her diet entirely.

“I only drank water and ate salad for three months,” she said. “At one point, I lost 10 pounds in 10 days. Seeing the numbers going down on the scale was the only thing making me happy.”

It didn’t take long for her to lose weight and people to notice.

“I thought I needed to look better than I did before all of this,” she said. “I don’t want the image of the fat girl to be the image people hold of me. It became this goal that was constantly in my mind.”

Instead of comparing herself to others, the student competed with her freshman year and abroad self.

“I wanted to be the person I once was at Pepperdine,” she said. “We really try to put on a front; it’s the Pepperdine way.”

All the student wanted was to return to her old weight. She anticipated step ping onto the scale and see 120 pounds displayed.

“I don’t think I will ever be able to look in the mirror and think my body is beautiful unless it looks how I want it to, which is 120 pounds,” she said.

No one was aware of what the student was going through — including herself.

“I wasn’t skin and bones,

and I didn’t throw up,” she said. “Because no one would’ve guessed I was struggling, I didn’t consider it an eating disorder.”

One of the only people who knew about her situation was a therapist at the Pepperdine Counseling Center. The student said she started seeing the counselor second semester to help with her body image issues.

“When the therapist wrote on her diagnosis that I had an eating disorder, it was kind of like if someone said, ‘I love you’ on the first date,” the student said.

“Once it was out there, she couldn’t take it back.”

The student received treatment until the start of her senior year. Although she said she considers herself to be in a good place, she does not think she’s overcome her struggles.

“I’m OK with how I look right now, but if I gained the weight back it would happen all over again,” she said.

Despite her unknown future and figures on the scale, the student is certain of one thing.

“If I have a daughter someday, I don’t want her to ever know about what I’m going through or go through this herself,” she said. “I want my daughter to be able to have the most healthy and respectful eating habits.”

The student wants people to know: “I wish myself and everyone else knew where the line was between having body image issues or wanting to be healthy, and having an eating disorder. I still don’t know.” CL

“Physical activity and using my body for a purpose, that’s what helped me. The point of having a body isn’t the aesthetic. It’s using your body to enjoy life.”

Emma Stenz, Junior

“We are a biodynamic farm. So most people think what is happening on organic farms is what we actually are doing to become biodynamic. These days organic really just means that you don’t use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, it’s more about what you don’t do. Biodynamic is what you do to make the soil and the land amazing. So we put a lot of work into our soil .

John Amias “Jamias,” Apricot Lane Farms Moorpark, California

s r e m r a F t e k r a m FACES OF THE

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ermed the “Sunshine State," California is known for its multitude of farmers markets where fresh produce and other locally sourced goods come together to be sold year-round. For Malibu residents, farmers markets located in Malibu, Santa Monica and Calabasas are

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FARMERS MARKET FINDS

weekly establishments that display the best of what this local area has to offer. To get a taste of what makes farmers markets so unique, vendors at the Calabasas Farmers Market explained what makes their products stand out among the crowd.

"I actually started out doing it just for the family ...

Over time my wife said, 'If you are going to make some, make a little bit more.' She started using it in the house, and wound up using it on literally everything. I made it more for her in the house than for when I did when I was grilling. She actually had the idea to try and start selling it about four to five years ago. We put some of the Original [dry rub] in little plastic bags and just handed them out to anybody who would take one, but they probably thought we were dealing drugs, but we got a great response from it."

Gene Holomon, Cappy’s Dry Rub Los Angeles

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“We grow everything ourselves, so we grow our own wheat and with that we make our own bread ... It’s old school. We use plain flour, water and salt. We don’t put any milk and preservatives, or any eggs in our breads like most people do ... In most breads they put preservatives to make it more fluffy. With ours, we just want to make some real bread.

Of course you can make money, but you can also make money by doing the right thing.”

Daour Ndoye, Roan Mills Filmore, California

“[Underwood Family Farms] is a family farm that is open to the public. There [are] two locations you can go and visit and pick your own produce. We are not organic.

We grow sustainably, which is even better in my opinion. Organic can still use over 200 pesticides, and we don’t use nearly that many. It is like old-school farming. This is the fourth generation of Underwood, so it has been over 100 years of farming ... before organic was a thing we were farming this way.” TA Don Saul, Underwood Family Farms Moorpark and Somis, California

Calabasas Farmers Market

Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Old Town Calabasas 33

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BY KE NDRA STE A S Y CAS ART B

Lamb Shankbone

Matzo

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reedom. Slavery. food is meant to tell the Tradition. Family. story. You’re supposed to repeat [the significance] and Very few meals are cen- convey the story to the next tered around ideas that re- generation.” quire careful thinking and The foods are eaten in a honoring ancient traditions. specific order that correlates At the Seder Meal, these with the Exodus story, said ideas are the reason why Helfand.

Jewish families gather.

The Seder Meal develThe Seder Meal is a tra- oped as a new ritual to celdition celebrated by people ebrate Passover and recall of the Jewish faith during the Exodus story after the Passover. The meal consists destruction of the second of rituals, liturgy and food temple in 70 C.E, according meant to represent parts to Rabbi Ari Schwarzberg, of the Exodus story where Pepperdine’s rabbi in resithe people of Israel were dence. led from slavery in Egypt “In the Bible, Passover to freedom in the Promised was marked by the sacrifice Land. But the story of the of the lamb, which would Exodus is only the ground- be done in the temple,” work for deeper discussion Schwarzberg said. “Howof slavery and freedom in ever with the destruction today’s world that exists in of the second temple in 70 the meal.

