Grist.org - Food

by Dana Gunders.

Have you ever considered what that rotten food in your refrigerator costs? The average American family of four throws out an estimated $130-175 per month in spoiled and discarded food. That’s real money going straight into the garbage or compost bin instead of paying off your credit card bills.

Don’t get me wrong—I love compost. It’s just not the best use of the staggering amount of resources that are needed to grow all the food that never even gets eaten, including the money you spent to buy it. If you don’t eat half of that $10 fish, that’s $5 you’re throwing away.  

Collectively, we consumers are responsible for more wasted food than farmers, grocery stores, or any other part of the food supply chain. We’re also wasting far more food than ever before, as the average American today wastes 50 percent more food than 40 years ago. The truth is the implications of our wasteful habits with food are just not on most of our radars.

However, our British friends across the pond have demonstrated that with some basic public awareness, we can make big strides in food waste reduction. A public awareness campaign in the United Kingdom has been stunningly successful in reducing household food waste by 18 percent [PDF] in just five years. Doing the same here would mean hundreds of dollars in savings for the average family.

There are many steps we can take to turn this food waste trend around, but one of the first is to understand just what we’re wasting. 

Using USDA data, a recent report by Clean Metrics [PDF] provides estimates of the retail value of all the food we Americans waste, broken down by categories of meat, dairy, and fresh produce. Note that these numbers summarize the retail value of avoidable wasted food—that is, they do not include bones, peels, and fat that burns off during cooking.

The winner? Vegetables by a long shot. In 2009, U.S. consumers spent a whopping $32 billion on vegetables they bought, never ate, and ended up throwing away. By volume, tomatoes and potatoes are the most common culprits, but that’s partially because they’re also the most commonly eaten vegetables in the U.S. If we look by percentage, greens, onions, peppers, and pumpkins (Halloween?) are tossed at the highest rates. 

You know your own food habits best, but here’s a peek into the average American kitchen garbage bin:

(If you’re like me and want to totally geek out on the percentage of eggnog and hazelnuts that go to waste, see this recent USDA report [PDF].)

Take a moment to think about the products on this list that most often go bad in your household. When you go to the store, are you realistic about how much you actually cook and eat? Do you know the best way to store food items, or how to tell when they’re actually bad? (Hint: It’s not necessarily  the expiration date. See my previous blog here.) Do you take the time to freeze food you won’t eat in time?

The Love Food Hate Waste site has excellent advice for how to store many different foods and fun recipe tools to help use up specific foods. They also have a portion planner to help you cook just the right amount. NRDC’s new food waste fact sheet [PDF] has tips on what to think about when buying and storing food. And there’s a wealth of knowledge out there in the form of friends, family, and cookbooks. I like The Use-It-Up Cookbook or The Frugal Foodie. 

Awareness is the first step, so you’re already well on your way. Now it’s time to take action. Observe your habits, educate yourself, try a new recipe or freeze something you haven’t frozen before, and get on the journey to reducing your food waste, food bills, and food print all at the same time.

A version of this post originally appeared on Switchboard, the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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by Lionel Foster.

Forty-four years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot dead while supporting sanitation workers in Memphis, his legacy is indisputable. Because of the way he mobilized the poor and the powerful, state-sponsored racial discrimination, a prominent factor in American life for nearly 200 years, is no more. As a result, it’s now hard to imagine a position of prominence in this country, including the presidency, that an African American could not obtain.

But Dr. King’s work is not complete. Today, we face continued attempts at voter suppression, attacks on collective bargaining rights, income inequality, a racially inflected discussion of illegal immigration, and one of the last great bastions of state-sponsored discrimination: the denial of marriage and other rights on the basis of sexual orientation. If Dr. King were alive today, I believe he would speak out about these issues. I believe, too, that in this era of globalization, he would talk about climate change, the North/South divide, and our moral duty to preserve the natural resources that are fundamental to human wellbeing.

Dr. King would be an environmentalist, but I think he would talk about the natural and man-made worlds in a way that resonates with everyone, especially the poor. Let me explain.

I spent most of my childhood on the eastside of Baltimore, part of a black family living paycheck to paycheck in the shadow of one of the world’s great medical research institutions, Johns Hopkins Hospital. Unfortunately, the health and prosperity of Hopkins rarely spilled over into the surrounding community. On our side of the invisible line, urban decay and drug-related crime defined the landscape. Three out of every ten houses in my neighborhood were vacant.

These two very different communities viewed each other warily. I attended Johns Hopkins University on scholarship as an undergrad, worked part-time as an office assistant in the department of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, and was there when a division chief within the department was robbed and assaulted on his way home. I can’t remember speaking to anyone else in that office who lived within the city limits, let alone near the hospital, and I think that attack reinforced the idea that Hopkins was by necessity a fortress, a place apart.

The fear ran both ways. My grandmother summed up many residents’ concerns about the hospital down the street. “I have friends who go into Hopkins,” she once told me, “but they don’t come out.” There was a lot to this statement. For people with little or no access to healthcare, an acute illness left untreated for years can become chronic and eventually irreversible. Add this to glaring disparities in wealth and cultural barriers, and it becomes plausible for a 70-year-old woman from the segregated South to believe that white men in lab coats might kill her if they had the chance.

After years of trying to solve the problem of the surrounding community, the hospital settled on a solution: They tore much of it down. Hopkins and the City of Baltimore formed a partnership called East Baltimore Development Inc., used eminent domain to relocate my grandmother and hundreds of other families, and cleared 88 acres to make room for a biotechnology park.

What does all this have to do with the environment? In 2006, when a local magazine asked me and a pair of artists to fill two pages of a special issue with anything we wanted, the story of my troubled neighborhood was on my mind. Why was the city so racially divided, we asked, and was there anything we could do about it? Our attempt to answer that question became a small environmental campaign called Black + White = Green. The idea was that even though the most outspoken proponents of environmentalism were white and the victims of environmental degradation were disproportionately black and brown, the environment could give us lots of common ground, especially if we expanded its definition to include the material and non-material factors that shape life everywhere, from untouched mountain tops to the streets of inner cities.

I don’t think any of us had much experience working on environmental issues, so we embarked on this project with no knowledge of people who were already doing what we had in mind in much bigger and better ways. There’s Will Allen, a Milwaukee-based MacArthur Foundation “genius” award winner who’s turning young people into urban farmers; former Obama administration green jobs advisor Van Jones, connecting environmentalism to community development and economic opportunity; and Majora Carter, another MacArthur “genius,” busy greening New York’s South Bronx.

Tactically and philosophically, these are some of the descendants of Dr. King. As if reading from King’s playbook, Jones in particular has made a point of empowering young people; fighting for economic opportunity; using collective action; helping those who might otherwise be written off as powerless turn their hands and feet into assets; and paying close attention to the way America thinks and talks about itself. In his latest project, called Rebuild the Dream, Jones is encouraging environmentalists, community activists, and average citizens to demand economic fairness. His timing was perfect. Rebuild the Dream was up and running as the Occupy movement kicked into full gear, and it soon became clear that Jones, the urban environmentalist, already spoke the demonstrators’ language.

Last October, when occupiers were making news daily, I attended a forum in Washington, D.C. A new monument to King had been erected in the National Mall and civil rights veterans gathered to remember King and his work. The speakers repeatedly drew connections between their departed friend’s push for economic equality and the Occupy movement. The parallels were striking.

King spent his last months organizing a Poor People’s Campaign that, just weeks after his death, saw the erection of a settlement in the capital full of people demanding an end to poverty. It’s impact was small. King was killed before the march took off on Mother’s Day 1968, the assassination of Robert Kennedy dampened spirits during the encampment’s third week, and in mid-June the Department of the Interior forced the demonstrators to leave after their permit expired.

Dr. King has now been dead for several more years than he ever spent walking, teaching, and preaching, but lots of people of different colors and backgrounds are still looking for a way forward. Now, as then, progress in some areas is still elusive, but the events of the past year show that thousands are willing to work for change.

Forty-four years after his death, Occupy, people like Van Jones, and the resonance with which King’s voice still reverberates through current events, all suggest that a movement that can unite people who care about patches of soil with those who know how cold and unforgiving a swath of concrete can be, could bring us that much closer to something that looks like justice.

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by Grist.

We ran an article earlier this week called Five packaged foods you never need to buy again and we got a flood of comments from enthusiastic home cooks eager to share tips and suggestions about avoiding processed foods. We’ve collected a few of our favorites here. Feel free to add to these comments in the… comments section below. Does it get any more meta than that?

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Lexicon of Sustainability: Biodiversity vs. monoculture

by Daniel Klein.

Our videos are often inspired by whatever it is I’m in the mood to eat. Such was the case with this short trip we took along the Rappahannock River in Virginia, where oyster farmers are helping clean the Chesapeake Bay and replenishing the native oyster population (now down to just 1 percent of what it once was). These bivalves are a remarkable, sustainable food and if you are in an oyster-growing region, I recommend you partake as soon as possible. Winter is oyster season! (Just make sure your cameraperson isn’t prone to seasickness.)

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Learning on the half-shell

by Lexicon of Sustainaibility.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. There’s more where this came from!

Industrial agriculture = monoculture.
Small farms = biodiversity.

