Who needs food stamps? We're too fat already

When possible, I like to spend the first hour of my day reading the news, because it really does inform the political work I do.

Mark Bittman in this morning's New York Times asks, What's the difference between eating a cookie for breakfast and having a helping of a sweetened breakfast cereal?  Usually, the cereal has more sugar!  Bittman outlines the lobbying and political pressure that the "breakfast food" industry applies to any attempt to reduce sugar content or marketing to children.  So far, the industry wins every time.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is calling for big cutbacks in the federal Food Stamp program.

“If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?” Santorum asked.   ThinkProgress.

Three-quarters of those who live in this country are either overweight or outright obese.  The health problems that accompany obesity are well-documented.  What Santorum doesn't understand is that access to calories does not mean access to nutrition. 

Some few people manage to resist  marketing and the lure of cheap food, but the deck is stacked against us.  Occupy Breakfast? 


Photo from Frapestaartje's photostream at Flickr.

And just WHAT are genetically modified foods good for?

Bigger crop yields, right?  And resistance to weeds?

Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of "superweeds", according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.  The Guardian.

I already wrote about how Monsanto's RoundUp weed killer was creating superweeds..   (Wonder if they're edible?)

GM foods require more weedkiller and seem to be attracting more insect pests as well, and apparently for no good at all except to make Monsanto shareholders rich.  For the case against Monsanto, and what people are doing to organize, see the organic Consumer's Millions Against Monsanto page.

Graphic from Alphachimp's photostream at Flickr.

How can people go hungry when there's so much food?

One in seven people living on this planet is malnourished even though we have an abundance of food.  How does this happen?  Take just nine minutes to watch this video and you'll be able to summarize it for others in less than two.  Thanks for the tip, Fast Company!


How to feed the world ? from Denis van Waerebeke on Vimeo.

Chestnuts warm you up

There's something about the taste of a chestnut that warms me up, that evokes memories not my own, all the way back to the hunter/gatherer days.


This weekend at the veggie store I picked up a pound or so of chestnuts.  The absolutely easiest way to eat them is by making a half-inch cross-cut in the shell (otherwise, they explode) and roasting them for twenty minutes or so in a 350 oven.  Yum!

A hundred years ago, there were more than 3 billion American Chestnut trees in the U.S., but almost all were decimated by a blight.  A few groves of the American Chestnut have been discovered and there's still some hope resistant strains can be bred, but for now we don't have to go chestnut-less because blight-resistant Chinese Chestnuts grow well here.

Chestnuts have much less fat than other nuts and have been compared to brown rice in nutritional value.  I looked for a site online where I could capitalize on their low-fat benefits but instead found some recipes so decadent I gained weight reading them.  Here's one; check out others at Buy Chestnuts.

CHESTNUTS WITH PORTABELLA MUSHROOMS
From Frank A. Marra Jr. of West Virginia

2 8 oz. packages of Portabella Mushrooms - diced
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 stick butter (not margarine)
6 cloves garlic - diced finely
16 oz.heavy cream (2 half pint containers)
1 tablespoon fresh parsley - chopped
2 tablespoons of flour - optional 1/2 pound to a pound of Chestnuts - Prepared (shelled and chopped into quarters)

Combine olive oil and butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. Add sliced Portabella Mushrooms and garlic. Sauté until reduced by half. Add the cut up chestnuts and continue to warm through. Add the heavy cream and work down again until warm and bubbly. Season to taste. Sprinkle with chopped fresh parsley.
If sauce is too thin, up to 2 tablespoons of flour can be whisked in immediately after the addition of the heavy cream.
Serve over baked potato or pork chops.
A special Thanks to Frank A. Marra Jr. from West Virginia for sharing his special recipe!
  
Photo from Kanko's photostream at Flickr.

Why do we throw away $14 out of every $100 we spend on food?

That's right-- U.S. and Canadian residents waste 14% of our food because we let it go bad and throw it away.  I've been working on buying less (my fridge is dying and doesn't keep food well) but buying only what I need would be so much simpler if I could go to the corner store and buy a potato or an apple as easily as M&Ms and Frito-Lays.

“Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without” is how Colleen Vanderlinden begins her post, 50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again.  Here's a few of her tips; check out the rest at Planet Green. 

