Please write a brief blog post (150-250 words) in reaction to the NYT article “That Dinner Tab Has Soared. Here Are All the Reasons.” Summarize the contents and then respond by giving your opinion or any personal insight that you have about the situation. Given our class, your primary focus should be on the increasing cost of ingredients and what’s driving it. The blog can be informal but should be grammatical. The link is here as well as under the readings menu.
To write a post, click the little plus button at the top of the page. Click the box (lower right) on the “NYT inflation” category. Use your name for the title. Make sure to proofread.
Ted Conover’s “The Way of All Flesh: Undercover In An Industrial Slaughterhouse” left me deeply disturbed. As a USDA Meat Inspector at Cargill Meat Solutions, Conover peels back the curtain on the grim reality of industrial meat production. The article’s straightforward account of processes, unsanitary conditions, and the sheer scale of mass production evokes a visceral sense of disgust.
Reading through the narrative, I couldn’t escape the ethical dilemma and the unsettling gap between the food on our plates and its production. Conover’s detailed exploration prompts uncomfortable reflections on the decisions made behind the scenes of our dietary choices. The article serves as a stark reminder of the hidden costs behind our convenient access to meat, leaving me with a lasting sense of dismay about the harsh truths within the food industry.
Borough Hall’s Greenmarket connects downtown brooklynites with local farmers, making our city life a bit more grounded. As I ambled through, I found a bit of everything—fruits, root veggies, herbs, and fresh baked goods. Like all Greenmarkets, it’s seasonal. In winter, we get carrots, pumpkins, squash, and apples, and all year round, there’s a fantastic selection of bread and local honey to try. They also had a tasting table with a meal made from the selection of produce offered at the market that day to encourage the purchases and spark creativity.
Sure, you’ll see the usual suspects like apples and carrots, but what caught my eye were these new and exciting things—exotic fruits and vegetables with quirky names that you won’t find in your regular grocery store.
Now, let’s talk prices—they might be a smidge higher here, but it’s because they’re all about top-notch quality, freshness, and giving a leg up to local farmers. Case in point: the honeycrisp apples I love was $2.50 a pound here, whereas they’re just $1.99 at the supermarkets in my area.
My discovery—Black Velvet Heirloom Tomatoes. They’re not your run-of-the-mill tomatoes; they’re dark, rich, sweet, and were really good. Choosing these over the regular ones isn’t just about flavor—it’s about supporting local farms that grow them naturally. These tomatoes had a good taste but rotted faster than my supermarket produce.
Greenmarkets exist for simple reasons which include, creating an establishment where new yorkers could support local businesses conserving farmland while ensuring fresh produce. Most super markets have an extremely low quality of produce, due to the extreme mass quantities being produced at a time. Some things that are in season currently include many variations of squash, like winter squash and sugar pumpkin. Pears varieties like green asian, golden asian and bartlett pears were present as well. I noticed that there was an abundance of apples and apple based products. For example, apple cider donuts, hot apple cider, apple tarts and types of apples like macoun (a new harvest) and gold rush. Though I’m familiar with these items, I was not aware of the different colors cauliflower came in like purple and orange. How festive for the holidays! Seasonal goods like the cauliflower were higher in price coming at $6 per head. In addition to this I noticed that the ready to eat baked goods and ciders were ranging from $3.50 up to $8 depending on how large the item was. The prices are reasonable considering the ongoing inflation issues going on. Apples prices ranged from $3.30 per pound. In my local supermarket apples go for around $1.99 per pound, which is significantly cheaper, but in comparison the quality ranges are very different then a greenmarket. Overall, if I had the time to visit the greenmarkets near my home I would definitely take advantage of better quality produce.
After reading this article, I learned a lot about the process of inspecting beef which was disturbing. They go into a lot of detail about what they do and even explain how the cow looked scared for their life before getting killed. These are things we usually don’t think about in our day-to-day lives, so when you do read something like this, it can be eye-opening. What shocked me the most was when they went into detail about how they cut each body part of the cow to be inspected. That job is definitely overwhelming, and I don’t think I could ever do that. When I eat any kind of meat, I try my best to not really think about what I’m eating or else I will feel disgusted and just not eat, but after reading this, I’ll probably take a break from beef for a little while.