Small, organic farms like Rick Knoll’s are able to eliminate their reliance on petrochemical-based fertilizers and pesticides. The results are fewer pollutants, less environmental degradation, and cleaner air. And by using cover cropping and other soil fertilization principles they are able to sequester carbon and keep topsoil—which is carbon heavy—from being lost into the atmosphere (the latter also contributes to climate change).

Biodiversity

Weeds + trees + crops + critters + soil = An integrated food web allowing biota to self-regulate = A self-regulating, multi-layered farm that requires little maintenance and no pesticides.

Additional text taken from the photograph:

The conventional farmer next door¹ calls Rick’s organic methods “dirty farming” (they’re “clean”). Each winter their fields sit idle for months at a time. Since no cover crop is planted (a process that returns nutrients to the soil and increases fertility), the soil remains exposed to the elements. Wind erosion will carry some of this precious top soil away and, in so doing, release carbon back into the atmosphere.

About Rick Knoll

Rick Knoll is an organic farmer who has been practicing biodynamic farming for 32 years. He owns Knoll Farms in Brentwood, Calif., and holds a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from UC Irvine. He has also studied Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. Learn more on the Knoll Farms website.

This image was made possible with generous funding from Google.

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by Claire Thompson.

Anyone who’s been stung by a bee knows they can inflict an outsized pain for such tiny insects. It makes a strange kind of sense, then, that their demise would create an outsized problem for the food system by placing the more than 70 crops they pollinate—from almonds to apples to blueberries—in peril.

Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006, said Paul Towers, of the Pesticide Action Network. Towers was one of the organizers of a conference that brought together beekeepers and environmental groups this week to tackle the challenges facing the beekeeping industry and the agricultural economy by proxy.

“We are inching our way toward a critical tipping point,” said Steve Ellis, secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board (NHBAB) and a beekeeper for 35 years. Last year he had so many abnormal bee die-offs that he’ll qualify for disaster relief from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

In addition to continued reports of CCD—a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind—bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.

“In the industry we believe pesticides play an important role in what’s going on,” said Dave Hackenberg, co-chair of the NHBAB and a beekeeper in Pennsylvania.

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they’re absorbed by the plant’s vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today’s genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don’t like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.

The Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated maize seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.

Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, “The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from.” These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees’ habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.

The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops’ production—a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that “we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry.” In addition to beekeeping, he owns two farms, and even when crop analysts recommend spraying pesticides on his crops to kill an aphid population, for example, he knows that “if I spray, I’m going to kill all the beneficial insects.” But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg’s awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser—who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.

Beekeepers have already teamed up with groups representing the almond and blueberry industries—both of which depend on honey bee pollination—to tackle the need for education among farmers. “A lot of [farm groups] are recognizing that we need more resources devoted to pollinator protection,” Ellis said. “We need that same level of commitment on a national basis, from our USDA and EPA and the agricultural chemical industry.”

Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists’ clear warnings about the chemicals’ effects on bees and other pollinators. That doesn’t bode well for the chances of getting neonics off the market now, even in light of the Purdue study’s findings.

“The agency has, in most cases, sided with pesticide manufacturers and worked to fast-track the approval of new products, and failed in cases when there’s clear evidence of harm to take those products off the market,” Towers said.

Since this is an election year—a time when no one wants to make Big Ag (and its money) mad—beekeepers may have to suffer another season of losses before there’s any hope of action on the EPA’s part. But when one out of every three bites of food on Americans’ plates results directly from honey bee pollination, there’s no question that the fate of these insects will determine our own as eaters.

Ellis, for his part, thinks that figuring out a way to solve the bee crisis could be a catalyst for larger reform within our agriculture system. “If we can protect that pollinator base, it’s going to have ripple effects ... for wildlife, for human health,” he said. “It will bring up subjects that need to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water—all the connected subjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture.”

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by Twilight Greenaway.

It’s been a little over a year since methyl iodide—a known carcinogen that’s been made to work as a fumigant on industrial-scale conventional farms, and is especially likely to be used on strawberry farms—was approved for use in California.  

Methyl iodide is being seen as a replacement for the ozone-depleting methyl bromide, which will be phased out of use in the state by 2015. And while farmers appear to be holding off on using this highly toxic chemical (only a handful of applications have been recorded in the state so far), that fact hasn’t stopped anti-pesticide advocates from pushing the state’s Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) to reconsider the decision.

Thursday’s hearing, in response to a suit filed by California Rural Legal Assistance and Earthjustice against the state Attorney General’s Office and Arysta LifeScience Corp, the makers of the fumigant, offers a glimmer of hope. [Note: See tweets about the hearing on the KQED website or read this report on the trial from Amy Standen].

A group of advocates and lawyers held a press conference in Salinas on Wednesday to bring attention to the issue in advance of the hearing. There, a farmworker named Maria Vargas, from a group called Líderes Campesinas, spoke through a translator. She told The Californian: “We know that methyl iodide will principally affect women, children, and farmworkers, and, because we are in the fields, we will be most affected.”

It’s hard to say just how likely it is that today’s hearing will influence Gov. Jerry Brown or the DPR on the issue. But what’s really interesting to me—and it’s getting much less news coverage—is the simultaneous work being done by anti-pesticide advocates in Monterey County, the part of the state most likely to be impacted by the use of the fumigant.

Just last month, the Monterey County Board of Education passed a resolution opposing methyl iodide. A story in the local Monterey Herald (by Sara Rubin, a reporter who’s been following this issue closely) read:

Citing possible health risks for children attending Monterey County schools, six of the seven trustees Wednesday supported a resolution urging California lawmakers to repeal approval of methyl iodide, a pesticide the Environmental Protection Agency says could cause pulmonary edema, harm to the central nervous system and other effects.

This is a big deal in an agricultural county (and you can be sure not everyone is happy about it).

Now the same group of activists—a combination of teachers, farmworker advocates, the area’s League of Women Voters, and even some representatives from Planned Parenthood, who are making a connection between the fumigant and birth defects, as well as an array of other reproductive health issues—are asking the Monterey County Board of Supervisors to pass a similar resolution.

After an initial request in November (and the passage of a similar resolution in neighboring Santa Cruz County) the Board of Supervisors have agreed to a stakeholder meeting that will take place Friday, a day after the state-level hearing.

Monterey County is an important agricultural county—especially when it comes to strawberries; the crop is worth nearly $1 billion, and the strawberries grown there end up in grocery stores all over the nation. (California grows 86 percent of the fresh and frozen strawberries sold in the U.S., and nearly half of those are grown in the Salinas/Watsonville region.) It’s also where a large portion of methyl iodide would ultimately get used.

Dana Perls, an organizer with Pesticide Watch who has been working tirelessly to support these Central Coast communities, believes it would be “hugely symbolic” if Monterey County stands up and asks that last year’s decision be reconsidered.

“Monterey County has not always been the most liberal county,” she adds. “It has traditionally been a county that answers to the [conventional] ag community because it is so essential for the local economy. So it would be a pretty powerful statement for an agricultural county to side with public health.”

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by Tom Laskawy.

In a New York Times op-ed, Mark Bittman flagged this story from the Daily Livestock Report that notes the USDA is now projecting that U.S meat consumption will continue to drop, representing a 12 percent decrease from 2007. While American beef consumption has been dropping for some time, the story says chicken and even pork are now suffering a similar fate.

The Daily Livestock Report, a trade paper, pins the blame on rising feed prices (thank you, ethanol), growing exports—which reduce domestic supply—and, remarkably, “the fruition of 30-40 years of government policy.” The paper continues:

If the federal government and its agencies decide to wage war on a product and continue that war for long enough, it will eventually have an impact. And the feds have indeed waged war on meat protein consumption for many years.

Bittman rightly considers this claim ludicrous. As he points out, the government is doing everything it can to boost meat consumption, from refusing to enforce laws that would make it harder for factory farms to operate at the scale they now do, to purchasing billions of dollars in “surplus” chicken to feed to schoolchildren. I would also add last year’s proposed ag-gag laws to his list, i.e., the government attempts to keep prying eyes away from the abuses that appear to be endemic to industrial agriculture (meanwhile, the bill that failed in Florida last spring was just re-introduced in December).

What really struck me was how this latest news mirrors the trend in consumer attitudes on meat-eating uncovered by the food industry’s own market research. It turns out that since 2007, there has also been a 12 percent drop in the number of consumers who report that they have “no problem” eating meat or dairy (a bare majority of respondents currently feel that way).

This interesting correlation does support Bittman’s speculation as to the cause of the drop in consumption. As he put it, “conscious decisions are being made by consumers,” and they aren’t just reacting to price signals like so many automatons. Whether it’s the Meatless Monday campaign, the Mercy for Animals whistleblower videos, or simply the growing understanding that meat does not have to sit at the center of the plate—consumer attitudes are changing. And not a moment too soon.

I say that not only because meat-eating at the rate Americans currently practice it isn’t sustainable from an environmental or a climate standpoint (even Al Gore says so), but also because the human cost is beyond belief.

Earlier this week, The Nation published a must-read piece by David Bacon on the link between the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), immigration, and the pork-producing behemoth Smithfield. In short, NAFTA, combined with the lax U.S. protections for workers (even when they’re unionized), has created a bizarre and corrosive system. The result: Smithfield’s massive increases in pork exports to Mexico that occured in the wake of NAFTA’s passage put thousands of Mexican butchers and pig farmers out of work and destroyed rural economies. Bacon reports that the total jobs lost due to the explosion in pork imports exceed 100,000.

