Guest Blogger: Leslie Hatfield of the Green Fork blog on the FDA and Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup

There are so many good green bloggers out there I wanted to introduce you to another blogger that I really enjoy reading. Leslie Hatfield is the freelance editor of the Green Fork blog and serves as media consultant for Eat Well, a NYC-based nonprofit program which promotes the sustainable food movement and helps people find good food through their online directory of farms, restaurants and other outlets of locally-grown food. Leslie has also contributed to Edible Chesapeake and The Ethicurean.  

"Our Melamine: There’s Mercury in High Fructose Corn Syrup, and the FDA Has Known for Years"

Maybe Jeremy Piven didn’t get mercury poisoning from fish at all — according to the results of this new study released by the Institute for Agriculture and Trace Policy (IATP), the actor may well have been sickened by soda or candy or anything that contains high fructose corn syrup, which, if you eat processed food in this country means, well, just about anything.

Foodies and nutritionists alike have been griping about high fructose corn syrup for years, and the industry has responded with an “astroturf” campaign and a level of secrecy generally reserved for the military officials or secret societies (see Corn Refiners’ Association president Audrae Erickson’s stonewalling performance in King Corn).

Of course, I wouldn’t want to show my hand either, if the making of my product could be described as undertaking a small “Manhattan Project” (see eye-glazing production info here). But as it turns out, the HFCS industry has been hiding some major skeletons in its closet — according to the IATP study (pdf), over 30% of products containing the substance tested positive for mercury.

What makes this news truly shocking is not just that the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup would put consumers’ health at risk, but that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) knew about the mercury in the syrup and has been sitting on this information since 2005.

Here’s the connection, according to the IATP press release (pdf) announcing the study: The IATP study comes on the heels of another study, conducted in 2005 but only recently published by the scientific journal, Environmental Health, which revealed that nearly 50 percent of commercial HFCS samples tested positive for the heavy metal. Renee Dufault, who was working for the FDA at the time, was among the 2005 study’s authors.

Here’s how the mercury gets in there, according to Janet at the Ethicurean:

How did the heavy metal get in there? In making HFCS — that “natural” sweetener, as the Corn Refiners Associaton likes to call it — caustic soda is one ingredient used to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. Apparently most caustic soda for years has been produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants, where it can be contaminated with mercury that it passes on to the HFCS, and then to consumers.

And here’s more from the press release:

“While the FDA had evidence that commercial HFCS was contaminated with mercury four years ago, the agency did not inform consumers, help change industry practice or conduct additional testing.”

And on why it matters:

“Mercury is toxic in all its forms,” said IATP’s David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. “Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply.”

In China, heads might roll over a scandal like this one, at least if the country received global attention for its allowing corrupt health officials’ greasy palms come before, um, public health.

Of course, in this country, the FDA’s neck is safe. But what about the health of American consumers? Let’s see the Corn Refiner’s Association try to spin this one.

Originally posted on January 27th 2009 on the Green Fork blog.

Drum roll please:  The Corn Refiner's Association rebutal...as stated in a press release entitled HFCS Mercury Study Outdated; Based on Discontinued Technology, “This study appears to be based on outdated information of dubious significance. Our industry has used mercury-free versions of the two re-agents mentioned in the study, hydrochloric acid and caustic soda, for several years. These mercury-free re-agents perform important functions, including adjusting pH balances,” stated Audrae Erickson, President, Corn Refiners Association. “For more than 150 years, corn wet millers have been perfecting the process of refining corn to make safe ingredients for the American food supply.” The full press release can be read here.  

Not sure how that explains the results of the IATP study that found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods bought off the shelves in 2008 contained mercury. The chemical was found most commonly in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.

I think the corn has just spun off the cob.  

Vote Change One More Time -- For Our Food System

I think many of us agree that our food system is a mess.  Our industrial ways are destroying our environment and health.  We had hope that Obama would pick a Secretary of Agriculture that would be good for our future but that took a down turn. His choice in Tom Vilsack is bad but there appears to be a glimmer of hope, a very small one, that he might become the Secretary of Commerce as reported by the New York Daily News the other day. But to date it appears that is is all rumor. Check out my new favorite blogs, Obama Foodorama, for an explanation on why the Vilsack move is the best choice for America's food system.  I can tell you we are hoping Obama is listening. 

Now there has been a lot of talk lately that the overhaul of our food system is going to take a back burner to the economy. But as Michael Pollan and Grist's Tom Philpott argue, and I agree, investing in a new food system should be part of the economic stimulus package. Ignore it and we continue along, on our way to massive environmental and public health catastrophes. 

In a recent article entitled "Eat the Stimulus," Philpott lays out a plan to overhaul America's food system that he believes would not require a new program or major expenditure of political capital. In short, Philpott suggest that a bulk of the economic stimulus package should go to support local and regional food systems. "Reviving that infrastructure would significantly lower costs for the sort of pasture-based, sustainable meat farmers who are now badly undercut on price by large-scale, environmentally ruinous producers," writes Philpott. He also recommends a reinvestment in our school cafeterias and feed our children healthy, unprocessed food --teaching them that our food comes from the earth not a grocery store. Sounds like a great plan to me but I feel that us sustainable foodies have an uphill battle. 

One way we can try and make a difference is to be a part of the Change.org campaign. On January 16, Change.org and the Case Foundation are co-hosting an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC to announce the top 10 rated ideas that have been submitted by Americans across the country. They plan on then launching a national campaign behind each idea using the collective energy of the millions of members of Change.org, MySpace, and partnering organizations to ensure that each winning idea gets the full consideration of the Obama Administration and Members of Congress.

