Eat. Drink. Better.

Eating “Local Food” is an appealing ideal in theory, but it runs into several “reality issues.”  As much as people might want locally produced food, there are practical issues of land availability, land costs, grower economics, water availability, and climate which sharply restrict the range of foods that could ever be practically grown as local crops, particularly when you look at how the US population is distributed.

When you go to your local farmer’s market and see a wide range of offerings it is tempting to think that local production could be a significant contribution to our diet.  When you look at what is actually  involved in growing the food supply, a different story emerges.  I spent some time gathering crop acreage data from the extremely useful USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) web sites.  If you haven’t even looked at these sites and you are interested in agricultural issues you should definitely check them out.

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I was at a turf industry trade show yesterday talking to a salesperson from a company that markets Organic fertilizer to golf courses (they describe it as the “natural amino acids found in feather, blood, meat and fish meals”).  There are actually a lot of better, controlled-release nitrogen fertilizer options for turf, but I decided just to be polite and ask if they were also selling into agricultural markets.  He said that they had very good sales for “Organic Tobacco.”  Apparently this is a growing export market to the EU with some domestic sales.

OK, is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture?  Can someone explain the logic here? Why would someone consume the most clearly documented cancer and heart disease-causing consumer product in the world and yet trouble themselves with whether it is “Organic?”

The scientific evidence for the health benefits of eating Organic are actually not as clear as many Organic consumers think, but I don’t believe that anyone could argue that the positives of “Organic” could overcome the health negatives of tobacco! 

Anyway, I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one.

Image of French woman smoking from saneboy

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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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

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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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 »

I was thinking of doing a post with a title like ‘In defense of cows’ or something along those lines.  This is not just because I’m a sort of carnivorous and contrarian guy (which I am), but because cows can actually do something that is objectively remarkable.  I know that lots of the readers on this blog are vegetarians or even vegans, and that is fine as a life-style choice for you. But no matter what your personal food choices are, it is worth thinking about what cows can do for the rest of us.

What Cows Do

One of the most abundant natural, organic chemicals in the world (cellulose), is something we humans can’t digest at all.  Cows are cool because they can eat cellulose and turn it into human-edible foods like milk and meat.  The reason that I switched the title of the post is that it isn’t actually the cows that should get the credit for this feat, at least not most of it.  Cows (and other ruminants like sheep, goats, bison, camels, llamas, yaks, water buffalos…) can only make this conversion because of the bacteria that they house in one of their stomachs.  In the whole world, there are only a few bacteria and a few fungi that have the capability of turning cellulose (the main structural polymer of all plants) back into the energy-rich, glucose sub-units of which it is made (bacteria also do that job for termites!).

I can relate to why many people have ethical issues with aspects of how beef or milk is produced today. But that does not, at least for me, mean that we should abandon the idea of harnessing the remarkable microbial process that has allowed ruminant animals to be such an important part of the human food supply in diverse cultures for millenia.  In fact I would like to see us refine not just the “animal wellness” aspect of this industry, but also its greenhouse gas issues.  

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Lentils are fantastic little legumes, packed with soluble fiber, folate, and magnesium. In addition to their nutritional qualities, they are also quite inexpensive. Most chain grocery stores should have lentils, and Whole Foods type establishments and your local Organic Co-op have them available in bulk, making them even cheaper and helping to stretch your food dollars.

I usually sneak a handful lentils into a variety of dishes including chili, soups, and casseroles, where they easily blend in with no fanfare. Often lentils serve as a side dish, but in this recipe they’re the main attraction. Assemble the following ingredients and you’re off.

• Carrot chopped
• Small onion, chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup dry lentils
• 14-16 ounces of veggie broth (or chicken broth if you don’t need it to be vegan/veggie)
• 1 Cup water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tablespoon orange zest

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