“Changing the Way We Eat”

So sang the headline of today’s TEDxManhattan live webcast, streamed on the big screens of listening parties across the nation.  In strict 9-minute increments, leaders of the good food movement took the stage in smooth succession to share stories of inspiration, highlight projects producing change and give a voice to visions of the future.

Dan Barber, Chef and Restauranteur, revealed how he fell in love with a fish.  This particular fish was allowed to develop full flavors undimished by impurities as part of a comprehensive, sustainable aquaculture ecosystem in Southern Spain that was extensive rather than intensive.

Brian Halweil, Senior Fellow at Worldwatch Institute, was in training to become an MD when he realized the single biggest way to touch lives is through agriculture: agriculture uses 40% of the world’s land and 70% of Earth’s freshwater while contributing 30% of the world’s greenhouse gases.  His subsequent about-face and enlightened brilliance has airlifted him to prestigious positions within the sustainable food community.

The Food Director of Mario Batali’s restaurants cited initiatives to green the food service industry.  She promoted LEED certified building designs, edible green-scapes on building facades, restaurant composting, drastic reductions in water consumption (waste) and sustainable fish and meats.

Josh Viertel, President of Slow Food USA, eloquently spoke of the table (where we learn to share, to disagree and to love unconditionally) and farming (the “Holy Trinity” of hands feeling, eyes seeing and mind thinking).  He concluded that change cannot happen from an enlightened consumer base voting with their wallets, yet forced to choose between the constrained, status quo options.  Change is contingent upon community members and leaders devoted to planting new options.  *One of the stories he told: as he apologized profusely to a delegation of Burkina Faso farmers kept patiently waiting at a Terra Madre conference, the leader graciously said, “You have the watch, we have the time.”

Michael Conrad, Professor at Columbia University, mapped distribution systems.

Barabara Askins, President and CEO of 125th Street Business Improvement District, spoke of Harlem food deserts.

Dr. Melony Samuels, Director of Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger, cited the many community benefits of an urban garden in Brooklyn.

Ian Cheney, co-creator and co-producer of King Corn and co-founder of Truck Farm, lightheartedly introduced farming (truck)beds and Britta Riley, co-founder of Windowfarms, promoted hydroponic window farms.

Elizabeth U, founder of Finance for Food, outlined ways for entrepreneurs to procure capital funds.

Along with many others!

But what can we do?  An abbreviated list:
1. Educate yourself!  Visit some of the linked out pages from this blog or pick up a book (check out the Grist’s favorite food books of 2010)
2. Shop Sustainable: Farmer’s Markets, CSAs and food cooperatives.
3. Talk to your neighborhood grocer and ask for local produce, meat and dairy options. Tell your friends to do the same! Maybe they’ll tell their friends….
4. Eat less meat. Eat grass-fed, pasture raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat. Happy animals also have less stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, coursing through their muscles, which means less stress we introduce into our bodies.
5. Grow your own.
6. Cook your own.
7. Compost your own!
8. Get involved with local community groups advocating for and promoting the environment, natural resources, sustainable food markets and public health.
9 & 10. Keep singin’ it!!!

Wendell Berry

I’m captivated. By the writings of the prophetic literary who inspired Alice Waters and Michael Pollan, among other icons of the food movement: Wendell Berry. The woods are his home and the streams are his music. His religion: Nature. As a farmer and preserver of agrarian ideals that reconnect us with the land, each other and God, Berry has published poems, essays and novels. I just opened a portal into the world through his eyes as eloquently and proverbially detailed in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry. The derivation of his thoughts and his structural composition of sentences transcends the writing of any other literary I’ve read. This post is devoted to transcriptions of some of his most moving insights. Enjoy!

