Eat. Drink. Better.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I’d like to add to the growing list of the benefits for healthy school lunches and school lunch reform that we blogged about yesterday. On Tuesday, USA TODAY ran an investigative story about tainted school lunches that shows how safety lapses in food production or distribution can put children at risk.

The lead of the piece is a story of almost 70 students at a Wisconsin elementary school who got sick two years ago after eating tainted tortillas. A subsequent investigation discovered that flour tortillas from the providing company were responsible for outbreaks at “more than a dozen schools in two other states” over five years. The FDA issued a warning about the tortillas, but the article says the warning never made it to school officials.

However, this case isn’t an isolated incident. According to the article,

The story of how food with a history of making kids sick continued to get into schools illustrates broad failures in government programs meant to provide safe, quality meals for America’s children, a USA TODAY investigation found. Parents and schools often have no idea where the food comes from. They know even less about the safety records of the companies that supply it. And if they try to find out, they face government roadblocks that put the rights of manufacturers ahead of providing information that could protect children.

It goes on to explain how food-borne illnesses often don’t get reported, authorities struggle to find the cause of the outbreak, or action on the issue comes to late — all factors that can potentially create safety risks.

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The Child Nutrition Act is up for renewal and Congress has extended the deadline to early 2010. We’ve talked before about the pitiful school lunch situation in the U.S. and about how you can help advocate healthy lunches for healthy kids. What we haven’t really covered are the whys. Are the benefits of healthier lunches really worth the cost?

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As Thanksgiving approaches, we tend to focus more on what we have to be grateful for.  We have a bountiful food supply, symbolized at this time of year by horns of plenty, Turkey Day feasts at our tables and in trade magazines from Country Living to Better Homes and Gardens, among others.

The stewardship of sending food and other basics in the form of care packages to poverty-plagued countries tends to be ignored.  I got a lesson in this dilemma as I watched a video at] my home church on Lutheran World Relief (LWR), a 64-year-old organization that sends donations of ordinary items we take for granted to help families and children in Third World countries that depend on agriculture for their livelihood and live on less than $2 a day in some areas.  While we go to college in hopes of writing our ticket to success, kids in Mali get wide-eyed at the sight of pencils and paper to write with.  LWR donors typically send simple things such as health kits, toothpaste, soap, needles and thread, quilts, and layettes for new mothers, 40 of which can be sent for $40.

That raises a major question about food.  How can we get that need met in Mali where crops are meager and cows look frail and sickly? A true and false test we took prior to the video presentation included statements such as “There is not enough food to go around,” “The free market can end hunger,” and “We benefit from people’s poverty.”

Just tell that to the Stop Hunger Now, an international hunger relief organization that coordinates the distribution of food and other life-saving aid around the world.  Stop Hunger Now’s vision is to end world hunger in our lifetime and has a mission to provide food and life-saving aid to the world’s most destitute and hungry in the most sustainable, efficient and effective manager.  SHN’s volunteer meal packaging program packages and ships dehydrated, high-protein, and nutritious meals for crisis situations and in school feeding programs.  Food, medicines and medical supplies are also sent to respond to emergency needs.  A recent article in the Charlotte Observer puts the world hunger count at a startling one billion people, a 100 million increase in one year, according to United Nations figures.  “The rise in hunger,” the article adds, “has also triggered riots and acts of violence.”  (See www.stophungernow.org)

While food prices have dropped off since mid 2008 they are still 24 percent higher then in 2006. Another unnerving statistic is that the growing hunger rate has become larger than the growing population rate, a trend that began two years ago. While most of the world’s undernourished live in developing countries, all regions of the world have recorded a two digit increase in hunger.

The food issue seems to be the inability of producers to get quality food to those who need it most. There IS enough food to go around but the free market won’t end hunger unless the system is based on something other than profitable sale.  Global improvements in food distribution logistics and infrastructure would reduce costs and travel distances for the benefit of well-fed shippers and hungry people.  That takes public and private stewardship and cooperative planning and implementation. A solution to poverty would combine food stewardship with showing people in Mali and elsewhere how to grow their own crops better.  It’s like teaching a man to fish so he can fish for a lifetime.

