Sorry about the long wait, but work comes first.  Anyway, I am getting back in the swing of things for a little while.

Science News in Brief

The Large Haldron Collider has resumed operation and set a new world record for energy.  Its particle beams were accelerated at over one trillion volts.  This was just a precursor to the Collider’s primary scientific tests set for the year 2010.

Still No Black Hole: Just to give you a sense of the energy involved here: a lightning strike hits with about 1 billion volts.

A cross-disciplinary team of researchers from universities across America have released a study which indicates that climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan African countries by as much as 50% in the by 2050.  These wars would be fueled by decreased water supplies, fewer food sources, and increased poverty rates.

Talking World War III Blues: Already, 5.4 million people have died from civil war the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II.

Scientists seem to have discovered the reason for the hammerhead shark’s strange head shape.  The shape allows sharks to see almost in 360 degrees in binocular vision.

Weird Animal Fact: The mantis shrimp has the best eyesight in the animal world.  It is the only animal to to have hyperspectral colour vision.  That is, it can see across the electromagnetic spectrum.  We can only see visible light.

Cool Creature

I already covered the kakapo, but I have been dying to post this video.

Feature Story: Remember Me

Are some animal species more important than others?  A recent study which examined 222 carnivore species around the world points to the fact that certain carnivores should be more protected than others due to their ecological importance and individuality.

Even though carnivores are probably the most studied animal group, their taxonomic connections are not well understood.  Thanks to genetic testing, scientists are now able to construct much more accurate taxonomic maps.

The study supports the theory that describes the split of carnivores into two main evolutionary groups: dog-like carnivores (Caniforms) and cat-like carnivores (Heliforms).  The same study also revealed some so-called Confused carnivores which do not fit neatly into the aforementioned classification.

Researchers performing the study also isolated a number of carnivores which are unique in the ecological services they perform and the way they evolved.  They suggest that these species, including monk seals, red pandas, and walruses, should be more protected than others because they are so unique.  Because they are evolutionarily distinct, they have genes and evolutionary history not found in any other species.  This makes it important with regards to biodiversity: by increasing genetic variability.

The Cosmic Perspective

All people value equality: the right to be treated with equal respect and dignity as any other human being.  Those who value the environment tend to extend that to the animal world.  We do not like to show preferential treatment to certain animals just because they are cute and cuddly.  So, this study which claims that certain animals are more important from an evolutionary perspective comes as a bit of a shock.  Why should a walrus be more important than a snow leopard?

I look at this from two points of view: that of a scientist and that of an environmentalist, because I consider myself to be both.  As a scientist, I definitely see the merit of protecting certain species.  Different animals perform different tasks in an ecosystem.  Certain animals’ roles are more critical to the functioning of the system as a whole than others.  It is a principle of network systems thinking that  nodes (animals) in a system (ecosystem) can be ranked based on the number of nodes which connect to them and the importance of those nodes.  So, the more important connections an animal has, the more important it is in an ecosystem.  However, even a few important links can prove to elevate a species to a higher status than one with many relatively commonplace connections.

That being said, all animals play an important role in biodiversity.  Biodiversity provides for the astounding variety of different organisms, genes, ecosystems in which they exist, and biological services these organisms provide for life to adapt to changing environmental conditions throughout history.  It would be foolish not to save as much as we can of the already dwindling amount of biological diversity we have on this planet.  We often do not know how important something is before it is gone altogether.

Un po’ stuzzicati dal Wopper a sette strati di Burger King, un po’ per fare contrasto con i tanti discorsi vegetariani che facciamo durante le puntate, questa settimana abbiamo preparato un hambaagaa giapponese assieme alle crocché di cavoletto di bruxelles (sempre sia lodata). Mentre cucinavamo si è parlato di:

• Food, inc. [nyt, youtube]
• I cibi biologici sono veramente migliori?
• Quando uno chef non può assaggiare (questa parte, per un problema tecnico, è sparita dal podcast, ce ne scusiamo)
• Pipistrelli e sesso orale

La playlist della serata:

• I am happy – Soerba
• Homesick – Kings of Convenience
• Thriller 8bit tribute mix – Saitone
• Mrs. Robinson – Pomplamoose
• The Brits are playing at my house – The Beatles vs LCD Soundsystem vs The Kinks

Per gli amici del podcast: ora abbiamo una pagina su iTunes. L’icona qui a lato vi porterà direttamente là. L’abbonamento è gratuito e ogni settimana scaricherete automaticamente la nuova puntata. Per tutti gli altri permane il metodo tradizionale.

 

Is it time for a prolonged discussion about where our meat comes from? Photo of an Irish beef cow by Thomas Urell

I eat too much meat. I’ve known this since I started really looking at the foods I was eating, reading about where it all comes from and cooking for myself. Writers like Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser have helped me understand what I could have only imagined before: as a culture, our meat consumption is not only nutritionally excessive, but has created an unsustainable food system as well, this latter taking a serious toll on our environment. And then there’s the horrible way the animals are treated.

Now, I think more. I have started paying closer attention to the quality and total amount of meat that I eat, in a single serving and over the course of my week. Taking cues from chef/philosophers like Mark Bittman and Alice Waters, I no longer want to cook meat at every meal and can even forgo ordering meat in restaurants on occasion (gasp).

But I do still eat it. And—confession(?)—I usually love it. I’m excited about offal, love roasting big cuts and whole chickens and will spend all day skimming a perfect stock. When I have the opportunity, I engage with the origin of my food, learning where it comes from and even meeting the animals. I try only to buy meat that I have confidence in, such as grass-fed beef. The same goes for sustainable fish, but sometimes halibut can be so tempting.

Which all leads me here. On Friday of last week, Jonathan Safran Foer spoke to WBUR’s Tom Ashbrook of “On Point” about his new book, Eating Animals, which is making a lot of noise. I have not read the book, but Safran Foer’s argument is an ethical one and seems to be sound. He is looking at the conditions of meat farming and the stark environmental implications of it, which leads to another ethical question about what we leave behind for future generations. (For a quick introduction to “Eating Animals,” check out these writings by Safran Foer: a particularly provocative piece in the Wall Street Journal from last month asks why we don’t eat dog and an excerpt in the New York Times Magazine that showcases Foer’s brilliant storytelling.)

One of the callers to Friday’s show raised a common question: unable to afford feeding her family with grass-fed, free-range or organic meat, she was forced to buy conventional meat at the grocery store. To her mind, her financial situation left no choice. Foer responded by saying that she did, in fact, have another option–not to buy meat at all.

Total abstinence may well be the best option in the opinion of some, but it raises a further question: do average consumers have a right to eat meat as often as they do? Or should it be a luxury, enjoyed only as often as one could afford conscientiously-grown, free-range and organic meat?

At the end of the day, Foer has stopped eating meat and thinks we should all do the same. For me, it is important that the discussion continue and more people become actively engaged by thinking and talking about the origins and ramifications of their meat-eating. In the mean time, I will continue to eat less, and better quality, meat.

What’s your take? Have you read Foer’s book and will it change your mind about eating meat?

I’m all ranted out for now, so I shall bring this series to a close.  I have hinted at a number of things we, the average consumer, can do to improve the system.  So, to finish off the series, I am posting a list created by a professor of Environmental Studies, Dr. Richard Andrus, which I think is completely reasonable to attain.

For personal health-

1. Eat more whole foods and avoid processed sugars & starch.
2. Avoid factory farmed meat, dairy & eggs wherever possible.
3. Eat modest amounts of grass-fed meat.

For the environment-

1. Avoid factory farmed meat.  They cause massive pollution issues from concentration of nitrates and massive erosion from corn & soybean production for animal feed.
2. Buy local. This cuts back of food miles and helps reduce CO2 emissions.
3. Buy unprocessed food, as processing takes huge amounts of fossil fuels.
4. Avoid any processed drinks that come in a non-reusable container. The only reusable containers available currently are glass beer bottles from Canada. Recyclable does NOT mean reusable. Most recycled containers end up in the landfill.
5. Buy organic, as long as it’s unprocessed.
6. Grow, cook and brew your own.