Ted Conover’s “The Way of all Flesh” shares his experience as a new USDA meat inspector at the Cargill’s Schuler, Nebraska plant. He describes the cow slaughtering process he witnessed on the kill floor and the inspection of their organs, livers, and hearts to ensure there are no abnormalities and up to standards. Conover shares different experiences of learning the basics of the job from knife cuts to identifying what should be stamped as well as their work atmosphere and the interactions between colleagues. Towards the end of the author’s story, the author starts to feel conflicted with ethical concerns of continuing to eat beef after everything they had witnessed. If I were in their situation, I could never have eaten beef and I started to tear up, feeling nauseated from just imagining the description of the cow slaughter process. It was surprising that the author was capable of enjoying eating beef after describing the death of each cow with their possible final thoughts. I do think the meat processing industry is more trustworthy with their inspections, making sure everything meets USDA standards unlike before the legislation mandating inspection but is still ethically wrong. Lately, I have been trying to switch to vegetarianism or pescetarianism due to a personal preference for diet but after reading this, I feel more strongly to switch immediately without hesitation.
Last Wednesday, in the cold autumn weather, I traveled to the Union Square Green Market as I found their aim to connect small-time local farmers with consumers to increase agriculture and environmental sustainability to be rather intriguing. Emptier than I had expected for afternoon hours, I observed as regulars with a keen eye for picking out the best products. Small farm stands sold locally grown and hand-made products from vegetables, fruits, and flowers to baked goods, meats, ciders, and dairy products.
Crops mostly in the Cucurbitaceae family dominated the selling field for what was in season with a wide variety of pumpkins, butternut squash, and kabocha. Sales ranged from vegetables such as tomatoes going down in price from $3.50 to $2.75 per pound and greens like collards, arugula and bok choy selling at 2 for $5 or $3 a bunch. Their was a mix of familiar foods like red delicious apples and concord grapes but a larger amount of unfamiliar foods like red devil apples and carnival squash which you don’t come by in supermarkets. Depending on the farm stand, food prices were definitely higher for items such as mackintosh apples selling for $2.50 per pound which normally sell for $1.50 per pound in supermarkets but is justifiable for it’s fresh and local nature.
While exploring, Kernan Farms caught my attention, selling low acid tomatoes resembling golden jubilee heirloom tomatoes. To my surprise, they were very firm without any soft spots, so I purchased some while considering the endless possibilities for acid-sensitive dishes. I decided to use it in my favorite breakfast “eggs in purgatory” which really enhanced the flavor and texture of the dish, becoming my new found replacement for using regular tomatoes. This Greenmarket visit was an unforgettable experience that opened me up to shopping their more often for the diverse amount of fresh ingredients I can use for in many new dishes.
Last Thursday, I visited the green market located in Borough Park. This market was small; it only had two vendors. This was my first time going to a green market, so I was expecting more. Green markets exist because they give farmers the opportunity to sell their fruits and vegetables to locals throughout New York City. Although the market was small, there was so much fresh produce ready to be sold. There were tons of seasonal fruits and vegetables at the market, such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, eggplant, onions, squash, turnips, apples, and so much more! Oddly enough, I noticed watermelons were being sold. The size of the watermelons was small; I did not take note of how much they were going for. The prices at the green market were decent. At my local supermarket, a bag of apples is $5.00; however, at the greenmarket, it was going for $3.00/lb. Listed below are the prices of the goods I took note of.
Zucchini -$2.50/lb.
Yellow onions: $3.00/lb.
Eggplant- $2.50.lb
Radish -$3.00/lb.
Yukon gold and red potatoes: $3.00/lb.
Cauliflower-$5.00
Overall, the greenmarket was an interesting experience, and I wouldn’t mind attending another one.
