I am irritated by the debate, by well-meaning food folks, about whether eating local food is really a good way to reduce the impact of your food choices on carbon emissions. This debate suggests a phony choice - if food miles matter, then nothing else does. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Food miles” are a measure of the distance food travels from farm to plate. As far as I know, this concept caught fire after a 2003 study came out from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture comparing food miles traveled by local produce in Iowa and conventional produce within the U.S. The study found that the non-local produce had traveled an average of 1500 miles, compared to 56 miles for local produce. Since then, there has been a lot of overgeneralizing of the 1500 mile statistic: the original study looked at only 16 crops, and excluded crops grown outside the U.S.

Local food advocates, including me, have suggested that one of the many benefits of eating from your local area is that it will, in general, reduce the carbon footprint of your food. Others have responded by finding all the other aspects of food production, including chemical inputs of conventional farming, the massive carbon footprint of factory meat production, processing, and food storage, to argue that local food is not important. They are right, of course, that there are many factors that influence how much carbon food contributes to the atmosphere. My answer is, so what? Of course there is often not a simple linear relationship between food miles and carbon emissions. But it does not follow that food miles don’t matter.

A recent study published in Environmental Science and Technology made the following claims:

1. Food accounts for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Most greenhouse gas emissions (83%) from food come from the production phase, while only 11% come from transportation.
3. In an average U.S.household, meat and dairy account for about half of the greenhouse gas emissions from food.
4. Switching away from red meat and dairy to vegetables or even fish, poultry and eggs substantially reduces the carbon footprint of your food.

This is a useful study. But it has been used to argue that food miles are irrelevant, just because other food choices (factory farmed meat versus vegetables) are so important. And, it leaves out all the other factors that so often make locally produced food carbon friendlier. The local food at our farmer’s markets and grocery stores is mostly organic, unprocessed, and, if its meat, grass-fed.

Other articles have questioned the food miles concept, and have suggested it is very difficult to make good choices. I think this is silly.

If you stop for a minute to think, it obvious that many factors will affect the carbon emissions associated with a particular food. Conventional vs. organic techniques, use of fuel in cultivation, mode of transport, processing, storage, and on and on. Trucked, flown, or shipped? Refrigerated, frozen, cooked, or canned? Does this mean food miles are a useless concept? No. But it is overly simplistic as a complete guide of what to eat. I’m sure you can reason this out for yourself.

So rather than argue that food miles are irrelevant, we need to just use our brains a little bit when we decide what to put in our mouths.

Larry Lev, an agricultural economist at Oregon State University, told me once you can sum up the motto of industrial agriculture as: “Just eat it.” He was suggesting, I think, that our entire agricultural system is based on each of us, every day, not considering what we are eating, where it came from, how it was produced, how it makes us feel, what it does to our planet, or even, often, how it really tastes.

I believe he’s right. And once we start to think about these things when we eat, everything will start to change for the better.

I was stunned by what I learned last year - more importantly, I was stunned by what I didn’t know, and I consider myself a sustainable agriculture supporter! I’ve been trying to track the progress of this Bill in its fits and starts and controversial moments, but still find myself quite ignorant and ever-more surprised when I hear or read another piece of this hulking bulk of legislation.Today is my ‘recipe’ day, not that I’ve kept up with the schedule lately AT ALL, but after reading the NY Times article about the latest on the Farm Bill, I just had to write something about this. Sorry. Look for some lighter fare (perhaps easier to digest than the Farm Bill) Monday!

I know there are some great strides in terms of increasing aid for food stamps, food banks and nutritional programs - yeah! Forgive my total ignorance here, but what is up with these fat AND GROWING subsidy programs????

I realize that I have a long way to go to get my wee brain around the logic in these subsidies, but can somebody please explain why we are making these ‘direct’ payments of subsidies to individual farmer’s whose income is over $750k/year? By the way, I believe this relates to personal income rather than farm revenue . . .From that meeting last year, I also learned that nearly all subsidies go to the 5 main big-ag crops - wheat, corn, soy, cotton, ???? (can’t remember the last one, someone, please feel free to set me straight on this) - and that most of the stuff we buy at our local farmer’s markets or from our grocers - lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries, tomatoes, etc. - are specialty crops, AND that a large percentage of those big 5 are shipped out of the country, used for feed or are being made into ethanol or fuel.

While I believe there was progress made in support of smaller farms and farmer’s markets, it seems to me that most of the money is going to non-food subsidies.

I need to learn a LOT more. I feel very strongly that we ALL need to learn a lot more and get active NOW in order to have a greater effect on the next Farm Bill, which will come around in about 4 years.

There are some awesome posts here on the GreenOptions blogs from folks that are far more educated than me. Please visit them:

White House Signals Farm Bill Veto - Will Congress Bend?

Say What? President Bush Encourages Americans to Eat Local

Small Wind Remains in Farm Bill

Farm Bill Redux: A Second Change at Real Reform

Last week, the New York Times featured a few part-time professional urban farmers in areas of New York City where a high demand and low supply of produce cause dietary and health problems. Increasingly, residents are seeing their abundance of abandoned lots as a new kind of food wealth.

In places like East New York, Brooklyn and the South Bronx, neighbors are getting together to create community gardens. But instead of toiling away on shared crops, each group grows and tends to his or her own plot. This allows more autonomy in deciding what to do with those hard-earned veggies. While some groups eat or give away their crops, many others decide to bring the fruits of their labor to market as a secondary source of income. One couple featured in the article, Denniston and Marlene Wilks, made over $3,000 dollars last year from four allotments. But the farmers insist it is not about the money: a South Bronx farmer, Karen Washington told the New York Times: “We’re selling so that people in our neighborhood have good quality. There’s no Whole Foods in my neighborhood.”

