Alphabet City and The Walrus Online Discussion

Welcome

Welcome to the Alphabet City and The Walrus magazine online discussion series on FOOD.

We’ll be posting a new discussion topic every week or so. Add your two cents, your observations and proclamations, throw down your own gauntlet and discuss the ever-present force in all life: FOOD.

A copy of the Alphabet City FOOD book will be given away by random draw to someone who speaks up and joins the fray. One book per discussion.

Check out the FOOD book

Food is essential to our sense of place and our sense of self, but today—as our fast food nation meets the slow food movement and eating locally collides with on-demand arugula—our food habits are shifting...

Read more in this year’s edition of the Alphabet City series.

The Open Letter

A call for a bold new vision for food, that brings together a variety of organizations to recognize that food is more than just what we put in our mouths. Food policy affects everything from environment to poverty — it transcends barriers and politics.

Event Schedule

Alphabet City is an annual anthology, combined with a festival of ideas and discussion. Get a better idea of what Alphabet City can offer by browsing the events from the 2007 festival.

Discussion One

Does FOOD connect us all? How do these connections affect our politics, our economy, our art, our lives?

Discussion Two

Eat local- a buzzword for wealthy urbanites, or a revolutionary new vision for food? Do we even need to eat local? Skyscraper farming, eating local in Winnipeg winters, artisan farmers: Discuss!

Discussion Three

Health, location, and food availability are issues not only for the dinner table but beyond. Is this a political issue, an urban planning issue, or just something to be left alone? As a rich society, how can we ensure availability and quality of food for everyone across the country?

Final Discussion and Wrap Up

Over the past three discussions The Walrus and Alphabet City have tried to encourage debate about the way we grow, process, market, and distribute our food and how it links and effects us in a wide range of ways beyond the supermarket and the dinner table.

Can we be optimistic about the recent upsurge in the attention we directing toward ‘where our food has come from’ or is it just another fad that will stop at the next trip to Starbucks?