Bonus: Food History

“I need to be able to fit my cellphone in my pants; this is a feminist crisis!” In this bonus episode, listen to more of Kristen and Kyla’s discussion with food, migration, and labour historian Alexandra (Lex) Sundarsingh. Topics: Lex misses stationary street food; Toronto’s racist health panic (the one about food trucks, not 2019-nCoV); Pad Thai robots!!; France’s kitchen brigade system; Canada is terrible at food diplomacy; sea lice is a thing, apparently; Lex’s new project on complaints filed by female Indian indentured labourers on British colonial sugar plantations.

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Sugar

In this episode, Kristen and Kyla are joined by food, migration, and labour historian Alexandra (Lex) Sundarsingh. Lex adds her knowledge about historical human rights abuses in sugar production — which, unfortunately, look a lot like present-day human rights abuses in sugar production. In their discussion, Lex, Kyla, and Kristen explain sugar production and why human rights practices are so fraught. They also discuss what you can do if you want to combat human rights abuses in sugar. Topics: indentured servitude in the British empire; sugarcane versus sugar beets; sugarcane is still a human rights hellscape; there’s some baggage in the history of Canadian sugar beet production; Stevia and biopiracy; Kyla goes through sugar withdrawal; Kristen struggles to find fair trade; Lex is giving out Sweetness and Power like it’s a car and she’s Oprah.

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