The allotment gardens themselves are efficiently run, funded primarily by allotment rent checks (the Wilkses said they paid as little as $2 per 4′x8′ bed). The gardens also avoid expenses by using city services as much as possible. For example, the New York Parks Department has a seeding and soil testing service that is free, while the Bronx Zoo repackages their animal dung as free manure for city residents. As the creators of the SPIN-Farming method attest, municipal services make city farming a great deal cheaper than its large scale equivalent, where water drainage, pest control and regular soil testing are solely the farmer’s responsibility.

In addition to the increase in produce, low- and mid-income neighborhoods are enjoying an increase in farmer’s markets. Residents aren’t the only ones to notice, either. This week, a 60-person delegation from the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development took tours of several allotment and fully-functioning urban farms. It is nice to see some government and policy leaders acknowledge that the grassroots action of growing veggies on allotment may have a profound impact on the way we eat.

Image credit: Todd Heisler for the New York Times

No, this isn’t a pipe dream prompted by the current era of high fuel and food costs. “These statistics rang true in 1943 during World War II during the peak of the Victory Garden era,” explains Rose Hayden-Smith, a garden historian and leading expert on this amazing period of self-sufficiency over sixty years ago. “Victory Gardens provided multiple benefits back then, including improving American health and showcasing the nation’s stability and high morale.”

But Hayden-Smith isn’t a historian stuck in the past – she’s an advocate championing bringing the Victory Garden concept back to create a sustainable food system for future generations. Historically, World War II Victory Gardens were kitchen gardens planted to help relieve wartime food shortages. Hayden-Smith defines Victory Gardens more broadly: “A Victory Garden today can be any garden with a purpose that you define personally. That purpose can be a family project to raise food for your household or a community effort to grow produce for a local food bank or whatever else you see as a need.” Such mission based gardening moves our food choices beyond our own personal plate and into the political realm: Make a statement with your garden, vote by example for self-sufficiency and independence.

Why rekindle the Victory Garden concept today? “Victory Gardens showcase patriotism in its truest sense, with each of us taking personal responsibility for doing our individual part to create a healthy, fair and affordable food system,” Hayden-Smith sums up. Additional reasons for recreating Victory Gardens today include:

• Foster skill base among young people
“Victory Gardens provide an inspiring historic model for how we can reintegrate garden-based curriculum into our schools,” Hayden-Smith adds. “Our skills as a nation to be self-sufficient, especially amongst the younger generation, have declined considerably. Additionally, various studies prove that kids who garden eat healthier, which then leads to improved academic performance.” Additionally, a garden can be a base for teaching anything from literature to science to art, all with an appreciation for a healthy food system.

• Build community
Gardening connects people and can bridge cultural barriers. “When we gardened during World War II, we improved our cultural understanding and appreciation of diversity,” explains Hayden-Smith. “Historically, every culture gardens, even though they may be growing different things. During the Victory Garden era, people from diverse backgrounds connected through raising their own food, sharing harvest abundance, food traditions and, most importantly, building community.”

• Support national security
“With rising fuel and food prices, home gardens assure better access for all people, particularly those of lower income levels, to healthy, fresh food,” Harden-Smith concludes.

A University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor and Food and Society Policy Fellow, Hayden-Smith passionately gardens in her own home plot in Ventura, California and blogs on Victory Growers. She focuses on simple, fast recipes that showcase the fresh produce flavors. Her family’s favorite, “Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce,” can be made just with zucchini if tomatoes are not available.

Spaghetti with Zucchini, Tomatoes and Basil

1.5 pounds small or medium zucchini
4-6 Roma tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
½ cup olive oil
Handful of basil leaves, torn into small pieces
½ cup mixed grated or shredded Parmesan and Romano cheeses
½ cup half-and-half or milk
1 lb. whole grain spaghetti
Salt and pepper

Heat a large pot of water for the pasta. Quarter the zucchini and tomatoes lengthwise, then cut into ½ inch chunks. Warm the olive oil and garlic in a wide skillet. Add the zucchini and tomatoes; season with salt and pepper. Cook gently over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini is soft and browned in places (about 15 minutes). Add the half-and-half and cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Meanwhile, add salt to the boiling water and cook the pasta. Drain and toss the pasta with the zucchini, tomatoes, cheese and basil. Season to taste.

If tomatoes aren’t available, simply omit. This recipe works will with yellow squash, too!

The WFP school feeding program has become a touchstone aspect of both the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the G8 action pact of 2002. Between the program’s inception in 1999 and its last data recorded in 2005, the number of children served has grown by 82%, which amounts to 21.7 million schoolchildren in 74 countries.

Now, despite its success and widespread acclaim, the International Herald is reporting that the WFP program will not continue in Cambodia - the first of many predicted shut-downs as rising food costs threaten the profoundly poor. While the program’s budgeted cost for rice last year was $295 per ton, the current market price is more than $700 per ton. In a country where half of all calories consumed come from rice, the rising prices make it very difficult for farmers to donate to free breakfast programs. So will the Cambodia program be able to re-open? The WFP director on the ground gave his most optimistic estimate: maybe next school year in October 2008.

To learn more about the work of the World Food Program and to find out how you can donate to help the schools in Cambodia, please go to their website.

(Picture by Thomas Fuller for the International Herald Tribune)

Biofuels are increasingly lumped into a single category of environmentally apocalyptic dead-end solutions. As the food vs. fuel debate rages on, it’s no wonder that the general public believes this.

But not all biofuels are created equal, as the chart above illustrates (click the image to see full size). It’s one of the best depictions I’ve seen of how each biofuel feedstock has completely different impacts on overall greenhouse gas emissions, water and pesticide use, and the energy required to produce the fuel. (Click on the chart for the full image)

The chart was created jointly by faculty members from University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy and published in the Seattle P-I (see the article Bio-debatable: Food vs. fuel).

Last week’s topic was why corn ethanol is an environmental loser.

But are all biofuels losers? No. Some can be winners. One of those is called cellulosic ethanol.

What Is Cellulosic Ethanol?