C.E., they had to adjust the Michael Helfand, direc- tradition.” tor of the Glazer Institute Schwarzberg said that for Jewish Studies at Pep- over the next hundred years, perdine, said the ritual, lit- rabbis created the Passover urgy and food of the Seder meal to replace the original Meal point to the meaning lamb sacrifice. of the central story.

“The Seder Meal incor“At its core, it’s a reenact- porated symbols, rituals and ment of the Exodus story,” liturgy that would serve in Helfand said. “The over- place of the sacrificial lamb,” arching theme is the slave Schwarzberg said. “If it’s run people of Egypt finding properly, liturgy is a means freedom through the Exo- of making discussions about dus.” slaveries that exist today and The Seder plate contains the responsibilities of free six different foods: matzo, people.” a green vegetable, a lamb Schwarzberg said the shank bone and haroset, earliest texts about the Sedwhich is a mixture of apples er Meal show that the rituand cinnamon, bitter herbs als and symbols were made and an egg. so that children could ask Helfand said the foods questions. on the Seder plate are “piecFifth-year MBA candies of the Exodus story.” date Rena Ohana explained “In the Seder plate, each how important Passover

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is to her Orthodox Jewish faith and her family.

“It’s considered one of the most important holidays,” Ohana said. “We have to be together for it, and we want to spend it together. It’s very family-oriented.”

When she was younger, Ohana said she saw the discussions of slavery and freedom in the meal solely in context. But now, Ohana said she sees how those traditions are supposed to be applied.

“When I was younger, I thought this holiday celebrates that we’re not slaves now in context of the Exodus story,” Ohana said.

“Now, I don’t just see it in context. It’s not just applicable to olden or Biblical times; it’s relevant now. We were freed, and we still are free.”

Although the Seder meal has roots in the past, Helfand said it addresses issues that exist in the present.

“The Seder meal addresses contemporary issues of slavery, or the slave mentality, and freedom in the 21st century,” Helfand said.

The idea of freedom is a central motif of the meal, according to Schwarzberg.

“Seder is not just a checklist of rituals,” Schwarzberg said. “It encourages discussions of meanings of freedom: What does it mean for us today?”

The main symbols of the Seder meal are four cups of wine, matzo bread and the bitter herbs, according to Schwarzberg.

The first part of the Seder

Meal begins with the wine, according to Helfand. The leader says a blessing over the wine and then explains the significance of the night.

“The four cups of wine that are drunk throughout the meal represent the four languages of redemption,” Helfand said.

The four languages of redemption are also known as the Four-fold Promise of Redemption that God promised Moses and the nation of Israel in Exodus 6:6-7, according to chabad. org. The four promises are “I will bring you out from the suffering of Egypt,” “I will save you from enslavement,” “I will deliver you” and “I will take you for me as a Nation, and I will be for you, the Lord.”

After the blessing, the meal starts with a cup of wine. Schwarzberg said another tradition is to lean while drinking wine, which emphasizes the symbol of wine as freedom during the meal.

“When we drink wine, we lean — which is an ancient symbol of freedom and wealth,” Schwarzberg said.

In the next part requiring the foods on the plate, partakers dip the green vegetable in salt water to symbolize the bitterness of the slave experience. Helfand said that in his experience, this is when “kids ask you about it.”

A later part in the meal requires the bitter herbs, which are known as “mahror.” They also repre-

sent the slave experience, according to Schwarzberg.

The next part of the plate used is the three pieces of matzo bread. Matzo bread is one of the oldest components to the meal, according to Schwarzberg, because the bread was eaten by people in the Exodus story.

“Matzo, which is unleavened bread, represents how the Jewish people left Egypt in a hurry,” Schwarzberg said. “It was also thought of as a ‘poor man’s bread.’”

Haroset, a paste made of apples and cinnamon, is used to echo the cement and bricks the Jewish people used to build cities in the Exodus story, according to Helfand. The haroset is used to make a matzo and bitter herbs “sandwich” during a ritual during the meal, according to Helfand.

The last two items on the plate, the lamb shank bone and the egg, symbolize two sides of the Passover sacrifice.

“The lamb shank bone symbolizes the Passover sacrifice and how God extended his arm to the Jewish people,” Helfand said.

The egg, meanwhile, exists as a celebratory Passover sacrifice and how the Jewish people were free from paganism, according to Chabad.org.

There is “a lot more overlap than difference” in how Jewish communities celebrate the Seder Meal, according to Schwarzberg.

However, some Jewish communities have added traditions to enhance the

meal.

“One nice tradition in Jewish communities is to add a fifth cup of wine to highlight women’s role in the Exodus and to stand as a symbol of feminism today,” Schwarzberg said. “It’s called the Cup of Miriam, and it’s just placed in the middle.”

Although stricter communities celebrate Seder only among their families, or people of the Jewish faith, Schwarzberg said that the majority don’t follow that.

“The first thing recited in a Seder Meal says that anyone who doesn’t have a meal should come join,” Schwarzberg said. “The ability to invite others to table is a sign of freedom.”

Celebrating Seder is a big deal for her family because of how it brings them together, Ohana said.

“Passover in general is the holiday for my family,” Ohana said. “I look forward to it every year to catch up with everyone in my family and celebrate freedom.”

Celebrating freedom has become more important to her in the context of today’s world, Ohana said.

“To be Jewish in this day and age is not the easiest,” Ohana said. “But this meal reminds us that we can be free in America.” KR

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. d e t s a W SON STEPHEN A R D N A Y YA N G

BY CASS Y SHERR B S O T O PH

40 percent of food in the United States is never eaten, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A farmer picks 10 oranges from one of the trees in her orchard. These oranges are the result of five to eighteen months of growth, 138 gallons of water and hours of work. But odds are, 4 of the 10 will soon end up in an

American trash can.