As a result of this economic devastation, those very same farmers and butchers have decamped to the U.S.—specifically North Carolina—where they are hired as undocumented workers to labor in Smithfield pork slaughterhouses. Bacon found strong evidence, despite the company’s denial, that Smithfield specifically hired undocumented workers as more pliant replacements for African- and Native-American workers who refused the increasingly dangerous, low-paid, and OSHA-flouting practices of its slaughterhouses. According to residents interviewed by Bacon, entire Mexican villages have ended up in the Tar Heel State working for Smithfield.

And while abuses in the food processing industry are easy to find—this Mother Jones investigation into a single Hormel processing plant is utterly shocking—Bacon draws a much starker picture in many ways. As he describes it, we have an industrial meat production system—encouraged by our larger economic policies—that immiserates virtually anyone it touches.  From those who work in CAFOs or slaughterhouses, to those who live near them or have seen their families torn apart by the industry in one way or another—no one is immune.

So, while I don’t have visions of a Vegan America, I do hope we continue decreasing our meat consumption in this country—and in the rest of the developed world, for that matter. The goal as I see it isn’t just that we move toward a less-intensive system that’s more humane for the animals we consume, but also a system that’s humane for the people who are, as things stand right now, being consumed by it.

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by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan.

Perhaps I should have seen this coming.

The very name “dumpster diving” makes the nature of the activity pretty clear. It doesn’t hide behind a sanitized euphemism, like, say, “gently used snack gathering.” It’s right there in the title. Dumpsters—you dive in them. But as I stood behind a neighborhood bakery, peering into a slimy abyss of trash, there was only one thought in my mind: Somehow I thought it’d be less putrid.

I admit, I was reluctant when Grist first suggested that I investigate the dumpster-diving phenomenon firsthand. But now that good old-fashioned garbage-picking has gone all hipster on us, I figured it couldn’t be so bad. And preventing perfectly good food from going to waste—what’s not to love about that? Besides, it’s free eats!

So I sweet-talked my boyfriend, Ted (who also happens to be Grist’s managing editor), into acting as my lookout on a Sunday-evening excursion to a pair of dumpsters with good reputations for divability. One of them even had a review on Yelp.

We struck out around 7 p.m., well after dark and past closing time for the businesses whose dumpsters we would be probing. “I hear this place is great—they have day-old loaves of bread just sitting out,” I told Ted brightly as we circled around to the back of a bakery.

“Oh yeah? What if we get there and there are, like, four bums gathered around it?”

Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that. “I bet they’ll share,” I said.

We turned the corner and saw nobody—just an unassuming dumpster in a dark parking lot. I hurried up to it, fully expecting to find pillowy loaves of rosemary challah or cinnamon raisin bread piled high, all individually wrapped, perhaps still warm. But when I lifted the lid of the dumpster marked “food waste,” I found only trash. Bags and bags of trash.

From what I could discern through the semitranslucent plastic, the bags were stuffed full of moist coffee grounds and wadded-up napkins, then glazed with a layer of God-knows-how-old half-and-half.

Free food? Honey, ain’t nuthin’ free.

“I think you’re supposed to get in there and open the bags,” said Ted from the sidelines.

He was right, of course. But could there possibly be any usable carbs amidst all this grime? I checked all the other dumpsters, just to be sure, but my immaculate cornucopia was nowhere to be found. Damn. I would have to dive in.

But as I stood at the rim, gathering my courage, a blinding security light spotlit us. “Crap!” I said, losing my nerve. “Everyone can see us!”

We weren’t really doing anything wrong—the legality of rummaging through dumpsters is a gray area, depending on your city—but nor were we keen on getting caught neck-deep in the rubbish bin. In search of a more shadowy location, we headed elsewhere. (A closer read of the Yelp reviews later hinted that the magical bread dumpster had been removed sometime in 2010.)

Next up was a chocolate shop, but by now, my visions of finding neatly wrapped chili-hazelnut bars were fading. Not that I ever got close enough to find out for sure: Though the store was closed, the lights were still on and employees puttering about. Plus, it was still early enough for passersby to be strolling around at regular intervals. It all felt so exposed. So vulgar.

Maybe dumpster diving is like $2 tequila shots—best saved for the late-night hours, I thought as we slunk away in defeat.

The next night, I plied Ted with promises of beer if he would once again stand guard while I attempted a dive or two. This time, I chose an affluent neighborhood with three grocery stores in close proximity, as grocery stores are notorious for wasting perfectly good food. We went much later this time (past 11 p.m.), and I stashed a headlamp and some extra bags in my backpack. Ted loaned me a black jacket, and attired in cat burglar chic, we set off.

Everything went swimmingly until we reached the alley behind grocery store No. 1. There were ample dumpsters, all right, no doubt brimming with slightly bruised fruits and fine crackers that had reached their completely meaningless sell-by dates. But, in a Rapunzelesque twist of fate, they were all locked behind a six-foot fence. Not only that, a blinking security camera was trained on us, just daring us to go ahead and make its day.

Off we went to grocery store No. 2, where we found the same dilemma. Damn.

With the clock inching past midnight, we tromped over to the third and final grocery store, our last hope. Free dumpsters at last—a little too free, actually. The trash was in full view of the street, with megawatt security lights erasing all shadows. Our black outfits did nothing to camouflage us. If we were to go a-garbage picking, we’d have to do it on stage.

So be it. I opened the first dumpster, wondering what I might tell the store owner or police officer if we were caught. Should I go with, “I lost my wedding ring in there,” or “My Pomeranian is trapped inside?”

Then came the moment of truth. This dumpster, and all the others nearby, was truly foul. No edible treats were readily apparent among the stinky refuse. I’d have to climb in and start ripping into bags.

I cannot tell a lie. I totally chickened out. I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.

So I did what any reasonable American would do in the face of such failure. I took Ted to the only bar still open, where we drank beer and ate an ice cream sundae. For full price.

Still, dear readers, don’t lose faith. I’m down, but I’m sure not out. I’m determined to make a successful dive, to explore the murky depths and emerge, dinner in hand.

Perhaps there are a few successful dumpster divers in your ranks who can show a poor rookie like me the way. If so, please, share your secrets. In the meantime, I’ll be scrounging up a pair of industrial-grade rubber gloves.

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by Jane Mountain.

What did you resolve to do this year? Eat healthier? Avoid processed foods? Stay away from GMOs? Stop buying products foisted on you by the man? Reduce the size of your weekly garbage bag? Become a domestic god(ess)?

I want to do all of those things, which is why I am so damn excited about this post. You see, until recently, these five packaged foods were staples on every shopping list I made. But, over the last few months, I’ve discovered that they are all completely unnecessary once you get the hang of making them at home.

1. Never buy soup

I’ve always hated trying to shop for soup. They always hide nasty ingredients in there, and more often than not, even the most vegan-sounding soup is made with chicken stock or a little beef fat. Campbell’s makes a vegetable soup that isn’t vegetarian. Why?

If there are no animal parts in the soup, there’s usually lots of salt, fat, and additives, or a little GMOs just for fun. And in case you haven’t heard, soup comes in cans lined with BPA. Nasty.

If there’s nothing objectionable in the ingredients, eating store-bought soup usually means taking a trip to bland city. Seriously, I’ve never found one I like.

The funny thing is, when you make soup at home, you don’t have to add any junk and it’s always bursting with the flavor of whatever vegetables you put in it. That’s the magic of eating whole foods.

Campbell’s and their corporate buddies have somehow managed to convince us that making soup is a task better left to the experts. In reality, it’s the easiest, quickest meal you can conjure. You don’t even need any special ingredients.

Just open your fridge and Google whatever you see in there followed by “soup recipe.” I guarantee you’ll find lots of them.

So get to it. Here are a few examples (based on what we have sitting around right now) to get you started:

Vegan Sweet Potato and Pear Soup Orange and Lentil Soup Curried Apple and Leek Soup

Super soup tips

Sign up for a CSA box and you’ll always have lots of crazy fruits and vegetables on hand to make soup. Invest in a hand blender. I know, normally I don’t go in for buying gadgets, but we use ours every single day and it’s so much easier to blend the soup right in the pot. Make your own stock!

2. Never buy stock and bouillon

If you’ve done your homework with the soup, you’ve noticed that almost all soup recipes call for stock. Guess what? That’s another thing you never have to buy again. I discovered a few months ago that making stock is even easier than making soup. And you can make it from garbage! Honestly.

You know all those potato peels, apple cores, onion skins, leek tops, and eggplant stems that collect in your kitchen? Instead of sending them straight to the compost, stick them in a plastic bag in the freezer. Once you have enough to half fill your biggest pot, it’s time to make stock.

Here’s the method I’ve been using.

Hot stock tip: I pour the stock into some flexible ice-cube trays and freeze them. Then it’s ready to use in small portions every time we make soup, stew, rice, curry, stir fry ... whatever.

3. Never buy canned beans

Remember how we were just talking about BPA in cans? Well, it’s in your canned beans, too. And just like soup, beans taste better and fresher, and are better for you, if you buy them dried and prepare them at home.