All ethanol — whether it is corn or cellulosic — is the same chemical compound: C2H5OH. You might recall from elementary chemistry courses that the “OH” group at the end of the formula indicates that the compound is an “alcohol.” Alcohols can have varying numbers of carbon atoms. Alcohol with two carbon atoms is called “ethanol.” The other alcohols are generally too toxic to be ingested, and thus ethanol has been the libation of choice down through the ages. (Ethanol used as fuel is rendered nonpotable.)

So corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol don’t signify different types of ethanol, but rather the different material (or feedstocks) used to produce them.

Why Cellulosic Ethanol Can Be an Environmental Winner

Corn ethanol is produced from kernels — actually only a small part of the corn kernels — the sugars and starches. Herein lies one of the limitations of corn ethanol. You see, sugars and starches comprise a tiny fraction of the corn plant’s mass — about 2-15%. Because only a small fraction of a plant is used to make corn ethanol, the amount you can produce is limited.

Cellulosic ethanol is a different story. Most of the dry biomass — as much as 80% — is typically made up of cellulosic material — the stuff that makes the plant sturdy. So you can make a lot of ethanol using a plant’s cellulose instead of its sugars and starches. (By the way, even if the cellulosic material comes from corn, we still call it “cellulosic ethanol.” Corn ethanol is made solely from the sugars and starches of the corn kernel.)

The Major Advantage of Cellulosic Ethanol

Our guts are unable to digest cellulose, so we typically throw away that part of crops. A lot of it is left on the field or disposed of as agricultural waste. For corn, the cellulosic material includes the corn stover — the leaves and stalk — and the cob.

Remember what made corn ethanol such an environmental negative? A main reason is that it requires that land being used to grow food (or left as forests or grassland) be converted to growing an energy crop. And that leads to lots of global warming pollution.

This is not a problem for cellulosic ethanol — we can simply use the agricultural waste from food crops to make the ethanol and thereby avoid all those emissions.

Why We Can’t Fill Our Tanks With the Cellulosic Stuff … Yet

Unfortunately, right now, producing cellulosic ethanol on an industrial scale is too expensive. Unlike converting a plant’s sugars and starches to corn ethanol, making cellulosic ethanol requires that we first break down the cellulosic material. But because this material is what makes a plant sturdy, the atoms in these compounds are strongly bonded together and that makes them hard to break apart. The processes we have available today to do this are too expensive to make cellulosic ethanol commercially competitive.

But that will likely change. Scientists and engineers are working to make a commercially viable form of cellulosic ethanol. Some are developing new chemical processes; others are trying to genetically engineer new microbes that can “ferment” cellulose into ethanol like normal microbes that ferment sugars into ethanol. (The U.S.Department of Energy is helping fund six biorefineries.)

Cellulosic Ethanol Could Help Cut U.S. Global Warming Pollution

By my own estimates, agricultural and forest wastes could supply as much as 35 billion gallons of ethanol per year, saving up to 76 megatons of global warming emissions per year. (These results are somewhat larger than but consistent with other recent estimates (e.g., see Smith et al. 2004).) Such savings would cut a little less than 5% of all our heat-trapping pollution and about 15% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

By mid-century, cellulosic ethanol could supply as much as 86 billion gallons of ethanol, saving a little more than 180 megatons of global warming pollution per year — or almost 12% of America’s total global warming pollution and about 35% of the emissions from the transportation sector.

These are significant numbers. But to reach such levels we would need to grow bioenergy crops such as switch grass. Such cultivation, in turn, would require converting lands for this purpose, and that could raise some of the problems discussed in last week’s post.

The Bottom Line of Biofuels: There Are Winners and Losers

The saying “waste not, want not” applies to biofuels. The best biofuels are made from agricultural or forests wastes or from plants cultivated on degraded or marginal lands. The product from such feedstocks — cellulosic ethanol — is where we should be directing our entrepreneurial energies.

Read more about Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

See also:

CleanTechnica: Gene from Cow’s Stomach Engineered to Create More Affordable Biofuel

Gas 2.0: Mascoma Update — Cellulosic Ethanol Company Adds $10 Million From Marathon Oil

CleanTechnica: First Sustainable Ethanol to Mass Market?

Marion Nestle, an oft-quoted nutritionist and professor at New York University, explains the need to consume nutrients within the context of their whole food origins on her blog:

Unless you have been diagnosed with a vitamin or mineral deficiency and need to replenish that nutrient in a great big hurry, it is always better to get nutrients from foods—the way nature intended. I can think of three benefits of whole foods as compared to supplements: (1) you get the full variety of nutrients—vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc–in that food, not just the one nutrient in the supplement; (2) the amounts of the various nutrients are balanced so they don’t interfere with each other’s digestion, absorption, or metabolism; and (3) there is no possibility of harm from taking nutrients from foods (OK. Polar bear liver is an exception; its level of vitamin A is toxic). In contrast, high doses of single nutrients not only fail to improve health but also can make things worse, as has been shown in some clinical trials of the effects of beta-carotene, vitamin E, and folic acid, for example, on heart disease or cancer. And foods taste a whole lot better, of course.

One study to which she refers is a well-known experiment involving male smokers from Finland and the effects of vitamin E and beta-carotene supplementation on the incidence of lung cancer. Contrary to theoretical predictions, the supplements actually increased the probability of getting cancer. (This closed experiment controlled for lifestyle and other tertiary factors , was peer reviewed and is considered a high-quality study in the field).

So we have one expert weighing in on the dangers of nutrients that are unregulated by their natural partners, i.e. the other components of their source. We have empirical data that shows how isolated nutrients can in fact contribute to worsened health. But guess what else? One expert in the field suggests that we must eat nutrients in the context of their whole foods because we don’t even know what aspect of the plant actually causes the nutritional benefit.