For everything!

1. Purchase as little food as possible that results in profits for corporations. There are two reasons. One is that by law they are bound to maximize profits for shareholders, which means they are bound to take advantage of human weaknesses that attract us to unhealthy foods. The second reason is that a prime way to increase profits is do whatever you can legally do to externalize the costs of your activities. This results in pollution from agricultural fields, abuse of farm workers. contamination from factory farms, abuse of farm animals,and  huge production of packaging solid waste.

Andrus, Richard, PhD. Some Simple Dietary Suggestions. Binghamton University. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.

Nachdem ich letztens bei REWE an der Kasse mein definitives Aha-Erlebnis hatte, kam ich jetzt auch noch zum passenden Prüfungsthema. Sonst sei meine Auswahl zu soziologisch gewesen, meinte die Professorin, also diesmal bitteschön richtig deepe Volkskunde. Bin ich jetzt mit Ernährungsforschung mehr als zufrieden und lese mich gerade in Fast Food ein. Doch schnell nochmal zu REWE zurück.

Mein Verhältnis zu Fleisch war schon länger nicht das beste, doch trotz aller Skandale und den viel zu günstigen Mensapreisen – zu günstig um auch nur halbwegs Qualität zu suggerieren – funktionierte die Macht der Verdrängung ganz gut, bis ich dann an der Kasse stehend, auf dem Bildschirm über mir sah, dass ein Händler zugegeben hat, jahrelang jahrealtes Fleisch verkauft zu haben, das wiederum auch an Endkonsumenten ging. Das hat gesessen. Und seitdem übe ich mich in kadaverfreier Ernährung, was schon eine gewisse Zeit braucht, will man nicht nur Nudeln mit Gemüse, sondern auch nordafrikanisch/orientalisch essen.

Selbst wenn man die – natürlich reisserische – Doku “Earthlings” (Video hier) übersteht, wird einem ab Mitte von Schlossers – natürlich auch reisserisch – Buch wirklich übel. Er beschreibt in Fast Food Gesellschaft die Fast-Food-Industrie, fängt mit ihrer Entstehung nach WKII an und zeigt den american way auf. Strengläubige, 70h die Woche arbeitende Self-Made-Men, die trotz ihres Glaubens keine Probleme haben tausende von Menschen auszubeuten, den größten Müll (inhaltlich, nicht geschmacklich) als Akt des Patriotismus zu verkaufen; riesige Kartoffel-/Huhn-/Rindfabriken, Arbeitsbedingungen in populärwissenschaftlich-journalistischer Art.

Klar ist das sehr einseitig und man kann auch viel kritisieren am Stil des Autors und für die Prüfung wird dat Dingen ooch keene große Rolle spielen, aber die entscheidenden Stellen sagen genug richtiges aus. Besonders der Zustand in den Schlachthäusern, asozialste Arbeitsbedingungen und hygienischer Supergau, dass man auch alles selbst durch kurzes Nachdenken wissen könnte.

Zum Beispiel, dass beim Gedärme ausnehmen, selbst bei einem guten Schlächter, alle eins-zweihundert Rinder die Därme platzen und der ganze Inhalt im Verarbeitungsprozess bleibt oder es auch klar ist, dass die Tiere durch die Bank weg krank sind, da sie in ihren eigenen Exkrementen leben müssen, so wie die Europäer im Mittelalter nur in engerem Raum – was die Ausbreitung von Seuchen enorm begünstigt. Von der Behandlung der Tiere mal abgesehen.

Zur Unterhaltung ist das Buch gut geeignet. Leicht verständlich, manchmal etwas redundant und flach in der Argumentation. Mit ein wenig mehr Sachkenntnis kann man da bestimmt einiges genauso auseinandernehmen wie bei Michael Moore. Für Lesefaule gibt es das Buch auch als Doku.

Wem es jetzt schon den Appetit verschlägt findet bei Go Veggie (argumentiert aus PETA-Sicht) erste Hilfe.

My husband has always been very supportive of our movement towards organic food. I think he may, at times, feel I am a bit too gung ho about nutrition. I’ve spent years working with special diets and constructing special diets for clients in group homes. I’m not a nutritionist. I have taken classes in nutrition but by no means close to what would deem a degree.

Quite a few years ago (8Os) I visited a hippie commune. At that time people who lived in the country raved about their gardens. People who lived in the city visited farm stands if they wanted fresh veggies. Overall I don’t remember much of a movement towards eating healthier, green.

Getting back to the commune. I visited this commune and observed, besides their way of living, their produce. Their produce was bigger than any produce I had ever seen.  They grew vegetables and certain varieties that I had never known. Those living in the commune were healthy-almost a super healthy look- long shiny flowing hair, glowing faces, bright eyes, energy. That memory never leaves me.

Over the years I have searched for others who have those same memories. Others who may have built on similar memories and created companies or written books.

And then I discovered a whole realm of people just like me. Tired of the bull and years spent researching our current problems with food. People just as, and sometimes more, devoted to finding good food, eating local and being healthy.

All ones needs to do now to find some answers is read books written by the well informed- Michael Pollan and watch movies by and with Eric Schlosser in them.

This weekend we watched Food Inc. We truly believed the things we have done have been significant- changing our diet, eating organic. During the movie we looked at each other and knew that there are many more things we need to do now. And just maybe, judging by my husbands eyes, and shocked expressions, he is ok with my being gung ho.

People know they need to make a change. Often they just won’t because it involves too much work. Watch Food Inc. you will clearly see that any change you need to make will involve much less work.  The road to better health is well traveled. More and more people everyday begin walking on it to save themselves, help save others, save the Earth.

Make a difference. Thank you Robert Kenner, Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan.

Photo compliments of (http://www.foodincmovie.com/reading-list.php)

You walk through the aisles of your local supermarket.  Apples in June.  Watermelons in February.  Oranges in December.  Weird star fruit in….well I don’t actually know if star fruit have a picking season.  So how do we have these fruits and vegetables when it is not time for them to be picked.

Most of our food doesn’t come from the good ol’ USA.  As I previously mentioned, we mainly grow corn.  Most of that is used for biofuels and livestock feed.  So where do we get all this stuff?  Well, where is it warm and rainy all year-round (and cheap to grow)?  Thing South.  We get a vast majority of our produce (when not in season) comes from Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and Brazil.  If you have time, I suggest you actually go to your local supermarket and ask the manager from where the produce is coming.  99 times out of 100, you will get a blank stare.

As a nation, we have become so disconnected from the very sustenance we need for survival.  Most urbanites think farmer as being synonymous with country bumpkin, redneck, hillbilly, or quaint.  There is a social stigma to be a farmer.  But should those farmers disappear, well, the high and mighty urbanites are in for a world of hurt.  In fact, this may not be as strange as one would think.  Since 1979, 300,000 small farms have disappeared in the United States, and since 1946 the number of people who make their living by farming has been cut in half. Increasingly, large companies like Monsanto and Carghill take over and force farmers out of their land.

Farmers' Numbers Decrease

Back to the food.  So these crops are being grown in countries far away from all of us.  The workers who are spraying the pesticides we previously mentioned, working long hours in the hot sun are probably not being paid very well.  But that is not a problem: we get our watermelons cheap!  The crops are finally picked.  Now what?  The crops are put in an air-conditioned airplane and flown to packaging and distribution centers throughout the United States.  Then, they are shipped in air-conditioned trucks all over the country on our wonderful highway system.  This is hugely energy intensive.  It is estimated that the average American family’s meal has traveled almost 10,000 miles before it reaches the plate (in December, to be fair).   Scientists have clocked energy usage as being 10 calories of fossil fuels for 1 calorie of food.  Talk about inefficient.

The Cosmic Perspective

Perhaps for the purposes of this series the Cosmic Perspective should be retitled to What You Can Do.  Oh well, too late.

