What's Eating America on MSNBC on 2/16

There is a new series on MSNBC called What's Eating America? that is going to premiere on MSNBC on 2/16 at 8:00pm. The first episode is going to cover the fact that many of the people that harvest produce in this country are here illegally, and what can be done about this. They are also going to discuss immigrants working in restaurants.

They are also going to have an episode concerning food and climate change. Andrew Zimmern is the host and producer for the series. There are going to be five episodes in the series. Hope this helps, Nancy

Did anybody watch this? Yes it did get into politics and our current immigration policies. It looks at agriculture and restaurants, and how they have problems finding enough workers that are here legally. Yes there is a temporary worker program, but it only covers about half of the jobs available. They got into businesses that process crab who are told that they can only get about half of the workers they need through the temporary worker program. There is also going to be a program about how climate change affects food production and a program about the standard American diet, and how it affects health care costs

Hi- The program last night touched on climate change and how it affects the food supply. They first went to Wisconsin and discussed the perch situation there. Apparently the ocean perch population in Lake Michigan is way down, and they are forced to get yellow perch from the Canadian side of Lake Erie, which means that the price of ocean perch is $15 a pound. It is because the water temperature of Lake Michigan has gotten warmer. I searched on here to see if anybody had mentioned this, and the only thing I found was that somebody here ate some perch at a restaurant in Wisconsin, and said it was good, but was expensive.

They also got into the decrease in the amount of oysters caught in Florida, and the huge amount of rain we got last spring and how that affected farming. If you have cable or a streaming service, such as Sling or Hulu, you can watch it on demand. Hope this help, Nancy

Hi- The last episode of this series was about voting rights, and talked about the fact that until recently a convicted felon in Florida could not vote in an election after he or she got released from prison. It was interesting but it was not food related unless you count the visits the host made to the various restaurants while he was interviewing the people that appeared on the program.

This Sunday is going to be more food related. They are going to talk about how the standard American diet causes health problems in this country. The program is on Sundays on MSNBC at 8:00 pm. They rerun it later in the evening. I think maybe at 10:00 pm. Hope this helps, Nancy

They showed the final episode of What's Eating America on MSNBC last night. Andrew opened the show by accompanying a family to the grocery store. The family mostly eats processed fiid because healthy fresh food takes too long to cook. They bought a whole cart full of processed food, including hamburger helper, and Andrew bought some chicken thighs and a bunch of fresh veggies, and he fixed a healthy meal while they fixed their hamburger helper. His meal, including a fresh salad and the chicken thighs and fresh veggies including snow peas, took him only five more minutes to prepare than the hamburger helper did, and the family loved his dish.

They also talked about school lunches, and the fact that Sonny Perdue the current Secretary of Agriculture has relaxed the rules for school lunches. Schools are now allowed to serve flavored milk, and they are allowed to use more sodium in their dishes than they were under Obama's administration. They also talked about some farmers markets that have been set up in food desert areas. People are given coupons to stretch their Link dollars at the farmer's market.