David R. Jacobs, professor of epidemiology at University of Minnesota is an expert on “food synergy.” This term refers to the ways that the components of a food source work in tandem to deliver the nutritional benefit to our bodies. The foods act synergistically. In his article in the American Journal of Nutrition that focuses on the food synergy in grain sources, he states:

Risk appears to be lower with consumption of whole grain than of refined grain; that is, benefit accrues when all edible parts of the grain are included (bran, germ, and endosperm). It appears that phytochemicals that are located in the fiber matrix, in addition to or instead of the fiber itself, are responsible for the reduced risk.

This notion of food synergy is perhaps the most sophisticated in that it protects us from our own ignorance. We know, empirically, that when we consume food, we stave off death. We know that certain foods do this better than others and we have a sense of which parts of these foods are most useful to us. But we might be wrong about certain nutrients or metabolic processes. In fact, we have evidence to suggest that we are sometimes wrong. By choosing to eat whole, natural foods - that is, foods closest to their plant source, we are taking a blanket approach to nutrition rather than trusting any one nutritional philosophy (especially one funded by an agricultural lobbyist group) to guide us in our eating.

“One of the most serious unintended consequences of industrial food animal production is the growing public health threat of these types of facilities,” the report said. “There is increasing urgency to chart a new course” in agriculture, which has been shifting over the last 50 years from family farms to large livestock meat producers.”

The studies primary focus assessed four areas of impact by industrial farms:

• Impact on public healthy by overuse of antibiotics on food animals, primarily the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria
• Impact on the environment from animal waste
• The need for humane treatment of animals
• The impact on family farms from lack of competition and the consolidation of the agribusiness entities

Recommendations from the report include:

• Phasing out and banning antibiotics and other antimicrobials that are used to promote growth but not treat illnesses. To understand more about this issue, visit the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s Health Observatory.
• Improving animal disease monitoring and tracking. Currently this issue is a source of debate. Check out the discussion at Ethicurean.
• Creating regulations for farm waste, making the farms responsible for the costs to clean up and prevent pollution. This unpaid cost by industrial farms is one of the key factors in the artificially low price of meats. For more insights on these real costs, visit The Meatrix.
• A ten-year deadline to phase out all “intensive confinement” practices such as gestation crates, birthing crates, battery cages for poultry, and individual confinement of calves for veal.
• A call for enforcement of antitrust laws to bring fair practices and competition back to the livestock industry.

There will be a battle ahead on these points, particularly the antitrust laws. It is refreshing to see independent studies like this surface in the media and call for urgent changes. Making sure our representatives hear that call and hear it from us is a great next step. Here is how to find your Representatives and your Senators.

Cook, along with her husband, Wayne, currently milk a herd of 25 cows, selling their milk to Organic Valley Family of Farms, the largest farmer-owned organic cooperative in the country. She represents the rural renaissance of farming women today: smart, sassy, steadfastly committed to educating about the importance of sustainable agriculture — and still the kind of gal who would warmly welcome you into her farmhouse kitchen for coffee, cheesecake and conversation.

Farming organically for over twenty-five years, the Cooks represent a small but dedicated group of farmers who have operated under these principles for their entire agriculture career. “Wayne’s family always farmed organically, thanks to his independent grandparents who didn’t want any part in what they saw as the government pushing chemicals,” says Cook with a smile. “I grew up an army brat in Germany and never experienced conventional American agriculture. When you’re never exposed to chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the concept logically doesn’t make sense. We ourselves didn’t want to eat food laced with that stuff; why would we ever sell it to anyone else?”

For over ten years, the Cooks ran a 120 member CSA (community supported agriculture), Lost Creek Organics, raising a diversified produce mix on 66 acres. “We did a little bit of everything back then, even harvested and ground our own wheat for our members,” reminisces Cook.

Cook remembers when they first tasted organic milk back in 1999 at their local food cooperative. “The milk tasted great and I finally knew what real milk is supposed to taste like. After that we couldn’t go back to conventional milk.” Cook’s husband always had a dream of dairy farming, so when the opportunity landed to buy a nearby existing dairy farm and convert it to organic, the Cooks jumped at the chance in 2004, launching Due North Organic Dairy Farm.

The next time you need to buy milk or another dairy product, think of Cook’s reasons why you should consider organic:

• Keep the Chemicals Out
“If you can buy only one organic product, buy organic milk,” expounds Cook. “The amount of chemicals in conventional milk defies anyone’s intelligence.” Only organic milk ensures that your milk does not contain rBGH (Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone), a milk-produced hormone manufactured by Monsanto linked to human health hazards and banned in Europe and Canada.

• Support Family Farms
By paying a fair price for milk that is consciously produced, you directly help support the economic vitality of family farms today. “These huge factory farms with seven thousand cows aren’t sustainable without outside inputs from the government,” Cook adds. “I’m convinced organic shoppers are what’s saving and sustaining family farms today.”

• Promote Udder Diversity
“The majority of Holsteins today, the main breed of cows used for milk production, come from two genetic sires,” Cook explains. “That means nearly all of our conventional milk comes from just two types of cows that we’ve manipulated genetically to basically be giant udders. The bulls are full of bull. They’re not even cows anymore.”

This focus on genetics and disconnect from the animals both frightens and frustrates Cook. “These places can’t be called farms anymore, they’re just milk producing corporate facilities,” sums up Cook. Organic cows represent healthy diversity, letting animals breed naturally and raising animals in settings where they have healthy access to the outdoors, grass and healthy food sources.

Between farm duties and her writing responsibilities (Cook is an assistant editor at Countryside Magazine and author of “The Scarecrow Chronicles,” a popular gardening column that ran for three years in The Country Today), Cook has mastered the traditional art of “farmhouse cooking”: making food that’s wholesome, hearty, tasty and fast. Hence the ease of her Farmhouse Cheesecake Recipe below, quickly made in the blender and showcasing the rich flavor of organic heavy cream and cream cheese. “This cheesecake may not rise very high, but considering you can have it in the oven in three minutes, I recommend just spreading some fruit preserves on top, calling it even and getting it on the table,” Cook adds with a laugh.