I know all that soaking and cooking seems like a huge pain in the ass. That’s what I thought until my husband started coming home with dried adzukis, chickpeas, and black beans.

In reality, it takes around three minutes to put the beans in some water, another minute to change that water during soaking, and then about five more minutes to put them on the stove. All the beans you’ll eat all week in less than 10 minutes.

Here’s a great guide to preparing various types of beans.

When we have a batch of beans sitting in the fridge, we use them to make our own burgers (thanks to Peggy at Lovin’ Spoonfuls in Tucson for her delicious recipe!), falafels, soups and chili, or just sprinkle them on a salad.

Basic bean tip: Get your spouse or kids to soak and cook the beans while you relax. That’s what I usually do!

4. Never buy hummus

One of the things we use our fresh chickpeas for is to make hummus. This takes me, oh, all of about six minutes now that I’ve done it a few times. Unlike store-bought hummus, it is not too salty, too sweet, too lemony, too bland, or too garlicky. It’s just right, because I made it that way.

One of these days, I’ll share my recipe, though it’s better if you just make it to your own liking.

Tasty hummus tip: Add a little of the bean-cooking water into your hummus (instead of olive oil). It adds tons of flavor and creates the perfect hummus-y texture without adding any fat.

5. Never buy cereal

My initial eschewing of packaged cereal happened because of a one-two punch.

My mother-in-law started it. She makes amazing granola that we eat every morning at her cottage on Lake Muskoka. When we leave, the best way to recapture those lazy summer days is with a fresh batch of granola.

The other punch came when I discovered that most frosted mini-wheat-type cereal contains beef fat or gelatin!

What? There are cow and pig parts in cereal? Yes. Even in pseudo good-for-the-world brands like Trader Joe’s and Three Sisters. Bleh.

I’m really not a fan of standing in the grocery store scouring ingredients lists. But once I started, I discovered that most cereal is a combo of high-fructose corn syrup and GM corn. Plus, all of it is ridiculously overpriced.

So, the only solution is to make your own.

You can make muesli (granola’s uncooked European cousin) in a matter of minutes. Granola takes a little longer because it has to cook, but it’s also a no-brainer.

Try this recipe for tahini granola. So good.

Groovy granola tip: Make a huge batch and stick it in airtight food containers. It will keep for months.

A worthwhile investment

That’s it. Five things you never ever have to buy again. I estimate that by making all of these things at home, I have time to watch one less hour-long TV show a week. That’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. But if you’re not, you could always put a TV in your kitchen.

What other common packaged products do you make at home? Anyone trying almond milk, nut butters, or flour? I’d love to know.

This post originally appeared on My Five Acres.

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by Twilight Greenaway.

When Slow Food came to the United States in 2000, it appealed mainly to people who could already tell their arugula from their radicchio—those who knew both farmers and chefs before the phrase “local food” implied anything more than the sum of its parts.

In the late ‘90s, when chef and Slow Food New Orleans chapter founder Poppy Tooker first got wind of the Italy-based organization, which had formed in opposition to the globalizing fast food industry in the ‘80s, she felt right at home. “When I read about this movement, I thought, this was what my life’s work had always been about: preserving foodways, valuing the food producers, closing the ties between chefs and farmers. And now there was an international organization out there ready to help me!”

Cut to 12 years later. Slow Food USA has 225 chapters in cities and rural communities across the nation. The term “slow food” has come to be synonymous, in some cases, with a much broader philosophy of eating, farming, and thinking about food. And the national organization has become a kind of conceptual hub for many divergent aspects of today’s food movement.

That’s why the movement took notice recently when Chow.com ran an article titled “Cheap Drama at Slow Food.” Author John Birdsall described a crisis at Slow Food USA (SFUSA): “Its most prominent members—famous cookbook authors, chefs, and leaders in the food movement—are embroiled in a bitter squabble stoked by angry emails, hurt feelings, accusations.”

As a follow-up to Birdsall’s piece, a vocal group of SFUSA critics, including Tooker, have published a document called “10 Things Slow Food USA Can Do To Gain Direction as it Sees its Way Into 2012.” The group believes the Brooklyn-based national office is too reliant on technology, not as connected with its constituencies in other parts of the country, and no longer aligned with the core vision, mission, message, and activities of Slow Food International. They say they worry that the organization is moving away from biodiversity work and direct support of farmers and artisan food producers by adopting a more populist big-tent approach and advocating national policies. And they point to a recent round of layoffs at the Brooklyn headquarters as proof that the organization is in trouble.

Meanwhile, SFUSA’s Executive Director Josh Viertel and his current staff say they are merely keeping up with the times—and the changing food landscape. No matter how you slice it, the conflict speaks volumes about the challenges that face every effort to build what Slow Food calls a “good, clean, and fair” food system.

Change of course or evolution?

Viertel sees SFUSA as work in progress. In many ways, when he talks about it, he sounds like he’s running a start-up—a stance that inspires and invigorates a portion of his audience, and no doubt alienates others. He doesn’t deny the organization has been financially stressed this year. While SFUSA’s membership has grown from 14,000 to 25,000 members during his tenure, he says “the gift amount has gone down. Those who were giving us $60 gave $45, those who were giving us $45 gave $25, and so on.” Since SFUSA receives half its revenue from members, he chalks up the drop to the pain of a now-three-year-old recession. This year, he says, “it was important to get out in front of it and get the organization in a stable place.”

At the same time, SFUSA has begun reaching thousands more people via email and social media; its mailing list expanded from 24,000 to 250,000 in the last three years, and its very prolific Twitter feed now reaches 200,000 followers.

Viertel has also worked toward creating an organization that can function as an umbrella for the food movement in America—one that can “pick up on all the energy, anger, frustration, etc. that people feel after reading [Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma],” the book he sees as the Silent Spring of the food movement, “and turn that into actual power to make change.”

Viertel says he saw a groundswell of people who “wanted to find an organization that would give them a pathway to do something about [their food system]. That something could be working to get a garden planted in your kid’s school, it could be getting connected to a farmer, or it could be getting involved in a legislative fight to end farm subsidies.” While Slow Food has long held “good, clean, and fair” as its motto, Viertel believes that SFUSA’s recent emphasis on fairness has attracted a new following of enthusiastic food novices eager to share recipes, talk about the challenges of food access, and sign online petitions.

How political is too political?

It’s this last part—the fact that the organization has waded, swum, and is now diving deep into advocacy—that most bothers Tooker.

“There’s really been a confusion of the message,” she says. For one, the new SFUSA has been “trying so hard to redefine the identity and get rid of this air of elitism they believed existed.” It also used its blog to talk about food safety (including the giant egg recall linked to Jack DeCoster’s Midwest CAFO dynasty in 2010), led a campaign against the proposed ag-gag bills, and sent out action alerts about last fall’s “Secret Farm Bill.” In other words, the organization has adopted what Tooker calls “a political stance.”

Meanwhile, she says, the current Brooklyn-based SFUSA office “doesn’t even have a kitchen!”

In 1999, while the World Trade Organization’s Seattle meeting faced mass protests, Tooker heard Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini speak at an early stateside gathering. “He said it was not our jobs to march in the streets and protest. Carlo said the work of Slow Food was in the kitchen. And over the long range we would eventually win this fight with a smile in our hearts.”

Cheap for whom?

This mentality, and the organization’s heavy focus on biodiversity and heirloom varieties, might never have changed if it weren’t for Slow Food Nation—a 50,000-person event initiated by Chez Panisse chef and Slow Food matriarch Alice Waters that took place in San Francisco in 2008. Not only did this event position SFUSA as a leader, perhaps the leader, of today’s sustainable food world, it also provided a brief but important opportunity for food justice advocates to make their case to the Slow Foodies.

Some advocates believe that a food-justice panel during Slow Food Nation that Viertel attended helped move the issue onto his agenda. Hank Herrera, an Oakland, Calif.-based food-justice advocate, recalls: “We spoke plainly about the issue of food justice and the exclusion of communities lacking access to healthy food and food justice. Josh took the challenges seriously and from that point has worked vigilantly to bring food justice into focus for Slow Food.”  

But to hear Viertel tell it, his interest in food justice began much earlier. Before he began working in the food movement, Viertel farmed vegetables. It was a meager living, and he and his partner (now his fiancee) sold their produce at farmers markets “to people who could pay a lot.”

“We didn’t think twice about charging what we did, because we knew the work that went into it,” he recalls. “At the same time people would come to the stand who were shopping with WIC [federal aid for women, infants and children] coupons and we’d charge two for one.” That year, he and his partner earned only $12,000 between the two of them. He says he began to see “this false choice between paying the farmer what they deserve and actually creating a world where both [the eater and the farmer] can afford real food.”

That awareness was likely part of the impetus for SFUSA’s recent $5 Challenge, a direct response to the fast food industry intended to show a meal can be prepared using “Slow Food” or sustainable ingredients bought directly from local farmers for under $5 per person (roughly the cost of a value meal).  

