A ceramic bear feasting on mouldy jam cake. Klaus Pichler. A\J.

Why we put Mouldy Jam on the Food & Drink Cover

Get a sneak preview and the story behind the beautifully gross upcoming cover.

Mouldy food on the cover? It’s the A\J way, says production & graphics coordinator Anežka Gočová:

The conventional treatment for the Food & Drink issue would have been to put some “food porn” on the cover [don’t Google that, by the way]. But sticking to our alternative nature, we decided to do the exact opposite.

Mouldy food on the cover? It’s the A\J way, says production & graphics coordinator Anežka Gočová:

The conventional treatment for the Food & Drink issue would have been to put some “food porn” on the cover [don’t Google that, by the way]. But sticking to our alternative nature, we decided to do the exact opposite. Klaus Pichler‘s images are really special; you’re disturbed but can’t look away. They show the reality behind the beautiful food mirage we’re presented with in supermarkets. 

Not only does over 1/3 of all food get thrown away once it reaches our homes, around 1/3 of fruits and vegetables don’t even make it onto store shelves because they’re “not pretty enough.”

Publisher Marcia Ruby likes the cover because “it’s Burtynsky pretty.”

Although Pichler’s is a close up shot, Ed Burtynsky’s aerial images do the same thing: offer a compelling abstract beauty at first glance, and command a further investigative gaze. Remember Burtynsky’s famous series of bright red rivers? They were actually nickel tailings from Sudbury  [check out “Tailings” on www.edwardburtynsky.com].

The story behind the cover is both fascinating and important. Pichler’s bear is chowing down on a delicious looking cake – but wait a minute, that’s no normal cake. In fact, it’s no cake at all. It is jam that has been purposely rotted to make a point about wasted food. Pichler reeled me in, and now I know that one third of food produced in the world – from primary harvest to processing – is wasted. Knowing this has already made me change the way I manage my food purchasing and consumption. How could we not share this with A\J readers?

Subscribe today to get more photos from Pichler’s One Third project, plus all this:

New Canadians welcoming world crops to Ontario soil, why we need to ban GM alfalfa before it’s too late, the science behind wine, delicious recipes and more!

A\J Food & Drink cover featuring Klaus Pichler  A\J Food & Drink issue table of contents page 1 alfalfa  A\J Food & Drink issue table of contents page 2 chocolate

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