40 percent of food in the United States is never eaten, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“That [waste] could be from any gamut,” Jill Santos, Ventura County branch

manager of produce recovery nonprofit Food Forward said. “It starts at the field where they’re growing it and where they’re harvesting it — there’s definitely waste in the field. And then when you bring it into the processing

facilities, there’s waste. And then there’s waste in packaging and wholesale, and then in retail, and then [at] the consumer level.”

But what does 40 percent really look like? In 2014, Americans wasted a total of

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38.4 million tons of food, according to an EPA study.

The residential sector generated 56 percent of this food waste, the study said.

This waste has a cost — $165 billion each year, the NRDC reports. But the nutritional cost is sizable as well: the food thrown out in just 2012 alone could have provided more than 80 percent of American adults with 2,000 calories per day, according to a report in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

And most of this waste is produce rich in vitamins and nutrients. In the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, nearly 50 percent of all fruits and vegetables produced are thrown away, according to the NRDC. Amidst all this waste, groups in Los Angeles County are taking notice and taking action.

College Students Against Waste Across the nation, 230 colleges have joined the fight against food waste in creating their own Food Recovery Network chapters. The nonprofit organization, which has collected and donated a total of two million pounds of food to date, aims to help students cut out waste in their higher education institutions, according to its website.

Pepperdine University’s chapter joined the cause in 2017. In its first semester on campus, the group recovered and donated 907 pounds of food from campus events, executive vice president and

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sophomore Ozie Le Sage said.

“We have plenty [of food],” Le Sage said. “We have so much, and just the idea of being able to reduce waste and give to people who need is something that I think really is important as a Christian and as a person trying to implement sustainable practices into my life and into the university.”

Pepperdine’s chapter recovered food mainly from catered events in its first semester, Le Sage said, but the focus for this semester is recovering unsold food from the newly built on-campus Starbucks.

The group is scheduled to collect unused food from the coffee chain three times per week, in addition to maintaining its recoveries at other campus events like Reelstories. While Starbucks sometimes gave up to 100 pounds of food last semester, they appear to be cutting back on orders this semester to waste less at the outset, Le Sage said.

All food collected by the group is donated to one of their three partner organizations. Their main partner organization, the Malibu Methodist Church, holds dinners for the homeless community each week.

“We give them food and then they bring it to the dinner,” Le Sage said. “Whatever we have for them they can give to the homeless people.

One time we had some pastries, and they were like, ‘Oh, they ate the pastries as appetizers and loved it!’”

The Pepperdine chapter also donates to United States

Mission in Canoga Park, which uses the food to feed those living in the organization’s transitional house while they search for work.

When they are able to collect especially large quantities of food — like the 450 bagels and 44 tubs of cream cheese they collected at Step Forward Day in September — Le Sage said they take it to the Greater West Hollywood Food Coalition, which serves hundreds of homeless individuals.

Finding these organizations and transporting the food to them have posed the largest challenges, Le Sage said. The three chapter leaders, including Le Sage, are the group’s only trained drivers, and the organizations range from 15 minutes to more than an hour away.

“In the early going it was really difficult finding organizations that we could donate to, because a lot of organizations can’t accept perishable food,” she said.

Food Recovery Network also requires that receiving organizations be registered nonprofits and have refrigeration capabilities.

“They have all of these requirements because we want to make sure the food is being donated safely,” Le Sage said.

Volunteers recovering food from events take the temperature of hot foods and make sure the food hasn’t been sitting in the “danger zone” — between 41 and 135 degrees — for more than two hours. And they can only accept catered or prepackaged food, Le Sage added.

“Basically, if it doesn’t look

like something I would eat, we don’t want to take it,” she said. “We don’t want to put anybody at any sort of risk.”

Le Sage said the group is always looking for opportunities to recover food on campus, and has worked with Sodexo, Pepperdine’s dining service, to include the option to have food recovered on their catering forms.

Student groups can also fill out a Google form for food recovery at their on-campus events.

“We’re just trying to reduce food waste in any way possible,” Le Sage said.

Sustainable Dining Pepperdine Dining Services, run by food purveyor Sodexo, is also taking action on an institutional level.

“I’m sure that each one of us has seen poverty and hungry people in different parts of the world and even in our own neighborhoods,” Resident District Manager Randy Penwell said. “We don’t want to be contributing to that in any fashion.”

Pepperdine’s meal point system reduces food waste that likely would have occurred with a buffet-style system, according to Pepperdine’s Center for Sustainability website.

On the food preparation side, the main focus is proper portioning, Penwell said.

This means making the appropriate amount of each dish and serving appropriate portions to consumers.

“If it’s one of our regular staffers who’s been here for a long time doing [a] station, he knows exactly what he needs to prepare,” Penwell

said. “If we have to substitute somebody in there, they may not know. They might overproduce or underproduce.”

Penwell said they typically overproduce for fear of running out of food, but this usually only occurs with entree-type dishes. And human generosity might complicate individual portioning when it comes to serving consumers.

“My crew, they want to be good people, and sometimes we over portion in that regard, so it can cause a little consternation in different areas,” Penwell said.

Any leftovers that have not been in contact with the public are reutilized if possible, turned into meals that can then be sold in Nature’s Edge, for example. Leftover cookies may be crumbled up to make a pie crust. Cookies that turn out too crispy might end up at the yogurt bar as a topping, Penwell said.

Any reutilized food must meet all appropriate Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points food safety requirements.

“We’re not giving people a bad product; it’s not a product that’s going to jeopardize someone’s health,” Penwell said.

