Published Work Archives - Page 10 of 23

Are stores making bank off food stamps?

January 22, 2025April 22, 2014

Mother Jones

Mother Jones • Apr. 22, 2014

A longer version of this piece appeared on Medium.com; all published in conjunction with the Food and Environmental Reporting Network.

How much of Walmart’s revenue comes from its shoppers’ food stamps? The store isn’t required to say. But a January Court of Appeals ruling could change that. If the unanimous decision by the 8th Circuit’s panel of three judges holds, the United States Department of Agriculture will be required to release data indicating exactly how much of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s $80 billion in annual sales is paid to specific retailers and individual stores.

How the Local Food Economy Is Challenging Big Food

January 22, 2025April 14, 2014

Next City

Next City • Apr. 14, 2014

About 15 years ago, Jim Vansteenkiste got a phone call from Kroger that changed his life. It was 1997 or ’98, and the fourth-generation farmer had spent decades working the same Michigan land his father had worked before him, about an hour’s drive from Detroit. In winter the land turned into icy white tundra dotted with collard green stalks spiking up through the snow, but even in the middle of a storm he could tell you which field held eggplants the year before, and which held squash. In the summer it was lush and green, and covered in four dozen kinds of vegetables, stuff he’d been selling to Kroger and Farmer Jack — two big grocery chains — his whole life. But then he got the call from a Kroger buyer, telling him he would lose the contract and, with it, half his business. Tall and trim, with the sun-creased eyes of a life worked outdoors, Vansteenkiste knew that unless he figured something out, he could lose the farm, too.

Organic food: it’s not just for yuppies anymore

January 22, 2025April 14, 2014

The Guardian

The Guardian • Apr. 14, 2014

A man who applies pesticides to Iowa fields for $14 hour might not seem a likely organic enthusiast. But when I met Jim Dreier last fall, and he mentioned the backyard patch he and his wife had planted with vegetables in the spring, he told me he didn’t use any pesticides. When I asked him why, Dreier surprised me: “I don’t want to eat that shit,” he said. When I went grocery shopping with his wife, Christina, she surprised me, too, by picking out a bag of organic grapes even though she was paying with Snap – food stamps – for exactly the same reason.

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: The Human Cost of American Agriculture

January 22, 2025October 7, 2013

Civil Eats

Civil Eats • Oct. 7, 2013

In 2004, Seth Holmes, a young American physician and anthropologist, undertook a trip that few take for kicks: He migrated from the rural highlands of Oaxaca in southern Mexico to the deserts of Arizona alongside a band of indigenous migrants bound for American farm fields.

Kitchen Elemental

January 22, 2025May 3, 2013

Slate

Slate • May 3, 2013

When I was 10, and my family needed to take some kind of snack to parent–teacher conferences, I pulled out the Betty Crocker Cookbook and made croissants from scratch. (They recalled, in taste and appearance, those from a Pillsbury tube.) By 14 I was buying whole pumpkins from farmers down the road to make pumpkin bread, and at 17 I pickled a dozen eggs as a joke for a friend. I have always been, in other words, a cook—and one who wants to do it herself.

As Common As Dirt

January 22, 2025September 11, 2012

The American Prospect

The American Prospect • Sept. 11, 2012

“As Common as Dirt” is the 2013 James Beard Award winner in the Politics/Policy/Environment category.

One morning earlier this year, in the borderland town of Brawley, California, 75-year-old Ignacio Villalobos perched on a chair in his trailer, removed a plastic bag from the well of a rubber boot, and finished dressing for work. Dawn was still an hour away, and in the wan light of the kitchen, Villalobos took off his house sandals and pulled the bag over his right foot. He bunched it at the ankle, then slipped his foot into his boot.

Cooking Isn’t Fun

January 22, 2025August 27, 2012

Slate

Included in 2013 “Best Food Writing” anthology

Slate • Aug. 27, 2012

It took me until I was 33 to start cooking dinner.

Don’t get me wrong—I was no stranger to the kitchen. I had prepared laborious, extravagant meals before, often using exotic ingredients I’d learned about in magazines.

Where does your grocery money go? Mostly not to the farmers

January 22, 2025August 8, 2012

CNN, Eatocracy

CNN.com eatocracy • Aug. 8, 2012

A few months ago, a small farmer in the Northeast approached me at a conference, intense and red-faced. How could I say that Americans shouldn’t pay more for their food?

She sold lettuce and beets to well-heeled women, their ears dangling gold and fingers sporting diamonds. Yet many of them balked at the prospect of paying an extra dollar per pound. To grow her food without extensive chemicals, and to sell her wares at market, she needed to fetch a higher price. Surely, couldn’t these women pay more?

The American Way of Eating

December 16, 2023July 25, 2012

Michael Ruhlman • July 25, 2012

One of the curious things about doing a semi-ridiculous reporting project—say, leaving behind your life to go work undercover as a farm worker, Walmart produce clerk, and Applebee’s kitchen wretch—is that near-strangers confront you with grand, existential queries. Like: What’s the most important thing you learned?

Why Your Hamburger Hates America

January 22, 2025June 29, 2012

The Washington Post

The Washington Post • June 29, 2012

I dare you to celebrate the Fourth of July without a hamburger. What food better conveys the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than an all-American beef patty, grilled in the sunny confines of a grassy back yard?

A burger on the grill says: I have the day off to celebrate this great country, and I am going to relish it.