Both Eat the View and The Who Farm have been petitioning the next president to plant an organic garden on the White House lawn.  I previously wrote about them in my post entitled "A Victory Garden at the White House?" The two groups have gotten together to put the idea on Change.org and the idea is currently (as I type) in 24th Place and needs 2861 more votes to be part of the final 10 ideas presented at the event in Washington, DC.  

The idea as stated on Change.org, Victory Garden 2.0:

Thousands of Americans and people from the around the world are asking the Obamas to lead by example on climate change, health policy, economic self-reliance, food security, and energy independence by replanting an organic food garden at the White House with the produce going to the First Kitchen and to local food pantries.

The many successes(1) of the first Victory Garden movement were the result of effective public policy, bold leadership(2) at a time of national crisis, and the commitment of millions of citizens who were ready to roll up their sleeves for the greater good.

There' s no better, more symbolic place for launching a new National Victory Garden Program than at the White House, "America’s House". There's no better, more urgent time(3) than now. And there's NOTHING that can beat the fresh taste of locally-grown, home-cooked foods.

The number one idea on Change.org is "Legalize the Medicinal and Recreational Use of Marijuana." Now I am actually in favor of this idea but I do not believe it is worthy of getting the attention that Change.org plans to put forth. There are much greater and important issues. Having a organic garden at the White House will really put the importance of our food system front and center. And then if a majority of American's follow the lead of growing their own food, our agricultural system will be forced to change without the force of the government.  

So please vote.  Voting ends at 5pm ET on January 15th. You can vote by clicking here or click on the image below.  You must register on the site but in only takes one second of your time.  If all of us vote we can definately put Victory Garden 2.o in the top 10.  Let's help make a change in our food system.

An open letter to President-elect Obama.

Dear President-elect Obama, 

After a long, hard and contentious campaign you've won the Presidency of the United States. Congratulations. Take a moment to enjoy your success. Ok, that was long enough. Now let's down to business.  

You well know that you have a long hard road ahead of you, but your first order of business is to choose a cabinet that is strong, thoughtful and will move this country in the right direction. In my opinion, and in the opinions of many people like me, administration environmental jobs should a top order of business. Our crumbling economy will not matter if we cannot breath our air, drink our water, or eat our food. Relieving the credit crunch won't make a difference if rates of obesity, cancer, diabetes, heart disease continue to rise. Keeping people in their homes, empowering people to buy new cars will become meaningless unless we fix the food system, the water system, and limit the spread of untested genetically modified organisms (GMOs). That is why I am calling out to you to take a good look at who you appoint as Secretary of Energy, Head Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Agriculture and possibly the new position, Climate Change Czar -- or make this a function of the Department of Homeland Defense.

Of all the cabinet level posts you will fill, there is one that is usually a second thought, but in my opinion is as important as State, Treasury and Defense -- the Secretary of Agriculture. Our food system is in dire need of a change and the right person might be able to help begin the overhaul necessary. 

The Secretary of Agriculture oversees food safety and sets farm policy.  He/she makes recommendations to Congress on which crops should be subsidized, how agricultural laws are enforced, crop-land conservation, and setting the nations nutritional standards and even organic labeling. They also oversee our food stamp program, food distribution during disaster relief efforts, the US Forest Service and the food that is fed to our children in school. That's a big job.

I have read that former Iowa Governor, Tom Vilsack is on the short list for this position. From the corn state, Vilsack strongly supports ethanol subsidies. He believes that he has changed the corn fields of Iowa into energy fields. To me that sounds like a shift in use, not better agriculture or energy policy. As he stated in an op-ed in the Argus Leader, "If you drive across Iowa today, you will see a changing landscape marked by new ethanol and biofuel production plants and wind farms. As a state, we became more economically, environmentally and energy secure." Today, Iowa farmers are still hurting the soil and water by using petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers. Furthermore, these farmers have shifted corn from feeding the world to ethanol production, which, as we all know, is not helping increase our independence from foreign oil. But with all his good intentions, former Governor Vilsak is too much of an insider to create really change.

I have also read that your short list includes Tom Buis the President of the National Farms Union and the Congresswoman for South Dakota Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. These two are also agriculture "insiders" who are in the pocket of industrial agriculture who might working in the best interest of the farmers they represent, mostly corporate farming, but neither are strong enough or creative enough to achieve real change we need in the system.

Then there is former Congressman Charles Stenholm (D-TX). Charlie is a conservative Democrat that joined the Republicans to kill a bill that would have prevented sick cattle that are unable to walk from entering the US food supply. (Remember the video released by the Humane Society of downer cows?) While part of the House Agriculture Committee he received more than $800,000 in PAC contributions and took numerous trips sponsored by agriculture lobbyist groups. After leaving Congress he became a lobbyist for the agriculture and food industry. Again, not someone who is going to change our system for the better.

So by now President-elect Obama you must say, well then who? There is one man out there who is not already in politics, who has examined our foods system from farm to table, and who understands the impact it plays on our environment, our economy and our health. He has intimate knowledge of not only farmers, but also diaries, feed-lots, and food processors. He is not a Washington insider and to top it off he has already laid out a plan for tackling the issues we face. His plan takes into account the impact agriculture has on our climate, energy dependence, the healthcare system, foreign and trade policies and national security. As states in his own words:

We need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine. True, this is easier said than done — fossil fuel is deeply implicated in everything about the way we currently grow food and feed ourselves. To put the food system back on sunlight will require policies to change how things work at every link in the food chain: in the farm field, in the way food is processed and sold and even in the American kitchen and at the American dinner table. Yet the sun still shines down on our land every day, and photosynthesis can still work its wonders wherever it does. If any part of the modern economy can be freed from its dependence on oil and successfully resolarized, surely it is food.

The scribe of this plan called the Sun-Food Agenda is Michael Pollan, the Knight Professor of Journalism at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC-Berkeley, director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism and author.