If the meal doesn’t sell there, it’s likely headed for the trash. If there’s an “abundance” of that type of food, Dining Services might reach out to the Food Recovery Network to donate it, but Penwell said this is not common and most of the donations they give come from catered events.

Dining Services deter-

mines how much of each dish is prepared using history — if a dish has sold well in the past, they may make more. New dishes require the equivalent of an educated guess.

Historical data also plays a star role in ordering produce and ingredients, Director of Operations Elizabeth Nepute said. They order ingredients and produce based off a “par set” — what they’ve found they need in the past — and do daily inventories to adjust as needed. Ensuring that older food is used before new arrivals is also key to reducing waste, Nepute added. “[Food waste reduction] is a daily goal of ours too because we’re also trying to run a business,” Nepute said.

Pepperdine Dining Services uses LeanPath, a food waste prevention service that logs the weight of any food waste before it is thrown away. The service then provides analytics and suggestions on how to reduce waste.

Penwell said he thinks the data collected for this program skews the perception of how much food is wasted slightly, because this includes the weight of things like watermelon rinds and other trimmings that are not necessarily edible.

Crown Disposal, Pepperdine’s waste management service, also composts waste materials from Dining Services. Fruits and vegetables used in the food are all chopped in-house, Nepute said, so Dining Services contributes hundreds of pounds of composting each week.

Aside from official programs, Penwell said it’s

“I t doesn’t benefit any of us ... to thr ow that in the trash” common for administrators, faculty and staff to show up after catered events to eat leftovers, but he doesn’t mind. He’d rather the food be eaten, he said, which is why Dining Services tries to support any food waste reduction efforts they can.

“It doesn’t benefit any of us … to throw that in the trash,” Penwell said.

Community Conservation Rick Nahmias, executive director of Food Forward, started the nonprofit after going on a walk with his dog around his neighborhood.

Ventura County Branch Manager Jill Santos said Nahmias lived near a food pantry and saw people walking out with processed foods often.

As he walked through his neighborhood, Nahmias noticed “fresh produce just dropping from the trees,” Santos said. So he organized a fruit collection, which soon turned into a bustling nonprofit.

Food Forward now serves the Los Angeles, Ventura and

Santa Barbara counties with about 200 volunteer events each month. Since its start in 2009, Food Forward has recovered 50 million pounds of produce and donated it to about 300 receiving agencies.

Last year, the organization had 9,000 volunteers.

“Our short mission is to fight hunger, reduce food waste and build community,” Santos said. “I would say that it’s a really simple solution to this complex food justice issue that we have in the United States and even globally.”

The organization recovers produce from backyards, farmers markets, orchards and wholesale markets.

Santos said the backyard picks are “the heart of the organization,” and still represent most of the recoveries that take place in L.A. County, since there aren’t as many large orchards in the area.

Food Forward will send volunteers to recover from backyards with at least 200 pieces of fruit to donate — roughly 40 pounds of produce. Those who don’t have

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that much can sign up for a DIY pick. The organization will send information, pickers and boxes to the homeowner and connect them with a food pantry in their neighborhood.

“We get a lot of like … the adorable little old lady that can’t pick it herself,” Santos said.

In the last year, Santos estimates they recovered roughly half a million pounds of produce from backyards alone.

Food Forward’s wholesale recovery program, started in 2014, brings in the most produce.

“Right now it’s recovering about a million pounds a month out of the Downtown LA Wholesale Market,” Santos said. The Ventura County branch, which started collecting wholesale produce in 2017, ended the year with 191,000 pounds of recovered wholesale product.

“There’s a huge opportunity to recover,” Santos said.

Wholesale food can be unsold for various reasons, Santos said, including economics, market factors, climate, produce quality or shipping dates. Food Forward wants to make sure that food still gets eaten.

The roughly 300 agencies that receive the recovered produce include food pantries, church organizations, homelessness aid organizations and veterans groups.

Food Forward ships recovered food as far as Washington State and Las Vegas, but most produce stays in Southern California.

There are benefits for

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farmers and property owners who decide to donate their unsold crop, Santos said. Each receives a receipt stating how many pounds were donated, which can be used for tax purposes.

Some orchards also allow Food Forward volunteers to come into the fields after they’ve done their first picks to take any leftover produce. Many of the organization’s orchard recoveries come from fields in Ventura County, which is ranked eleventh in the nation for crop value.

The largest challenge the organization faces, Santos said, tends to be connecting the produce with those who will receive it. The organization often works with food pantries and small community organizations that often have limited budgets and capacity. And Food Forward doesn’t store any of the produce they collect. Moving about one million pounds of produce each month requires a massive amount of infrastructure.

“Believe it or not, there’s cases where we have so much abundance that here in Ventura County, we don’t have the resources to get it [to receivers] and we’re overwhelming our existing partnerships,” Santos said.

The organization is looking for ways to expand their reach beyond the local region for situations like these. During citrus season, for example, they have enormous quantities of oranges, she said, and their existing partner agencies can only take so many.

In addition to distributing

to individual agencies, Food Forward holds monthly free farmers markets in Simi Valley in partnership with Simi at the Garden. Community members can come and simply take any produce they want, free of cost.

They’ve implemented versions of this program in LA and in areas affected by the Thomas fire earlier this year.

“We’ll be supplying like 10 receiving agencies which then obviously serve hundreds if not thousands of people, and then we have about 300 families [that will] show up at this event once a month,” Santos said.

“And just the look on their faces and the demographic that comes — it’s the whole spectrum of the community.

There’s nobody that we turn away.”