• If you have to dice part of an onion or pepper for a recipe, don't waste the rest of it. Chop it up and store it in the freezer for the next time you need diced onion or peppers.
• If you’re preparing squash, don’t toss the seeds. Rinse and roast them in the oven, just like you would with pumpkin seeds. The taste is pretty much the same.
• Made too many pancakes for breakfast? Put them in the freezer, then toss in the toaster for a fast, tasty weekday breakfast. Ditto waffles.
• If you have pickle juice left in a jar, don’t pour it down the drain. Use it to make a fresh batch of refrigerator pickles, or add it to salad dressings.

Photo from Evelynishere's photostream at Flickr.

Three proofs: you can solve all the world's problems with greenery

Everything is connected, even if we don't always understand how and why.

1. A recent study held by two Scottish universities showed that even a little bit of greenery near our homes improves our health. Green space reduces health inequities between rich and poor, maybe by encouraging exercise or reducing stress. This is especially true for heart disease and stroke, two conditions much higher among the poor.

A Columbia University study found that asthma rates among four and five year olds fell by 25% for every 343 trees per square kilometer! Given that asthma rates have gone up 50% in the last 20 years, and no one knows why for sure, this astoundingly simple preventative needs to built into urban planning. Again, the researchers aren't sure if the effect is because trees clean the air of pollution, or because trees encourage children to go outside, where they are exposed to the microbes necessary to build their immune system.

2. Not all greenery is created equal, however-- when it comes to the vegetables we eat, your mother's cauliflower is not the same as the cauliflower you eat-- it has 40% less vitamin C than it did in 1975, broccoli has 50% less calcium and watercress has lost 88% of its iron-- and this is as was measured in 2001. You can read about the discovery in the 2001 Le Magazine. And the larger the vegetable, the lower the nutritional value overall. A 2007 Organic Center report shows that

The more a tomato weighs, the lower its concentration of lycopene, a natural anti-cancer chemical that makes tomatoes red. There is also less vitamin C and beta carotene, a nutrient linked to vitamin A.

Milk from high-production dairy cows has lower concentrations of fat, protein and other nutrition-enhancing components than the milk from dairy operations of 20 years ago or more.

Sweet corn, potatoes and whole-wheat bread show double-digit declines in iron, zinc and calcium. The time span of the decline varies depending on the product studied but generally ranges from 20 to 100 years.

Vegetables pumped full of water from fertilizers and then grown in nutritionally depleted soil are nowhere near as good for you as vegetables grown in your backyard in a raised bed filled with your own compost from backyard greenery.

3. Finally, while we are all becoming more familiar with the necessity of greenery for the survival of the planet in terms of global warming, consider the number of wars caused by scarcity of resources, in particular water and food. Geoff Lawton at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia has been developing permaculture projects across the globe. This short video will give you a sense of what's possible if we are wiling.

Image from Inspired Economies.

REALLY easy homemade pretzel recipe

No pretzel you buy in the store could taste as good as these homemade ones. You'll want to go to the Frantic Home Cook for the whole recipe after looking at this luscious picture. There's no going back after you try it.

How will we feed ourselves? Food pantries feel the pinch

Pamela Metaxas at the Republican checked in with the area food pantries in an article on Tuesday, and the news is not good: as you might suspect, demand is up and supply is down. Well, few of us are better off this year than last. We need to find ways to feed ourselves.

There's a commercial on TV that drives me crazy. It shows a family in a car trying to eat a fast food meal. Soda is slopping, ketchup is dripping, and a hidden voice says, "Since when did this become a sit-down meal?" Next scene is set in a kitchen, eager family around the table, and mom pulling a pre-made Stouffer's lasagna out of the oven. "Now that's a sit-down meal!" the voice exclaims. Oh, yeah? Convenience foods are convenient, and that's about it.for value.

In future posts I intend to talk about community-supported agriculture, food coops, community gardens, kitchen gardens and bulk purchasing. But we have a long winter ahead of us, and the best food in the world will be for naught unless people start learning/remembering how to cook.

OK, I'm generalizing; I do know people who cook a lot and cook well./ But I'm not sure those folks are in the majority anymore.

We were on a pretty tight budget when I was a kid and I know now we usually ran out of money before the next paycheck. Coming from a French-Irish household, I can't say my mother was a very creative cook. Still, one of my favorite meals was potato stew with lots of black pepper. Basically, this was potatoes and onions sliced thin and thickened with a paste of flour. Maybe there'd be a small salad also. Then there was creamed peas and tuna on toast, or sometimes just the peas. Nutrition would balance out over time. Anyway, we got by.

My organization, Arise for Social Justice, is collecting "end of the month" recipes. if you have one, you can send it as a comment or email me at michaelannb@gmail.com.