If ever there was a simple way to make a difference it is to: buy local and in season!  Simple!

Don’t buy those apples in June or watermelons in February.  Eat what is available in your zone when you plan to eat it.  That might mean doing without some things.  Unfortunately, most Americans are still in the mentality that they want it all and they want it now.  So visit your local farmer’s markets.  Not only will you help support the local economy (that is all the rage), but you will be eating better: better for you and for the environment.  Build a relationship with those great folks who grow your food.  Check out this link to find more links regarding local eating:

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/LocatingLocal.html

I don’t mean that you have to drop oranges altogether.  I have eaten a star fruit.  Guilty as charged.  But all good things in moderation.  Once in a while is fine, every day is where the problem arises.

In her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver notes,

“The main barrier standing between ourselves and a local-food culture is not price, but attitude. The most difficult requirements are patience and a pinch of restraint – virtues that are hardly the property of the wealthy. . . We’re raising our children on the definition of promiscuity if we feed them a casual, indiscriminate mingling of foods from every season plucked from the supermarket, ignoring how our sustenance is cheapened by wholesale desires. Waiting for the quality experience seems to be the constitutional article that has slipped from the American food custom…We have the illusion of consumer freedom, but we’ve sacrificed our community life for the pleasure of purchasing lots of cheap stuff. Making and moving all that stuff can be so destructive: child labor in foreign lands, acid rain in the Northeast, depleted farmland, communities where the big economic engine is crystal meth. We often have the form of liberty but not the substance.”

Time to get back on the horse after a week of midterms.

Nitrogen was the primary limiting nutrient in terrestrial ecosystems.  Nitrogen levels could be increased by using composted organic material, but that took a long period of time and was hard work.  Keep that in mind.  World War II is raging and ammonia is needed to create munitions.  Cue Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.  They came up with the aptly named Haber-Bosch Process which synthetically fixes nitrogen by reacting nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas over an enriched iron catalyst to produce ammonia.  Before this, ammonia was difficult to produce on an industrial scale because atmospheric nitrogen, N2, contains resilient triple bonds. During the process, N2 gas is combined with H2 gas at high pressures and high temperatures.  This reaction takes place in the presence of a catalyst, usually some sort of iron, which lowers the activation energy required to break chemical bonds, allowing the reaction to happen more efficiently.   After all is said and done, we have gaseous ammonia which can be condensed into liquid ammonia.  This, in turn, can be used in munitions.

Haber Bosch Process

Soldiers were coming home after the end of the second World War.  Everybody wants to forget about the staggering losses of life that took place during the War.  But, the chemical companies which supplied chemicals needed for weapons during wartime have a problem.  No war means no sales.  They had to adapt to a new market quickly.  So, they came up with a brilliant idea: they would work to create chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  I bet you didn’t know that chemicals used in wartime could be so easily converted to fertilizers and pesticides (take Agent Orange and DDT, for example).  These chemicals greatly improved our agricultural output.  In fact, the increases in crop yields were so drastic that it is still called the Green Revolution.  Crops were specifically chosen and bred so that they could tolerate high nutrient levels that are not normally present in nature.  The problem is that the Green Revolution was not very green.

One cannot be led to believe that pumping inordinate amounts of  nitrogen fertilizer into the soil is natural.  And since the soil cannot possibly hold all of it, much is lost when irrigation (more on that next time) percolates through the soil, flushing many of the nitrates into streams, rivers, and groundwater.  Oops.  As I mentioned before.  Nitrates from fertilizers often flow into rivers which dump the excess nutrients into bodies of water, creating algal blooms.  The algal blooms don’t have all that much oxygen in the rather warm waters (warm liquids don’t hold gases as well as cold ones (why pop is better cold)), so they die relatively quickly, but not before using up all of the oxygen in the water, creating a dead zone.

The nitrates can also seep into ground water which is then used for drinking, bathing, washing dishes, etc.  Not surprisingly, this is not great for your health.  In fact, excess nitrates have been linked to many diseases, particularly in children, whose small bodies cannot tolerate as many chemicals.  Probably the most horrifying disease is Blue Baby Syndrome, or Methemoglobinemia, which results in decreased oxygen carrying capacity of hemoglobin in babies leading to death or other birth/developmental disorders (similar diseases can be caused by excess nitrates from cesspools of fecal matter from factory farms as described previously).

Pesticides are used extensively.  Most of us use them without a second thought.  But perhaps, we are doing more harm than good.  Imagine you are spraying some pesticides to kill off some Japanese beetles (the little iridescent buggers which eat all of your flower leaves).  You kill off most of them, but some survive.  They have a resistance to the chemical.  Now, these beetles reproduce and pass on their resistance to some of their offspring, so we spray more and more, to kill fewer and fewer beetles.  That is the story since the beginning of time: a process of coevolution between pests and pesticides.  Our response is to either increase the dosage of pesticides, or increase the toxicity of the chemicals, neither of which is good in the long run.  Because of genetic resistance, farmers can pay more and more for pest control programs that become less and less effective.

Another big problem with these pesticides is that they are nonspecific: they will kill most of the pests, but many of the pest’s natural predators as well!  Not to mention, when the pesticides are sprayed, some of the chemicals will end up in nearby natural areas like forests and streams, which will kill many species in the nearby area, limiting biodiversity.It turns out that pesticide use has not reduced US crop losses to pests, mostly because of genetic resistance and reduction of natural predators.  I am sure we all remember the effects of DDT as presented by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring.

The Cosmic Perspective

Today, 50% of the world’s population is alive thanks to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.  Don’t forget to couple that with the 40% alive thanks to antibiotics.  If the fact that fertilizers and pesticides are destroying the earth didn’t convince you that there is a problem, perhaps you wonder who is spraying these toxic chemicals.  More often than not it is migrant workers who are given little to no protection, causing serious medical conditions.  So what can we do to limit our and the earth’s exposure to pesticides?  Grow some of your own food using organic methods.  Wash and scrub fresh fruits and vegetables.  Eat less meat.  And, if you think that you cannot get around using some sort of pesticides, here are some tips.  Rotate the types of crops and adjust planting times to fool the pests.  Provide homes for pest enemies.  Inplant genetic resistance.  Use pheromones to lure pests into traps or attract natural predators into crop fields.  By changing our habits, if only a little bit, we can make a big difference.

Too Corny

Corn is a wonderful vegetable.  Admittedly, the stuff we consider corn is actually maize, but I’m not here to argue semantics.  The kernel of maize is a mature ovary of fruit fused with a seed coat.  Corn can be eaten raw, cooked, or ground into flour for bread.  Good stuff this corn.  Perhaps that is why so many Native American cultures used it as the basis for their agricultural system.   However, we decided that there can’t be too much of a good thing.  Too bad that’s not true.

A cornfield

If you drive through the Great Plains states, you will be seeing a ton of cornfields.  In fact, that is probably the only type of farming you will see.  We have turned our central Great Plains into a monoculture, where one crop dominates.  This causes a number of problems.  First, this limits the genetic variability of the crops.  If a blight or fungus decided to mosey its way into a corn field and do some damage, you can bet that the whole system is likely to fail, because now, certain plants that are resistant to this infestation are gone.  It is all the same.  Second, it depletes the soil.  When the early white settlers were moving into the Great Plains, the grass had root systems several feet deep.  There was a huge amount of top soil.  But due to constantly farming the same thing and not rotating crops, we have decreased the topsoil levels to a paltry few inches.  Where did this soil go?  Into the streams.  Where do the streams go?  In that area, all roads may lead to Rome, but all streams head to the Mississippi River.  And where does the Mississippi River go?  Unless you flunked seventh grade social studies, you know that it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  These sediment deposits disrupt the natural ecosystem of the Gulf.  They also carry with them nitrates from fertilizers (more on that in the next segment), which create huge algal blooms.  The algal blooms don’t have all that much oxygen in the rather warm Gulf stream waters (warm liquids don’t hold gases as well as cold ones (why pop is better cold)), so they die relatively quickly, but not before using up all of the oxygen in the water, creating a dead zone.  This is a continuous cycle of nutrient depletion and algal blooms, creating a large dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi.