Santos said she enjoys that people are excited to try new things at these events.

One free farmers market that featured pounds of turnips led to googling how to prepare and eat them.

“People were excited to try something new,” she said. “And they were just so grateful that they were contributing to something that is helping the environment as well. Like, ‘I’m going to eat this food, and it’s not going to go to the landfill.

Well this is really cool.’” CS

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Food Sustainability: A Q&A with Professor Christopher Doran

BY N AT E B A RT O N A RT BY MA DE L I N E D U VA L L

Sprinkled throughout Professor Christopher Doran’s off ice is: a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi, a bobblehead Jesus, and a Segway, on which he glides to and from work. A graduate of Pepperdine’s Natural Sciences Division and University of California Berkeley’s school of theology, Doran is ambidextrous in his discussions of ecology and theology; science and religion. What follows is a Q&A on food security, climate change, and what food means to the Christian faith, inspired in part by Doran’s recent book, “Hope in the Age of Climate Change.”

Q: What are some of the biggest threats to food security in the world right now?

A: Well, one of the first things I would think of as a major food-security threat would be the scarcity of fresh water around the planet. As more and more water goes to industrialization through electricity generation or plastic manufacturing or other things like that, less water is made available for agriculture. And on top of that, the more we switch to a dairy-and-meat-rich diet, a lot of water goes to that and less water goes to other places that need it for food and agriculture.

That’s one thing I would think about.

I also think the erosion of topsoil … As we’ve adopted these monocultural techniques that use a whole bunch of petroleum-based fertilizers — 150 or so years of that is starting to catch up with us, and the topsoil is eroding quicker than it can be replaced.

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FOOD SUSTAINABILITY‌

And then if you think about food security on the marine side as well: All those nitrogen-based fertilizers are running into the rivers and then running down off the coast and are causing hypoxic regions in the Gulf of Mexico and other places around the world where it’s becoming tougher and tougher to fish and to find marine creatures to eat. And so that’s becoming an issue.

going to be even less. When you have situations of these “bomb cyclones” — these sort of mass flood events — you’re going see more extreme [versions] of those.

It just makes things worse all over the place … The deserts expand; the waters go up.

I mean, we already know the heating of the world’s oceans is changing the food cycles of marine creatures and so, you know, people in Thailand — particularly Q: Which will we experi- poor people — that relied ence first: A global food cri- on shrimp all their lives are sis or a global water crisis? seeing the salinity changes A: Listening to the harming oyster and shrimp military people, it’s the beds. I’ve been reading about water. People can go without [how] salinity changes, food a little bit longer than particularly when you have without water. [But] most massive cyclonic events or farmers would tell you: It’s hurricanes pushing saltwater not like we have a storehouse into not just a small island of crops around the planet nations in the Pacific but, the way that other civilizalike, Bangladesh ... every tions tried to do. But the time a cyclone hits them, water demands because of more and more salt water industrialization are presgets deposited into their suring agriculture in ways rice beds, which is making that we didn’t see in previous it harder and harder to grow centuries. We have India rice. So that salinity change and China right next to each from those events can cause other, and the Himalayas farmers to scramble in ways only have so much water. they’ve never had to deal When you have [36 percent] with before. of the world’s population fighting over a very tiny Q: Is there enough food amount of water today, that to go around? can lead to possible nuclear A: The UN suggests, conflict down the road ... and I think with good and Pakistan is in the middle research behind it, of all that. that with current Q: How will climate change affect food security in the next 50 years?

A: Well the easy way to say it is that [climate change] just makes everything worse. It does exacerbate things. When you have situations of little water, it’s

arable land, water, and technology on the planet, there’s about 2700 calories per person for about 7.5 billion people — or roughly what we have right now. So availability, if we’re thinking about it that way — there are enough calories to go around … The access [problem] has to do with who are we feeding and to what are we feeding those calories ... In China and India and places with vast more folks, they’re feeding all their calories to chickens and to pigs and to cattle, and that then diverts lots of calories away from people that need calories, you know? And so that 2700, availability-wise, turns into a much different number when you’re thinking about actual access to that when you go from a plant-rich diet to a meatand-dairy-rich diet.

Q: What is the future of meat?

A: I think there’s a shortterm and long-term kind of game with meat. I mean, I think in the short term we’re only going to see the expansion of meat production. The biggest hog organization in the U.S. was bought out a few years ago by a Chinese conglomerate, you know. So Smithfield, which is in North Car-

olina and is the biggest hog slaughtering house on the planet, now is owned by the Chinese. One of the biggest risks to biodiversity around the planet is clearing out forests to have cows graze and pigs eat. That’s just a huge amount of space it takes to do that. So in the short term, that seems to be growing ... but we’re getting close to a point where the resources that it takes to do the meat thing — we’re hitting the edge of that because there’s only so much land, there’s only so much water.

Long-term, though, the meat being grown in labs, that are cloned in labs, looks pretty interesting. I just don’t know what the timeline is.

There is a lot of venture capital going into that particular arena. The company Beyond Meat is putting together plant-based meat products that have the feel of meat in the mouth — I mean, it is so good … texture-wise that people can’t tell the difference, so it is pretty fascinating what people can do with chemical and genetic engineering to get taste and texture and things like that.

The question will be, on the long-term part of that: Will consumers think that’s OK, or not? And there’s not a lot of research yet to show what that’s gonna be.

Q: To what degree does wastefulness contribute to the problem?

A: Oh wastefulness is huge. I mean, not just with meat, but just food in general. I mean, the kind of number that’s bandied around in the U.S., that’s well-researched, is about 40 percent.