Organic facts of the week

• If organic farming methods were practiced on all the planet's food-growing land, it would be like taking more than 1.5 billion cars off the road.

• You can increase your antioxidant intake by 30 percent by choosing organic.
• The average child in America is exposed to five pesticides daily in their food and drinking water.
• The U.S. water system is regularly contaminated above safe limits immediately following chemical fertilizer applications to farm fields.
• Farms in developing countries that use organic techniques produce an average of 79% more than farms that don't. From the Organic Consumers Association

Photo from digiyesica's photostream at Flickr - Creative Commons

Tuesday: Arise event on taking control of our food supply

Next Tuesday, September 24, The Arise Free School and Green Committees will be hosting a discussion with food issue expert and national agricultural journalist Zachary Lyons of Seattle's Chef's Collaborative at 7 pm. at Christ Church Cathedral, 35 Chestnut St., Springfield. Joining him will be Jessica Collins from Live Well Springfield and members from the urban youth agriculture project Garden the Community.

At issue: What if we could make sure that everyone in our community had access to healthful, delicious, low-cost food to nourish us now and into the future?

The event is sponsored by Arise for Social Justice, Live Well Springfield - Partners for a Healthier Community, Out Now and QuEST, the Pioneer Valley Sustainability Network and the Sisters of St. Joseph's SEED Program.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Arise at (413) 734-4948 or (413)
364-1287.

Photo from Garden Wise.

Delicious summer meal-- inexpensive, too!

For two people:

Take a loaf of Italian bread and slice it lengthwise. Put it in the oven until it is almost brown. While it's toasting, chop one tomato very fine and peel a clove of garlic, cutting off the root end to make a flat surface. When the bread comes out of the oven, rub the clove of garlic over all the white part of the bread-- edges, too. Take half the chopped tomato in your hand and lightly squeeze some tomato juice onto the bread, then spread the tomato on one half of the bread; repeat with the other half. Very lightly drizzle some olive oil on the bread, then sprinkle oregano to taste. (Dry oregano is actually better than fresh.)

I like to add a llittle crumbled feta cheese; fresh mozzarella sliced and cubed is also great. Of course, you can add as much as you want!-- olives, sliced onions or fresh peppers. But somehow, the simpler, the tastier. Try it.

Still not too late to put in a tomato plant (if you can find one). you'll have tomatoes in September.

Nice Italian bread recipe here.

How well would you understand food if you were paid to know?

USDA Secretary of Agriculture Edward Schafer was wrong by more than 90% when he told a U.N. emergency food that biofuels were only responsible for 2-3% of the increase in food prices. According to the International Monetary Fund, the real figure is nearly 30%.

This is from a good fact sheet from the Organic Consumers Association on biofuels:

THE BAD NEWS

• The amount of grain it takes to fill an average gas tank with ethanol would be enough to feed a person for a year.
• If the US stopped growing food and converted its entire grain harvest into ethanol, it would satisfy less than 16% of its auto­motive needs.
• The majority of US biofuels are produced from pesticide intensive genetically engineered crops (soy, corn).
• Increasing portions of biofuels are now produced by mon­ocultures of soy and sugar cane in Latin America and palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia, which have led to massive deforestation, the loss of invaluable biodiversity, and mas­sive outputs of Greenhouse Gases

THE GOOD NEWS

• Increasing fuel efficiency by just 3% would reduce US dependence on foreign oil more than all of the agrofuels combined, yet more than 500% more taxpayer money is spent on subsidizing ethanol than energy conservation, mass transit, solar, wind, and fuel-efficient technologies combined.

Are biofuels innately bad? No way! But why are we subsidizing big agribiz instead of developing non-food sources of biofuel production?

The cupboard is bare: one half a loaf for each of us

Worldwide grain production is up 4% from last year, some 2.3 billion tons worldwide, but, it won't be enough to build up countries' grain reserves, already at their lowest point in 30 years.
According to World Watch Institute, "Despite the record harvest, low stocks and strong demand combined to push prices of all cereals to new highs.At harvest time, U.S. corn export price was up about 70% from the previous year, while the American hard wheat5 price averaged 65$ more than a year earlier." The same is true in grain- producing countries around the globe.

Here at home, if you think that a significant portion of those amber waves of grain are in the stocks of the U.S. grain reserves, well, that's not exactly correct. Right now the U.S. has about 27 billion bushels of wheat in reserve. But we are about to sell more than eleven-twelths of that reserve, leaving the U.S. with only 2.7 million bushels. That's half a loaf for every person living in the U.S.

"Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian relief," Larry Matlack, President of the American Agricultural Movement said last week. "AAM fully supports the action and all humanitarian aid relief. Our concern is that the U.S. has nothing else in our emergency food pantry. There is no cheese, no butter, no dried milk powder, no grains or anything else left in reserve." FourWinds10.

Funny how many different ways wealth can be defined. When my younger daughter's father and I lived in Maine, we had four 55 gallon tin barrels lined with plastic and filled with rice, wheat and buckwheat. I used to thrust my arms up to the elbow in a barrel and feel incredibly wealthy.

Corn now sells for over $5 a bushel, up from under $2 in 2006. That means that any food product that uses corn as an ingredient will continue to climb in price, especially now that 20% of the Midwest's corn crop has been damaged by flooding. If you want to save money on food, avoid those that use corn. Make your own granola. And learn to love a variety of grains.

How to have free green onions forever

Looking to save money? My Byrd House has a simple tutorial about using the ends of onions to create all the green onions you want. Check it out.
Photo by Vigilant20 at Flickr.

Organic Consumers: Small farms more profitable

SMALL FARMS ARE MORE PRODUCTIVE AND PROFITABLE

• A 1,000 acre U.S. corporate farm growing genetically engineered crops nets an average of $39 an acre.
• In contrast, a four-acre family farm nets, on average, $1,400 per acre.
• Small organic farms are proving to be even more profitable. With oil prices on the rise, growing food without petroleum-based pesticides/fertilizers, and delivering that food to local markets will quickly prove to be the most affordable food available.

Source: New York Times
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_12216.cfm

Very hopeful, informative article on the roots of Community Supported Agriculture at Rodale, which is where the photo is from, including mention of Indian Line Farm is South Egremont, MA.

Planted your tomatoes yet? Food prices going up 9%

As reported by Reuters, Advanced Economic Solutions says food prices are going to go up 9% a year at least through 2012. If I've done my math right, that means that if a pound of tomatoes cost $1.79 in 2007, the same pound will cost $2.79 in 2012.

Check out the Helpful Gardener for some great tips on growing tomatoes.

Photo by Dockingman at Flickr.

Soil is the skin of the earth

This Sunday my nephew and I are going to be digging in the dirt-- taking the first six inches of soil from my old garden and moving it to my new garden five miles away.

I tried to have a garden in my new place last year, but the end result wasn't great. The soil was sandy and didn't make a fragrant ball in my hand when I squeezed it together-- just ran out between my fingers. I'd forgotten what unenriched backyard soil is like.

For nearly thirty years I gardened in the same spot, the deep back yard of an inner city house. My tools were a garden spade, a shovel, garden shears, a wheelbarrow, a trowel and a claw. I turned the soil myself each spring and in the first years, the thatch grew so thick I'd have to beat the clods against the earth to shake loose the dirt. I bought bags of composted manure for the first years and I started a compost pile. Just about everything went into it: leaves, yard waste, food scraps, used kitty litter (minus the poop). A few times I mixed in a 30 x bag of bone meal to help the pile heat up. My compost pile was very informal, not even fenced in. Once or twice a year I'd turn it by taking from the top layers with my spading fork and moving them to another pile. When I got down to soil, , my shovel would slide into dark, rich, grumbly earth and I'd shovel it (and many earthworms) into the wheelbarrow, cart it over to my garden and mix it in to the soil's top layers. I'd get ten or twelve full wheelbarrows a year. Now multiply that by thirty years over a 40' by 60' plot, add years of grass clipping and other mulch, and you can see why I want my soil! That soil is my true wealth, accumulated through investment and hard work.

I don't exactly know how I came to care so much about earth, seeing as I grew up in the suburbs and the city, but I feel incredibly fortunate to have more than a passing understanding of how plants are born, live, provide food, and enrich the soil at the end of their season.

Last week the Associated Press said that according to a new World Resources Institute report, food production has been cut by about a sixth because of declining soil productivity. One-fifth of the world's cropland has deteriorated to some degree.

Fertilizer is a quick fix to improve crop yields, but the real solution is soil health: crop rotation, addition of organic material, less tilling, cover crops, erosion prevention.

The Nation has a good article on the roots of our food crisis and what can be done about it.

The current global food system, which was designed by US-based agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, Monsanto and ADM and forced into place by the US government and its allies at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, has planted the seeds of disaster by pressuring farmers here and abroad to produce cash crops for export and alternative fuels rather than grow healthy food for local consumption and regional stability

Please, grow something-- anything-- this season.

