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Here’s another special Thursday edition of The Lazy Reader, this time courtesy of HungryRoot, the easiest way to eat healthy.

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Companies like HungryRoot are working to make meals much simpler for the rest of us. But of course, as fans of longform journalism, we know that there’s got to be a more complex, more intricate backstory, right? Right.

Despite being an industry staple for I’m guessing as long as industries have existed, Big Food has had to constantly innovate and reinvent itself to keep up with the times. In fact, that’s how grocery and meal delivery services like HungryRoot came about.

But what are we sacrificing for the sake of these changes? What are we leaving behind in pursuit of this so-called progress? Are we thinking about not just the workers but also our relationship with food—and each other? These are what this reading list hopes to explore. (And then some, of course, because this is The Lazy Reader.)

Happy reading! 🤓

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The Future of Food

Why Grocery Shopping Is on Its Way Out | The Walrus, Free

I belong to a certain generation that never really saw a world without groceries or supermarkets or hypermarkets. Several of my fondest and most formative memories involve doing weekly grocery runs with my mom—from riding in pushcarts to eventually steering them; from getting lost between the aisles to figuring a maximum-efficiency route for speed-running my shopping.

So I found it extra fascinating to learn that, actually, groceries are a relatively recent feature of modern society. And that several technologies and inventions that I’ve come to take for granted—refrigerators, push carts, car trunks, heck, even parking spots—were instrumental to building the groceries that we know today.

The next logical step is to look at the future of groceries, which according to this essay will spell the end of it.

Digital innovations—like Doordash and Seamless and, yes, HungryRoot—have essentially eliminated the need to physically make our way to grocery stores and meander through aisles and line up at the checkout counter. The cost of this convenience, as the writer claims, is the loose, amorphous communities that the physical space of the grocery fosters.

Now I’ll be honest: This seemed like a weak argument to me—until I went to the grocery myself a couple of days ago. Then it clicked.

Is the ‘Future of Food’ the Future We Want? | Eater, Free

This essay that Eater ran several years ago makes essentially the same argument—that the digital revolution sweeping across the food industry will change our relationship with physical and outdoor spaces, and not necessarily for the better.

But in attending an industry trade show, the writer also spotlights another casualty of this technological shift.

Many of the innovations at this convention are truly intense. One includes using drones to deliver food orders, eventually also incorporating AI functionality to eventually eliminate the need for human input. Another iterates on the concept of cloud kitchens, renting out cooking space and manpower from other restaurants to fulfill their own orders.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly), the trade show deftly steps around the matter of its workers. Which is ironic, because the digital transformation of restaurants removes the comfortable middle ground for the people in the industry—either they lose their jobs to bots or they’re overworked beyond measure trying to keep up with the rapidly growing volume of orders.

This is not to say, of course, that there’s no room for digital innovation in the food industry. But as consumers, we need to do a better job at understanding the real toll that comes with our convenience.

In Blue Apron’s Chaotic Warehouses, Making Dinner Easy Is Hard Work | Buzzfeed News, Free

This story from Buzzfeed News (RIP 🙏) illustrates that toll quite well.

And just to clarify, this is from many years ago. The situation may have changed.

But according to this investigation, Blue Apron routinely ignored occupational safety standards and put its workers in harm’s way to fulfill orders. And even when it knew that it was beyond its usual capacity, the company still took on more orders and made steeper promises—stretching its workforce even thinner.

And honestly, my summary won’t do the story justice. The power of the investigation lies in its details: the number of citations that Blue Apron received versus its competitors, the severity of injuries that its employees suffered, and the long-lasting impacts (physical and psychological) of working under Blue Apron.

As someone who’s once been heavily reliant on food-delivery services, this was a really eye-opening (if not guilt-inducing) look into what my convenience costs. If you’re in the same boat, I think this is required reading.

What Being a Bike Courier Taught Me about Our Broken Economy | The Walrus, Free

This, too, is required reading for people who depend on food deliveries.

