Ecology and Sustainability

A multi-coloured bus is picking up children from the Zaizoun refugee camp in Daraa, southern Syria. This ‘bus of joy,’ also called ‘the olive bus,’ is a service set up by a local organisation named ‘olive branch.’ Olives are one of the most important agricultural products in Daraa, with 6.5 million trees farmed on close to 30,000 hectares.

Each year, "Travel+Leisure" asks its readers to write about their travel experiences worldwide and to rate cities for a number of qualities, including food. This year, Beirut also topped the list. With so many international cuisines and restaurants to choose from, the temptation to eat is real, however, particularly difficult for young women who feel the pressure of having to eat less in order to maintain a certain body weight and image.

The reclamation of seed as a common good has begun. Following the concept of open source, new approaches evolve that result in the cultivation of a large number of species and varieties.

Looking at a map of the Mediterranean, one might imagine that it resembles a large pond. It is the centre of the old world, the sea that the Romans called “Mare Nostrum” (our sea) and the link between the different continents; Europe on the one side, North Africa on the other, the Levant, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is also the beginning of a new world, an inland sea that leads to great empires such as the Persian, the Indian, and the Chinese; a crossroads for people, civilizations, trade, religions, customs, and tastes.

Heinrich Böll Stiftung Middle East Has the pleasure to invite you to the launch of our latest issue of Perspectives on food.Thursday October 12, 2017 @ 19:00

Is Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, alive among us through his elixir, between the leaves of his sacred plants or in the vines, planted for his delight?

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a holy month observed by Muslims worldwide as a time for fasting, praying and reflecting. Practising Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and engaging in sexual activity from dawn time and until sunset prayers. It is also instructed that Muslims practice compassion and self-restraint and refrain from engaging in hateful speech or instigating conflict.

Gender inequalities are omnipresent in today’s Moroccan society structure according to Zainab Fasiki. She demonstrates the ongoing disparities in gender roles by following the trajectory of one of the country’s most famous dishes: couscous.

‘The slogan “A land without a people for a people without a land” is at the heart of the hummos polemic’, is how my friend, Rabbi Douglas Krantz, explained the appropriation of hummos as indigenous Israeli sabra food. ‘When I first came here, over 30 years ago, hummos and falafel were ubiquitous and I assumed it was Israeli food. In the States it was advertised as Israeli sabra food’, in reference to the sweet and prickly cactus fruit, sabra, which has come to mean any Jew born on Israeli territory, ironically it is also a commonplace Palestinian backyard fruit used for fencing.

I remember the last time I threw away some food. It was the remains of my fruity-muesli breakfast I had one morning. It contained oats, seeds and some dried strawberries. I had had more than enough and some leftovers ended up in my rubbish bin. It left me wondering about these food items’ journey, from the day they were produced to the day they ended up as waste.