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So we lose about 40 percent of our food. From the farms, things occasionally rot on the vine or there are refrigeration problems, to what consumers throw away, and most of it’s on the consumer end. But that’s about 40 percent of U.S.-grown food is thrown out. It lands in a landfill, and the number I’ve seen over and over again is, if we thought about our landfills as a greenhouse-gas-emitting country, it would be the third-highest emitter on the planet behind us and China. I mean, that’s globally.

Think about the methane and nitrous oxide and other things that are emitted by food waste. It’s amazing. The 40 percent is just what you have in the US, but worldwide food waste, particularly in Western developed nations, is a huge, huge problem.

And so in my recent book, I talked about how Protestants need to think about gluttony far more seriously.

Not just in the overeating sense, but in the sense of how we are mindful about our eating and how our eating connects us to other people and other parts of the planet, and how that mindfulness has been lost for generations.

Protestants just don’t take gluttony seriously. But it’s not just about overeating. It’s about a sort of mindfulness that connects us to Christ and our neighbors. Huge problem.

Q: What parts of Scripture talk about food justice?

What verses do you lean on to do your work?

A: So for example, Michael Northcott who is a Christian ethicist, argues that Jeremiah

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is the first sort of environmental prophet because he says ... Jeremiah was claiming that the famine and drought was brought on by God, by Yahweh, but it was actually caused by the Israelite Kings overtaxing the poor. So there’s this distinct relationship between the poor and the way we treat the poor and the way we treat the land. And I find that to be very convincing and influential, and not just as a hermeneutical move that we have to read everything through [an environmental] lens, but I think it’s actually there in a way that we’ve just discounted for centuries as we move further and further away from the land.

Q: What are some things that Jesus said about food, and how does that change the way we talk about food insecurity or climate change?

A: You know, there are some Christian vegetarians that would like Jesus to be a vegetarian, but it was pretty obvious to me that he’s not historically. Even though there’s some folks who say, ‘You never see him with fish in his mouth,’ but it just doesn’t seem to fit. What I am more curious about when he uses the person of Jesus is saying, like in the feeding of the 4,000 or the feeding of the 5,000, the idea of there being enough to go around whether it was through sharing or a miracle or both.

The idea of sharing resources is a really important part of Jesus’ ministry.

You know, putting other people’s needs before your own whether they be your stomach-needs, your spir-

FOOD SUSTAINABILITY‌

itual needs or some sort of combination of them both.

I think that’s a really interesting thing to think about, particularly when he chides the disciples for wanting to send them all away. You know, it’s like: ‘These people been following you all day — send them away before they get hungry.’ And he said ‘No, we have to take care of their needs in the moment.’ I find that to be interesting.

On the climate change part, I mean, I don’t think it’s sort of a natural fit the way that Christians would like it to be … sort of like Jesus pronouncing climate change good or bad or indifferent. I do think you see Jesus, in that famous passage about [how] God cares about the sparrows and so he cares about humans even more ...

I tend to think that Jesus becomes an interesting kind of character in that sense in the subtle reminders that God is more involved in the history of creation than just with human salvation. The redemption of people comes along with the redemption of creation. Those are not separated units. To me, the cross event is very cosmic in scope.

It is the bringing together of all things God has created through Christ to its final end — not just the homo sapien side of it.

don’t do so well is sort of imbue it with some of the sacramental language that would probably help us understand it more fully and think about it more robustly. But I think actually the frequency is a good thing because the more we have a chance to say our food is something more.

I mean, we know it is.

That’s why we still have family dinners, that’s why we still have those awkward Christmas moments with our whole family, because we know that food is the vehicle to something more. It can be ... not just a vehicle to something more, but a reminder that there’s a grander vision going on for creation and for our social interactions.

What I have argued is to take that insight from Sunday and not to leave it on Sunday — to push that through the rest of the week. And so every bite that we take is an opportunity to remind us that God created this food, that we are dependent on farmers, that we’re dependent on field workers that are often unpaid or lowly paid here in California, [that we’re] dependent on non-documented workers who were abused.

All those things can be reminders for us, and yet Western Christians tend to want to push those away, and I think that’s the insight to what a sacrament is — the Q: How does understand- constant reminder that we ing food as sacrament affect may not be able to solve the way we talk about it? those problems immediately A: What I try to do in my with every bite, but that we book was to look at how I can pray to God for grace think Churches of Christ — for our sins and be cognizant the one thing that we do real- of them rather than simply ly well at times is practice the ignorant. NB Eucharist frequently, meaning once a week. What we

E C I V R E S Y R E V I DEL Y H T L A E H S E D I V PRO MEALS ) t s o c a h t i (w

BY MA RIA VA LE N T E P HO T O S BY S HE RRY YA N G MO DEL ED BY K IRA BRO W N, K IMBE RLY YE U N G

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onvenience comes with a cost. Whether it’s oneclick ordering with Amazon or the self-driving Tesla, society finds new (and often expensive) ways to do the least amount of work to satisfy daily needs, and this doesn’t stop at food.

In this era of foodies, sliced bread is hardly innovative compared to the ways people have managed to make food more convenient. These days drive-thrus are too much work, with the more attractive choice being delivery in the form of Postmates or UberEats, or having prepackaged ingredients come to the door in a box a la Blue Apron or Chef ’d, ready to be mixed up and put in

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the oven.

In a usual box, there are prepackaged meats, local vegetables, and spices that make up the ingredients one needs for meals like soyglazed pork meatloaf and crispy catfish. The ingredients also come with the recipe and instructions on how to prepare the meals, which on average take no longer than 30 minutes.

