UEP 306 Food and the Environment

This course will examine the range of issues associated with the food system including environmental economic health cultural and social impacts related to how food is grown processed and manufactured distributed sold and consumed. This will include how the restructuring of the food system has led to such impacts as obesity (e.g. portion size proliferation of certain products and fast food restaurants trends towards eating out rather than eating in); enormous water quality air quality occupational health and loss of biodiversity outcomes; the rise of functional foods genetically modified products and globally sourced and produced foods at the same time that food as a core cultural experience is undermined or flattened; and the global reordering concentration and industrialization of each component of the food system that affects the food experience. The geographic focus of the class will include both domestic and global aspects of the food system as well as issues that will be explored in the Los Angeles context. There will also be a Community based Learning component to the class based on major research projects associated with the ongoing research policy educational organizing and program work of the Center for Food & Justice which is a division of UEPI.