Author and native foods expert Gary Paul Nabhan, a critic of Slow Food USA who coauthored the “10 Things” document, takes issue with the $5 Challenge, which, he argues, does a disservice to food producers by discouraging eaters from paying the “true cost of food.” In a recent essay on the Edible Communities website, he suggested that efforts like the $5 Challenge “assum[e] that food justice is only about aiding and empowering low-income consumers.” He asked: “If food production costs have risen 20 to 40 percent for many grains, vegetables, fruits, and meats over the last year, who should shoulder the costs: the producers, or the so-called ‘end-users’ of the food system?”  

Slow Food USA board member (and occasional Grist contributor) Kurt Michael Friese counters that $5 per person for ingredients is not very cheap at all.

“You can pay the farmer a fair price and still make really good food and have it be under $5 per portion. That doesn’t rule out heritage breeds in any way. In fact it helps to support them. I think it’s fine for the people who can afford to buy some expensive heritage turkey or some rare pig breed. It’s important valuable stuff. But it’s not the only way people can support Slow Food,” he says.

In response to accusations that efforts like the $5 Challenge don’t support farmers, Viertel is adamant that a just food system include both ends of the food chain: the eater and the producer.

“Talking to a dairy farmer in Vermont and a working parent in Queens isn’t very different. They both have crushing debt. They both get up really early in the morning. They both tend to have a hard time affording real food. And they both are controlled by a really consolidated corporate food system,” he says. From distribution to retail to corporations involved in meatpacking, “there are a lot of companies that wedge themselves in between the producer and the consumer. So the way this debate sets them up against one another is really problematic.”

While Viertel sees Slow Food’s original work as important, he also wants to serve those who can’t—by necessity—support heirloom varieties or shop in farmers markets. “No movement I have ever seen can go forward without the people who are hurt most at its core,” he says.

The biodiversity issue

Tooker has long been involved in the North American chapter of the Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, the national portion of an international effort to catalogue, bring attention to, and therefore preserve endangered heirloom and place-based foods. Earlier this year, she says the Ark of Taste committee was “given a stop work order,” and Tooker worries about the future of the effort. One of the SFUSA staffers laid off in November was the last contact for the Ark work, and she says, “If you were to propose a food to be accepted onto the SFUSA Ark, there’s no methodology in place to do that right now.”

But Friese says it is alive and well, despite being put on hold briefly this year for a reorganization. “We’ve turned the whole thing around from being centrally located, with the work being run entirely from the national office, to being something where we support what various chapters are doing with native foods in their specific locations.” 

Rather than host a committee that votes on which foods are worth preserving, SFUSA will allow local chapters to put forward food they’re excited about in a more “open-source” manner, and SFUSA will give them a platform to do that work.

The organization has moved in a similar direction with disaster funding. After Katrina, SFUSA set up a disaster fund that was administered by a national committee, but they now plan to support individual chapters that rally around farmers in their area. “The idea is to be able to point our growing network toward their effort and help them fundraise,” says Viertel.

The food-justice generation?

Viertel says he has never intended to do away with the group’s biodiversity work. And given its history, it’s unlikely that SFUSA will ever become a full-fledged food-justice organization, says People’s Grocery Director Nikki Henderson.

But Henderson isn’t surprised that Viertel and the younger generation of SFUSA staffers see food in an inherently political light.

“The last 30 years have wreaked havoc, and I feel like those of us who grew up in that don’t feel as separate from those who are struggling in the streets every day. Our generation is sicker, poorer, and more diverse that any generation in recent history—so of course we’re going to feel that way!”

And while Viertel is clearly uneasy about all the attention this conflict has brought to the organization, Henderson thinks it’s about time the food movement recognize SFUSA for being brave enough to attempt to make space for two efforts that can appear contradictory at times.

“SFUSA has tried to negotiate a minefield,” she says. “And they’re setting off mines. That’s not a bad thing.”

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Lexicon of Sustainability: Biodiversity vs. monoculture

by Tom Laskawy.

Did a recent scientific study just change the way we should think about the safety of genetically modified foods? According to Ari Levaux at the Atlantic, the answer is a resounding yes.

The study in question, performed by researchers at China’s Nanjing University and published in the journal Cell Research, found that a form of genetic material—called microRNA—from conventional rice survived the human digestive process and proceeded to affect cholesterol function in humans.

Levaux argues that this new study “reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods might influence human health” which should cause us to completely revisit the question of GM crops’ safety. And he’s right to be alarmed, just a little off on the reasoning.

Let’s take a closer look at how this study applies to current GM technology, shall we?

I would argue that several studies have already suggested that existing GM foods might present a health risk. For example, this study in The International Journal of Biological Sciences found evidence that Monsanto’s Bt corn causes organ damage in lab animals. Then there’s this one which showed that GM soybeans can alter mice on the cellular level—an indication that genetically modified material survives digestion and is active in animals that consume it.

Of course, advocates of genetically modified foods will observe that the phenomenon of genetic transfer through consumption applies to all plants and that GM foods are therefore “substantially equivalent” to non-GM foods. As Levaux explains at length, this concept of substantial equivalence has been used by the biotech industry as well as our government to push GM foods through safety testing with minimal scrutiny. What’s Monsanto’s defense of all this? On its website, the company claims:

There is no need to test the safety of DNA introduced into GM crops. DNA (and resulting RNA) is present in almost all foods ... DNA is non-toxic and the presence of DNA, in and of itself, presents no hazard ... So long as the introduced protein is determined to be safe, food from GM crops determined to be substantially equivalent is not expected to pose any health risks.

So the fact that the Chinese team found active genetic material going from plants to humans isn’t really new and doesn’t really change what we know about how existing genetically engineered crops might affect us.

But what is new—and what Levaux missed—is that the Chinese study happens to involve exactly the kind of genetic matrieral—microRNA—that biotech companies hope to use in their next generation of genetically modified foods.

Today’s GMOs are almost entirely based on adding new genes to crops like corn, soy, and cotton in order to alter the way the plants function. And even then new functions are mostly limited to making plants either able to tolerate herbicides or to produce their own. But if biotechnology companies are successful in their efforts, there may soon be genetically modified foods that use microRNA—simply put, snippets of RNA whose potency were only discovered around a decade ago—to target, and block the function of specific genes in pests.

Thus the news that plant microRNA can survive digestion and affect human systems brings into question the wisdom of pursuing this kind of technology in food.

As explained to me by Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists and expert in genetically modified foods, microRNA technology is an area that biotech companies are actively pursuing. Monsanto itself has a whole web page devoted to the technology, which they call RNA interference.

Gurian-Sherman notes that the Chinese study—though requiring confirmation and follow-up research—raises “an initial red flag.” It calls into question “any general statement that [microRNA] technology would be inherently safe,” he adds.

He observes that humans and insects share a surprising amount of DNA material—evolution favors reusing and recycling genes even among creatures as different as insects and humans. If this research bears out, then it’s entirely possible that microRNA meant to target a specific insect gene will also have an effect—possibly unpredictable—in humans. This is especially true because, for technology like this to work as a pesticide, the microRNA must be present in high levels in the plant, which makes it even more likely the genetic material will make it all the way into the human gut.

Gurian-Sherman also pointed out that microRNA techology poses an even greater environmental risk. There are many beneficial insects, such as various beetle species, that are closely related to crop pests and can coexist in the same field. It’s thus hard to imagine being able to find a gene to target in a pest that won’t also hurt their beneficial cousins (though this is unlikely to matter to biotech companies).

So where does this new research leave us? It suggests that, given the possibility of affecting humans and other bystander species, microRNA-based technology would require unimaginably high safety standards. And neither the biotech industry nor federal regulators have really shown an appetite for that kind of rigorous testing. Am I the only one who doesn’t see that changing anytime soon?

 

UPDATE: Dr. Michael Hansen, Senior Scientist at Consumers Union wrote to me after this post was published with an important point about the significance of the Chinese study. While he agreed that the main implications relate to the possible risk from microRNA-based GM foods, he also felt that this study did make a new and somewhat startling finding regarding how plant genetic material affects humans. As he put it, the study “showed that the miRNA not only survived digestion [in humans] but also was taken up and moved to other parts of the body where a specific impact was noted. The studies you cited—from Seralini’s lab and Malatesta’s lab—only show that GE crops can have an adverse effect on animals.”

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Lexicon of Sustainability: Biodiversity vs. monoculture

by Donald Carr.

Cross-posted from the Environmental Working Group.

As a possible 2012 Farm Bill looms, the ag committee leaders and their industrial agriculture lobby remoras are sorting through the smoking ruins of the 2011 “Secret Farm Bill” process. They hope to come up with a unified position from which to begin deliberations on a new bill. Sadly, one thing they’ve all agreed to cut is 7 million acres from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The CRP is administered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and pays farmers to keep highly erodible land out of production.

While many recognize that putting land into conservation programs leads to cleaner water, healthier soil, and robust wildlife habitat, few realize that CRP land also plays a major role in fighting climate change. According to the USDA [PDF], one acre of protected land sequesters 1.66 metric tons of carbon every year, carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere. The 7 million acres about to be cut from the CRP have been putting 11.6 million metric tons of carbon into the soil every year.

The Environmental Protection Agency says that this amount of carbon is equivalent to the annual emissions of 2 million passenger vehicles. All that stored carbon will be sent back into the atmosphere if those 7 million acres are plowed under to plant more industrial-scale corn for ethanol and livestock feed.