President-elect Obama I urge you to read Professor Pollan's plan as laid out in an article in the New York Times Magazine entitled "Farmer In Chief" and stick with what you have been saying throughout your campaign, that America needs real change. I urge you to consider Michael Pollan for the Secretary of Agriculture. (Or at least consult with him to mine his knowledge on the issues to make the best choice possible for the position.)

Pollan's plans are not liberal.  They are not conservative.  They are what is best for America.  And most importantly they are achievable.

As Pollan states:

[The] sun-food agenda promises to win support across the aisle. It builds on America’s agrarian past, but turns it toward a more sustainable, sophisticated future. It honors the work of American farmers and enlists them in three of the 21st century’s most urgent errands: to move into the post-oil era, to improve the health of the American people and to mitigate climate change. Indeed, it enlists all of us in this great cause by turning food consumers into part-time producers, reconnecting the American people with the American land and demonstrating that we need not choose between the welfare of our families and the health of the environment — that eating less oil and more sunlight will redound to the benefit of both.

This is a new era for America and Michael Pollan may just be The Change We Need.

Yes We Can!

Best,

Green Luvin'

A Victory Garden at the White House?

The next U.S. president is going to have the daunting task of fixing all that has gone wrong in this country. However, I believe that both candidates are overlooking an extremely important issue -- our food system. As Michael Pollan said on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show, “It’s true that neither candidate has talked about food policy very much. Some of the issues they have talked about — energy independence, climate change and the health care crisis — I think they will find, as soon as they get into office, that you can’t deal with any of those three problems without dealing with the food system.” 

Last month Pollan wrote an article in the New York Times Magazine which was an open letter to the next president called "The Farmer In Chief" where he laid out what is wrong with our food system and what needs to changed. The article has too many important points to lay out here so please read it.  However, I will highlight one. Pollan concludes his piece with saying that the White House needs to set an example for the rest of the world. I am a firm believer in setting an example for others whether they be our children, our friends or for the next president -- the country.  

Pollan recommends that the next President needs to create a new post -- White House farmer -- who would be in charge of five acres of the White House lawn that would be turned into an organic fruit and vegetable garden. This may sound silly but as Pollan points out back in 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt started the Victory Garden movement, vegetable and fruit gardens planted to ease the burden on the food system during World War II. According to Pollan, by the end of the war more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce American's consumed. Victory Gardens today can help reduce our dependence on fossil-fuels and help address the problems of climate change.  

Well Pollan is not the only one who thought of using the White House as a national organic garden  -- two groups Eat the View and The Who Farm are petitioning the next president to plant an organic garden on the White House lawn.  

"Eat the View" is a campaign to plant healthy, edible landscapes in high-impact, high visibility places; whether it's the "First Lawn" or the lawn in front of your child's school. "Eat the View" is coordinated by Kitchen Gardeners International, a Maine-based 501c3 nonprofit network of 10,000 gardeners from 100 countries who are inspiring and teaching more people to grow some of their own food. Roger Doiron the founder of Kitchen Gardeners International just wrote his own letter to the next president entitled "Message to the candidates: Listen to Roger the Gardner" stating the importance of this issue.

TheWhoFarm (aka The White House Organic Farm Project) is a non-partisan, petition-based initiative who is requesting that our next president oversee the planting of an organic farm on the grounds of the White House. The farm will be a model for healthy, economical and sustainable living everywhere and serve as an educational tool and economic aid, and as a means to provide food security in the Nation’s Capitol while reconnecting the Office of the Presidency to the self-sufficient agricultural roots of America's Founding Fathers. TheWhoFarm have been traveling around the country educating Americans on the importance their mission in TheWhoFarmMobile, two school buses fused together with an organic edible garden on the roof.

Instead of a President that loves jelly beans or one that runs to McDonald's to get a Big Mac or one who hates broccoli, how about a president that walks out his front door and picks his own lunch -- or a least his farmer and chef do! Please sign both petitions. You can find the The WhoFarm petition by clicking here and the Eat the View petition by clicking here.

And don't forget to vote on Tuesday.  

 

Green in Paris

So I think I have used up my allotment of fossil fuels for at least the remainder of this year or more likely the next decade. Why? My husband surprised me with a birthday trip to Paris last weekend. 

American's have a love/hate relationship with the French. So of course as an American and a Greeniac, I had to do some hardcore observations of Parisian "green" habits and compare them to what we do here.  What I discovered from my four days in the "City of Lights" is as follows.

(1) Recycling
There is a recycling program in place in Paris, but I am not sure if the Parisians are interested in recycling. On some streets they have huge recycling bins for bottles and cans but most of them were covered with graffiti (which happens to be all over the city). In the parks, they do have recycling bags next to the the garbage bags but as you can see in the picture,  recyclables are also placed in the garbage bag. On a walking tour the Marias, I asked our tour guide about how well the Parisian recycle. She said they are horrible and during our tour she opened a recycling bin from an apartment building to show us what she meant. It was filled with recyclables and non-recyclables.

(2) Reusables
My husband and I went in a few supermarkets (which I love to do whenever I travel abroad) and outdoor markets and I think I saw maybe 5 people using resusable bags. The worst was in the outdoor markets where you can buy fruits, vegetables, meats, cheese, bread, fish, flowers and much more. The biggest one we went to was in Versailles, and everything was put in a plastic bag. Many did bring there own reusable bag but those bags were then stuffed with plastic bags. It appeared to me that they may use more plastic bags than we use.

