Almonds, Salmon Fishing and the Food and Drug Act 1906
Welcome back to my weekly review in which I share three interesting things I have learned this week.
Almonds: Made In America
Did you know that most almonds are grown here in the US? Actually, 80% of the world’s almonds are grown in California. They are a very important crop to the local economy there. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most water intensive crops. According to this scientific article by Fulton et al (2019), “the water footprint of one California almond has averaged 12 liters (3.2 gallons)”. I knew that Almonds were a costly crop to grow in terms of water requirements, but I had no idea that it was this high.
Fish On! Salmon Fishing is Incredible
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go salmon fishing on Lake Michigan with two of my friends. It was an incredible experience! One of my friends has been going out on Lake Michigan for about 8 years now and he has acquired an insane amount of knowledge about salmon fishing. Not only does he know how to catch them, but to do so, he had to study these fish intensively. He knows everything about them! I was so blown away by all he knew and had to convince him to come on the podcast. So, hopefully I get a chance to have him share his wisdom with all of you that listen. Unfortunately, he had some bad news for me. There is a certain time of the year, in the fall, when we can catch salmon off the shore of Lake Michigan. So, my plan was to get myself a proper rod to catch some of them without needing a boat and expensive equipment. Supposedly, in the fall the salmon swim into the rivers to spawn. What many people don’t know is that the spawning fish are at the end of their life and actually go to die in the rivers. According to my friend, since they are older fish their meat quality is far inferior to what you would get from a salmon caught out on the lake. This is something to consider. However, I think I will still give shore fishing a try.
Food and Drug Act of 1906
Did you know that we didn’t really have a law that called for sanitary standards in food production until 1906? Before this law was passed, we had horrible sanitary conditions in food production plants, especially where animals were being processed. There are still questionable practices going on in food production today in terms of chemical usage and livestock raising. But can you imagine a world without any standards in terms of cleanliness? The act was actually signed by no other than Teddy Roosevelt, who is also one of the great conservationists of our time.