The U.S. food system has all the tools needed to send food to the hungry in an organized, efficient manner. The next step is to establish relationships with countries such as Mali and send our surpluses and provide our knowledge to areas who want a way out of poverty.  Such an effort, combined with public education about the hunger problem to motivate private donations to relief groups such as Lutheran World Relief, or whatever organization has a presence in our communities. No one should live on $2 a day.  The heads of large food companies and the people working for them sure don’t. Globalization involves social responsibility to peoples around the world.  Stewardship is wise use of resources that produce the best results without causing hardship on either side of the food equation.

Profit is possible with global stewardship.  It requires, however, a wider vision of what we can do with what we make to make the world a better place to live for everyone –not just the people in our own fertile back yard. Otherwise Edward R. Murrow’s Harvest of Shame, a 1960 CBS news documentary about the plight of migrant workers in America will trascend to global poverty that we all pay for in the end.

Bisphenol A (BPA) has gotten a lot of press recently, from infant formula to Sigg bottles, it’s everywhere.  But did you know that it’s also in your canned foods, especially canned tomato products, pasta sauces, and vegetables?

BPA is a compound used to manufacture plastics and has been in mainstream use for over 50 years.  But for all of its benefits, BPA has some significant drawbacks.  It can leach from plastics and plastic linings into the product that it holds, especially with acidic foods like tomatoes.  From the food products it then is absorbed into the human body, where it causes damage to the cardiovascular and reproductive systems, and can contribute to incidences of cancer, diabetes, asthma and obesity.

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I knew little about Foreign Animal Disease (FAD) when I walked into a Wisconsin Department of Agriculture (DATCP) talk on the subject Nov. 3 at the Microbial Sciences Center on the UW-Madison campus.  Here is a description of foot-and-mouth disease, an example of FAD, from www.cattletoday:

Foot-and-Mouth Disease is a severe, highly communicable disease of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and deer.  It is caused by one of the smallest disease producing viruses known.   Humans do not catch the virus.  The disease is characterized by blister-like lesions on the tongue, nose and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the toes which then burst, leaving painful ulcers.   The blisters cause a heavy flow of sticky, foamy saliva that hangs from the mouth.  Infected animals sway from one foot to the other due to the tenderness of the feet.  Although older cattle usually do not die from the infection, they suffer a severe illness which leaves them in a weakened state.  They have high fevers, stop eating, give less milk and become lame. 

The virus is extremely contagious and spreads rapidly unless it is contained. This usually requires quarantining infected farms, followed by slaughtering and burning all susceptible animals. Anyone having contact with animals in infected countries should not go near susceptible animals for at least five days.  Because the virus is spread so easily, countries with the disease are banned from exporting animals and their products, creating further economic hardship.  Foot-and-Mouth Disease was last seen in the United States in 1929. The U.S. Government places an extremely high priority on keeping the disease out of the country. 

The FAD Threat

The first speaker i heard reviewed the horror stories of millions of hogs killed in Europe between 1997 and 2001 from either foot and moth disease or classic swine fever, including a 2001 outbreak in the United Kingdom that killed 10 million animals at a total cost of $13 billion.

The numbers are staggering but foreign animal disease hasn’t caused nearly as much carnage in the U.S. or the state of Wisconsin — yet.  The major concern is that foreign animal disease can enter the country and disrupt the Wisconsin farm economy without warning. Two main causes are live animals that can come from elsewhere and spread the disease, or people coming or returning from abroad and smuggling diseased meat products into this country.

Preparing a Plan

The USDA, DATCP and local governments continue to develop a response plan acceptable to all sectors of Wisconsin agriculture that will effectively deal with an incident or outbreak. The big challenge is to get the word out about foreign animal disease so that a plan can be put in place that will work quickly and efficiently. That’s because the onset of foreign animal disease requires precautions so that the incident or outbreak is addressed qicklu without disrupting the transportation, distribution, and production of agricultural products, particularly raw milk that drives Wisconsin’s dairy industry.  According to DATCP, Wisconsin produces 25.1 billion pounds of milk each year from 1.25 million cows from nearly 13,000 dairy farms.  An outbreak severely disrupts the process.  A response plan reduces the disruption significantly.