“For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.” -1969

“All waters are one. This is a reach of the sea, flung like a net over the hill, and now drawn back to the sea. And as the sea is never raised in the earthly nets of fishermen, so the hill is never caught and pulled down by the watery nets of the sea. But always a little of it is. Each of the gathering strands of the net carries back some of the hill melted in it.” -1969

“There is indeed a music in streams, but it is not for the hurried. It has to be loitered by and imagined… The ear must imagine an impossible patience in order to grasp even the unimaginableness of such music.” -1969

“The gluttonous enterprise of ugliness, waste, and fraud thrives in the disastrous breach it has helped to make between our bodies and our souls.” -1977

“We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.” -1988

“Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?)” -1977

“I am walking the route of the departure of the virgin soil of the hill. I am not looking at the same land the firstcomers saw. The original surface of the hill is as extinct as the passenger pigeon. The pristine America that the first white man saw is a lost continent, sunk like Atlantis in the sea. The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.” -1969

“The concept of food-as-weapon is not surprisingly the doctrine of a Department of Agriculture that is being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation. This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country. If present attitudes continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland. To answer the call for more production – evidently to be used to bait or bribe foreign countries – farmers are plowing their waterways and permanent pastures; lands that ought to remain in grass are being planted in row crops. This exclusive emphasis on production will accelerate the mechanization and chemicalization of farming, increase the price of land, increase overhead and operating costs, and therby further diminish the farm population. Thus the tendency , if not the intention, of Mr. Butz’s confusion of farming and war is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations.
“The cost of this corporate totalitarianism in energy, land, and social disruption will be enormous. It will lead to the exhaustion of farmland and farm culture. Husbandry will become an extractive industry; because maintenance will entirely give way to production, the fertility of the soil will become a limited, unrenewable resource like coal or oil.
“If it does happen, we are familiar enough with the nature of American salesmanship to know that it will be done in the name of the starving millions, in the name of liberty, justice, democracy, and brotherhood, and to free the world from communism.” -1977
(We are still being sold the idea of feeding the millions with the modern solution being biotechnology. But the problem is not one of food shortage, it’s one of access.)

“If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities – and not the communities simply of our human neighbors, but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all creatures with whom our local life is shared. We would be looking too for another kind of freedom. …the freedom to take care of ourselves and of each other.” -1988

“But the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.” -1977
Amen!

Break it up guys

NPR ran an excellent, albeit brief, piece on US Secretary of Ag Vilsack’s recent probe into the state of agribusiness consolidation and its effect on the small family farm. (Listen Here!) The administration will lend its ear to producers directly and indirectly affected by the egregious abuses of corporate power in the agricultural sector through a series of workshops. Jim Foster, a hog farmer, intended to travel from his farm in Missouri to a workshop in Iowa to represent the interests of independent farmers.

The 5-tiered food marketing chain continues to grow increasingly concentrated through both horizontal and vertical integration. The hour-glass figure below is gathering tighter around the waist and further constraining farmers’ and consumers’ freedoms, just as a corset threatens to extinguish the burden bearer’s breath.

Today’s American farmer faces concentrated markets for both inputs (seeds and chemicals) and outputs (crops and livestock). Thanks to intellectual property rights, 5 biotechnology firms dominate the genetics market: Bayer, Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow and Syngenta. Only five firms control the seeds-of-life for a world market increasingly convinced that bioengineered crops are the economic answer to increased productivity and the social answer to increased food supplies for the poor. The latter of which is preposterous in its fallacy. The world produces in excess of the amount of food necessary to feed the entire population. The poor starve because they lack sufficient resources, countries lack proper infrastructure and governments lack enough integrity to secure food access. But I digress.

Concentration for farmers’ outputs is due to consolidation in the processing and manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing tiers. 78% of hogs are slaughtered in large plants, with 4 of the largest firms controlling 64.1% of the slaughter market. Almost 70% of cattle slaughter is concentrated in the hands of the 4 largest firms, while 4 companies account for 83.5% of beef packaging. Tyson Foods is the largest protein firm in the world and the largest beef and broiler processor in the US, dominating one-third of each market. An immediate adverse thought is the potential for one sick animal to infect large swaths of surrounding, susceptible carcasses and meat.