Green Market, born out of the spirit of First Earth Day, is an organization that makes sustainable and nutritious food for New Yorkers in all five boroughs. Today their initiative has not only reached bringing sustainable local farm produce within reach for people, but they also contribute to education, zero-waste initiatives, green space, and food access agricultural programs to people. I chose to take a walk through the Jackson Heights greenmarket which takes place every Sunday from 8 am-3 pm. The time being so close to Halloween I mainly noticed all the vegetables from the gourd family. Pumpkins, parsnips, butternut squash, and some turnips abound in the stalls. However, some season-neutral fruits like grapes, apples, bananas, and veggies such as beets, and Brussels sprouts were also available. Kale and Bok choy were on sale for 2 for $5 and Cauliflower was 2 for $8. A new vegetable that I was introduced to by a farmer was Rutabaga, it is a root vegetable that can be cooked in similar ways to potatoes. The prices seemed almost double compared to general grocery stores but considering the visible quality and taste difference it was apt. For example, the apple was in general $3/lb, whereas in supermarkets the price tag is $150/lb. The heirloom beefsteak tomato caught my attention immediately as they were giving samples of those with salt sprinkles! Which is one of my favorites. The ones I got were perfect for making shakshuka for breakfast. The combination of color yet juicy and flavorful quality drove me to it (also the fact that it was being sampled the way I like!). The vendor did hesitate to answer my question about whether it was organic but I like the taste of it.
This week we’re taking a look at one of the biggest greenmarkets in NYC, Union Square. But before that, we need to establish WHY Greenmarkets exist. According to their website, as a non-profit organization their mission is “to empower all New Yorkers with equitable access to fresh, locally grown food, neighborhood green spaces, opportunities to reduce waste, and care for the environment.” Throughout the year, you can find farm fresh produce, pastries, meats and cheeses, fish, as well as the occasional alcoholic craft brew. You can even find garden-ready seasonal plants and mushrooms of multiple varieties! As I wandered around the market, taking in the sights and sounds, I stumbled across the Oak Grove Plantation setup, and was greeted with a stunning array of hot peppers and popcorn. Naturally, I had to inquire about the peppers and comment on how I’d never seen such a large variety; to which the merchant exclaimed that it wasn’t even their entire stock. There were even more peppers that they couldn’t stock because they didn’t have room! I was mostly looking at the scotch bonnets and habaneros since those two peppers can be found in my family’s traditional Pepperpot. Unfortunately, I didn’t need to buy them as my mother had already gotten some from our local grocery store, but I made sure to buy some of their popcorn (which I forgot to take a picture of because I ate it before I remembered to).
Just this past week I have visited the greenmarket in Union Sq to look and see what they have to offer. The greenmarkets are in all 5 boroughs with Staten Island having 2, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens having multiple and the Bronx about 9. The reason for green markets existing is because these markets are selling fresh produce like fruits, vegetables, affordable food, people wanting to try new things or samples, and ingredients. The food that is usually being sold right now at the greenmarket that I had visited was, lots of Vegetables and Fruits like Squash, Apples, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Celery, Kale etc. The prices on the other hand seemed to be pretty high as it was mainly “per item”, and not by “Pound” or “Oz” like it is usually would be at a smaller market or supermarket, one of the few items i noticed was sweet Potatoe and other types of potatoes being sold for $4 per one and some fruits like pears or apples being sold for around $3.25-$4. So, the produce here at the greenmarket is a little more money and expensive, but I also feel it could vary by location.
The ingredient/item I decided to choose was Bell Peppers. Bell Peppers are typically classified as a fruit, and they can be used for many things like Sauteed Peppers, Stuffed Bell Peppers, Stir Fry, Grilling and more. The flavor is usually a lot better when it is grilled or cooked in a pan/mixed in with other foods but eating them cold has a bitter taste to it. This fruit originated in Central and South America and has been transported worldwide since the late 1400s. A few special things bell peppers provide are also reliable sources of vitamin A and fiber, as well as also having antioxidant properties which help against fighting diseases like cardiovascular disease.