(3) Transportation
Paris is a very busy city with lot of traffic. But I would not say that they have any more traffic then New York City. They do drive smaller, and most likely, more efficient cars (I didn't see 1 hummer or SUV) and many people do ride bikes and take the subway. I think more people ride bikes in Paris then they do in Manhattan--but not as many as in Beijing. But the most ingenious thing that we observed in Paris was a bike rental system called Velib. The system began in July 2007, with 10,000 bikes, and now they are up to 20,000 bikes all over Paris. Riders can buy monthly, daily or hourly passes to rent bike stationed at more than 1,400 automated stations across the city. A bike can be rented from one station and returned to another. From what we saw, and from the doubling of the number of bikes in use, it appears that the Parisians love the system. My husband and I wished we had more time to try it out. Its funny, the first few days in Paris we weren't sure what these bikes were. Initially we thought they were motorized, then we didn't understand the rental system. By the time we figured out what was what it was it was time to go. I wonder if this would work in NYC.   

(4) Food
So those of you who read my blog know that I have an obsession with food.  Our trip there had some gastronomic highs--the picnic in Versaille and some lows--dinner at Chez Andre off the Champs-Elysées.   So of course I had to d find out where the French food comes from. Well I think this is a department that they really do better than we do. French farmer say no to GMOs--they even strike and riot to oppose them on a semi-regular basis. None of the fruits or vegetables grown in France are from genetically modified seeds. NONE! We can't say anything like that here. You can also find organic produce in Paris. We spoke to some butchers and they insisted that none of the meat is treated with antibiotics or hormones and that beef is grass-fed.  One of the butchers we spoke with even made a stink face when referring to grain fed beef.  I could not find anywhere on the internet to confirm or deny this so I have to take their word, for now. I did ask Shannon Hayes, a grass-fed beef farmer, of Sap Bush Farms and she said "It is my understanding is that not all meat in France is grass-fed. But a fair amount is. Quite often it depends on the breed - charolais beef, for example, is supposed to be exclusively raised on grass. When I was there I saw a lot of cattle grazed and fed in the barn - a model that is infinitely more sustainable than factory farms, but not, according to our strict definitions grass-fed. The meat is also much more likely to be raised on small farms, not from confinement facilities."

So what do I take from my trip to Paris.

1-  Thank you Lewis...I didn't thank you when I was there, but I'm thanking you now.

2- The food there was at times over rated, and at times sublime.  The baguettes in Versailles where the best I've ever had.

3- We might do a better job in recycling, and in moving towards a bag-less shopping experience, but I'm not sure.

4- The quality of the produce in Paris far surpasses what we have here.  I was thrilled by the freshness, the quality and the shopping experience.

5- Four days is just not enough time to be in Paris, but we missed our kids, and wanted to come home.

I'd love to hear about your "green" international observations.

Guest Blogger: Farmer Shannon Hayes on global warming, eating meat and the importance of the local farm movement

We have a guest blogger today, Shannon Hayes, a sustainable farmer in Upstate New York, who I wrote about a couple weeks back in my post entitled "Grass-Fed Meat." Shannon has a wealth of information on today's food issues and I thought you all might enjoy what she has to say about global warming, eating meat and the importance of the local farm movement.  I hope you find it has informative and timely as I did.   

Compare Apples to Apples When You’re Talking About Rib Eyes
By Shannon Hayes, farmer and host of grassfedcooking.com

After decades of hunching over in shame around environmentalist vegetarians, small grass-based meat farmers were finally given a chance hold our heads high by investigative journalists and nutritional advocates like Jo Robinson, Michael Pollan and Sally Fallon. In the last 10 years, Grass-fed meats have been lauded for their health benefits, their contributions to local economies and animal welfare, and most especially, for their environmental benefits.

…Until recently. A study released by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization started a buzz in November of 2006 suggesting that livestock production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined. According to a story in the New York Times, in 2007, PETA commissioned a hummer and outfitted it with a driver wearing a chicken suit to travel around to environmental rallies, proclaiming meat as the number one cause of global warming. And this month, a story in Environmental Science and Technology reports on a new study which suggests that, rather than eating locally, we should just remove red meat and dairy from our diet once per week and replace it with chicken, fish or eggs, and have at least one day per week entirely meat-free. The result? Customers ordinarily seeking beef are suddenly asking for turkey burgers and chicken sausage; or they are dropping meat from their diets all together.

That’s pretty grim news for my family. Three generations of us garner a living from our small grass-based farm tucked up in the northern foothills of the Appalachian mountain chain. We’ve managed to build an exclusively local market for our products, making us an integral part of our rural economy. We’ve also managed to bring three additional farms back into viable agricultural production with the help of folks dedicated to buying locally. 

…Which leads to the next piece of news being circulated: that these “small dietary shifts” of giving up meat can accomplish the same greenhouse gas reduction as eating locally. The subtext here seriously stings: “Forget about those looney meat farmers in the hills, don’t fret about canning local tomatoes, and return your faith to the conventional supermarket. Just buy less red meat and go vegetarian once per week..” As a grass-based meat farmer, I’ve got a beef with that -- not to mention a serious steak in the matter (in this case, a rib eye, which I plan to lay across my grill later today).

Truth be told, these studies aren’t wrong. They aren’t exactly right, either, but I’ll get to that in a second. When we are looking at the industrial model of factory farming, of pumping grains into animals, there are serious ecological reasons to forego the red meats. “The main issue,” explains animal scientist Dr. James Hayes “is the conversion factor. When you feed grain to fish, you have a conversion factor of about 1.25 to 1.” That means that for every 1 ¼ pounds of grain product you feed to a fish, you’ll have a pound of weight gain. “The conversion for chicken is 2 pounds of feed per pound of gain on the bird. Pork is 4 pounds per pound of gain. And when you get to the ruminants, it skyrockets. Lamb requires 8 pounds of feed for a pound of weight gain, and beef requires 9 pounds of feed per pound of gain.” Grain production is extremely taxing on the environment, particularly in light of the chemical fertilizers, the nitrous oxide emissions, and the fossil fuel-intensive farming practices.