Grain processing, too, is concentrated in the hands of a few. Four companies control 60% of terminal grain handling facilities. Concentration at the grocery wholesaler and retail levels are also on the rise, with the share of grocery store sales held by the largest 4 firms doubling from 16% in 1982 to 32% in 2005. Unfortunately, studies have found that cost efficiency gains from acquisitions and mergers have not been passed down to consumers. Since 1982, food prices have increased about as much as prices for consumer goods and services overall.

In addition to horizontal integration within tiers of the food marketing chain, we are also witnessing the creation of integrated food chain clusters that control food and agriculture from genes to shelf. As Hendrickson and James, 2005, state, “…economic power in food and agriculture – and thus the power to make decisions about where and what food is produced, who grows it, and where it is marketed – is moving toward a few global firms embedded in a web of relationships in food production, from genetics to grocery retailing.” One example of this vertical integration is the Cargill/Monsanto partnership diagrammed below.

The squeeze of agribusiness around the producers is like a noose! Market concentration denies farmers the inherent right to decide what to plant and raise and how to harvest. For example, production standards set by poultry integrating firms mandate 1) when the chicks will be delivered to the farmer and when the chickens will be picked up 2) the types of housing, animal feed and treatments for illness and 3) the amount farmers are compensated. The integrating firms even own the animal feed! The hog industry is beginning to parallel the poultry industry; farmers are mere pawns.

The soil is taxed under repetitive seasons of monoculture cropping and genetic homogeneity. The rich knowledge and skill set passed down through generations of work on the land is beginning to erode with the soil. Farmers are financially breaking under economic pressures demanding bigger operations and firm pressures to build highly specialized production facilities. The current trend of agribusiness consolidation and integration needs to be obstructed and, ideally, reversed.

Hendrickson, M.K., and James, H.S. The Ethics of Constrained Choice: How the Industrialization of Agriculture Impacts Farming and Farm Behavior Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics (2005) 18: 269-291.

Hallelujah!!

Is it…? No. Can it really be…? Yes, yes, YES! The very first buds on a cluster of trees, which can only mean one thing: spring! This winter has been fairly mild (by Boston standards), so it may not be premature to begin celebrating the most anticipated time of year. This, on the same day that my spirit began to bloom amid the prospect of connecting the sustainability movement with the field of Dietetics.

The Boston area dietetic interns meet regularly for Joint Class Days, with the hosting institution selecting the theme or topic. Simmons College chose to devote the entire day to conversations on Sustainability. {fist pump!} Sheer delight and excitement diffused into my dreams last night, where I listened to speeches of the grandest eloquence with rapt attention. Moored by reality, today’s presentations were still provocative. All the speakers were genuinely committed to and actively advancing the values, mission and future success of sustainable food systems. Unfettered. They evoked the names of Wendell Berry, Willie Lockeretz and Carlo Petrini, made references to expose literature and media and encouraged participation in a Community Supported Agriculture, Slow Food, farmsite internship rotations and the Hunger and Environmental Dietetic Practice Group. One speaker fabulously, and repeatedly, referred to his anarchist past and a few audience members squirmed.

Although dietetics and sustainability often seem to be at odds with one another, there exists hope and vitality in the collaborative and reconciliatory partnerships between a growing number of dietetic professionals and the sustainable movement. Precisely what should be done! The rising tide of the sustainable food movement is gaining momentum and we, the “food professionals”, ought to be riding the top of the wave. It is with a renewed sense of purpose that I continue forward into the field of dietetics. No longer feeling isolated from that which inspires and enlivens me. Astutely aware of this rare opportunity to position myself at the leading edge of an energized, powerful and meaningful movement.

And now something to rev up your engines! The Center for Science in the Public Interest developed a book titled “Six Arguments for a Greener Diet” that can be downloaded from their website. The preface to the book can be found on my “Articles” page. The six arguments are:
1. Less chronic disease and better health
2. Less foodborne illness
3. Better soil (if our soil is unhealthy, our food is unhealthy. if our food is unhealthy, we are unhealthy.)
4. More and cleaner water
5. Cleaner air
6. Less animal suffering
But fortunately they don’t stop there. They also discuss ideas to promote change in the system, through individual diet choices and support of government policies. The most important thing to remember is that change will only happen when we, the consumers, vote with our wallets. The entire food supply chain, all the way from grocer to farmer, as well as politician, will follow the money.