Jerri’s Farmhouse Cheesecake — Featuring Organic Valley Family of Farms Dairy

Ingredients:

1 c. heavy cream
4 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 lb. cream cheese (two 8 oz. packages)
1/4 t. salt
2 T. flour

Directions:
• Blend all ingredients in blender till frothy (about 3 minutes).
• Pour into a greased 9-inch pan and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

See also:

Green Options: Avoiding the Dirty Dozen — How to Afford Organic Produce

Eat.Drink.Better: Farmer Fast Food: Quick Spring Meal Tips from Busy Growers

Putting the comment back into context, however, there are a few problems with the logic of this suggestion, and not just that he, Bush, was the creator of the “eat local” concept.

The statement was made in response to a question on the relationship between ethanol and food price increases: (quote from press conference after the jump).

“Actually, I have a little different take: I thought it was 85 percent of the world’s food prices are caused by weather, increased demand and energy prices — just the cost of growing product — and that 15 percent has been caused by ethanol, the arrival of ethanol.

By the way, the high price of gasoline is going to spur more investment in ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. And the truth of the matter is it’s in our national interests that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us.

In terms of the international situation, we are deeply concerned about food prices here at home and we’re deeply concerned about people who don’t have food abroad. In other words, scarcity is of concern to us. Last year we were very generous in our food donations, and this year we’ll be generous as well. As a matter of fact, we just released about $200 million out of the Emerson Trust as part of a ongoing effort to address scarcity.

One thing I think that would be — I know would be very creative policy is if we — is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It’s a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn’t responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do.”

Let’s look at the logic here. If more and more farmland gets diverted to commodity crops for ethanol production, how are we going to provide food for the world AND have land left for local farms? If just fifteen percent of the food price issues were caused by using farmland for ethanol, how is using more farmland for ethanol going to be part of the solution? Not to mention the massive input of fossil-fuel based fertilizers that are used to grow that commodity crop conventionally. Or, the fact that current demand for local food may become greater than what can be supplied with only four percent of our nation’s farms growing fruits and vegetables.

On the chance that this “new” buying local concept of our president’s may sour you on the idea of buying local, please don’t quit. Buying local is your movement. Your choice. Your actions. And they make a huge difference for positive changes in this country.

According to Ryan Grimm at Politico.com, when asked what the President would do if the current iteration of the farm bill made its way to the President’s desk White House spokesman Scott Stanzel replied, “as it stands now, it is not something the president would support.” Stanzel wrote in an email:

“The proposal before Congress would dramatically increase spending, in part by masking additional spending in budgetary gimmicks and accounting tricks.”

Farm bills pass - that’s what they do

Despite the threat, there may be enough Congressional support to override the veto. According to House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), “If the White House is stupid enough to veto this, they’re going to get overridden.”

The farm bill is a very popular funding mechanism for Congressional spending. Every state’s congressional delegation works extremely hard to get their slice of the agricultural pie - not doing so does not bode well in the eyes of powerful ag interests and the voters of agricultural states. In short, farm bills do not get vetoed. At least very rarely do they get vetoed - there are a few exceptions.

One exception to the rule is when a second term president uses a veto (or threatens to veto) an appropriations bill, such as a farm bill - and criticize Congress for loading it with pork and earmarks - without any serious political repercussions. Interestingly enough, the last time a farm bill was vetoed was nearly 10 years ago, when another late second-term president successfully vetoed a farm bill - a veto which Congress made no attempt to override. But the political climate is quite different from that of ten years ago, and I would suspect that this President does not have the political capital to successfully veto the farm bill.
See also: “Small Wind Remains in Farm Bill” :: Green Options (12/2007)

Photo: mike138

We’ve written about Monsanto’s attempts to control both agribusiness and the public perception of agribusiness.  Shirley wrote about Monsanto’s attempts to keep dairies from labeling their own milk “rbGH-free” and  Beth wrote about Monsanto’s genetically-engineered sugar beets.  Barlett and Steele focus on Monsanto’s tactics of attacking farmers for alleged patent violations and their impact on rural communities, and their article is a must-read for those interested in where their food comes from.

Monsanto is a hot-button topic in the slow food community.  Does Monsanto provide invaluable research and development that feed entire nations, or are their strong-arming tactics disguised as defense of intellectual property rights destroying rural economies and farmers livelihoods?  What do you think?

I spent last week following the Ashkenazi diet for the eight day celebration of Passover, the finer points of which were perfectly summed up by Sharon here. Each year for eight days, I eliminate any and all corn products from my diet and vow to carry this no-corn policy into the rest of the year’s eating. But eliminating corn-based additives is not as straightforward as skimming the ingredients list for the word corn. Many of these additives have names that do not give away their origins. Of course, unwanted corn primarily enters the diet through food processing, so the best and easiest course of action is to eliminate all processed foods. But in instances where processed food is unavoidable, a next best defense is familiarity with aliases for corn. And so, without further ado, several common , non-obvious corn-based additives to look out for:

Ascorbic acid

The Vitamin C used to fortify foods is almost always non-naturally occurring. Instead, it is synthesized from corn.

Amino Acids

We have all seen this vague ingredient. It makes me think of biology class, but it makes the Corn Refiner’s Association think of money!

Calcium lactate

A preservative used in baking powder, cheeses, chewing gum, antacids, cut fruit.

Calcium stearoyl

Emulsifier used in manufactured bread products such as bread loaves and tortillas

Citric acid

Preservative used in soft drinks and candies for the sour taste.

Crystalline fructose

A type of high fructose corn derivative found in artificially sweetened products.

Dextrin or Dextrose

A basic sugar with food preservation properties, dextrose is found in jams, candy and other sweetened foods. Additionally, it is the basis for fermentation of many antibiotics such as penicillin.

Ethyl maltol

This chemical compound smells of caramel and is thus used as an artificial flavor and fragrance that is used in food and beauty products, which means it is also absorbed into your body through your skin as perfume, lotion and soap.

Fumaric or Lactic acid

A preservative in sweets that sometimes offers a tart flavor, but can also be tasteless.

