Eat. Drink. Better.

I recently stumbled upon a great recipe for Spaghetti Squash Pancakes from Mollie Katzen’s book, The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without. It’s a winner. Although the original recipe calls for spaghetti squash (quite delicious) and gives the option of using all-purpose flour or rice flour, the recipe can accommodate any kind of squash and a variety of gluten-free flours. The topping possibilities are also endless, giving you the option to play with flavor combinations. Happy eating!

Recipe for Gluten-free Squash Pancakes (adapted from Mollie Katzen’s The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without):

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The phrase,”industrial farming” is something I see on lots of web posts and comment strings.  I’m guessing that this intentionally derisive terminology conjures up some pretty negative imagery for most people not directly involved with farming.  The use of this emotive term raises two questions for me:

• Is modern, “industrial” farming actually what people imagine it to be?
• Is there actually a viable alternative?

Well, let’s consider some of the features of modern farming

“Industrial Farming Is Highly Mechanized” (True but Necessary)

It might not fit your view of a romantic, rural life-style, but if you are actually the farmer, the comfortable, efficient, sophisticated farm equipment available today sounds pretty good.  As in all “industrialized” segments of our economy, machines and computers make farmers more productive and eliminate the most laborious (and often dangerous) parts of the job.  There is a detailed history of farm equipment on the John Deere website that is worth a read.  Mechanization of farming has enabled the workforce directly involved in farming to drop from ~40% in 1900 to less than 1% today.  Over this time period, people have chosen other careers intentionally.  There are not a lot of people who want to work on farms in the old, labor-intensive way.

Actually, hand-labor-intensive crops (e.g. coffee, strawberries…), or high labor cropping systems (e.g. Organic) are on a collision course with demographic trends.  The pool of unskilled farm laborers upon which rich Americans have (unethically) depended is only going to decline over time and make rejection of “mechanization” an increasingly non-viable option.  Unless you are the one doing the work, it isn’t really reasonable to insist that mechanization be avoided because it’s too “industrial.”

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Conventional dairy production is a lot different from the idyllic farms you see in those Happy Cow commercials on TV. Real dairy production forces cows to live in close quarters, involves nasty growth hormones, and is just a pretty cruel business overall.

Milk’s quite easy to cut out of your diet, whether you’re using it to cook or drinking it straight out of the glass. If you’re thinking about avoiding dairy for animal rights or for health reasons, there are a slough of delicious options out there for you!
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As I have been blogging on this site for a little while, I see some of the exchanges in the comment streams on other folk’s posts.  I was surprised to see that Vegans don’t use honey because it involves domsticated bees.  That has raised a few random questions for me.  (Full disclosure, I am a slightly reformed omnivore but at least I had a tufu-based dinner tonight).

I really don’t mean these questions to be combative.  I’d just like to understand a different point of view. Here are my questions:

1.  Are Vegans OK with eating “Organic” produce or grains that have been fertilized with animal manures? If you say it is not ok to eat honey because it involves an animal, I would expect that the dependency of Organic agriculture on animal wastes would be problematic from a Vegan point of view. Is that true?

2. Are Vegans OK with eating crops which need to be pollinated by bees (not wild bees but bees trucked in in hives for crops like almonds, blue berries…).

Seriously, I’m just wondering.

Bee image by wohack

Do you know what you’re having for dinner today — or “supper” as we say here in Wisconsin? Don’t panic if you don’t know.  You’re not alone.  Up to one third of Americans don’t know what they will be eating for supper on any given day, an underlying cause of relying on prepared food fast high in convenience and packaging and low in nutrients and local food connections.

However we slice it, our busy, chaotic, modern lifestyles generally leave us low on time and quality food options.  I seem to live on either extreme:  either I’m working and writing from my farm, Inn Serendipity, with a freezer full of preserved garden goodies to eat, or I’m in town all day running through a laundry list of errands or taking a road trip into Chicago, undoubtedly skipping a meal and ending up famished.  And crabby.