Winter Wonderfulandia

Winter weather writing position assumed, atop a blanket, atop a heating pad, atop the desk chair, all topped off by Sage. Piled layers attempting to stay toasty. A core-warming, steaming mug of Coconut Assam tea resides faithfully next to the computer. Out the bedroom window the fine snow flurries of the past 24 hours have transformed into swirling vortexes of fat snowdrops. The coasts have been hit with 1 foot of snow and if the patio table on the front deck is any indication, Cambridge is not far behind. Everything is covered in a pristine white blanket of fresh powdah; pitched rooftops, naked tree branches, picket fences, squarely pruned bushes, undulating side yards and curbside parked cars. The cover is so fine that one steady blow easily scatters the entire contents of a two mitten-full scoop.

On a walk through this winter wonderfuland yesterday, Dickens’s charm was around every corner. Gold lights twinkled under white eaves, flecks of snow glistened under lampposts, flurries danced around my head, snow plumes trailed off the roofs of once-buried traveling cars, perfect silence was occasionally punctuated by muffled sounds, snow crunched underfoot, little dogs flaunted snow beards and snow blowers replaced lawnmowers. Reveling in the scene before the novelty wears off. Pictures from today’s snow play will be uploaded below.

The Articles tab has been updated with a 2009 Food & Water Watch report entitled “Unmeasured Danger: America’s Hidden Groundwater Crisis.” If you’re unfamiliar with the water scarcity crisis, this report is strongly encouraged reading. Briefly, only 1.1% of the Earth’s water supply is freshwater available for human use and consumption, of which 96% pools in groundwater reservoirs (aquifers). Groundwater pumping has drastically drawn down underground water levels and threatens the future sustainability of this vital resource. A longer entry on the subject will follow shortly.

{Update: pictures, as promised}

Snow covered wooden bench, at dusk

Thanks-giving

This is the first Thanksgiving away from the family, really ever. Not to mention my little bro’s quarter century celebration: HAPPY BIRTHDAY doobers!!! Can I still call you that? Perk of being the older sibling xoXXoOXxOxOo

My thoughts and heart remain rooted in Austin. Called the folks just in time to get passed around the group and give long-distance hugs through the phone line. Talked to sweet Lukie, who grows older by the day and will be all of 10 by the time I make it back home! But forever my little man. Didn’t get to talk to the cuz, who was busier than ever whipping up her magic in the kitchen to dress a table to overflowing. I miss you all! Thank-you to my family, the rock foundation from which I go out into the world and explore, ever thinking of and loving those most special to me. I need only close my eyes and am brought right back to your doorsteps.

This last hour up until departure time finds me editing a policy brief and grabbing a few moments to write a quick Thanksgiving note. Mouth-watering smells of sauteing onions and roasted cumin and coriander carry into my room from the kitchen. These are just some of the ingredients in the Colombian rice Leila’s contributing to our upcoming Latin Thanksgiving/feliz cumpleaños de Jesus feast. The non-traditional menu also includes Mexican salmon tortillas and the promise of flowing Spanish conversations (of which I will listen to as if being lifted into the clouds by a favorite lullaby).

I’m grateful for the gifts of good food and even better company to share the table with in this, one of the most charming and historic cities in the country. Cambridge has been a soft landing and I’m endlessly thankful for my grounded, easy-going, fun-loving and radiant friends.

My beautiful roommate and I, bellies full and fully happy.

Addendum: After an evening of Spanish words danced in my ears, I came home and vividly dreamt about Spain. Visions and emotions came flooding back and, although faintly aware of my dream state, I gladly allowed myself to return to the land of enchantment.

The Grad School Life

School is heating up and the end of the semester is barreling down. Is it, can it really be, only 3 more weeks?! Continued blogging absences can be attributed to term paper commitments. It has become apparent that there is only one thing grad students are expected to love more than reading: writing. Thankfully writing does happen to be a hobby. But under pressure? Not so much.