But here’s where there are gaps in the analysis: Ruminants are not designed to eat grain. Beef and lamb from grassfed farms do not eat grain. Grassfed dairy products are not fed grain. Ruminants can live off what our fields naturally produce – they harvest perennial grasses which do not need to be seeded every year, and they return nutrients to the soil. In a pinch, they can also eat things like straw and corn stalks – which means they have the magical capacity to convert crop production waste into food. Conventional factory-farmed red meats are bad for the environment. Grass-fed red meats are not. Most grass farms use no chemical inputs; and since the animals harvest the feed themselves by grazing, very few fossil fuels are required to produce the meat. In fact, grass-fed meats play an integral role in our carbon solution.

In 2005, the USDA released a report showing that properly managed pastures store 2 to 3 times more carbon in their soils than fields that were left unmanaged, used for hay, or left un-harvested. Another study released by the University of Iowa in 2002 showed that grazed pastures were the ideal land use for storing carbon. This means that properly grazing animals helps to reverse the greenhouse effect. Allan Savory, founder of the Center for Holistic management, has done calculations suggesting that we could actually reverse global warming by grazing cattle and using them to build soil organic matter. His work emphasizes, however, that this is only done through good grazing practices. Poor grazing practices have long been the culprits of desertification and environmental degradation. There is a difference; and the only way to identify sound practices is know your local farmer.

But in the crunching of their carbon calculations, the anti-red-meat advocates overlook another huge element in the push to buy locally. Food security is a big one. As we hit peak oil, it will get harder and harder to transport those non-local food products to the folks that need them. Isn’t it wiser to have a secure local food system in place? And then, of course, there are the issues of viable local economies, made vibrant by independent businesses, beautified by open farmland, and hopeful by families whose children can find a livelihood near home, rather than far away. And then, finally, there are the simple principles of non-exploitation and social justice that are embodied by the local food movement. This means paying us farmers honest wages for our work, which in turn enables us to steward the land responsibly, and create great tasting food…especially that rib eye, which I’ll be grilling up for lunch.
 
About Shannon Hayes
Shannon is the host of grassfedcooking.com, and the author of The Farmer and the Grill and The Grassfed Gourmet. She holds a Ph.D. in sustainable agriculture and community development from Cornell University. Her family farm is Sap Bush Hollow, it is located in Upstate New York.

Reducing our Carbon Footprint is Critical: Take Action

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher the other night with my husband, and the hot discussion was global warming. Bill and his guests were talking about how the current adminstation has done nothing.  Basically addressing global warming has been put on hold because Bush wants the next President to make the hard choices required to deal with it. Richard Clarke, the counter terrorism czar, was on the panel and he said something that really stuck in my head.  

"The real problem is, the last eight years were probably the critical years where we might have done something. And, you know, when we look back – and my book is about government failure, and I say in it, the biggest failure probably that has ever happened of the American government is the failure to do something about global warming. Because the consequences are going to be staggering. And the time when we could have done something about it has probably passed. You know, we should still try. But, the time when we could have really done something to mitigate carbon emissions, the president was saying there wasn’t a problem."

Ok, we all know Clarke really dislikes the President (and so do I) so his statement is more than a little slanted, but I do agree that the clock is ticking. We are approaching "midnight". So the question is have we reached a tipping point where we can't do anything to reverse global warming?

I hope not.  Global warming is a huge and scary issue. Fifteen years ago or so when anyone talked about climate change and global warming, it was hard for us to grasp the concept--what we were told was about the hole in the ozone layer-- because we did not see any changes. But now we see how our weather is changing, think Katrina. If our government is not going to do anything we as individuals MUST take matters into our own hands.

The Environmental Defense Fund released a new analysis that revealed that the overall cost of capping greenhouse gases for the average American family will amount to less than one percent of household budgets over the next two decades. To put this into perspective, assume your family has an annual income of $75,000.  We're talking less than $750 dollars a year.  The anticipated cost to the U.S. economy of reducing emissions is small, even difficult to measure against projected economic growth, but the most expensive policy by far is to do nothing at all

 Another study just release conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon revealed that our dietary choices, not food miles (how long food travels from production to consumption), determine a household's food-related climate impacts. So eating a cow raised on industrial corn is worse for the environment than eating a Mango from Mexico shipped to your grocery store.  

The researchers report that fruit, vegetables, meat and milk produced closer to home rack up fewer petroleum-based transport miles than foods trucked cross country to your table. Yet despite the large distances involved the average distance traveled for food in the U.S. is estimated at 4,000-5,000 miles ­the large non-energy based greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing food make food production matter much more than distance traveled. So the energy used to grow feed, fertilize, slaughter and transport is much more than the energy used to import fruits and veggies to the U.S.

Researchers Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews suggest that eating less red meat and/or dairy products may be a more effective way for concerned citizens to lower their food-related climate impacts. Moving to a diet that is entirely local would reduce the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions as driving 1,000 miles, while changing only one day per week’s meat and dairy-based calories to chicken, fish, or vegetables would have about the same impact. Shifting entirely from an average American diet to a vegetable-based one would reduce the same emissions as 8,000 miles driven per year.

We're doing our part.  We've joined a CSA (community supported agriculture farm) to lower our dietary carbon footprint and eat locally grown fruits and vegetables. Additionally, we've made a commitment to grow as much of our own food as we can in our family garden. 

So, what are you going to do? 