Glucose

Commercially produced glucose is made from cornstarch, making it a processed processed food. (Processed²?)

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)

HVP is a fermented corn biproduct that contains the more maligned acronymed ingredient, MSG (monosodium glutamate - a type of HVP). MSG has been implicated in migraines, among other maladies. HVP is used as a “flavor enhancer,” possibly in other flavored-down, corned-up processed items. (Processed³?)

Malt, Maltodextrin, Maltose or Maltol

The Malt-series food additives are absorbed by the human body at a rate parallel to glucose, which is to say rapidly. This rapid absorption leads to a rise and fall of glucose levels, which leads to increased hunger, which leads to eating more corn products. Yay!

Mannitol

A sweetener used for diabetic-friendly sweets, mannitol is also a common ingredient in chewing gum and breath mints (it provides that “cool” feeling). In higher doses, mannitol is used in children’s laxatives. (Needed in the first place, of course, because of a non-diversified diet of corn-based, refined carbohydrates.)

Polydextrose

If your favorite cereal proclaims “Now With More Fiber!” on the box, it is probably thanks to this synthetic, soluble-fiber compound.

Polysorbates

An emulsifier in foods, pharmaceuticals and beauty products.

Potassium gluconate

Often added as an antioxidant, this compound is commonly used as a sodium supplement.

Propylene glycol monostearate

An emulsifier that is used in food, pharmaceuticals and beauty products. Oh, and also in industrial solvents, anti-freeze coolants, plasticizers and pretty much any other carcinogen you can think of.

Tocopherol

A synthetic Vitamin E, it is often sold as a supplement on its own although testing has demonstrated that humans do not absorb it as efficiently as naturally derived Vitamin E.

Xanthan gum

A very common thickening agent, xanthan gum is found in pretty much anything that requires emulsification such as salad dressing, ice cream, pasta sauce and bottled smoothies.

So, to tally this up, corn takes the place of our sugars, our salts, our starches, our fats, our remedies and our beauty treatments. While there is nothing intrinsically toxic about corn derivatives and their products, there is nothing nutritious about them either, despite health claims to the contrary. The pervasiveness of corn in the American diet promotes a homogeneous and environmentally hostile agriculture industry by relying on large-scale unicrop farms.

When we eat this much corn, we not only discourage genetic diversity among crops, we also bankrupt our bodies of the nutrients we require. But, more sinister than this, these synthetic foods trick our bodies into thinking that we are getting the nutrients from foods that they mimic. When we drink a lime soda, our body expects Vitamin C because of the tart taste and asorbic acid, but we also cannot process this synthetic asorbic acid (”Vitamin C”) with the efficiency of that found in say, a lime. Our brain asks us to continue drinking the soda, waiting for the nutrient. Instead, we get several hundred calories from corn-based sugars and no fiber with which to absorb the sugar as we would if we ate the lime. It is a deeply cynical business model that renders basically all industrial food companies into corn pushers.

Note: A reader brought up a concern about the factual accuracy of referring to chemical compounds that are made from corn as “corn-based.” From a scientific standpoint, he is right. Let’s call it “corn-derived,” shall we?

To be fair, the reader’s discomfort with the terminology points to a conflation I made that I should correct: there are both health concerns and political concerns with eating compounds made from corn. The health concerns do not relate to corn, the plant, but instead to the prevalence of synthetically-derived nutrients and homogeneous eating (any scientist knows the value of diversity for overall health…), while the political (and environmental) concerns relate to corn, specifically - or, more accurately, the corn industrial complex.

A few of the nutrients listed above are essential to human survival, but their presence as supplements in all of our groceries is not essential to human survival. Please do not avoid amino acids, just ponder why they are additives in your breakfast cereal. It is a falsehood that all nutrients - those from a lab and those from nature - are created equal. Any scientific claim that a synthetic or unnaturally isolated nutrient is as valuable as the same nutrient in the context of a whole food is woefully theoretical. Nutritional studies consistently show that subjects who eat nutrients in the context of whole food enjoy better health than those who eat isolated and synthetic nutrients. For more on this subject, a good source is Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.

I was also contemplating urban sprawl, more suburban sprawl today. The suburban city I live in basically just decided to take over about 15 miles south — without the vote of the citizens there. This was all farms, rolling pasture, beautiful land. You can see the future in the photo here with the brand new McMansions crowding a small farm out. All around this place are strip malls and subdivisions. How many strip malls do we really need? Or better yet, how do you get local food if there are no local farms?

That in mind, this week’s carnival entries follow.
Lynn at Organic Mania contemplates the terrible news about the food crisis has really been weighing on me. We who have the choice of organics vs. conventional foods are truly blessed.

Speaking of blessed, Christine presents Open Air Market in Barcelona posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France.

Carole DeJarnatt presents What to do with Rooster Spurs posted at Fowl Visions.

Ilana, the Hip Hostess, gives us hip tips on how to save money buying local.

Don’t forget to send in your posts for next weeks Farmers Market Fare. Entries are due on Sunday night, by midnight, send them to farmerfare [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!

When one stands before a hive of bees, one should say quite solemnly to oneself, ‘By way of the hive the whole cosmos enters man and makes him strong and able’

Rudolf Steiner

What is Happening to Our Honey Bees?
I have been fortunate enough to make friends with my local ‘bee lady’, Landi Simone of Gooserock Farm in Montville, NJ. Her place is magical and represents to me a sustainable lifestyle that is in harmony with nature. The flowers all around are of course amazing. She has helped to educate me and countless others about what is happening with the honey bees.

There has been a lot of concern for continued decline in honey bee populations. The Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) Survey found the colony losses continue and the effects of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) have not abated. There was a 14% loss over the last year and this represents an unsustainable trend.

A little perspective on how important honey bees are: According to the AIA, Honey bees in the US are responsible for pollinating more than 100 different crops worth $15 billion annually.