A recent poll [PDF] conducted by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach found that 68 percent of Iowa farmers surveyed say climate change is occurring; many of those same farmers likely experienced the devastating weather events of the past few years. So you’d think that there would be a clarion call from agriculture to have the federal government do whatever it takes to protect farmers against the ravages of climate change. Instead, taxpayers have to pick up the rapidly increasing insurance tab after climate-related disaster strikes.

And had industrial agriculture lobbyists not helped scuttle climate change legislation, farmers would be collecting payments today via carbon credits for their conservation practices.

The main impetus for cutting conservation acres is the mad rush to plant every available inch of ground—whether it’s highly erodible land or a golf course—to capture the high prices for corn propped up by Washington’s misguided corn ethanol mandate.

Speaking of corn ethanol, the industry and its lobbyists should be gravely concerned about the carbon emissions released by plowing under CRP land. Political support for corn ethanol—which has been slipping—depends in part on whether it is better for the environment than gasoline. Most believe that corn ethanol currently is no better, emissions-wise, than gasoline.

America’s water, soil, and wildlife habitat have never been under greater assault from the ravages of modern industrial agriculture. And since industrial crop production is exempt from most federal regulations, farm bill conservation programs like the CRP are often our only line of defense against erosion and water contamination by toxic agrichemicals. Conservation is the rare investment in agriculture that pays every taxpayer a positive return.

Meanwhile lavish government payments to highly profitable mega-farms continue. Astonishingly in this tea-flavored budget environment, farm state lawmakers and agribiz lobbyists are working toward newer programs that could increase taxpayers’ burden. Farm income has been white-hot for a decade and shows no sign of diminishing. But if you quiz industrial ag lobbyists about why agribusiness subsidies should be spared the budget axe while conservation gets whacked, they’ll tell you farm bills are written for the bad times, not the good times. 

Well, it’s pretty obvious these are the bad times for conservation.

The conservation community needs to fight back hard against these proposed cuts. Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said it best:

No conservationist worthy of the name should accept legislation that cuts another $6-plus billion from the farm bill’s programs to protect land, water and wildlife. Nor should conservationists accept subsidy programs that give incentives to farmers who drain wetlands, plow up prairies or recklessly increase already severe runoff pollution from farm fields.

And if the climate change community can engage the debate on the 2012 Farm Bill with the same intensity it used to postpone the Keystone pipeline, we may just have a conservation battle we can win this time around.

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Hacking the Farm Bill

by Michele Simon.

It doesn’t take much for the food industry to freak out over potential government action, but this latest corporate outcry is especially galling and self-serving. This month, after more than 20 years of “assessment,” the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to finally release limits for safe exposure to dioxins, nasty industrial pollutants that cause cancer, among other health harms [PDF]. You may have heard of dioxin as the military herbicide Agent Orange used in Vietnam, where it earned its distinction as “the most toxic compound synthesized by man.”

Unfortunately for the food industry, dioxins accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals that Americans consume. According to the Food and Drug Administration:

Although dioxins are environmental contaminants, most dioxin exposure occurs through the diet, with over 95% coming through dietary intake of animal fats.

The feds have further identified the highest levels in fish, followed by eggs, and then cheese, as Michael Greger explains in his scary “Dioxins in the Food Supply” video. Although some dioxins have been banned for decades, they persist in the environment, sort of like nature’s way of punishing humanity in perpetuity for its arrogance and stupidity. (Thankfully, levels have been declining.)

Here is how a meat industry-friendly media outlet describes the problem:

Pretty scary stuff, and even scarier when you realize everyone eats a certain amount of dioxin every day. That’s because dioxins are found in meat and dairy products, and most other foods. Animals absorb dioxin, which occurs naturally in the environment and moves through the food chain via the food animals consume, especially forages. Consumed at high levels, dioxins are linked to various human ailments including reproductive problems and cancer.

So, might industry want to help the feds warn Americans about this persistent, extremely toxic chemical in the food supply? Of course not. Instead, they’ve formed (what else?) a lobbying group, complete with an Orwellian name: The Food Industry Dioxin Working Group (members listed below). The group worked very hard on this letter [PDF] to the White House complaining that as a result of EPA’s impending action:

... consumers may try to avoid any foods “identified” as containing or likely to contain any dioxin. The implications of this action are chilling. EPA is proposing to create a situation in which most U.S. agricultural products could arbitrarily be classified as unfit for consumption.

Further, Steve Kopperud, coordinator for the Food Industry Dioxin Working Group is afraid the media will have a field day with the EPA limits. And then what might happen? “You will have a whole lot of folks running in circles saying there’s nothing safe to eat; it will scare the crap out of people.”

Maybe, but if all those scared people running in circles don’t get cancer, isn’t that more important?

Members of the The Food Industry Dioxin Working Group:

American Farm Bureau Federation
American Feed Industry Association
American Frozen Food Institute
American Meat Institute
Corn Refiners Association
International Dairy Foods Association
National Chicken Council
National Grain & Feed Association
National Meat Association
National Milk Producers Federation
National Oilseed Processors Association
National Pork Producers Council
National Renderers Association
National Turkey Federation
Pet Food Institute
United Egg Producers

This post is cross-posted from Michele Simon’s blog, Appetite for Profit.

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by Daniel Klein.

Around 40 percent of the food we produce in the U.S. gets tossed; but that’s not to say a lot of it isn’t still edible. Here’s the story of a father who feeds his family with perfectly good finds from dumpsters behind Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods (and admits that most of his newborn baby’s molecules probably originate from dumpster food). Join us as we dumpster dive with him and make breakfast from the treasures we find:

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Go ahead, eat McDonald’s. Nobody will ever know.

by Twilight Greenaway.

In 2007, Grist writer David Roberts wrote about his less-than-successful hunt for an organic bourbon. Five years of boom-like growth in the organic sector later and—go figure—there’s still no organic bourbon on the U.S. market. In fact, finding any bourbon free of genetically engineered corn (as all certified organic products must be) has become increasingly difficult.

Bourbon gives us an interesting window into GMO grain, because the spirit must by definition be made with at least 51 percent corn. Consider the fact that 85 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is now genetically engineered, and you can guess why organic bourbon won’t be appearing in a liquor store near you any time soon.

If you haven’t thought too much about the presence of GMOs in spirits, you’re not alone. Thad Vogler, owner of San Franscisco’s Bar Agricole, fills his bar with mainly small-batch, artisanally produced spirits; when it comes to bourbon, he’s “set the bar low” by settling for the two brands he can find that don’t use genetically engineered products: Wild Turkey and Four Roses.

“We perceive spirits as agricultural products,” says Vogler. “Indeed they are, but for arguably decades, they’ve been seen more as industrial products.”

The menu and wine list at Bar Agricole is 100 percent organic and biodynamic. But with spirits, adds Vogler, “it’s so far behind. If you say it’s 100 percent organic all you get is products from industrial organics,” like organic vodka, that he describes as “sort of like Trader Joe’s organics. It barely achieves certification and isn’t really interested in giving back to agriculture. It’s just interested in the label to get the marketing, to get the sales.”

“That said, we wanted to get behind the agriculture we agree with,” adds Vogler. “And we think that in Kentucky the decision to go no-GMO is indicative of an evolution of consciousness.”

This might be so, but if it weren’t for the international market, which maintains a decent-sized appetite for bourbon and other whiskey from the South, GMO-free bourbon might not exist at all.

In 2009, Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniels—which is, granted, not a bourbon, but a Tennessee whiskey made with 80 percent corn—announced that it would end its commitment to using GMO-free corn [PDF]. In a statement, Brown-Forman wrote:

We have never been concerned by the use of GM grains in making bourbon and whiskey because none of the GM materials make it through the distilling process to the final product. However, in the year 2000, a number of our consumers, particularly those in Europe, expressed a preference for non-GM ingredients, and after considering those perceptions, we opted for only 100% non-genetically modified corn.

... Since 2000, the North American grain market has changed significantly. A rapidly shrinking supply of non-GM corn in North America is making it increasingly more difficult to source the quantity of high quality corn required for our bourbons and whiskeys.

(Note: This question of the genetic material passing through the distillation process came up repeatedly while I was researching the issue, and while it’s an important one, the fact is that neither Brown-Forman, nor the Kentucky Distillers Association (KDA), nor The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) have made any scientific research public that proves their point. The KDA did not respond to my inquiries either.)

The TTB also officially denied a growing number of requests to label spirits GMO-free. In the frequently asked questions page on the TTB website, the agency says that although they have received many requests, “TTB believes it is not necessary to mandate any bioengineered food labeling requirements at this time ... This is consistent with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s position.”

Jim Rutledge, the 45-year veteran distiller at Four Roses, isn’t worried about the safety of GMO grains. However, the company—which was once owned by the now-defunct Seagrams—does work with one of the last remaining group of farmers in the Midwest who grow non-GMO corn for distillation, largely to appease the international markets, where 90 percent of their product is shipped.

“Seagrams had its own grain division started back in the 1960s,” he says, and although the growers formed their own company when Seagrams went under a few years back, Four Roses continues to pay a premium to ensure non-GMO corn production. Rutledge didn’t want to name the grain source publicly for fear the farmers would be approached by other, larger distillers. Four Roses only produces around 3 million “proof gallons,” which works out to around 300 million gallons of bourbon a year—a number easily dwarfed by companies like Jim Beam.