(Click on the image above by Learning Fundamentals to see different things you can do to help solve global warming)

Grass-Fed Meat

Deciphering the labels in the meat department in the supermarket has become increasingly difficult. Try figuring our what free range, organic, hormone free, no animal bi-products, no antibiotics means and you could go crazy. So if you don't have a higher degree in animal husbandry you probably would ask the butcher behind the glass for help right? Well in my experience  the butcher at Whole Foods, the only place I can buy the closest thing to non-industrial meat, gives me a different answer every time I ask the SAME question, "what does this mean?"

As far as I can figure out from my many trips to the store, organic meat and poultry is the best because they are fed an organic diet. In addition, as I recently learned from an organic farmer I met, the food you eat needs to have to be born from an organic mother to be considered organic. (Uh, oh, I was non-organic when I gave birth, does that mean my kids aren't organic?) Not sure about the father. But to get the really low down on all the labels check out these two really great articles from this week by the Diet Detective discussing the meat and poultry claims and labels. You can read them here and here.

  

So post reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and watching King Corn I started having dreams about Polyface farms, the farm that Michael Pollen lived at for a week. I had hopes of finding something like that in my area. I began looking online for grass-fed farmers near my home.  In my search I found a farm in upstate New York called Sap Bush Hollow Farm. While searching on the site I discovered that the daughter of the farms owner, Shannon Hayes, had written books on grass-fed meats. Wow, someone who could provide some information on grass-fed meat. I quickly emailed her, and she introduced me to grass fed beef and pork.  

It turns out that a typical industrial steak can have 3 times as much saturated fat the a grass-fed. As I learned in King Corn, a industrial farmed t-bone has approximately 9 grams of saturated fat compared to 3 grams in same size grass-fed t-bone. Wow that's a big difference. Shannon told me that many experts believe that 100 percent grass-fed meat is like a preventive and curative medicine in food form. Meat, eggs, and dairy products from pastured animals are believed to be ideal for health. Compared with commercial products, they offer more "good" fats, and fewer "bad" fats; are richer in antioxidants; including vitamins E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C. Grass-fed meats do not contain traces of added hormones, antibiotics or other drugs. And most importantly, beef from a grass-fed farm is believed to be free from mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE).

Shannon has written two books, The Grass-fed Gourmet and her most recent which hit shelves this month, The Farmer and The Grill: A Guide to Grilling, Barbecuing and Split-Roasting Grass-fed Meat and for Saving the Planet, One Bite at a Time. In addition to writing, Shannon and her family run a sustainable farm that raises and sells only grass-fed meats including beef, pork, lamb and poultry.

According the Shannon, "Grass-based farms are not industrial factories. The livestock on these farms are unique individuals and their genetics are going to vary, which means that some will be fatter, some larger, some leaner, some older, and some younger when they are read for processing. The key thing for anyone who cares about what they are eating, is to know that truly organic, grass-fed meat tastes different than what you are used to. It's more robust in flavor, but more of a challenge to cook. Grass-fed meats do not cook at the same temperatures, have the same texture or tastes, and even look a bit different. So for those people who want to eat better, for their health and the environment, I wrote the The Farmer and the Grill, to help these people get the most enjoyment and flavor out of the grass-fed foods they buy."

So with Shannon's newest book in hand, my husband and I fired up the BBQ and sloooow cooked a nice steak and pork chop on low heat. Why slow cooking on low heat? Because of the way the animals are raised, the meats are marbled differently, they are significantly less fatty, and have a different cooking profile. After following Shannon's directions (no BBQ sauce for Lewis' pork chop, which is a rarity) we got our steak knives and sat down to eat. With a bit of trepidation, we put the first bites into our mouths.  WOW, they were delicious. Not only were they much healthier for us but they tasted great too.  

So, if you can try some real meat, grass-fed, not grain (corn)-fed, and not Whole Foods grass-fed, which are corn-fed the month before slaughter to fatten them up, you'll be happy you did. 

To find a grass-fed farm in your area check out Eat Wild that has a state-by-state listing. Also on this this site is information on benefits of grass-fed meats for the animals, the environment, the farmer and for your health.  And check out Shannon's books and farm to get a true insight into the way meat is suppose to be raised.

King Corn: We are what we eat.

Corn, it is hot news these days. With crops at record prices and grocery bills rising everyone is looking at the corn industry. 

Corn is in almost everything we eat. Livestock is fed corn, farmed fish are fed corn, processed food are made of corn and the mighty sweeter, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is made of corn. Corn is even used to fuel our cars in the form of ethanol thanks to a poorly thought out government policy.

Well for those of you are interested in an introductory course on the corn, two college friends, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, filmed a documentary on the industry called "King Corn." This pretty amazing film will air on PBS on April 15th. 

What's the story here? Well, Ian and Curt decided to move to Iowa in 2003 for a year to plant one acre of corn to follow it from seed to table. What they find out raises scary questions not only about what Americans eat but also how our agriculture is farmed. 

Their journey takes them first to have their hair carbon tested at the University of Virginia to discover that their bodies are made out of more than 50% corn! From Virginia, they venture to fields of Iowa where acres and acres of farmland are planted with corn and the grain elevators are overflowing with corn. Then to the grasslands of Colorado where cattle use to graze.  The fields are now cornfields that feed the cows in feed-lots.  Ian and Curt look at every part of the corn production cycle. They even speak to a high fructose corn syrup producer who thinks the liquid sweetener is the best invention since sliced bread.  

Corn is a commodity and Ian and Curt learn this very quickly when they taste their industrial corn for the first time.  It was inedible! They discover for their corn to become any type of food it must be processed.  

The film is in large part a homage to Michael Pollen, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. In "King Corn," Pollan states, "If you take a McDonald's meal, you don't realize it when you eat it but you're eating corn. Beef has been corn-fed. Soda is corn. Even the French fries -- half the calories in the French fries come from the fat they're fried in, which is liable to be either corn oil or soy oil. So when you're at McDonald's, you are eating Iowa food. Everything on the plate is corn." 