And we eat it.  Corn, that is.  Well, perhaps eat is isn’t the best word.  We ingest it in some form.  Corn is convertible into tons of cool food additives, like high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, corn starch, corn oil, and many more of your favorite food label regulars.  We find it everywhere.  Why?  (That one question is so important).  It is common because it is cheap.  Why?  One word: subsidy.  Why?  Because big companies love to use corn.  Why?  Aha, now that is the right question.  The corn kernel is essentially a packet of starch that can be broken down and rearranged as all of those additives, sweeteners, and preservatives listed above.  So to keep their costs down, companies need to keep corn cost down.

Brought to you by the letter c: Corn

Not only is corn convertible to foodstuffs, it can be made into, drum roll please… ethanol!  Ethanol amongst the dumbest ideas I ever heard, and to think that I once believed it had potential.  Right now, whether you like it or not, your gas is 10 percent ethanol.  It’s required by law.  Ethanol is a renewable bio-fuel.  It may burn a bit more cleanly than gas, but, depending on which study you read, some scientists claim that you need to put 1.2 calories of corn into the system to get 1 calorie’s worth of ethanol (this depends on what you consider a cost of farming and producing for corn ethanol.  Some analysts believe tractors fall from the sky so they don’t need to be considered in cost analysis).  It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to do the math.

A factory farm dairy feedlot

Cows are grazing animals.  They are supposed to eat grasses.  So when farmers take cows to pasture, they can have some fun, eat some grass, chew some cud, poop some poop (fertilizing the soil so more grass grows) and everybody goes home happy.  Now, cut to the factory farms.  Cows stand with little to no room to move, knee deep in their own feces.  Factory farms use corn to feed all these cows.  But wait, didn’t I just say that cows are supposed to eat grasses?   Corn is not a natural part of their diet, and it completely messes up their digestive system.  So now what are we going to do with all this fecal matter?  Well, the brilliant solution we have come up with is to create giant cesspools of crap.  These, in turn, seep into the ground water and streams, killing those systems, much like nitrates from fertilizers created a dead zone in the Gulf.  Yum.  Good, clean water.  Also, whenever we divert corn to ethanol, or to livestock feed, we divert it from people who need it for food.  And as the amount of corn being grown for food decreases, the prices increase, causing many people to go hungry.  Seems like a system designed to fail!  It gets better.  We use gas with ethanol in it to ship corn from the Plains to the factory farms in the Carolinas and the Dakotas, and then the cows to the processing plant, and then your local supermarket.  Every calorie of commercial food you eat expends almost 10 fossil fuel calories.  Talk about inefficient.

The Cosmic Perspective

But, you say, how can I make a difference?

A feedlot

You have buying power.  The purchases you make directly influence companies and our governmental policies.  Buy grass fed beef instead of factory farm meat if you have the money to do so.  It will have less fat and will taste better!  Or, eat less meat.  I am not asking you to become vegetarians.  In fact, I think vegetarianism is unhealthy (The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth) and often committed to for the wrong reasons.  The clear-cutting of forests to make room for fields for cattle, the environmental impact of slaughterhouses, transportation costs and the sheer amount of methane gas emitted by cattle herds, is damaging to the planet.  Also, eating less meat will positively affect our health in the long run.  The average American obtains 80 percent of their caloric intake from meats, 7 percent from pop and processed foods, and 3 percent from plants.  Is it any surprise that 30 percent of the population is obese, 8 percent have diabetes and 1 in 5 adults have high cholesterol.  400,000 people in the US die from obesity related diseases each year.  Type II diabetes was once thought to be only found in adults.  Now, this generation is set to be the first to have a lower life expectancy than their parents.  We should try to move towards 45-5-50 with regards to our caloric intake.  This will help us lower our cholesterol, blood sugar, and weight.

But it costs so much.

Well, thanks to those nice government subsidies, corn fed beef and corn products can be sold cheaply.  If the actual cost of those corn products was displayed in the supermarket, people would never buy them.  Think of all the water, fertilizers, pesticides, energy, and man hours went into making those foods.  I think that may be worth a bit more that what the supermarkets are saying it is worth.  Not to mention the environmental costs!

Think about it.

]]> http://scienceguy288.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/new-series-a-strange-system-food-the-stage-is-set/ Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:44:09 +0000 scienceguy288 http://scienceguy288.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/new-series-a-strange-system-food-the-stage-is-set/

It has been a while since my last official series on this blog.  I have been reading several books and watching several films on this subject.  Food is an important facet of our existence, for obvious reasons.  And yet, for some strange reason, few of us know from where the things we put into our body come.  A little disclaimer first: I am not a nutritionist, I am simply a concerned citizen who wants people to start asking some very important questions.  There are many people who know much more about this subject than I do, and fortunately for you, they have written extensively about their knowledge.  If you are interested in this series, I suggest you read the writings of Michael Pollan, Frances Moore Lappe, Barbara Kingsolver, Eric Schlosser, and/or Vandana Shiva.  So without any further ado, I present: A Strange System: Food.

The Stage is Set

When you picture a farm, what do you see?  Probably chickens and chicks pecking around for seeds underfoot, cows sitting in a pasture, contentedly mooing, perhaps a farmer, chewing a piece of straw, of course, checking to see if there are any weeds choking out his corn crop.  This is the typical, idyllic scene we all grew up with, and like most things we grew up with, it is largely dead wrong.

We live in a time when food production has shifted from the hands of farming families to agribusiness conglomerates.  Businesses most of us don’t even know exist, like Monsanto and Cargill.  The whole food system revolves around these players.  The web they weave is so thick and tangled that I almost don’t know where to start.  But perhaps, I should begin with the beginning.

When humans were first evolving on the African Savannah, we had appetites similar to those we have today.  The appetite was developed to encourage people to eat what they needed.  The African Savannah had plenty of grazing animals for us to kill and eat.  This gives us our proteins, minerals, and some vitamins.  There are also plenty of edible roots, nuts, and plants which provide us with fiber, oils, and more minerals and vitamins.  However, there was a problem.  Humans need some fat to survive, and grazing animals, which eat grass (more on that later), don’t have too much of that.  It was also rather difficult to find salt and sugar.  So, if you found something with salts or sugars, evolution encouraged us to gorge ourselves.  And so, we spent our formative years as a collective species discovering new ways to provide our communities with food.  We learned how to hunt more efficiently; how to gather edible plants.

Fast forward to about 11,000 BC.  Scientists are pretty sure that humans learned how to domesticate certain plant species at this point in time.  Annuals like peas and wheat were being domesticated in area of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent.  There, the dry-summer allowed for a long growing period and variety of elevations led to a great number of plant species being domesticated.

Skip to the next scene when, about 1000 years later, in 10,000 BC., animals like the sheep and goat were being domesticated.  Pigs, cows, and chickens followed in the subsequent millenia.

The domestication of plants and animals was probably the single most important event in the evolution of civilization. Slowly but surely, as we began to farm, humans shifted from being hunter-gatherers to a settled agricultural society.

Ancient Agriculture

Through the Middle Ages, everyone seemed to either have a farm or know a local farmer who could produce food for them.  Farming methods were being fine tuned.  Farmers in drier regions developed hydraulic irrigation systems.   People explored the reasons why farming different crops worked better in one place than another.  They expanded the number of species of plants being grown.  Crop rotation was developed.  The Chinese developed a moldboard plow which helped till the soil leading to better crop yields.  Things were on the up and up, but progress was relatively slow.