“The European and Asian markets won’t buy whiskey made with GMO corn,” says Rutledge. But, he adds, “due to cross-pollination, even the farmers not using GMO corn will end up with it eventually. I don’t know how many years we can continue like this.”

Rutledge predicts that by the time Four Roses is unable to get GMO-free corn, however, the larger distilleries will have “paved the way” and essentially changed the industry permanently. “For anyone who wants bourbon, it’ll be a GMO product,” he says. “But we’re a few years away from that now.”

Wild Turkey Master Distiller Jimmy Russell is a little more cautious. During a tour of the Lawrenceburg, Ky., distillery, he told photographer/blogger Michael Kellstrand why Wild Turkey doesn’t use GMO grains:

The whiskey distilled today will not become a bottled product for another four to 15 years. If a GMO grain is discovered to have an issue five years from now, or if the government decides any GMO products must be labeled as such, then the distillery would be in quite a bind with all that aging product now affected. The premium they pay for non-GMO grain is considered insurance against any possible issues later.

Colin O’Neil, regulatory policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, says he hasn’t seen any science pointing to genetic material passing through the distillation process. But, as he sees it, that’s not the only cause for concern.

“To assume that the only real risk is contamination of genetic material ignores the fact that these crops by and large either produce an insecticide (which has been shown not to break down in the human gut) or they are engineered to withstand exposure to herbicide.” And farmers are spraying an increasing amount of Roundup and other weed killers as a result of herbicide-resistant “superweeds,” he points out.  

“I don’t know what types of pesticide residues are on the corn that goes through the distillation process,” O’Neil adds, “but residue in any form presents an increased exposure to consumers.”

In the case of a product like bourbon, which prides itself on a heritage—and on a tried-and-true distillation method rooted in antiquity—the irony is hard to miss. But O’Neil takes it further: “It’s a fallacy to believe that bourbon is the same as it was before there were genetically engineered crops out there.” 

Related Links:

Bumper 2011 Grain Harvest Fails to Rebuild Global Stocks

The next generation of GMOs could be especially dangerous

Can the 2012 Farm Bill protect the Ogallala Aquifer?

by The Climate Desk.

Editor’s note: We’ve mentioned the ways northeastern states are planning for the disappearance of and loss of income from sugar maples here on Grist several times over the past year. But this video really brings the issue home (if the way to your conscience is through your taste buds, that is).

Meet farmer and retired teacher Martha Carlson and hear her up-close-and-personal take on sugar maple trees and the unique (and delicious) food they provide. If we continue warming the planet at the same rate, most sugar maples will be gone by 2100. But it’s not just a future danger we’re talking about. In fact, Carlson breaks down the way sweetness in maple sap has already begun to decline (along with a 2.8-degree-F rise in temperature since 1970); today’s maple sap has gone from 3.5 percent sugar to just 2 percent sugar in the last 40 years.

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by Heather Smith.

Call it the bird tax—or rather, the amount of food that farmers need to set aside in order to get birds to stick around and stop dying. Farmers don’t historically have an awesome relationship with birds [PDF], but in recent years, they’ve actually been paid to scatter grain around their land after the harvest, since a lack of seed resources in winter is thought to be one of the reasons for birds’ dramatic decline. Some of the seeds farmers spread around the edge of their fields are also attractive to pollinating insects, which is also thought to be good, since birds like to eat insects too.

Why put so much effort into attracting birds to farms? Well, the steady decline of most birds in the world and the increase of the human population are related—and, idealism aside, there’s only so much that wilderness conservation can do to alter that trajectory. And so a fascinating and pragmatic branch of science is developing. It asks the question: Is there a way to feed wildlife, while feeding ourselves?

One recent study took a close look at this question. A team of four scientists in the United Kingdom spent a year collecting dirt from all over an organic farm near Bristol, which grew mostly clover, oats, wheat, and barley. Their goal? To determine just how much food a farm that grows crops to feed humans also provides for wildlife. What they found: that weeds play a surprisingly important role in attracting and feeding birds—in fact, they might be key to farm biodiversity.

The soil sampling was a complicated operation. “You know you can get those leaf blowers?” says Darren Evans, the lead researcher on the project, during a recent phone interview. “We modified one so that it sucked rather than blew.” The group sampled 250 spots around the farm and, after drying and sifting the dirt collected, found themselves with 171,000 seeds. “We counted and identified every single one,” Evans adds, sounding a bit weary. “It took a long time.”

The team managed to identify 156,000 seeds from about 125 different plants. They tallied the energy content of each seed species and estimated that the 300-acre farm contained 33 metric tons of biomass and 560 gigajoules of energy that could be ingested by local wildlife—most of it in the form of seeds and berries.

However, most of the seeds also happened to be from plants that the farmer in question never had any intention of growing. The two most energy-rich sites on the farm were areas where crops hadn’t been planted, either. What this meant was that most of the high-quality bird food on the ground was coming from weeds.

This is not a huge surprise. Most plants in the world exist because someone likes to eat them. Our favorite crops have spread all over the face of the earth because we like them enough to plant them, water them, and interfere in their sex lives. And some believe weeds spread far and wide because they provide food to animals and insects, who carry their seeds with them on to their next destination.

When we view weeds as important to wildlife, however, it creates a complicated scenario for biodiversity researchers. “Weeds are the farmer’s number one enemy,” says Evans. “They know weeds will choke their plants and cause all sorts of problems.”

But, he adds, “over 100 species depend on the seeds they produce.” More research is necessary, he says, before farmers and scientists will know exactly how to balance both needs. “There are trade-offs going on, basically. A farmer is going to have to decide: How many weeds am I going to have before it becomes a problem for our crops?”

But the findings had an encouraging side as well. If further research bears this discovery out, relatively minor changes to farming incentives could have big effects. If farmers were given incentives to stop cutting or spraying the weeds growing around their hedgerows, in their tractor yards, and in other areas around the margins of their farms, it could have a disproportionately large effect on food for wildlife. And hedgerows—wild borders of shrubs and trees left around farmland as a living fence or as a boundary marker, once ripped up so that farm equipment could turn around more easily—are now historically protected in England. And because of their reputation as valuable habitat for wild birds and pollinators [PDF], they may now be further encouraged. Hedgerows are also returning in California’s Central Valley, where populations of wild pollinators are also in rapid decline.

And there’s another potential benefit. Of the 300-plus animal species who feed on the seeds recorded on the test farm in the U.K., 53 were birds and 10 were mammals. The rest were arthropods—a group that includes several insects whose presence would be alluring to farmers, such as pest-controlling wasps. The wasps are drawn to the seeds of common weeds like yarrow and Queen Anne’s lace, but also help control aphids. If connections like this were made clearer, farmers might have more of an incentive to tolerate weeds—or at least, certain kinds.

Ninety-eight percent of the land in the U.K. is managed by humans in one way or other. Seventy-seven percent of the country is farmland, and that is where most of England’s biodiversity is found. And so England’s remaining wilderness depends largely on how the nation decides to grow its food.

But the U.K.—and the European Union, and the rest of the world—is also thinking about how agriculture will change in the years ahead, as global climate change continues to add even more uncertainty into the business of farming. Weeds, in particular, are a source of hope and anxiety, since they are adapting to climate change more quickly than domesticated plants.

The next step, says Evans, would be to replicate this sort of research across a variety of farms—around Europe and across the world. “We know so much about the natural history of our countryside but almost nothing about how the species interact. They’re like engine parts; they’re all components. To find this—it’s an exciting time.”

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Baby sloths in a bath, just sayin’

by Tom Laskawy.

A recent New York Times article about organic tomatoes grown in the Los Cabos region of Baja California raised the question about whether “large-scale” export-oriented organic agriculture can truly be sustainable. According to reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, the answer is no. She writes:

The explosive growth in the commercial cultivation of organic tomatoes here, for example, is putting stress on the water table. In some areas, wells have run dry this year, meaning that small subsistence farmers cannot grow crops. And the organic tomatoes end up in an energy-intensive global distribution chain that takes them as far as New York and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, producing significant emissions that contribute to global warming.

Tom Philpott at Mother Jones piled on the critique, declaring in his post “Organic Tomatoes in January: Sucking Mexico Dry”:

What’s going on in Baja seems more about generating a premium-priced product while systematically degrading a landscape. Want organic tomatoes in the cold months? Buy them in a can.

There’s no question that eating seasonally is important. So are the larger questions of whether the USDA organic label provides enough emphasis on sustainability. But Rosenthal’s point about water depletion in Baja coming from organic agriculture may be flawed.

Larry Jacobs, who runs the Del Cabo organic farming cooperative, which works with over 400 farming families in the area, says Rosenthal “completely blew it.”

He observed that the water issues in Baja (as well as in the West as a whole) are tremendous. “From the tip of the Baja all the way to San Francisco, there are very few aquifers that aren’t maxed out or overdrafted,” he said.

The Los Cabos area, where many of Jacobs’ member farms are based, has seen an explosion in tourist development over the last few decades. Los Cabos now boasts 20 golf courses, which use as much water as a town of over 200,000 people. (While many of these courses claim to use recycled water, Jacobs has heard rumors that they bribe water officials to illegally connect them to the aquifer.)