After all, someone has to physically take our food orders from the restaurant and put the legwork (literally) in to bring it to us.

And as this writer lays out in a really raw essay, that entire endeavor carries a heavy physical burden. I think this is especially true for cities like mine, where transportation is thoroughly messed up and getting from one point to another can prove to be a fatal exercise. In many cases, delivery riders literally have to risk their lives just so I don’t have to move my ass from my couch.

But delivery work also comes with quite the emotional weight. Some people treat food riders with such disdain or apathy—as if they’re of a subhuman class just because they work an allegedly unglamorous job. Nevermind that many riders are actually highly educated or otherwise upstanding people who just need to make ends meet.

There’s so much more to say about the convenience industry (which is something I just came up with but will continue to use moving forward), but I think the most important thing we all have to recognize is its human toll.

The Man Who’s Going to Save Your Neighborhood Grocery Store | Longreads & The Counter, Free

While tech companies continue to take groceries online, some chains are fighting back by leaning into the physicality that their stores offer.

The logic, according to proponents, is that grocery shopping is more of an experience rather than a chore that the modern person just has to tick off their to-do list. And while this doesn’t personally apply to me (as someone who is too busy for his own good), I understand the reasoning. My weekly 30-minute grocery runs, after all, have become such a joy. I look forward to the tiny pocket of me-time it gives me.

And forgive me for taking sides, but I honestly, deeply hope that this movement succeeds on a large scale. Not for the sake of the produce moguls behind the big grocery chains, but for the hectic housewife, the helpful husband, or the overly busy digital entrepreneur trying to run a newsletter on top of managing a freelance writing business. (Too specific?)

I wish that the experience-centric groceries inspire in them an urge to carve out more time for themselves. To window-shop bread spread. To dream of recipes that they’re never going to try. To lose themselves between the aisles.

As A Grocery Store Worker, I'm On The Frontline Of Coronavirus And I'm Overwhelmed | Huffpost, Free

Of course, as much as I want to romanticize the act of grocery shopping, the reality is far from dream-like.

And that was most apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when just stepping out was considered a mortality risk. Overnight, grocery store workers were promoted from being the underappreciated force keeping our economy running to modern-day heroes.

But, as the writer here emphasizes, none of them really asked for it. And, worse, the things that they do typically ask for—better working conditions, higher pay—didn’t come with the empty platitudes and shallow gratitude that they got during the pandemic. Modern-day heroes, apparently, do not deserve a living wage.

And while COVID-19 has mostly been resolved (not totally, though, but that’s for another newsletter), the economy hasn’t rebounded. On the contrary, I’d argue that it’s only gotten worse and has become its own crisis. Grocery workers, again, are left on the proverbial frontlines of this emergency. And things don’t look good for them this time, either.

Hey there! 👋

This is a sponsored edition of The Lazy Reader, but it’s also somewhat of a dry run of something that I’ve been cooking up—weeky themed reading lists.

Basically, it’ll be about five or so reading recommendations about a specific subject (say, the money matters behind our medicines or the crisis in journalism). Plus I’ll be flexing my writing muscle a bit more, too: The longform list will be headlined by a short essay-type intro to ease you into the recommendations.

The idea is to eventually make this a weekly thing, sent out on Thursdays to supplement our Monday reading lists. But of course, since The Lazy Reader is a one-man show, that’s going to be impossible right off the bat, especially since I’m also running a freelance business full-time. So we’ll start with putting it out every other week, then build up the cadence to eventually hit a weekly pattern.

How’s that sound?

No, really. Please let me know what you think 🙏

I want your feedback on this before I roll it out. Is that something that you guys would even enjoy? What types of themes would you want to see? Let me know in the form below, or reply your feedback to this email.

Oh and just to clarify: The launch date for this is still TBD, but it’s going to be in the near future. I’m excited!

Until next time! 👋