“It’s disheartening to have to report that the honey bee colonies continue to die at unsustainable levels,” said AIA president and Häagen-Dazs® Ice Cream Bee Board member Dennis vanEngelsdorp. “At least 70 percent of all colony deaths can be attributed to non-CCD causes, underlying the need for research, not only into CCD, but into pollinator health in general.”

AHHHHHH - don’t mess with my Haagen-Daz!!!!

What We Can Do to Help Honey Bees
I’m loving my Haagen-Daz even more now, because they are getting very involved in supporting research and assisting in various ways to help promote growth among the honey bee population. They have a very cool website dedicated to helping the honey bees that is a wonderful tool for learning more about how you can help, but most importantly, it is a fun site that has a marvelous audio component that sounds as if you are in a meadow with the bees. I have been leaving it on in my office during the day and it has an amazing soothing quality.

One of the things Haagen-Daz among others are suggesting we can do is to start planting bee-friendly plants. Landi said that while it does help if we plant some additional flowers in our gardens and let the dandelions grow freely (bees aparently love these), the bees need help on a much larger scale. She suggests that we need to get more bee-friendly trees, such as Linden or Black Locust trees, planted and that landscape architects and city planners needed to start to use more of these and less of some of the more popular ones, such as Bradford Pear, which are lovely, but don’t help the honey bees at all. The DailyGreen has a wonderful list of bee-friendly flowers, shrubs and trees for anyone interested.

Honey: Important Health & Healing Aid
Aside from being a vital part of our agricultural system, honey bees are the producers of one of the original wonderful tasty, nutritional and healing products ever discovered - honey, of course.

These industrious and productive little fellows work hard to bring us a substance that has been touted for its healing qualities for centuries. The ancient Egyptians used honey as an embalming material and treated cuts and burns with it. The Greek physician Hippocrates cured skin disorders with honey, and the Romans cleaned wounds with it. Even as recently as World War I, doctors treated wounds with honey. With the advent of antibiotics, honey fell out of use for its healing properties, but scientific research is now rediscovering honey’s natural healing power.

Medical science is coming back around and there are numerous studies now showing how effective honey is in wound care in particular. Once ScienceDaily report, Healing Honey: The Sweet Evidence Revealed is worth a quick read.

Another great article on NaturalNews.com has an extensive list of the various ailments and health problems honey has been known to help with, including: anemia, osteoperosis, stress, conjunctivitis, burns and quite a few others.

A Case of Mistaken Identity
It is important to learn to recognize a honey bee and be able to distinguish her from a yellow jacket, bumblebee or other insect. People frequently refer to yellow jackets as ‘bees’ when they’re actually a species of wasp. This particular case of mistaken identity causes a lot of problems. Yellow jackets are highly defensive insects and are involved in a multitude of unpleasant human-bug encounters. Honey bees get blamed for the stings of their ornery cousins. In truth, unless a person lives near a beekeeper, there’s a good chance they’ve never even seen a honey bee; they’ve become that rare. Here’s the wikipedia page on honey bees.

Ah, the Sweet Nectar of the Gods
Of course, one cannot talk (or write) about honey and not discuss its delicious qualities. There are so many wonderful recipes out there. As it turns out the the National Honey Board has a section of their website devoted to honey recipes!

I learned that local honey can help in combating pollen-related allergies, so I drink raw honey from Landi’s bees every morning with hot lemon water and it seems to keep the allergies away!

Please send along any great honey recipes, honey bee stories, or honey healing stories.

And, don’t forget to be grateful to our busy little friends, educate yourself about the crisis and do what you can to help - hey, having a great excuse to not fight with the deandelions or plant more flowers isn’t so hard!

But I’m forever reformed and now proudly flaunt my Midwest roots after bonding with The Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook: Local Food, Local Restaurants, Local Recipes. A new release from Renewing the Countryside, a Minnesota-based non-profit organization that champions the positive stories of rural revitalization, this photography rich book is a love song for local food. Through narrating the stories of 31 of Minnesota’s chefs and restaurants, the Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook offers 100 recipes that celebrate locally grown, organic and sustainable cookery.

The passion these chefs - and the farmers they work with - sings throughout the pages of this book. I want to hang out with these people, share some Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler over a lingering pot of coffee. We’re part of the same tribe, share the same love for fresh food and go nuts over the first greens of spring. There’s no celebrity aura of cheekiness in these pages, just smiling faces next to fresh food prepared with real ingredients by people who love what they do.

“The chefs and growers featured in the Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook support local agriculture because its the right thing to do for both flavor and future generations, ” explains Jan Joannides, founder and executive director of Renewing the Countryside and one of the visionaries behind this book. “They’re not jumping on some hip, green marketing bandwagon. These are the principles and values by which they have always led their lives and businesses. We hope these stories, along with the delicious recipes, help inspire others to follow these Minnesota culinary leaders.”

The leaders portrayed in the Minnesota Homegrown Cookbook may span the state geographically, yet they share common values that can serve as mantras in our own kitchens and approach to food:

• Don’t be fanatical — explore your options.

No one is suggesting you give up your morning coffee or daily chocolate fix and go hardcore local. But as lauded in the book’s introduction, do “protest a little when someone tries to sell you an apple from New Zealand in October. French and California wines are great, but try one of the new Minnesota wines . . . this isn’t about being fanatical but rather about using common sense - the sense that tells you when something tastes good and is good for you and your community.”

• Embrace authentic specials

In our 24/7 world where we can eat just about anything anytime, too often we give up flavor and taste for bland, average food. In reality, the food chain runs on its own schedule, not ours. When foods are in season and available, relish and savor the experience. The owners of the Angry Trout Cafe in Grand Marais, Minnesota, dedicate the restaurant to sustainable operations, while showcasing local fish, produce and even microbrews. Fresh whitefish only comes from members of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, the only commercial fishermen who can fish for whitefish in Lake Superior. “If you ever see fresh whitefish on the specials board, order it right away because it won’t be there very long,” owner George Wilkes advises.