Once again, we step into our little time machine and zoom to 17th century England.  The Agricultural Revolution is about to begin.  One of the first big changes was enclosure.  Before this point in time, most agricultural systems worked in an open field system.  Each farmer grew subsistence levels of crops and fed their livestock on tracts of land nobody really owned.  Then, come the 17th century, wealthy farmers began buying up the land.  This led to most farmers losing their land.  Mechanical advancements came soon after.  Jethro Tull, the inventor, not the band, invented a seed drill: a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds evenly and efficiently across a plot of land.  This was much faster than spreading seeds by hand.  Joseph Folijambe invented the Rotherham plow in 1730, the first commercially available iron plough in Europe.  In 1786, Andrew Meikle invented a threshing machine.  When steam engines came out on the market in the 1850’s, they were quickly put to use for plowing and digging in agricultural settings.  Excellent news.   Food production skyrocketed, and with it, population.

The English Agricultural Revolution

We have one more stop for today.  Let’s travel to the United States around 1920.  Scientists have identified nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus as the main factors behind plant growth.  So to max out crop yields, they create synthetic fertilizers leading to more intensive agriculture.  Vitamins and antibiotics are discovered.  This allowed livestock to be raised inside, reducing their exposure to the harsh side of Mother Nature.  They could be fed these antibiotics allowing for livestock to be grown in concentrated areas without the risk of spreading disease.  They also grew larger and faster.  After World War II, everybody just wanted to kick back.  But the chemical companies have a problem.  They just spent the last six years producing chemicals to be used in the war.  No war means no sales, so they convert their factories to produce synthetic pesticides.  An interstate highway system is constructed allowing for food to be distributed all across the country.  Oil is plentiful and cheap, so it’s all systems go.  Agricultural production across the world doubled four times between 1820 and 1975 to feed a global population of one billion human beings in 1800 and 6.5 billion in 2002. Oddly enough, during this same time, the number of farmers actually farming dropped.  Well, the stage is set.  We’ll return to the second act in our next installment.

I’ve never been one for McDonald’s.  Their burgers pretty much taste like an old shoe had a bad day, although it has been about fifteen years since I have eaten one and maybe they have improved in the meantime.  In an emergency, I have been known to suck down a fast-food milkshake, but they always taste more like chemicals than actual ice cream to me.  I went through a brief period in my early twenties when I had a thing for Burger King fries doused in salt.  Pretty soon that started to gross me out and I resisted the urge to turn my car into the drive-through lane on the way home from teaching.

About fifteen months ago, I had a shake and fries from McDonald’s.  Before that?  It had been at least half a decade since I had eaten anything from a Mickey D’s or a Booger King, as my fast food has been more or less limited to Subway.  I don’t drink soda, I don’t chew gum, and I don’t particularly like packaged dinners.

I do, however, adore buttered popcorn.  I tell you this lest you think I am perfect.  Because I know you are all in danger of jumping to that conclusion.

My aversion to these dens of ill-repute got quite a boost this past month, when I read Fast Food Nation. The premise of the book is more or less that people eat a lot of really gross stuff without even knowing it.

For example, most of the processed foods we eat are designed in a laboratory that precisely manufactures tastes and smells to simulate actual food.  Then they inject that crap into the caloric packages they sell us, and our tongues and noses are too stupid to realize they have been duped.  So, when we think we’re smelling or eating, say, buttered popcorn, we’re really just being bamboozled into believing we are eating buttered popcorn.

I cannot even look at a tub of movie theater popcorn anymore.  The breakup has been too painful.

The most disgusting chapter is the one on ground beef.  The whole chapter is pretty appalling, from the working conditions of the employees to the health risks of eating that stuff.  The most shocking line award goes to the explanation for e-coli breakouts: “There’s shit in the meat.”

Makes me want to run the two blocks to Mickey D’s right now.

Suffice it to say, this book wins for shock value, but it is also very well-researched and clearly written.  Just watch out or it’ll turn you into a vegetarian.  One who doesn’t eat French fries.

With good looking, good tasting sexiness known as local, organic, non-processed food.

This past week was quite momentous–I started out with going to the Edible Schoolyard as a kitchen volunteer (we made yellow cucumber, red bell pepper, and fennel salad; yum!), watched Food, Inc. the next day (which included a panel with none other than Michael Pollan, the director, and Eric Schlosser) and heard Michael Pollan talk at Zellerbach the following night.

Michael Pollan is a wonderful storyteller, very engaging and humorous. He’s so intelligent, genuine, and creative with his approaches to telling people about our food industry and diets. I vigorously took notes so if you want to hear what was said, let’s make a date over a delicious slow-cooked meal. (I’ll cook for you.) So why did I decide to commit to a new relationship? If we eat the way we do, including me, the sometimes health freak, we’re all going to die. The world’s going to die, cute puppies included. OK, maybe I’m being too dramatic. But really, if you only knew what was in your Breast Cancer-supporting Special K with strawberries, whole wheat bread, “natural” yogurt, and “100% apple juice,” you would be scared too.

So now what? How do we know what to eat? You can ask yourself, “Would my great grandmother recognize this food?” You should’ve seen him trying to explain gogurt. Or Twinkies. And if it has more than 5 ingredients, don’t eat it. (Which is funny because the food industry is always trying to redesign food to fit the rules, but they’re all just messing it up regardless. Like Haagen Dazs’ new “5 ingredients” ice cream.)  Let’s start going to Farmer’s Markets. Health is not about eating good nutrients (I guess I have to throw out my “brain pills” my mom forces me to eat) but making relationships with people, nature, and thinking about the environment for once.

Thus, I decided today to take my chance and start this relationship with local, organic, all-natural food. I went to the Farmers’ Market down on Shattuck and here’s what I got.

Aren’t these tomatoes beautiful? I had a nice conversation with a small, old lady about the colors. I just picked the ones that looked the prettiest. All this was $5.

Look at this beauty! The glaze was so delicious. I actually bought it for Denise, but since she’s on a fast (sorry!) I made the sacrifice and ate it for her.

I also bought a loaf of bread from Vital Vittles, a local bread company. The guy selling them was so nice and welcomed me to the market (I told him I was a newbie). He was quite cute too. So I guess this truly IS about relationship building…if you know what I mean!

Meditate upon these slogans: “you can save the world with every bite” and “vote to change the system 3 times a day.” Thank you.

For now, I feel like I can do this. We’re only dating, seeing if we’re compatible. So please don’t judge me if I cheat a couple of times. But in my heart, and body, I know this one is a keeper!

Your comments keep me honest.  They don’t immediately spur me into action, but they keep me here, that’s for sure.  Thank you all for coming back and reading, checking up on me, and calling me out on being too busy!

Big Sur in September is both one of my favorite times of year and also one of the hardest for us.  As you can tell, it’s been a busy summer, filled with events, visitors, beautiful weather, and general non-stop action.  This is the primary reason for September being both so wonderful and so tiring.  The tourist population in Big Sur takes a definite nose-dive in September, as kids are back in school, people wrap up their vacation plans and travel back home for the fall.  This causes a false sense of calm at the Henry Miller Library, which is entirely because we are incapable of not scheduling wonderful events.  If someone comes to us with a good idea, we will find a way to make it happen, and it will be a screaming success if for no other reason than Eric, Magnus and I had a wonderful time, learned something, or met a cool new person.  We are just always hungry for more when we’re scheduling events throughout the spring and summer.  However, when it comes down to the final days of September, the three of us are run ragged; just as hungry for new wonderful experiences to be sure, but tired.  And so: September is so wonderful because it’s entirely possible that if I go for a walk before work I will be the only person at the beach, or perhaps my wait for coffee at the Big Sur Bakery in the morning is not quite as long.  But it is also hard because we have been working upwards of 60 hours a week for about five months straight.  Don’t let me even BEGIN to make you think that I’m complaining, or that the quality of our events suffers in the end of the season.  Quite the opposite, in fact:  We spend the entire summer hitting our stride, perfecting our well-oiled machine, setting up the movies or the concerts or the book signings in less and less time, with more attention to detail.  But, I would like to suggest that if you come by the Henry Miller Library, you might give us a hug, a pat on the back, or encourage us to drink one more cup of coffee with you. Either that, or take us out for a beer when we’re done with the day.