A response would include setting up what amounts to safety zones around the affected farm and those closest to the occurrence and moving milk within specified zones to identified milk processing plants to get the product moving as quickly as possible. This is critical for raw milk, which can spoil after 48 hours. Though destroying affected herds has been done elsewhere, officials say it’s not a practical solution in Wisconsin. 

The Job Ahead

The main task for agricultural officials and milk marketers is to educate all players involved about foreign animal disease and develop an efficient response system.

the Wisconsin Agro-Security Resource Network (WARN) has a Web site intended to mobilize the entire food industry — dairy, beef, pork, egg, and poultry — to build relationships prior to an occurrence. Officials want to build on existing research and response plans from other areas to complete a plan that has total support.

“We are better prepared but we still have a long way to go,” USDA’s Ty Vannieuwenhoven told the audience.  That’s where citizen journalism plays a role. We can get the word out through GO Media and other outlets and participate in the public education needed to prepare for FAD, which is not a fad, but a potentially serious economic, logistic, and public health problem.

(Map courtesy Epoch Times Web images).

One issue that’s come to my attention since I started thinking more about my food is the debate about organic foods — are they healthier, and is the cost worth the potential benefits?

I’d love to buy organic food all the time, but it’s just not financially possible for me right now. That said, I believe in the health risks of pesticides on foods and would like to start moving in the direction of eating foods grown without them. But if I’m going to get a bang for my buck, which foods should I buy organic in order to protect myself from ingesting the most pesticides? Are some fruits and vegetables more susceptible to absorbing pesticides than others?

One list I found that can help answer this question is the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, which ranks 47 popular fruits and vegetables based on how many pesticides they contain, often after being washed and peeled. The list was put together by the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit group working on public health and the environment.

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Nope, it’s not a spooky tale left over from Halloween. After word got out that Canada’s flax seed crops had been cross-contaminated with a genetically modified variety, the country’s entire flax industry is in peril.

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Last week was a win for healthy foodies! Food manufacturers opted to suspend the Smart Choices labeling program, which would have deemed products like Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms as healthy picks.

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Chicken nuggets. Taco salad. Pizza. Cartons of milk. Hot dogs. Mystery meat. These foods were all staples of my elementary and high school cafeterias, despite clear guidelines about the nutritional benefits for school meals. Efforts to reform school lunch got a boost Tuesday when Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released “School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children,” a report of recommendations for how to reform school lunch.

The report was requested by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order to help align the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs with the most recent set of dietary guidelines for Americans. Current school lunches must meet guidelines set in 1995, but nutritional knowledge has progressed since then, and the report tries to address those changes.

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Fresh ingredients go a long way in adding flavor to any dish.  The same culinary theory holds outside of the kitchen in other contexts as well, as evidenced at the 13th annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference this past week in Des Moines, Iowa.  Over 500 activists from around the country gathered to connect, collaborate and challenge each other on ways to transform and improve our food system, including representation from young women dedicated to a farming career in sustainable agriculture.

As a female farmer myself, running Inn Serendipity farm and B&B with my husband, John Ivanko, in Wisconsin, this increasing blending and crossover between new women farmers with a passion for raising both cabbage and change cultivates a hefty serving of inspiration. These new women farmers grow more than food for our table; they rethink the status quo approach to our food system and provide keen insights into what needs to change.

“As one of the fastest growing groups of new farmers, women can be the change makers that transform our agricultural system into one that provides organic, healthy and fair food to us all,” explains Faye Jones, Executive Director of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), a Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) member organization that sponsored two women farmers to attend this conference. Wisconsin women farmers Jai Kellum of King’s Hill Farm and Erin Schneider of Hilltop Community Farm attended the CFSC Conference on behalf of MOSES.“It is important to keep the voice of farmers represented in the national discussion on food and agricultural policy and priorities,” sums up Jones.

Here are four of their tips for politicians to policy makers from Kellum and Schneider to improve our agriculture and food system: Read the rest of this entry »