A little planning goes along way in keeping well fueled on the road.  Here’s three tips for easy green meals to go, and a recipe for Stuffed Roti (pronounced “row-tee”) with Chickpea Filling, a hearty Caribbean-inspired sandwich stuffed with curried veggies, potatoes and chickpeas that can be readily noshed with one hand just about anywhere:

1.  Pack for Portability

The best to-go meals can be eaten anywhere, no silverware needed or overflowing special sauces needed.  With the dough wrapped around the roti filling, this sandwich serves as the industrial sandwich wrap.  These rotis taste good hot or cold – when possible I do like to microwave them piping hot and wrap in foil to keep them warm “to go.” Read the rest of this entry »

There are measurable levels of MNI’s toxic chemicals in every type of food that has been tested. Most are completely unregulated. There is no requirement that food be labeled to let consumers know that the chemicals are present. You can’t even avoid these chemicals by buying Organic. In fact, Organic produce often has even higher levels of some of the chemicals. You can’t wash them off because they are inside the food. There are very few studies on the long-term effects of ingesting these chemicals and none have ever been funded my MNI itself.  Only publicly funded studies have shed some light on the toxic nature of these chemicals.

This chemical production giant is not a public company so it does nothing to make its activities transparent. MNI has never been successfully challenged in court and isn’t subject to the jurisdiction of any government.

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The industry that has been providing us with high quality coffee may seem to be doing well today, but it actually faces a combination of issues that may well render our lattes and capachinos a very expensive indulgence in the future.  We will probably stop worrying about whether it is “Fair Trade” or “Organic” and worry about whether we can get it at all.

“Arabica” Coffee - the Good Stuff

Any coffee aficionado will tell you that ‘arabica‘ coffee (Caffea arabica) is far better than the lowly ‘robusta’ coffee (Caffea canephora) that made up the Folgers-style “cup of Joe” that I grew up drinking.  These are actually two different species of coffee and arabica only does well in a limited range of environments - mainly consisting of higher elevations in the tropics.  At lower elevations the pests (insects and diseases that ‘robusta’ can tolerate), devastate the more delicate, arabica types.  

Coffee Production Problem One

The places where arabica coffee can grow are shrinking.  Even subtle temperature increases caused by climate change raise the elevation limit for successful arabica cultivation.  Mountains get smaller as you go higher so you can imagine the issue.  There is less and less land suitable for arabica production.  If this was the only problem it might be fixable, but it isn’t coffee’s only challenge. 

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The benefits of organic and grass fed beef have been well documented.  Numerous studies have shown that organic and grass fed beef has significantly higher levels of Omega 3s and lower levels of saturated fats than conventionally produced beef.  But recent studies have cast doubt on the long held wisdom that grass fed beef does not have significant E. Coli contamination issues.

Conventional food wisdom has stated that since it isn’t raised on a feedlot, grass fed beef is less susceptible to E. Coli contamination.  Food activists from local food pioneer Michael Pollan to The Organic Consumers Association are among the proponents who vouch for the nutritional and sustainable characteristics of grass fed beef over conventionally produced beef.

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Last week, a commenter on my post about giving up cheese mentioned that eggs are a real stumbling block for her. She didn’t specify whether it was eggs in baking or the whole egg that she missed, but either way it’s a topic that bears addressing!

While I can’t promise that there’s a reasonable vegan equivalent for something like deviled eggs, there are lots of options to satisfy your eggy desires without any animal products!
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Talk about the trifecta of travel.  Make farmers’ markets a priority on your travel agenda and you save money (no admission fees), go green (most markets showcase seasonal, sustainable agriculture) and local (slap that cash directly in the farmer’s hand).

As my husband, John, and I and our eight-year old, Liam, trade Wisconsin winter on our farm for a few weeks working on writing projects on the California coast, indulging in the farmers’ market scene is like the equivalent of a therapists couch for our frozen Midwestern souls.  We see shiny happy people holding fresh spinach and the 20-degree below wind chill back home melts away as a far memory and all is momentarily right with the world.

While markets in January rank particularly appealing, you don’t have to solely escape parkas and snowplows to appreciate a farmer’s market while traveling.  We seek out local markets wherever we may roam.  According to USDA statistics, farmers’ markets grew in number by 13 percent between 2008 and 2009.  Tanking economies may just be what folks need to connect back to their food roots, craving a better quality, authentic connection to what’s on one’s plate.

Pack these seven tips the next time you travel to add some farmer’s market flavor and fare to your touring plans:

1.  Determine a destination Read the rest of this entry »