And then there are the resorts that line the coast, as well as the region’s two cities, all of which use 70 percent of the total water allocation, according to this study. In other words, only a minority of the water, i.e. 30 percent, is allocated to agriculture.

Meanwhile, Del Cabo has around 3,700 certified organic acres under cultivation—the equivalent of a large conventional Midwestern corn operation. But Jacobs says that they only plant around 350 acres in any given season. So for “large-scale” agriculture, what’s happening in Los Cabos is actually comparatively small. That being said, the impact of a true farmer cooperative that spreads the benefits to small-scale growers has been significant. New schools, medical care, and big increases in incomes have been credited to the success of Del Cabo.

“The golf courses never run out of water. The hotels never run out of water,” Jacobs observed, while in the towns, “water gets turned off all the time.” And Del Cabo farmers? Jacobs says they often use less than their official water allocation.

Referencing the classic movie about the Los Angeles water wars of the 1930s, Jacobs pointed out that in Baja, “it’s Chinatown all over again. And [Rosenthal] missed it. That would have been a great story.”

Indeed, while Rosenthal acknowledges the controversy over tourist development, she never bothers with any actual figures. And when she identifies a study that shows how agriculture depleted the water table in northern Baja, she doesn’t specify the type of agriculture that was being practiced. From my reading, and given the period researchers examined (1970-1990), the area was dominated by conventional, not organic, farms.

According to Jacobs, agriculture makes up too small a percentage of the total water use in the Los Cabos area to be the source of the problem—though that’s not necessarily true in northern Baja, where there is more large-scale conventional growing. Additionally, organic farmers are far more likely to be practicing drip irrigation (as are all the organic farmers Rosenthal quoted). In fact, Jacobs was “appalled” at Rosenthal’s characterization of organic agriculture in the region.

“Ten or 15 years ago we converted everybody from open ditch irrigation to drip irrigation—way ahead of what everybody else was doing,” he said. “We may have been the first in Mexico to use drip irrigation. We pioneered it ... and we got blasted for it [in the New York Times article].”

And on further issues of sustainability, Jacobs points out that even large-scale organic agriculture promotes greater ecological diversity than conventional, since organic farmers typically plant the borders of their fields with various species designed to attract beneficial insects. Organic practices also bring improvements to soil health and reduce the toxic load on the environment. “I wish every farmer was organic,” he said. “It’s a big step in the right direction towards sustainability.”

This is not all to say that creating a market in which produce has no season and asparagus and tomatoes are seen as year-round crops isn’t a huge problem. Nor is organic agriculture exempt from water-use issues. Additionally, Jacobs’ Del Cabo co-op benefits from cheap fossil fuels for the U.S. distribution of his products. But even acknowledging all that, Rosenthal’s article reads more as a contrarian hit piece than a legitimate look at the water-use issues in Baja California. If anything, it’s the golf courses, not the organic tomatoes, that are sucking Mexico dry.

Related Links:

One day you will play a video game with a pig

Bumper 2011 Grain Harvest Fails to Rebuild Global Stocks

Five packaged foods you never need to buy again

by Claire Thompson.

School lunch in Seattle has come a long way since I was a public school student. In the ‘90s, lunch was only a dollar, and the cafeteria served up square, rubbery pizza, scoops of mushy spaghetti, and Belgian waffles (everyone’s favorite!). Fast-forward more than a decade: Elementary school lunch now costs $2.75, and for several years the Seattle School District has inched toward healthier offerings.

For most of public-school history, cafeteria food was something to be endured and then forgotten immediately upon graduating. But in recent years, many parents, health advocates, and doctors have targeted school lunch as one of the aspects of our food system most in need of scrutiny and reform. Since then, many of us have come to see bland, processed-food-heavy cafeteria cuisine less as a necessary evil and more as evidence of the way in which our government’s love affair with Big Ag takes a toll on public health. Not that revamping school lunch has proven easy: Public school districts struggle with extremely limited budgets, and the byzantine logistics of preparing and distributing food for thousands of children are especially tough to change.

So far, the most visible school-food makeovers have taken place in famously progressive towns like Boulder, Colo., and Berkeley, Calif. Most people won’t be surprised to learn that Seattle, with its rising foodie culture, is going the same route by enlisting the help of experienced restaurant chefs in overhauling its school lunches. But the Seattle School District’s size sets it apart from those liberal college towns, making its ambitions more challenging, and—if it succeeds—its tactics especially worth examining by other large school districts hoping to follow suit.

Wendy Weyer, Seattle Schools’ Child Nutrition Services director, says the district has a history of thinking outside the tray, especially when it comes to healthier ingredients like whole grains. “When I came here seven years ago,” she says, “we were serving brown rice when nobody else was.”

In the spring of 2010, the drive toward healthy school lunch in Seattle got an additional boost with a grant from the Centers for Disease Control. The goal was to form a partnership with local chefs to revamp the cafeteria menu. Soon, the district connected with Tom Douglas, a beloved Seattle chef whose company operates 12 highly regarded restaurants in the city.

“We were thrilled [about the partnership],” said Pamela Hinckley, CEO of Tom Douglas Restaurants (TDR). “We have so many employees with families in the public school system.”

“We want hot sauce!”

Hinckley and TDR chef Eric Tanaka worked closely with Weyer and Randall Guzzardo, operations manager for the Seattle School District’s central kitchen, learning the ins and outs of the district’s food-preparation and distribution system, as well as the federal pricing and nutrition guidelines. Then they set up student focus groups designed to discover what kids do and don’t like about school food, and also what they like to eat at home.

Although fish products often inspire wrinkled noses among schoolchildren, Weyer was surprised to hear a number of kids mention steamed white fish as a favorite home-cooked food. In response, the team developed a new recipe for a homemade provencal sauce over white baked fish. The district tested the dish out at a series of “family nights” held this fall, each at a different school in the district. “We had kids coming back for two or three servings [of fish],” Weyer said.

Misconceptions about what kids will and won’t eat can get in the way of creative menu changes. “A lot of people assume kids want bland food, but we found exactly the opposite,” Hinckley said. “On my notes from [the focus groups], in big scrawl, it says, ‘We want hot sauce!’”

The ideal vs. the reality

Once they’d identified meals that were both healthy and appealing to kids, the next step was finding ways to mass-produce them within the practical constraints of the public-school system.

“A lot of people want to approach [school-lunch reform] from the utopian outside and say, ‘Let’s just grow a garden and that will solve everything!’” Hinckley said. “But there’s so much more to working within the system.” For instance: Federal and state funds provide Seattle Schools with about $3 per student meal, but that amount must also cover labor costs. The district ends up with about $1.10 for the actual food—an amount Hinckley called “pathetic.”

Then there’s the fact that all food is prepared in a central commissary at district headquarters before being shipped out to 88 individual school kitchens (many of which resemble “a closet with a refrigerator and an oven,” Weyer said). The Berkeley school district implemented reforms through one central kitchen, but that district serves less than 10,000 students; over 47,000 kids attend public schools in Seattle, which means Weyer and Guzzardo’s team is responsible for producing 20,000 lunches a day—no simple task. “When you expand a recipe, the flavor changes,” Guzzardo says.

The central commissary works as a compromise between the higher labor cost of having a full-functioning kitchen at every school, and serving only frozen and reheated meals shipped from afar. But it does present a barrier to serving truly fresh food daily in every school.

“The food that’s created has to withstand being made two days early,” Hinckley says. “Food deteriorates in flavor, freshness, and aroma. That’s why school [food] smells funky! You don’t get onions sizzling, you get the smell of bags opening.”

Jazzing up the basics

Some ideas for new dishes—like a Thai spring roll—had to be altered to fit the infrastructure at hand. “So we’ll look at a different way we can do it—maybe a cold noodle dish,” says Guzzardo.

Weyer said that while the central kitchen makes baked goods and salad from scratch, most of the protein on the menu comes precooked. So the team jazzes it up with homemade ingredients like green tomatillo sauce on a prepared enchilada. To make pasta, Guzzardo uses fresh onions, garlic, basil, and parsley with commodity ground beef, and he’ll substitute half the canned pasta sauce for fresh diced tomatoes. “We’ve cut down the sodium by about 50 percent from what it was six years ago,” he said. “We’re constantly trying to innovate within the framework of what we can do.”

The district plans to move into 2012 serving a new taste-tested dish—like the enchiladas, the noodles, or a chicken and butternut squash curry with Israeli couscous—about once a week, as the production schedule allows. Although the grant money will run out in March, Weyer said the district hopes to work with TDR to phase more new recipes into the menu. And while TDR employees have donated their time, Hinckley is enthusiastic about keeping the collaboration going; her dream is to issue a call to all restaurants in Seattle in hopes of pairing one chef with every school in the district.

“None of this is going to happen overnight,” said Guzzardo. “But more of [these changes have] been going on over the last few years than people know. Our desire is for kids to get a better meal. No underlying glory is being sought, because there’s not a lot of glory in this.”

Weyer said she also hopes menu changes will help eliminate some stigmas attached to the school meal program. “In some schools, if you didn’t bring lunch from home that [means] you must be poor,” she said. But upgraded offerings could convince more “kids who haven’t been a part of our program to try a school lunch.”

Related Links:

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