That said, we have been given total autonomy in selecting term paper topics. This has posed the seemingly contradictory problem of plenty; where to even begin? While two are still in the idea formulation stage of development, one is decidedly dedicated to teasing out structural changes in agriculture that have contributed to the impending water scarcity crisis. Compelling research articles will likely be shared on the “Articles” page over the next few weeks. A potential topic for the second paper is a review of research into the higher nutrient quality of organic versus conventionally grown produce. Supposedly the scientific literature in this field is inconclusive? If this is true, for shame! If not, knowledge is power. Either way, organic is still far superior for all the other beneficial environmental, humane and health aspects conferred by its growth and management (WalMart/Kellogg/GM/Cargill/Unilever versions of organic NOT included). Stay tuned for research articles into this topic as well. The final paper will be devoted to International research, more specifically the factors that led to the food price crisis in Zimbabwe last year and the government’s response to protect its citizens from further food insecurity and malnutrition.

That’s a lot. Time to get busy. But first, some daydreams about the Costa Rican tropics and a movie with friends. The rabbit hole can wait…

Innovative Strategies to Combat Food Deserts

City officials, pay heed! A few enterprising health departments, non-profits and universities are implementing new initiatives to address food deserts (not sure what a food desert is? check out this video).

While lack of food access is largely considered a developing or under-developed country issue, urban America is increasingly experiencing food access shortages. Corner stores and fast-food chains are often the only food retailers in poorer communities, ipso facto, they are the gatekeepers of food selection and variety. Corner store shelves are primarily stocked with candy, chips, cookies and pastries, high-salt canned items, processed boxed foods and sweetened beverages. Fresh fruits and vegetables are underrepresented due to perishability, lower profit margin and lack of consumer demand. A recent New York Times article, Pushing Fresh Produce Instead of Cookies at the Corner Store, highlights successful health promotion campaigns that encourage bodega owners to offer fresh fruits and vegetables.

Through a variety of grants, promotional and neighborhood health events and zoning and tax incentives, owners selected as program pilots can receive refrigeration equipment, business and marketing advisement, zoning permits and tax credits, market research and wholesale price negotiations. A tandem movement of increasing product availability and consumer education that shows promise in the harsh desert environment!

And We’re Back

Apparently I’ve been on a blogging hiatus. Time is flying!

The past 4 weekends blew in a refreshing front of Austin friends and family, some with the Texas sun still glowing in their eyes and on their skin. Others came to Boston by way of more circuitous winds that wove through Seattle, NYC and DC. Each visit was an opportunity to explore the city even further with loved ones. And explore we did!! A few highlights, to entice future visitors:

* Top of the Hub for drinks, live jazz and a 52-story high sweeping view of Boston.
* A road trip to Russell Orchards, featured in the Fall 2009 issue of Edible Boston, to apple pick and devour warm apple cider donuts.
* One Long Wharf in Rockport to watch white capping waves rise and break on the coastal rocks and setting sunlight capture ocean spray in the air like suspended beads of silver. Dinner at Roy Moore for fresh lobster rolls.
* And of course, the food! My favorites and recommendations: Spanish tapas at Dali and Tapeo, Turkish brunch at Sofra, Boston clam chowda at Sail Loft, pho at Le’s and Pho Pasteur, authentic North End Italian at Villa Francesca and La Famiglia Giorgio, Cafe India, Burdick’s Chocolate Cafe and Pinnochio’s pizza.

Awoke this morning to Leila in the kitchen, Country Gourmet Apple Spice pancakes from Russell Orchards cooking on the stove and oatmeal raisin cookies warming in the oven. Morning light poured in through the living and dining rooms. The table was set with Russell Orchards honey, Dripping Springs Pumpkin Butter, Harvest Time Farm in Canyon Lake Blackberry Jelly and Truly Texas Amaretto Peach Pecan Preserves. Our friend, intoxicated with the light, warmth, smells and flavors, made several comments on how our house felt like a home. Welcome!