Does this make sense? Canadian Gov't pays farmers to kill 150,000 pigs

The pork industry is on the verge of collapse in Canada and so the government will be paying $50 million to kill off 150,000 pigs. Each farmer who wants to participate must kill off an entire breeding barn of pigs and agree not to restock the barn for three years. About 25% of the meat will go to food banks; none will enter the market.

Besides the rising price of feed, new rules from the U.S. which will require "Country of Origin" labeling is reducing the demand for Canadian pork from American companies.

Farmers are encouraged to send their iigs to euthanizing centers, although nothing prevents the pigs from being killed on the farm. Article at Canadian Press.

How about if the government helps these farmers transition to crops that will always be needed, that helps the environment by reducing methane, and that doesn't require the taking of a life?

Plastic, chemicals and declining fertility rates: what, me worry?

Back in the early 80's I wrote an article for the Valley Advocate on the decline in sperm count in American men. I can't find it now but what sticks in my mind is that 20 million/mL was now considered within normal range whereas only thirty years before, 80 million/mL was normal. I remember that the chemical dioxin figured prominently as a suspect.

In 1996, Michael Castleman at Mother Jones magazine was bewailing the fact that fourteen years after NBC canceled an interview with the author because the story just wasn't firm enough, declining sperm rates still hadn't cracked prime time.

The silence is still deafening in 2008. We're starting to get the global picture, and we think about our bodies in terms of health, but don't think about declining sperm count unless we're actually trying to have a baby. Talk about a "silent epidemic."

The number of toxic chemicals found in semen and the rest of our bodies is quite astounding. The latest chemical to draw public attention is bisphenol A, a chemical used in the manufacture of hard plastic, including plastic baby bottles. Last week CVS, Walmart and other companies announced that by next year, all such bottles would be off their shelves and replaced with a different (presumably safer) type. Canada intends to ban all bottles with the chemical in 60 days unless evidence can be produced that the chemical is harmless. (Canada is using the Precautionary Principle to make its decision, which manufacturers of the bottles say is unfair. Here's the definition from Wikipedia:

The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.^[1] It aims to provide guidance for protecting public health and the environment in the face of uncertain risks, stating that the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason to postpone measures where there is a risk of serious or irreversible harm to public health or the environment.)

93% of the U.S. population has bisphenol A in their bodies, according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some years ago I remember reading that after a while, plastic milk bottles become permeated with fat from the milk. And where do those plastic molecules go, pray tell?

While we're working on the policy issues that affect our well-being, what can we do on a personal level? (Yes, it's still worth it.)

Don't heat food in the microwave using a plastic container. Don't store liquid food, especially acid or fatty foods in plastic. (Come on, hasn't some part of you always known it was a bad thing to do?) In the supermarket, look for foods stored in glass and hang on to the containers later for other uses. Because people don't cook much anymore, secondhand stores usually have plenty of great bakeware with lids, tall glass jars and other dishware for which you'd hesitate to pay full price.

Whatever control over our local environment that we can take, we must.

NAFTA to blame for rise in illegal immigration

Remember those activity books we had when we were kids where you'd have to connect the dots for the picture to take shape? If we connected the dots named NAFTA, illegal immigration, globalization, recession, job loss, environmental degradation and corporate greed, what would the picture look like? We're living in that picture but we have barely begun to connect the forces affecting us.

In 1995 2.5 million Mexicans were in the country illegally; by 2006, another 8 million had crossed the border. A major part of the blame has to go to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Why? Because more and more Mexicans can no longer make a living in Mexico!

• NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
  
• NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
  
• Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour. Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter, CommonDreams, 2006.
  

Within four years of NAFTA's implementation, 2 million Mexicans had lost their jobs, Mexico's share of imported food grew from 25% to 43%, and 40 million people were living in extreme poverty. Momentum.

Now, with a growing worldwide food crisis, Mexico's food security has been gravely damaged. Yes, there's still food-- but it's growing increasingly unaffordable, as Mexico's cost of living has nearly tripled in the last twelve years, while wages haven't even gone up by a third. Many of Mexico's farmers were strongarmed into growing genetically modified corn-- only to find out that saving seed, a practice thousands of years old in Mexico, was now illegal. New seed has to be bought from companies like Monsanto every year.

What other countries, including Mexico, are experiencing as a tidal wave is still only making ripples on our shore, but our luck won't hold out forever. Until we stop confusing the symptom (illegal immigration) with the cause, we won't be able to take the steps we need to change our ever-darkening picture.

Denis Poroy/AP/Wide World Photos