Food, Inc. a benefit for Don Case presented by The Big Sur Bakery at the Henry Miller Library with Eric Schlosser and Robert Kenner

Tomorrow we have an event that will undoubtedly be a wonderful evening.  Eric Schlosser and Robert Kenner, the producer and director respectively of Food, Inc.  The critically acclaimed documentary about the mechanized food system.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while understand that there could be no one more excited about this particular event because of my strong feelings about food reads.  In this film, Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, reviewed earlier in this blog, is interviewed, and I can’t wait to see the film and hear what he has to say.  It is making me want to get a copy of Fast Food Nation, which I’ve never read.  The movie also follows Polyface farm, which Pollan visits and discusses in the Omnivore’s Dilemma, and I am excited to get a visual on this farm about which I’ve read and since then thought a lot about.  Aside from the fact that the film will be wonderful, and we will share the evening with our friends from the Big Sur Bakery, it is a benefit for our neighbor in Big Sur, Don Case who lost his home last year in the Basin Complex Fire.  All proceeds will go directly to the Don Case Rebuild fund.  Please consider coming by tomorrow, or making a donation to this cause.  You can do either (or both!) by visiting our website.

Chavez: The Revolution Will Not be Televised.

On Wednesday, September 30th, at 7:30 pm we will be showing the film Chavez: The Revoltion Will Not Be Televised, presented by producer Rod Stoneman.  His new book by the same title delves into the issues of objectivity in media and film, and he will be here to discuss these topics before and after a screening of the film.  He stopped by the Library a while back and talked with Magnus, who is avidly interested in the events surrounding Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and the two have kept up a correspondence about the film, the book, and the issues each deals with.  As a result of what I’m sure were a series of interesting and interested emails back and forth, Magnus has arranged for this event to take place on Wednesday.  It promises to be insightful, intimate, and has the potential to delve into this topic in depth.  It is, as most of our films are, free with donations appreciated.

Marianne Faithfull on October 9

And finally, on October 9, Marianne Faithfull will be here for the Henry Miller Library benefit of 2009.  Each year since 2004, Jesse Goodman has brought to Big Sur avant-garde artists who support the library to do a one night only special performance.  The series has included: Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Henry Rollins, Matmos and Zeena, DJ Spooky, and last year Philip Glass and Wendy Sutter.  Each performance is special, unique, and truly humbling to me.  That the likes of Laurie Anderson would dedicate even an evening of her life to the work that we do here at the Library is amazing to me.  Each year I feel touched, blessed, and grateful for all of the wonderful people that come together to make those, “I was there” kind of evenings happen at the library.  Don’t miss this one.

As a side note: I have discovered my favorite likeness of an American president.  Check out this picture of John Tyler, just look at his eyes.

John Tyler

I will check in with all of you as these events unfold!  Wish Eric, Magnus, and I good luck and good health – may none of us get H1N1 in the midst of our final end-of-summer-push! (knock on wood!)

A couple months ago, it was mentioned by WIBIA that he and EatHSE went to go see the documentary “Food, Inc.” and thoroughly enjoyed learning about some of the business practices employed by the food industry.  This piqued my interest, so I went to my local library to see if Food, Inc. was an actual book as well as a documentary movie.  It’s not (there is a book with a collection of essays on the movie; I’ll review that later), but I did stumble across a book called Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (Schlosser is also a producer of Food, Inc.)  After reading this book, I felt that a book review segment would be a nice addition to the blog and after discussing it with WIBIA, here is the site’s first crack at it.  I’ve got at least one more review stocked up, so hopefully this will become a continuing series.

Summary

In this book, Mr. Schlosser begins his book by telling about the true spread of fast food and its patriarch Carl Karcher.  For those of you that don’t know, Carl Karcher is the founder of Carl’s Jr.  From its humble origins in Southern California, Carl turned his company into a national fast food restaurant chain that is now owned by parent company CKE Enterprises.  For those of you that don’t know, CKE Enterprises also owns Hardee’s.

From Carl’s beginnings, Schlosser then segues into the birth of McDonald’s and its founder Ray Kroc (he uses McDonald’s as his main villain in the book, which is easy to do since they are the industry leader).  While some of you may know that Kroc did not start McDonald’s, he did find a way to market and grow the chain like nothing ever done before.  Also, it is interesting to find out that Ray Kroc wasn’t so much interested in the taste of his food as he was the delivery of his food to consumers.  He wanted it to be cheap and fast; taste was of secondary concern to him.  He only cared that it tasted well enough to get people to come back.  His mindset was that McDonald’s should be a food delivery system and not an actual restaurant.  Sadly, most fast food chains have taken this approach and while some may taste better than others, the general taste of most fast food is mediocre at best.

After educating the reader on the origins of the fast food industry, Schlosser then takes a tour through how the food used in these “restaurants” (remember, they really are only food delivery systems) in produced and packaged.  What he finds is that our food production companies (such as J.R. Simplot, ConAgra, etc.) really are companies staffed by mostly uneducated migrant workers who will take any sort of treatment and/or risk as long as they can send money back home to their families in their native land.  Also, Schlosser points out that while these companies may put out a united front saying that food safety and worker safety are very important to them, a lot of issues end up getting swept under the rug in order to keep federal regulators away.  Another major point that Schlosser discusses is that the number of regulators has decreased as years have gone past, so now food producers are more and more likely to cut corners in order to produce food both more quickly and more cheaply.  He also uses national stats, lawsuits and personal narratives of current/former employees and business owners to show the personal and legal side of these practices.  He is quick to point out that while McDonald’s status as the industry leader gives it more sway in terms of cleaning things up, they rarely use this power in order to help the greater good.

While these two topics are the main sources of his material, he finds a way to juxtapose these topics into the growth and development of the state of Colorado and Colorado Springs in particular from a sleepy burb into a typical American city with a fast food joint on three of four corners of every intersection and how this just feeds the general cycle of poverty and substandard qualities of life.

Conclusion

I believe that Schlosser’s main point of this book was to use it as a scare tactic to people that they should start thinking about how they consume often they consume fast food and in his opinion, they really shouldn’t consume it all because all they are doing is supporting huge, multi-national corporations and allowing them to continue their shady business practices of exploiting workers and consumers.

The funny thing is though, this had the exact opposite effect on me.  While I certainly was enlightened by the business practices of McDonald’s and other fast food companies and food producers, I was not really horrified.  I certainly know what goes into my food now, but I’m not going to stop buying it.  The funny thing is that while I was reading this book, all I could think about was how delicious a McDonald’s cheeseburger seemed at that moment and that’s beyond funny to me personally, because I very rarely even eat McDonald’s and don’t have a true affinity for it.

Regardless, I would definitely give this book a thumbs up and recommend it to everyone.  You’ll be educated and enlightened by the end and maybe Schlosser’s goal of swaying you from the fast food industry (my interpretation of the book) or at least compelling you to act against the food suppliers will be completed.  If not, at least you’ll have something to talk about with your friends the next time you make a fast food run.

-IndianapolisEater

WARNING!! BUG ALERT!! Before you pop that warhead into your mouth or drink your next strawberry milkshake (from a fast food restaurant), here’s some food for thought.

One of the most widely used color additives is cochineal extract (also know as carmine or carminic acid). And what’s cochineal extract made from? BUGS! Yep, that’s right:

…(cochineal extract is) made from the dead bodies of small bugs harvested mainly in Peru and the Canary Islands. The female Dactylopius coccus costa likes to feed on cactus pads, and color from the cactus gathers in her body and her eggs. The little bugs are collected, dried, and ground into a coloring additive. (p. 121, Chew on This)

And do you know how many of the insects it takes to make just one pound of carmine (which makes fast foods look pink, red and purple)?

70,000! 70,000! 70,000!

For more gross-out facts that you really DO want to know about fast food, pick up a copy of Eric Schlosser’s Chew on This from the Loft!

I really like food documentaries, despite the fact that they show footage of slaughterhouses and animals in confinement. I don’t like this footage, but I think it’s important for people to know how their food is produced. As long as the primary source of food in our imaginations is the supermarket, we’re blind fools.

