Wal-mart vs. Whole Foods in The Atlantic

Image: still from Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart, October 2008, on YouTube.

Preservationists love to hate Wal-mart. I typed "Walmart preservation fight" into Google and found a slew of entries, as expected. Wal-mart threatens Civil War battlefield outside of Charlottesville. State of Vermont Battles Wal-mart in the Wilderness. Lancaster County, PA advocates have been fighting a Wal-mart planned for Amish/Mennonite country. Etc. Etc.

The National Trust has advocacy materials dedicated to fighting "big box stores" generally -- but Wal-mart has been the focus of most big box fights.

http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/community/hist-preservation.html

Conversely, Whole Foods is generally perceived as a good guy. The mission-based grocery store anchored historic and infill redevelopment at P Street and 14th here in DC years ago. Shopping there makes buying local and/or organic easy. But WF (aka Whole Pay Check) is notoriously expensive, which significantly edits its local customer base. Wal-mart is popular because it's cheap. These two businesses don't overlap in my ethical universe.

So I was predictably intrigued by the latest Atlantic Monthly's article "The Great Grocery Smackdown: Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy?" by Corby Kummer.

What? Wal-mart now carries local produce that generally competes with (and sometimes exceeds the quality of) Whole Foods.' Kummer gathered together food snobs for a blind taste test. He prepared two separate meals with ingredients from the two retailers. "The tasters were surprised when the results were unblinded at the end of the meal. And they weren't entirely happy."

http://podcasts.theatlantic.com/2010/02/walmart-produce.php

"I'm not sure I'm convinced that the world's largest retailer is set on rebuilding local economies it had a hand in destroying, if not literally, then in effect. But I'm convinced that if it wants to, a ruthlessly well-run mechanism can bring fruits and vegetables back to the land where they once flourished, and deliver them ot the people who need them most."

This seemed to be the salient point, from the perspective of a preservation advocate. If they support the local food movement, why can't they do a better job supporting local preservation?

http://walmartwatch.com/

Property Rights and Breakfast

Our peanut butter and jelly platter -- a breakfast staple -- includes representatives from many countries.

Since my last post, I have heard that a certain local newspaper won't publish substantive articles on foraging due to property rights issues. They apparently get pitches all the time for articles about foraging. I'm undeterred. I'm now figuring out where to pitch an article about foraging and property rights.

In the meantime, we have a stack of books to read about foraging. Although newspapers are apparently shy of the topic, publishing houses seem keen on the subject. I bought Henry Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (Penguin: New York, 2009) for Christmas and have Langdon Cook's Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager in my bedside bookpile. Urban forager Emily Burrows, author of the blog Sweet Huckleberry, has loaned us about a linear foot of reference books.

So while I'm looking for the right market for the right foraging story, I've also been reading about the history of breakfast and the huge variety of things people around the world eat first thing in the morning. Thus far, I've found that Wikipedia has the most comprehensive explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast

Given the huge scope of the topic, I'm assuming I'll find something related to politics and urban design in my preliminary research. And add a little bit of variety to the morning routine.