The agriculture system today is a result of America's government subsidized farm program.  In 1973, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz declared, "What we want out of agriculture is plenty of food."

 

Well, we have plenty of food but our nutritional supply has degraded. When Ian and Curt speak with one of the Iowa farmers about their crops, the farmer admits that they do not eat their corn.  As he states in the movie, "We aren't growing quality, we are growing crap."

Ian and Curt's acre harvested 10,000-pounds of corn which could yield 57,348 cans of soda or 3,894 corn-fed hamburgers.  Sixty-three percent of their harvest went into feed for livestock, 32% into ethanol and 5% into sweeteners like HFCS.

A great visual into to corn industry and the American food system, "King Corn" should become required viewing for all schools across the country to teach children to eat better.  

"King Corn" will air on PBS on April 15th at 10:00 PM.  You can also purchase the DVD on their website.  

Another Point for the Organic Industry!

For years I've been a big supporter of the organic movement. But recently I made a decision to make a change in my buying behaviors and bring my beliefs into my home. Now, it is hard to find food in my house that is not organic. There so many reasons to purchase organic foods, first and foremost, organic foods are better for the environment and of equal importance, better for you health.

Just last month, I wrote about a study that revealed that the pesticides applied to industrial fruit and veggies enter our bodies and show up in our saliva and urine. Happily, this is not a permanent problem.  Once you switch to organic produce you can "get clean".  The same study showed that after switch to organic foods, the industrial pesticides were no longer present if your body within 8-36 hours after switch. You can my earlier post on this topic here. 

If that isn't enough to change your buying habits, two more studies on organic foods were published last week that are sure to make you rethink your food choices.

The first study, from the Organic Center was entitled "New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods." The report compared the nutrient content in conventional vs. organic foods, based on the findings of 97 published studies. The study revealed the following:

• Organic plant-based foods are on average, more nutritious in terms of their nutrient density for compounds.
• The average serving of organic plant-based food contains about 25% more nutrients compared with the same food produced by conventional farming methods.
  
• There is strong evidence that poultry and livestock that consume organic feed produce meat, milk and eggs that are more nutritious. 

So plainly said, organic food is healthier for you, and has more nutrients per serving.  

Studies like this make me feel all that much better about buying organic. It is better for me to eat "green,"  but is it better for the farmer?

So the first question here is, do you care? I do, and the reason why is that unless farmers can be as productive and profitable growing organic, I won't be able to buy the foods I want to. So, is organic farming a smart business decision for Farmer John?

Yes! Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a study to see if organic farms can be as productive as conventional industrial farming systems.  As reported in the March-April issue of the Agronomy Journal, "The answer is an unqualified, "Yes" for alfalfa or wheat and a qualified "Yes most of the time" for corn and soybeans."

These are THE most important cash crops for the American farmer, and if they can be as productive, meaning getting an equivalent yield per acre, then there is truly no incentive to grow industrial foods, except for its easier. But, most farmers, want to grow food they can eat, they can be proud of, and won't hurt the land or the people eating it.

Finally, there is money in the organic foods industry. As I wrote in an earlier posting, last year American's spent $20 billion on organic foods. While that isn't close to the overall food spend, that ain't chump change. Also the trends are that people are buying more and more organics.

So, get on the bandwagon, get healthy and buy organic.

There is something fishy with salmon.

I don't know about you but I am always very confused when it comes eating salmon.   Should I eat farmed or fresh? Most articles about eating fish publish charts on safe fish and fish to avoid and I find that salmon makes it into both columns.

Last week my friend and I were discussing the issue, because she, like I, is obsessed with food these days. Our list of foods we eat is ever dwindling.  We were wondering what salmon is best for the environment and our health.  Subsequent to our conversation, she called me up to say that she had just read an article in Eating Well Magazine on the fresh vs. farm salmon debate that helped bring some clarity.  

So I quickly grabbed the March/April issue and began to read the article entitled "The Wild Salmon Debate."  The piece was written by David Dobbs, a salmon angler and author of The Great Gulf, about the decimation of the ocean fisheries.  Dobbs is "a sort of salmon-expert-for-the-day." In his article, Dobbs discussed the differences between types of salmon, location caught and farmed vs. fresh. 

Wild salmon today is all from the Pacific. Why? Because the Atlantic salmon are now on the Endangered Species List.  Salmon from the Pacific can be found in Alaska, British Columbia, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.  

All Atlantic salmon species are farmed and live in net pens of tens of thousands of fish. These fish are vaccinated against diseases because they live in crowded confinement and fed fish pellets of food and additives to make their flesh pink like their wild fishy friends in the Pacific. 

As Dobbs reports, "Farmed salmon holds about 2 to 10 times the levels of PCBs, DDT, dioxins, pesticides, mercury and some other suspected carcinogens that most wild salmon do, apparently because the rich meal they eat contains bits of oily fish in which these contaminants tend to concentrate." These levels are still low (relatively) and that the benefits of eating salmon out way the cost of these contaminants unless you are pregnant, nursing or young. 

 

However, as he points out, there is a bigger picture to the farmed salmon. Farming salmon is wreaking havoc on the environment.  With the expansion of farmed salmon, there appears to be more and more problems emerging.  Many of the fish escape and disrupt the spawning of the wild salmon.  Sea lice that have infested farms are now spreading to wild populations killing many wild salmon.

Dobbs concludes that wild salmon is the way to go. It may be seasonal, inconsistent in taste and more expensive, but these trade offs are small in the whole scheme of things.

So I thought I was set.  Wild salmon was all my family would eat.  But then last week the Pacific Fishery Management Council stated that the wild salmon in the Pacific West fisheries, were at an all time low.  The managers are discussing cancelling the early seasons of ocean fishing for chinook salmon off the coast of Oregon and Northern California because of a collapse in stock. 