We built on the morning’s momentum with an afternoon walk and “leaf peeping” along the Charles River. Fall colors span the warmth spectrum, from soft yellows to rich oranges to brilliant reds. Sunlight is diffused and amplified amid the canopies, while occasional streams of light puncture the trees and dot the ground. Fallen leaves pile in broad circles around tree bases and look like reflections of the canopies above. Undoubtedly, this is New England’s most beautiful time of year.

A pot of homemade pasta sauce now simmers on the stove and beets roast in the oven. Tonight’s menu: portabella, spinach lasagna, beet and balsamic glazed onion salad, chianti wine and great company! Happy Halloween!!

An Udder Disgrace

Let’s talk dairy, shall we? The less oft addressed scourge of our industrial food system.

Conventionally raised dairy cows live through an average 10 lactation cycles over the course of a 13-14 year lifespan. Each lactation cycle, unless stimulated by bovine hormones, is initiated by birthing an artificially inseminated calf. The calf is removed shortly thereafter so as not to drink any of its mother’s milk now intended for human consumption.

Let’s get this straight: we’re removing calves from the udder to feed babies removed from the breast? Talk about contrivance.

A super majority of dairy cows are fed corn in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which causes painful swelling in ruminant stomachs built for digesting grass. Dairy cows are also often afflicted with mastitis as a result of overlactation (the average dairy cow produces 34,000lbs of milk/year and the current record is 73,000lbs in one year. That’s 200lbs of milk a day… for a year!) These cows are rarely therapeutically treated with antibiotics since treated milk can’t go into the vat for production. Consequently, they suffer. They are commonly treated sub-therapeutically, though, and those antibiotic residues go straight into the milk supply.

At least we can count on organic. Right?

Market prices for organic milk continue to plummet in the wake of increasing supply. The number of large organic dairy operations has jumped from 2 to 15 in the past 9 years. The Cornucopia Institute estimates the dairy industry now raises between 35,000 and 45,000 cows on CAFOs (read the executive summary of their report Maintaining the Integrity of Organic Milk here). This accounts for roughly 40% of the nation’s organic dairy supply! The USDA has penalized some cases of pasture rule and organic non-compliance (Horizon is a repeat offender), but legislative loopholes in the organic definition compounded by meager enforcement resources at the USDA have allowed many violations to continue unnoticed.

The rise in industrialized “organic” dairy threatens small scale, family farmers who embody organic quintessence. Primarily, increased production and competition drives market prices down. The price dairy farmers receive for 100lbs of milk is down 41.5% since July 2008, yet grocery stores prices have only fallen by 24% in the year. This raises the additional concern that middlemen (processors, distributors and grocers) are skimming from the top at the expense of producers (farmers). Secondly, economies of scale allow large, industrialized operations to produce yields at a much lower cost/unit than small scale, organic operations.

Small organic farmers are forced to sell milk at prices lower than production costs and left with two options: produce more or close the doors of their dairy stores. The former is not a viable option, as supply increases will further drive down market prices. The government and dairy industry groups are actually attempting to reduce supply by paying farmers to take dairy cows out of production (i.e. send them to slaughter). Belgian, German and French dairy farmers have sprayed millions of liters of milk onto farmland in protest of low prices. Increasingly, small dairy farmers can’t sustain negative returns and are going out of business.

A worst case scenario would be the practical extinction of small scale, organic dairy farms. These are the true stewards of our land and providers of our food, the individuals who perpetuate the core values of the organic philosophy: humane treatment of livestock, environmentally sustainable practices, healthy product and subsistence farming. So help us and the cows if organic dairy becomes yet another industrial empire.

What can you do? Make yourself, family and friends aware. Source dairy locally from the farmers markets or ask your local food co-op or grocer why they don’t directly buy organic milk products of local dairy farms. As one store product manager put it, “If 10 people ask, that means 100 other people thought it but didn’t ask.” Key words are Grass Fed and Pasture Raised. “Natural” means nothing, as there are not regulations on the claim. And, for your own health, substitute olive oil or canola oil for butter, enriched rice or almond milk for cow’s milk and use a little less cheese.

Now hop to it grasshoppers, and change the world!