Hence, my love for food documentaries. A good food documentary will demonstrate the relationship between food and something else, most likely something one never considered seriously related to food.

Some particular ones I recommend include:

Asparagus: Stalking the American Life This film, co-directed by Calvin Collage Alumnus Kirsten Kelly, demonstrates the relationship between international trade laws and the local (Hart, Michigan) asparagus industry. The film follows Oceana County’s Asparagus Festival and the difficult lives of the farmers who are being undercut by cheap labor in Peru. The Andean Trade Preference Act of 1991 substidizes the asparagus industry Peru in order to decrease cocaine production. But cocaine and asparagus are grown in different regions of the country, and cocaine production has shifted to neighboring countries. Even if you don’t watch this film, start buying only American asparagus! (Trader Joe’s, for the record, does not sell American asparagus, at least the times I’ve checked.)

King Corn This humorous film was inspired by Michael Pollan’s first section of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In it, two college friends decide to grow one acre of corn and see what happens to it. You’ll learn about farm subsidies, where corn goes, and how high fructose corn syrup is made (at least in the kitchen; they’re not allowed into the factory.) Maybe you’ll even start hating the corn industry and a trip through Indiana will become painful for you, but in the meantime, you’ll have a few laughs.

And finally . . .

Food, Inc. What I love most about this movie is that it shows all sides of the problem of industrial agriculture today. It relates industrial food to economic, public health, environmental, and political issues. For instance, political issues regarding illigal immigration are directly linked to animal processing plants. Why? Americans don’t want to do this messy work, so processing coorporations will encourage immigration (legal and otherwise) in order to continue producing cheap chicken, pork, and beef.

Food, Inc. features some of the loudest and most thoughtful food voices today, including Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin (of Polyface Farm) and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. (Also a movie, by the way, a movie that is pretty horrible. I don’t recommend it at all.) Food, Inc. provides ideas about what you can do and how you can change how you eat, so it’s not entirely hopeless. What’s been most fascinating about this movie is the response it’s gotten–despite it’s not the first piece of media to point out these problems.

Funny thing, there’s been a bigger public reaction to a piece in Time than the film, as far as I can ascertain. Brian Walsh wrote a piece called “Getting Real about the High Price of Cheap Food” for Time Magazine (online) on August 20, 2009, and it was the cover article at the end of the month. South Dakota Corn Grower’s Association’s president Bill Chase responded by arguing that farmers eat the same food the public eats and that the obesity epidimic is an epidemic of personal responsibility, not an issue of production. Someone in the Hog/Pork trade group also wrote about this piece, but I can’t seem to find it.

Have you seen these films? Any other food documentaries you find particularly compelling?

Last Monday I went to see Food Inc. For those of you who may not know I am transitioning to becoming a raw foodist. What does that mean? It is when one eats fruits, vegetables, nuts and seed . It also means nothing is prepared in heat over 118 degrees. I am doing this for health reasons and other personal reasons. I have another blog totally devoted to this journey. I am always educating myself on the subject of raw foods. I do this by reading many books, other blogs and web sites. I also do this by attending seminars and watching documentaries on the subject of our food supply. My passion and concern of our food supply here in the good old USA  grows everyday. I have decided to place my review of the film FOOD INC., on this blog also. That is how important it is for me to do my small part in getting the word out. And in by doing so hopefully I can help one person to learn what I continue to learn is we must become more aware of our food supply  and the how’s why’s and what is being done to it.

This is a must see film for everyone. Once you see this film, you may reconsider eating meat or for that fact anything that is not either organically grown or any meat where the animal is not grass fed. Food Inc. takes us inside butcher houses and chicken houses and the inhumane way these animals along with pigs are treated and fed and raised for our consumption. It is a miracle any of us are still alive.

Food Inc. covers many important issues, such as purchasing organic foods from your local farmers. Genetic engineering of our foods, pesticide and cloning of our foods and the most appalling to me is the factory farming of animals. The industrial farms are here now and they are something that should be against the law. Instead there are 4 main companies who are in a sense backed by our government and this industrial way of farming leave the farmer not in control of their own farming.

These industrial farms create poor work conditions, pollute our environment and are completely unsafe to our food chain and are one of the causes of global warming. Food Inc. is very revealing and what you will view in this film will not only shock, but also turn your stomach and hopefully by the end you will want to become involved in the solution.

One of the bothersome points and there are many in this documentary , is how this is affecting the health of the American public. Far to many of us seem to be accepting of this. And by doing so we are making the pharmaceutical companies richer and the main controllers of our farming industry continue to benefit .

As consumers we must demand to know how our foods are being produced and from that take it a step further and demand that more regulations for food producers be put through congress and they must be enforced. This is the only way to protect us and the future health of our nation if you are purchasing non-organic foods.

When you shop demand your grocery store offer organic foods. Do not eat meat unless it is grass fed and raised in humane ways. Do not purchase or eat any beef, poultry, pork or any other meat unless they too are grass fed and all animals for consumption should be free ranged.

There is so much more Food Inc covers, but I want each and everyone of you to go and see.

Get involved today.

You may not want to make the same choice I have about going raw, but please do make a choice about demanding better standards of our food supply. It is the way for us to regain control of our health. Remember shop organic, shop from your local farmers market and when shopping non organic always ask if the meat, poultry or pork comes from grass fed animals. Attempt to not eat any pesticide food products. Buying from local farmers does at least cut down on pesticides that blow over from a industrial farm that is using pesticides.

Please see the film and I leave you with something that may increase your curiosity enough you will go see Food Inc. After seeing this film I will never purchase anything that Monsanto has been a part of. Want to know why?

PLEASE GO SEE FOOD INC.

Blessings and let’s not forget………………..

The Greatest Wealth is Health

Debra

Today was the Company Picnic!  Wooot!  My environmental department decided to try and make it as close to waste-free is possible.  It’s a really cool idea and I wish more events would strive to operate is such a way.  They ordered compostable plates, napkins, cups, and utensils.  We set up compost bins with nice, bright green signs with friendly reminders about what can go in which receptacles.  Nonetheless, it was still difficult for some people to get the hang of things.  I’m not trying to criticize or judge them.  I’m really not.   It was just the generally intimidation that I saw dawn on people’s faces as they approached the compost booth that made me a little sad.  Was composting and recycling really that daunting?  Well, yes, in today’s age it is still a very alien thing.  Most of the time, our impulse is still to throw it all away (as I saw a few older men do, which meant that I can to go dumpster diving).  Recycling is something that a little more people seem to have a handle on, but there are still lots of items that even us experienced recyclers were unsure about.  So it’s not a perfect system and so what if a few people were scarred by the fact that I raised my voice a little to get them not to just toss it all away.   But then there were a few people who were expert composters, who would stop by the stand to tell me how their compost at home worked.  And then there were people, like one of the caterers, that was very willing to take a few moments with me to learn what waste could be composted and what could be recycled.  It made me smile, becuase it proved that, yes, new things are intimidating and a little hard at first, but the more you dive into it the easier and more satisfying it becomes.

I see this reflected all around the new sustainable practices that are emerging in our society.  A lot of people, urban and rural residing, are commenting, blogging, and twitting (something like that) about how much they are enjoying their rain-harvesters or worm composting bins!  It’s fun to use less and find creative ways to lessen your carbon footprint.  It’s like getting into a new exercise regimen.  As first you grumble becuase you have to stop being lazy, but they it becomes enjoyable and little addictive.

