Hello FoodAnthropology readers, we have a short round-up this week, featuring a lively internet debate about the nature of American millenials. As always, please send any links you’d like to share to LaurenRMoore@uky.edu.
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, a piece on hunger among undergraduates discussed studies showing that anywhere from 20 to 59 percent of college undergraduates are at risk of going hungry, and calls for educators to do more toward systemic changes that will help support these students: Students Shouldn’t Have to Choose Between Books and Food
NPR reported on an effort by the EPA to revoke approval of a pesticide that is found on 14 percent of the nation’s almonds, peppers, and watermelons: In An Unusual Move, The EPA Tries To Pull A Pesticide From Market
Stephen Satterfield was named Culinary Trust’s Growing Leaders Food Writing Fellow, and will spend his tenure writing about food culture and food justice. If you’d like to start following him now, you can find him here.
Over at Southern Foodways Alliance, there was a short piece on the history of Tampa Devil Crabs, and their relationship to the Tampa cigar industry: Tampa Devil Crabs
There was quite a bit of internet debate about millennials’ food habits–particularly their consumption of cereal. It started with a piece in the New York Times asserting that millennials don’t eat cereal because they don’t care to wash out the bowl (Cereal, a Taste of Nostalgia, Looks for Its Next Chapter) and the thread was picked up by the Washington Post, Business Insider, and Fortune (among others) decrying the laziness of young Americans.
The shots were answered by millennials and their defenders across the internet, who argued that millennials’ avoidance of cereal likely has more to do with awareness of added sugars (Millenials Monthly: F*ck Cereal); pointed out the problems with the survey and broad-stroke comparisons of generations ( Really? Millennials Probably Not Too Lazy to Eat Cereal); and asserted that cereal is dull, unfilling, and “makes me sad” (This Is Why Millennials Actually Don’t Eat Cereal)
Finally, Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker bemoaned the creation of croissants that are not, in fact, crescent-shaped (though “croissant” means crescent). He describes how they came to be and what it means to leave crescent-shaped croissants behind: Straightened-Out Croissants and the Decline of Civilization
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