• Share the local love

Passionate about food, these chefs want customers to cook with local ingredients in their own homes. If a customer likes a certain menu item, the restaurants can help direct them to finding their own local products. This happens all the time at Chez Jude, a restaurant also in Grand Marais. “Last week I made a pumpkin and apple soup that used maple syrup,” writes chef Judi Barsness in the book. “I was able to tell people where to find the sugar pumpkins, Haralson apples and Caribou Cream maple syrup.”

In celebration of spring fruits, here’s a tasty treat that’s a menu favorite at the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis, showcasing the flavors of local strawberries, rhubarb, cornmeal and butter:

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

Filling

3 pints strawberries, quartered

2 1/4 lb. rhubarb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 big pinch nutmeg

Toss fruit into cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pout into 9×13-inch greased pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes, or until fruit is bubbly around the edges and juices are thickened and clear. Prepare topping while fruit is baking.

Topping

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup yellow ground cornmeal

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3/4 cup heavy cream

Combine dry ingredients. Add butter and cut in until the mixture has the consistency of coarse sand. Gradually add cream until dough pulls together. Break off pieces and spread evenly over fruit. Return to oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.

Serves 8 - 10

Alan Doering of AURI says agricultural residues and co-products aren’t waste, they’re potential new revenue streams to power the future.

AURI, or Agricultural Utilization Research Institute of Waseca, Minnesota, is a nonprofit organization that develops new uses for agricultural products and ag-processing co-products.

Alan Doering, an Associate Scientist with AURI, filled me in on steps being taken to utilize every bit of what used to be considered products of the waste stream.

Turkey droppings are fueling a power plant that serves 40,000 homes. Syrup derived from the making of ethanol is being used to power the plant that makes the ethanol. And there’s more on this amazing work in my interview with Alan.

doering-final.mp3

But I didn’t just come here to bring you down. A new agricultural economics paper has given us some reason to hope, if we can organize our food industry to action.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) released a report today confirming that global food production is sufficient to feed everyone. So why are 800 million people under- and malnourished? Because like all types of wealth, the food we grow is distributed unequally. As global warming impacts growth cycles through desertification and weather changes, our population continues to grow. We have more mouths to feed and less land to do it on and the inequality of distribution causes political instability and resource disputes the world over, threatening everyone’s security.

The 400 scientists who contributed to the IAASTD report recommended that we do several things. First, we have to abandon food crops as sources for biofuel. Rather than focus on maximum output, agriculture has to be practiced in a sustainable way so that soil richness, watershed health and ancient forests are protected. While the report received money from the “GM Industry” (the usual suspects like Monsanto…), a dispute last year saw them removed from the project as the scientists predicted a very minimal role for GM crops. The report also recommended that the current subsidized farming structure must change dramatically, as cheap cash crops from wealthy countries in the Northern hemisphere encourage wastefulness and discourage agricultural growth in developing countries by undercutting prices.

Without these changes made, the report warns, an increase in famine and thus conflict could be in our near future.

(Photo by Tyler Hicks for the New York Times)

I have to admit that my 3rd grader doesn’t eat school lunches. She has tried what the kids call “hot lunch” exactly 3 times in her entire public school career. She doesn’t like them. At all. Every morning, I fix her lunch, and although I sometimes grumble a little, I am glad to get to choose what she can eat for her midday meal.

But lately, I have been thinking a lot about those hot lunches. For one thing, they feed a lot of children. Many of my daughter’s friends eat them frequently or always. In 2006, more than 30 million children in the U.S. each day ate school lunches. And the school lunch program has been all over the news lately. From downer cows that end up in our kids’ lunches to efforts in districts across the country to combat obesity and bad eating habits in school cafeterias, school lunches seem to be a metaphor for all the bigger issues about food in America today.

Depending on who you talk to, school lunches might be described as anything from a program that nourishes our kids and provides a safety net for poor children to a dumping ground for surplus commodities that promotes childhood obesity, poor health, and lifelong addictions to fast food. I’ve been wanting to write about this since the start of Eat.Drink.Better., but its been hard to know where to start.

Last Sunday, I went to a Forum titled “What’s for Lunch?” about school lunches and farm-to-school programs, which I hoped would clarify things. What it clarified was this: school lunch programs vary by school, district, and state. The federal program does affect what your child is likely to be offered at school, but there are a lot of other factors too. Every evil and inspiring story about food imaginable you can probably find somewhere in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The thing that really struck me was this: school lunches are a reflection of our society, and our society’s relationship to food. And right now, that relationship is kind of crazy.

So this is the first of several posts on the national school lunch program, explaining some of what I’ve learned about how we feed our kids in school at lunch time, and why.

Today, some basic facts:

The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program which provides “nutritionally balanced” low cost or free lunches. School districts that participate get cash subsidies and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. They must offer free or reduced price lunches to eligible children. And they must meet federal nutritional guidelines (two sets) that, according to some, make it difficult to provide healthy affordable meals.

Who qualifies for free or reduced price meals? Children from families with incomes at or below 130 percent of the poverty level qualify for free meals. Those with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent qualify for reduced price meals, which can cost them no more than 40 cents. (This information comes from the Pennsylvania Department of Education fact sheet on the school lunch program.) In Oregon, where I live, 53% of children in public schools qualify for free or reduced price meals. The other 47% may buy the meals for full price. At my daughter’s school, full price lunches cost $1.75.

How much money do schools get from the USDA per child? If the food served to our children is low quality, a major reason is cost. Here is what the federal government gives schools per meal: $2.47 per free lunch, $2.07 per reduced price lunch, and .23 cents per paid lunch.

Beyond these basic facts, the program varies by state and district. Many parents across the country have protested the poor quality of the food in the NSLP, and many have been working for healthier, tastier, fresher food in school lunches. Next time I’ll focus on some examples of inspiring efforts to improve school lunches, including state legislation, farm-to-school projects, school gardens, and chefs taking over as school lunch coordinators.