Let me jump subjects a little here.  If you haven’t heard about worm composting yet, then you are missing out!  Let me tell you.  This looks like a blast (but then again, there’s probably something deeply strange about me).   The reason that I know almost everything there is to know about worm composting is becuase my new company has asked me to do a little research.  The owner of the company also owns a few farms and dairies with his family.  Well, as I hope you know, cows poop and pee a LOT.  And when you have over 500 cows, you can’t just let all that waste go into the ground water.  It usually ups the nitrogen levels so much that it kills a lot of  native organisms.  So there are these nifty things called Bio-Swales. They are a means of filtering toxins out of water or the soil through specific plants that are planted over it so the bad get converted into the harmless.  Here is a picture in order to get the gist of what I’m talking about here:

So how they are planning to implement this on the dairies is having a series of bioswales.  The liquid waste from the cows can go through not just one, but five phases of filtration and what comes out will not be harmful at all.  It’s really neat. They just finished digging out these troughs in the ground and lined them in heavy duty plastic so that none of the potent stuff can get into the groundwater.  Next, they will fill the trenches with the dry manure/compost  over a series of pipes that will transport the liquid down the line.  Then they will grow grass on top of it. And the cows will eat it!!!

BAM! An almost completely closed system.  It’s beautiful.  Well anyway, they want to add some composting worms to the mix in order to streamline the process even more.  They love to eat cow waste and leaves and old food and all that good stuff.  If you are interested here are some good websites that I found to be informative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermicompost :  just your basic wiki article here, but I found it very well researched.

http://www.wormdigest.org/content/view/110/2/ :  There is a touching essay here that talks about disappearing worms species.

http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html : Here is a great step-by-step guide if you want to know how you could set up a worm compost bin for your house.

I apologize if some of these first posts here seem a bit scattered.   There is so much that I have had to take in in such a short time and it’s a little overwhelming at times.  But I think having to write it out in this form will help me keep it all straight…sort of.  Plus I want to connect people with the fun information that I’m digging up in the course of my job.

Which brings me to my reading list for the past month!  Here are some titles that I found to be interesting, educational or have recently been recommended to me:

The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

In Defense of Food by Micheal Pollan

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Micheal Pollan

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (and others)

These author are all crazy smart and are trying to work with everyday realities as well as the need to be nicer to the earth before we are totally screwed.

Which reminds me (strangely enough) that I saw previews of “2012″ and laughed more than was appropriate.  Awful. I mean, I’m sorry, but it looks WAY to melodramatic for my taste.  But it might be worth it for the giggle. Oh oh John Cusack.

Til next time,

Erma

PLAYING AT LA PALOMA THEATRE IN ENCINITAS! http://www.lapalomatheatre.com/

SATURDAY, AUGUST 22  – WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26; 7:00

Click on any of the following links to read reviews of this mindblowing movie:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105152916

http://screencrave.com/2009-06-11/movie-review-food-inc/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/

Reefer Madness

Reefer Madness Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
by Eric Schlosser
Read by the author
Produced by Simon & Schuster Audio 2003

Okay one more non-fiction book and then I’ll get back to some more fiction.  I picked up this audio book because I read the author’s book on the meat and fast food industry, “Fast Food Nation.”  For a while after reading that book I would not touch fast food mainly because of the gross out factor caused by Eric Schlosser’s expose’ of the unsafe practices in those industries.  Schlosser also exposed the greed and the lack of concern for the consumer’s of those same products and the employees of the companies involved.  The one thing that Schlosser excelled in was in following the money.

This book is no exception, in fact that’s pretty much the gist of the book, following the money.  “Reefer Madness” is a look at the three pillars of the underground economy of the U.S., estimated to be ten percent of American GDP: marijuana, migrant labor, and pornography.

In Reefer Madness, the first section of the book Schlosser argues, based on usage, historical context, and consequences, for the decriminalization of marijuana.  This section revolves around  Mark Young of Indiana, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his relatively minor role in a marijuana deal.  This is one of the examples of marijuana laws being unreal, where in many states marijuana possession can get harsher penalties than committing murder.

In the Strawberry Fields, he explores the exploitation of illegal immigrants as cheap labor, arguing that there should be better living arrangements and humane treatment of the illegal immigrants America is exploiting in the fields of California. This segment seems like either an epilogue or prologue to this previous book “Fast Food Nation.”  In fast food nation the migrant workers/illegal immigrants are used in meat packing in extremely unsafe conditions and with very little pay.  In this segment of the book those workers are trying to squeak by on very little money doing jobs no one wants to do.  In one conversation the farm owner says every once in a while some college kids come looking for work but the work is so difficult they don’t last half a day.

One thing I always found curious was; Why don’t the farmers that employ illegals use machinery to do the harvesting and get rid of the problem of illegals sneaking across borders to do back breaking work?  Schlosser explains this, and I’m summing up the explanation here, by saying for farms to do the work with the machinery an initial purchase of said machinery would cost into the millions and right now they only spend thousands paying the migrant workers, also that we Americans like for our fruit and vegetables to not be blemished and the workers can pick with care unlike the machines.

An Empire of the Obscene details the history of pornography in American culture, starting with the eventual business magnate Reuben Sturman, an enigmatic Ohio man who started out selling discarded comic books from the back of his car goes on to buil and control a formidable pornography empire.  After beating a string of obscenity charges the government finally catches Sturman in the only way possible, tax evasion.  Finally the government can put Sturman behind bars.  But after all the court cases against Sturman bringing down religion based obscenity laws the business of pornography becomes a major busines now backed by many Fortune 500 companies.

Schlosser unravels an American society that has “become alienated and at odds with itself.” Like “Fast Food Nation”, this is an eye-opening book with Schlosser doing some serious investigative leg  work. Schlosser doesn’t really come out in support of the Porn Industry or the legalization of drugs but does point out the hypocrisy that gives a marijuana user life and a murderer 10 years as sentencing and jailing obscenity while major corporations fund it, while that same America promotes indentured servitude (slavery) for the illegal immigrants.   “..the price of freedom is often what freedom brings.”

Schlosser closes by arguing that such a widespread black market can only undermine the law and is indicative of the discrepancy between accepted mainstream American culture and its true nature.

Think about what you eat

The film Food, Inc makes it plainly clear that we really have no idea what is in the food on our dinner plate.

With 2006’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan sets the tone for the way we eat, calling his readers to look at labels and understand what makes up our food. Three years later, the phrases organic, sustainable, and free-range have become more common place, and yet Food, Inc is still a startling, eye-opening look at the food industry, intended to show, not just tell, what the trouble is all about.

The movie asks the prime question “How much do we really know about the food we buy and eat?” Throughout the 93 minute film, journalist Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan, and an array of farmers, meat producers, politicians, and citizens, shed light on that question. Scenes shift from unkempt chicken coops to employees struggling in unfair labor situations in slaughter houses; watching scenes of farmers who are left with little choice but to follow unsettling corporate policy, it is hard to not demand change.

Food, Inc insists that Americans are eating without thinking, and eating choices affect the environment, the food industry, politics and labor practices. The film discusses new strains of E.colli, caused by feeding cows corn(when they naturally feed on grass), which is spread into the water through their feces. It showcases the politics of subsidizing the corn industry and the dismay caused by patenting a crop and controlling individual farms. The film highlights the poor practices that arise when 80% of a market is controlled by four companies and details these companies’ unfair labor policies and treatment of employees.

Looking at the problems with the industry, Food, Inc also showcases farmers and companies who stand up to these practices. There is an insiders view of organic companies, sustainable farms, and farmers who stand up to corporations, even when it means loosing their jobs. The film emphasizes the burgeoning organic food industry, and promotes the men and woman who promote food safety.

In the end, the film asks it’s viewers to make choices about what they eat. While many people choose to shun fast food choices, they do not realize the meat they purchase from the supermarket is the same meat they would be eating at these chain restaurants. Colas and packaged goods packed full of preservatives and corn derivatives are supporting these industries, intentionally or not. The question is asked again, “What is in the food you eat?” Food, Inc’s answer is found in supporting local farmers markets, reading labels, buying locally, and eating at home more often. Food, Inc suggests these 10 simple things to change our food system.

This is a must see film, because changing the way we eat is not only important, it is imperative. With the state of our food industry, environment, and labor practices, this shocking film is sure to educate and change your mind about the way your eat and what you put on your plate.

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