While these options save time and make healthy food more accessible, are they truly what they are cracked up to be? On the outside they are a great option for college students and families alike, but their costly and lazy aspects might outweigh the good.

SUBSCRIPTION BOXES

PROS Meal delivery services are, in their truest form, a product of convenience. First and foremost, food is delivered straight to your door.

“I’d much rather have food delivered to me than make it myself,” junior Ryanne Gordon said. “It’s too much work.”

There is no commuting to the grocery store and walking through endless aisles of food, and trying to walk up bags of groceries to your home. Furthermore, there is no researching recipes and searching through the store for all the right and sometimes rare and unusual spices and veggies, someone somewhere has already done it!

And for certain brands like Blue Apron, the ingredients

are pre-measured. All a person has to do is turn on the oven and follow a few simple directions to enjoy their meal.

“My family starting doing [Blue Apron] and they like it, they’re easy and portion controlled,” freshman Grace Heflin said. “I would do them [at Pepperdine] if I had a kitchen, but it’s also probably a little too expensive.”

Not only do meal delivery boxes fit the convenience bill of this era, it also has a place in the health trend that is taking over California.

Companies like Hello Fresh and Chef ’d boast vegetarian menus, as well as diet meal plans, complete with spices and vegetables that complete any wholesome meal.

Furthermore, signing up for and researching these meal plans is as easy as clicking a button, as all of the resources needed are available online.

The healthy aspect of these delivery services is an added bonus to families.

Men and women who work late hours no longer need to pick up McDonald’s on the way home after an exhausting day of work. People are now able to easily prepare healthy meals for their kids without worrying about the long and tiresome process that is preparing a meal from start to finish from scratch.

Apron. Spoon University, a food blog geared toward college students, cater their own food subscription boxes through Chef ’d. For $88 a week, a college student can enjoy three meals like chili mac n’ cheese and a chicken quesadilla, along with a selection of fresh fruit, snacks, and beverages. For many people, this isn’t a realistic lifestyle.

“I don’t think the convenience makes up for the cost of having your food delivered,” junior Khalil Muhammad said. “A big part of home cooking is that it’s generally cheaper than eating out.”

CONS For the cooking fanatic, The biggest downer about one might find putting tomeal delivery services is their gether a meal out of a box price tag. For three meals full of pre-measured inthat consist of two servings gredients a little mindless. per meal, people shell out There is no creativity in$65 every week with Blue volved with meals that were

decided for you by strangers.

“Part of the experience for me involves actually going to the store and picking out what I want,” Muhammad said.

However, for the less creative, having meals chosen for them makes things easier.

“For me I know I have a hard time figuring out what to make,” senior Eleanor Shaw said. “With [meal delivery services] you have a different meal every day.”

Finally, the process of making a meal, looking for the ingredients at your local market, making it together with family and friends, is lost with meal delivery services. These aren’t family recipes that were handed down from generation to generation, there aren’t any emotions tied to them at all.

One doesn’t spend hours

in the kitchen talking and bonding with others with these 30 minute meals. It can also be stress-relieving and a time to decompress after a long day. Food subscriptions might be a faster and more convenient way to eat, but what is lost in the trade?

Most nutritionists would say that a balanced diet is the most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to food. Maybe it’s the best way to go about using these delivery services. It would be easy to fall into a habit of having meals delivered to us with a click of a button (for a price), but taking the time to slow down, to cook and make food to sustain oneself, can be a way to bring balance to one’s life as a whole. MV

‘ETHNIC’ FOOD IS NOT A TREND

BY MICHAEL A MEY E R ART BY PEAU POROTE S A N O GRAPHIC BY CHA D JIM E N E Z

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n case you missed it, Filipino food is going to be the next big food trend. At least according to the headlines of countless magazine articles.

“I predict, two years from now, Filipino food will be what we will have been talking about for six months … I think that’s going to be the next big thing,” said Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel’s “Bizzare Foods,” in a 2012 interview with Today.com.

More recently, Anthony Bourdain called Filipino food “ascendant,” “underrated,” and “a work in progress,” according to Regine Cabato’s article “Anthony Bourdain: Sisig will ‘win the hearts and minds of the world,’” published June 9, 2017 by CNN. Likewise, last November the restaurant consultancy group Baum + Whiteman published their annual Food and Beverage Trend Report, indicating a growing interest in Filipino food. “In 2018, expect to see that interest bring Filipino cuisine into the mainstream dining

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world, in the same manner of previous culinary revelations from Asia, such as Thai, Vietnamese and Korean cuisines,” said an article about the report, published by News18. com.

On the surface, the sudden interest in Filipino cuisine and culture might seem like a good thing. Baum + Whiteman’s report refers to dishes such as lumpia, sisig, longganisa, and kare-kare, calling them “fragrant, spicy and acidically bracing.”

Bringing these foods to the forefront is a way of celebrating the culture of an underrepresented population in the United States. It also gives many who would not have the chance otherwise an opportunity for exposure to other cultures and a chance to learn about them.

However, there is something highly problematic about referring to the food millions of people have been eating for centuries as a “trend.” It’s inherently dismissive of the culture and the people who embody it.

“Filipino food isn’t a new,

‘ETHNIC’ FOOD IS NOT A TREND ‌

invented fad that suddenly captivated the restaurant world. So the very nature of tagging something as a trend also gives it a shelf life that is set to expire after its moment of popularity,” wrote Khushbu Shah in her article “The problem with calling ‘ethnic’ cuisine a trend,” published Aug. 3, by Thrillist.

Calling ethnic food a trend is essentially taking the daily sustenance and culture of an entire community of people and saying that it is cool now because a couple of White guys on the Food Network said so. The cuisines of Vietnam, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and others have been around for centuries. They don’t need the approval of mainstream White America to be enjoyed.