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle on March 12th, "only 63,900 fall run salmon were documented spawning in the Sacramento River in 2007, far below the 122,000 to 189,000 objective the council had set."  And to make matters worse, the number of jacks (two year old fish that return to the river to spawn) are at an all time low. Frighteningly, officials expected 157,000 jacks but only counted 6,000.

So now I was really in a tizzy. First I moved my family to eating more fish. Then, only wild salmon. Now, heck, what am I supposed to do? The salmon stocks in the Northwest are collapsing, I can't figure out which way is up.  So stealing a line from Dr. Suess, one fish, two fish, red fish, who knew fish?  

So I decided to contact Dobbs and get his take on the issue. Dobbs, who in addition to writing for Eating Well and other outlets, writes his own blog called Smooth Pebbles where he covers various health issues. 

He explained to me that this truly is a confusing issue. "To make it easy, just think Wild Alaskan Salmon -- these are Pacific salmon but unlike Pacific Northwest salmon, the Alaskan salmon have habitat undamaged by dams (which are doing in many salmon) and are extremely well-managed so that they are not overfished."

Dobbs told me he considers farmed salmon disastrous and the only salmon he eats is wild Alaskan.  And now so do I.

So next time I go shopping, I'm looking for the mukluks on my fish.

Go Local...

Prior to using Door-to-Door Organics to get my organic produce, I was on the hunt for a local buying club or coop in my area that I could join. I was having trouble finding one that was close enough to my home, so when my friend introduced me to Door-to-Door, I thought I had found my solution. I figured I would use the deliver service until the summer when I would get my veggies from my family's garden and farmer's markets in my area.  However just last week I discovered that some mothers in my area were trying to put together a group to join a "Community Supported Agriculture" (CSA) farm.  

A CSA is a way for consumers in an area to support and create a relationship with a local farm. Members of a CSA pledge in advance to cover the farms anticipated costs.  By doing so, members receive weekly boxes of produce for the season.  Where I live the season runs from around May through November. Most CSA farms offer high quality produce that is grown organically, avoiding pesticides and fertilizers.   

So now I was in a quandary.  Stick with my original plan or join the CSA?  

Then I received in the mail, via Netflix, the movie The Real Dirt on Farmer John, a documentary about John Peterson, a.k.a Farmer John, a midwest farmer who life parallels the history of American farming in the late 20th century.  

Peterson came from a family of farmers who struggled, like most farmers, to make ends meet. Peterson's father died when he was teenager, which forced him to be in charge of the farm.  By the 1980's, when most farmers were trouble, so was Peterson who had to sell off most of his farm to make ends meet. Destitute and depressed, Peterson took time away from farming and returned in the '90s.  Deciding to change his farm from a mono-culture, chemical dependent farm, to an organic farm and connect himself to the land, Peterson turned his farm, Angelic Organics, into the one of the largest CSAs in the country. 

So after seeing the story of Farmer John, I have decided that it is important, not only from my families health perspective, but for community support, to join the CSA.  I might be overflowing in veggies this summer but my husband loves to entertain.  Just hope our friends like veggies!

To find CSA farms in your area go to Local Harvest and Eat Wild, or a buying club go to United Buying Clubs. In addition, Local Harvest also lists farmer markets, coops, restaurants and farms.  

Shopping for the Environment: Big Green Purse

I don't know about you but I make most of the purchasing decisions in my household. Not that my husband cannot do it, but come on, he does not want to buy clothes for the kids, groceries, etc.  And I am not alone, women purchase or influence the purchases of 80% of all consumer goods -- trillions of dollars per year.   That is a lot of spending power!  So how can we take this purchasing power and save the environment?

Well, for years, environmental writer, Diane MacEachern, has been loosing an uphill battle fighting for a better environment.  She decided in addition to fighting to get Congress and companies to adopt better business practices to reverse global warming, and speaking across the country about environmental issues, she would go shopping.

Shopping?  How can shopping help save the environment?

 "Women have a whole planetful of power in their purses," states MacEachern in her new book, released this week, Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World.  

But really, how can my spending help environment?  MacEachern put outs this pledge. If one million of us (men can do this too!) pledge to shift $1,000 of our annual spending on green products, it would create an impact of $1 billion on the market place. That is a lot of influence on companies.  

Her book Big Green Purse guides readers through every section of the marketplace -- beauty, cosmetics, personal care products, cars, food, household clears, clothes, jewelry, garden and lawn care. kids and baby items, lights, appliances, electronics, and home products -- 25 commodities where our dollars can have the most impact. 

In the market for a new diamond ring or necklace? Shop at antique stores, estate sales or yard sales.  If used does not do it for you, buy diamonds mined in Canada that miners rights are protected and the diamonds are mined under stricter environmental regulations than Africa or those that meet the Kimberley Process Certification, non-conflict stones. 

Love clothes? Search out those made of organic cotton, recycled soda bottles , hemp, and bamboo.  Buy clothes with less color and dyes and shoes made out of cork and recycled rubber. 

Big Green Purse is not just a list of things you should buy or avoid, rather MacEachern explains in detail the current marketplace, the issues and what the impact of buying these green purchase will make on the environment.  

For example, the section on foods, because we know I am obsessed with food, entitled "We are what we Eat,"  goes into detail on the impact of eating beef, poultry and pork has on the environment.  The difference between certified organic, natural and grass-fed meats. How to choose sustainable seafood.  How to afford organic foods.  There is even a section on which you should use plastic or paper bags.  (Answer:  reusable bags!) 

So I've begun to shift my $1,000.  Who's joining me?  

BTW, kudos to the publisher of this book for publicizing Big Green Purse via a "paperless PR campaign!"