Author Archives: Tiffany Lau

Seafood & Sustainability- Tiffany Lau

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According to Barton Seaver’s discussion about sustainability, he said it is the capacity to endure and maintain the supplies of seafood. When we talk of seafood, we get curious of how it impacts to us when we eat seafood. Even though we consume a lot of seafood from the ocean, it puts in a vital condition to our own lives. It is important that we should know how does seafood impact to some of our concerns. By learning more about “sustainability”, it will enable us to shift our perception of seafood away from goods to an opportunity to recover our ecosystem.

            We would want to gain sources on seafood sustainability to put in our advantages to evolve in a changing system. It would put us in a better knowledge in understanding of the ocean as a resources. Barton believed it would be useful to understand our environment if we replenish the ocean’s resources. For an example, if a consumer was informed where the fishes comes from, then the consumer can make a responsible choice what to do about it. Even a sustainable fisherman can target specific places where they find fishes in a lower food chain. That way it can reproduce more quickly to sustain their populations.

            Buying a sustainable seafood may be difficult because many fisheries are rapidly declining due an unstainable fishing practices. We want fishes that are sustainable because it is a healthy option. From the video called “Make Better Seafood Choices-Seafood Watch”, the speaker proposed an idea that we can download a Seafood Watch app, then we can ask the person in the seafood counter, ask them where the fishes come from and how they catch it. Even if they don’t know the information we are looking for, they would know that someone care for the environment. We can also share this information among to our friends and give them the idea to help them find better choices of fishes that are available.

           

Smorgasburg Reaction Blog- Tiffany Lau

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On September 25th, I went to the Brooklyn Smorgasburg with my older sister. The location where it held was huge. We saw many different foods made from different cultures. I went to the booth called Jianbing Company, that made Shanghai inspired food. They cultivated foods using Shanghai styled. I ordered one menu choices called “The Original.” The Original was made by wrapping ingredients in a crunchy, cracker-like wrap. It was neither oily nor dry, but was smooth to touch. The ingredients they used to make it included eggs, crackers, 13 sauce, scallions, cilantro, homemade chili sauce, and hoisin-lime beef. What tempt me to try The Original was the price and the ingredients. The price is less expensive than other choices. Another reason is because of the cilantro that I had never tried it before.

I didn’t try other choices in the Jianbing booth because the order that I chose was a large portion and even though it was cut in half, I had a difficult time finishing it. The price was $12. The line for the order was average because the customer’s order takes approximately five minutes to cook and serve it. The portion size was 2 servings. The most unusual food that Jianbing offer and the next most tempting food ingredients is the Good Morning Smorgasburg food. The ingredients that were used to make it were similar to the Originals. However, the ingredients they used that was unique is the applewood-smoked bacon. The price was $14, which was extremely expensive. I didn’t have any complaints, so I would’ve tried anything they offered.

The kinds of customers that I saw had a big appetite for the Originals they ordered.  They’re mostly middle-aged Caucasians. They asked for different proteins like Lemon-Garlic Chicken or Honey-Soy Tofu. There were four people handling the food. Each person was responsible for one job, either serving the drinks, setting up the plates, preparing the food, and also serving the food. The food came quickly, so this was an efficient process. It was different from other vendors because they had ingredients right on the menu along with the price. They have one person to listen to the customer’s order and make it right away. Other vendors also had less people working there. The equipment that they used was a griddle to make a wrapping for stuffing the ingredients inside. It became a delicious package to be eaten without being messy.

 

Field Trip Blog- Tiffany Lau

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At Cumberland Street, we saw a sustainable rooftop garden. The garden was full of nutritious vegetables and spices to sell to stores and restaurants. The gardener even grew edible flowers and supplied chickens to produce eggs. Technology like weather machines and sprinklers help the plants thrived and keep watered under the best conditions. The workers had supplied chickens to produce eggs. Nothing was wasted; eggshells were used as compost and reusable waste was recycled to make fertilizers. The garden is good for the environment because it is grown with carefully without any contamination.
The film that we saw in class was hosted by Yul Kwon, explains how plants and vegetable are mass produced in America. Many farmers have encountered unwanted insects so they had to use pesticide onto the vegetables. Pesticides are harmful because kills living things that are beneficial to us like bees. However, there were also some farmers that didn’t use pesticides, and grew organic vegetables to keep their consumers and producers healthy. These organic plants can’t be mass produced, so they were only sold to smaller markets.
The two articles we read explain how agriculture is important to the food systems. Michael Pollan wrote a letter to Obama about the food campaign that Obama promised to fulfill. Large amounts of fossil fuels were used for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and ‘processed foods of all kinds’, are increasing the health care costs. Obama said that he will make changes, but nothing has changed. My thoughts of why Obama cannot get the task done is because he thinks it is unnecessary for making changes with the methods on food cultures.