In fact, this approval rings particularly false when one considers how often immigrants are criticized for their food habits in the United States. Ruth Tam described being embarrassed by the intense smells of her father’s cooking after a friend said her house smelled of “Chinese grossness” in her article “How it feels when White people shame your culture’s food — then make it trendy,” published Aug. 31, 2015 by The Washington Post.

Similarly, Kashmira Gander recounted how her friends reacted to one of her favorite Persian treats, halva, at school. “’What the hell is that?! Is it poo?! Why are you eating that?’ laughed one of my friends, as I offered them a square. They saw the brown colour and rejected it outright. Unable to articulate that, well, chocolate is brown

but we eat that, it’s safe to say that I stuck with eating halva at home and didn’t really mention Persian food after that,” wrote Gander in her article “Gentrification of food: Why we need to stop calling immigrant cuisine ‘ethnic’,” published Sept. 20, by the Independent.

It is deeply ironic that Filipino people, who shocked and disgusted many Americans for years by eating balut, a fertilized developing duck embryo that’s been boiled inside the shell, should suddenly have their cuisine applauded as “the next big thing.”

What’s worse, the term “ethnic” has deeply racist undertones when applied to food.

“When we call a food ethnic, we are signifying a difference but also a certain kind of inferiority. French cuisine has never been defined as ethnic. Japanese cuisine is not considered ethnic today. Those are examples of cuisines that are both foreign and prestigious. There is no inferiority associated with them,” said Krishnendu Ray, author of “The Ethnic Restaurateur,” in an interview with Roberto Ferdman, published April 22, 2016 by The Washington Post.

Because these ethnicities are considered inferior, so are their foods, and vice versa. Ray went on to say that while Americans might claim to love foods from China, India and Korea as much as they love those from France and Italy, this didn’t prove true in the marketplace.

“We are really not willing to pay for ‘ethnic food.’

It’s true of Indian food, it’s true of Thai food, it’s true of Chinese food and it’s true of many others. They’re just not good enough, in the minds of Americans anyway, to pay $30, $40 or $50 for these foods. People might say this isn’t true, but it’s very clear in the actions of American consumers,” Ray said.

These cuisines are just as complex and varied as French or Italian cuisines, but because they can’t bring in as much money in the U.S., they are also a lot less likely to be authentic. It says something about the American consumer that when something looks authentic and coordinates with their preconceived stereotypes of a country they assume it is in fact authentic. “Most Japanese restaurants in the United States are run by Chinese; most inexpensive ones anyway,” Ray said.

This is because many White Americans can’t tell the difference. If someone who looks East Asian is serving Japanese food, generally the assumption is that they are Japanese, when in many cases they aren’t. Professionally trained Japanese sushi chefs are not as likely to remain in the U.S. when they could be paid more for their skills in Japan, and if they do remain it will be at higher end restaurants.

Similarly, “most cheap Indian food is made by Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, and most Indian food here is cheap. Of course, people don’t realize that. But it’s true. More than 70 percent of the Indian restaurants in New York City, for instance, are not run by Indians. They

are run by Bangladeshi and Pakistani restaurateurs. And you know what? All of this works, because we can’t make out the difference,” Ray said.

Elevating some of these cuisines to “trending” status may temporarily boost them economically, but in the end it is not the people who actually belong to these cultures who profit.

“The immigrant-run restaurants, perhaps in less hip parts of a city, are rarely the ones visited by the nationally renowned critics, and consequently hardly appear on the ‘best of ’ lists put out by glossy magazines,” wrote Shah. “Those honors are typically reserved for White male-run versions of such restaurants in neighborhoods that immigrants are frequently priced out of.

These men go on to become known as the experts of the cuisine — the people who receive the prestige and the paycheck after the ‘ethnic’ cuisine becomes trendy.”

Making ethnic food trendy is a gimmick which reaps profits for men like Zimmern and Bourdain while sating middle class Americans’ desire for something new and different.

“In the United States, immigrant food is often treated like discount tourism — a cheap means for foodies to feel worldly without leaving the comfort of their neighborhood — or high-minded fusion — a stylish way for American chefs to use other cultures’ cuisines to reap profit,” Tam wrote.

Meanwhile, immigrants continue to make and eat the same traditional foods of

their culture just as they always have, with no benefit to their social or monetary status.

Filipino food is not just some trend. It is a cuisine with a rich history and culture associated with an entire people. It should not be treated with the same novelty as ripped jeans, fidget spinners and chokers.

It has been here long before outsiders noticed, and it will continue to be enjoyed long after the magazines declare some other culture’s delicatessen the next big thing.

Americans interested in so-called “ethnic” cuisines should still continue to explore and try new things.

They just need to do their research and make sure that what they’re eating is the real thing, while realizing that authenticity may cost a little extra. They should be aware that so much more goes into what ends up on

their plate than just the ingredients, and work to support the people whose culture they are enjoying.

Foodies should look for writers like Monica Bhide, who explores the culture behind each of the dishes she writes about, or cookbook authors like Maangchi, who documents the recipes of traditional Korean food.

“Fashionable food from foreign cultures may satisfy a temporary hunger, but if you’re trying it for shallow reasons, you’ll be culturally unfulfilled in the long run,” Tam wrote. “The best meals are more than the sum of their ingredients; their flavors tell the stories of the rich cultures that created them. When the same respect is afforded to immigrant food as traditional ‘American’ food, eating it will save us in more ways than one.” MM

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PEPPERDINE GRAPHIC MEDIA