Several of the neighborhood kids climbing the walnut tree in the Latona Community Garden.

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Its policies simply aren’t working.  Overall waste generated has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, with waste going to landfill rising by over 10% in the same period.

One of its key targets was to get 60% of the province’s waste food into composting by 2012 has had to be abandoned: the current figure is only 12% and the target just cannot be met.

However, rather than just trying to fiddle with green taxes, the government has gone straight for the jugular and announced plans to make it illegal to dump rubbish and food waste.

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Due to the great popularity of “Can Diet Coke Kill You?” combined with a lot of controversy over it, I have decided to write this follow-up post.

Most of the controversy over the last article was around the fact that the documentary I referenced cited data from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) but that organization itself claims there is no proven link between aspartame and cancer.

What was presented previously was a short explanation of why aspartame is expected to cause cancer and other health problems and a summary of some information presented in Sweet Misery, including findings from analyzing NCI and other data. This article, however, cites other scientific findings and discusses the economic-political history of this topic a little bit as well.

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Thinking about giving gardening a try? While the traditional growing season has ended in most parts of the US for this year, it’s not too early to start planning for next Spring. You may want to check out books on starting a backyard garden, and there are plenty of them out there. You may also want to find some of the books that offer suggestions and recipes for the produce you grow. And, if you need encouragement to grow organically, there are still more books on that subject.

If you want a book that covers all three of those areas, though, your choices get much more limited. Janette Haase’s From Seed to Table: A Practical Guide to Eating and Growing Green* not only provides readers with gardening instructions and tips, recipes and menus, and essays on the environmental issues surrounding agriculture and food production, but does so in a month-by-month structure that gives you the information you need when you need it.

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A study that followed 3500 participants over five years found that subjects who ate the “UK Diet” were more likely to develop depression.

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If you want to have a totally handmade holiday, now is the time to get started. Over the next couple of months, we’ll be posting about recycled gifts and giftwrap you can make yourself and great handmade finds for sale!

When my pal Jes from Cupcake Punk posted about making her own apple butter, I just new this was the perfect holiday food gift! We’re all about mason jars full of tasty treats around the holidays, and you know we’re into canning around here, so this seemed just perfect! Not only is apple butter a crowd pleaser, but since apples are in season right now, you can probably find local ones pretty easily!

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Last Monday the popular show “CSI: Miami” ran a segment in which a young woman dies and it turns out to be because of a GMO corn developed by a rogue company called “Bixton Organic Foods.”  In the plot, the company willingly puts people at risk.  This fictional scenario bears no plausible tie to reality, but it fits well with the simplistic, good guys/bad guys image in the Myth that many people believe about farming.  To see how it feels to be the brunt of a distortion like this, I recommend you read a post from a real corn farmer.  

So why is it possible for CBS writers to generate fictional “drama” about the “danger of GMO” when in fact GMO technology has been used with complete safety for more than a decade on a gigantic scale?  (Having witnessed first-hand the thought and care that went into developing this technology over the past 30 years, I’m not surprised by that safety record).  There is an abundance of good information available about this technology including many confirmations of its safety by panel after panel of highly qualified, science and medical experts around the world.  I think the reason that the fear of GMO persists in certain extreme circles is the same reason that there are still “birthers” and people who are sure that health reform will lead to “death panels.”  Its not that there is much overlap between these demographics but rather that the same mechanism of “selective knowing” is involved.

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The pouches are being pulled from store shelves because of a potential risk of Clostridium botulinum contamination, which can cause botulism, a sometimes life-threatening condition that you clearly don’t want to mess around with.

In a letter on the Plum Organics website, founder Gigi Lee Chang explains that “after a routine test determined the formulation was incorrect. Plum Organics immediately investigated the matter and confirmed that a mixing error was to blame which resulted in an improper blend of carrots and apples.”

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Just a few minutes ago I received this rather nonchalant tweet from one of the movie’s Swedish creators, Fredrik Gertten: http://bit.ly/IoQ96 DOLE dismissing the BANANAS!* law suit it seems.

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Water scarcity resulting from climate change is the number one issue the world will have to grapple with in the future, according to chief climate scientist and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri.

On the one hand, we will have more water around us with sea level rising. On the other hand, though, drought caused by climate change will leave possibly billions of people without clean water.

This will cause great health and global security issues. Most of these problems will be caused by water imbalances.

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I just got back from three days at one of my favorite ag industry meetings: The Produce Marketing Association “Fresh Summit.”  To those in the industry this is just known as the PMA.   This is an event where the vast majority of the fresh produce and flower industry gathers to show off their products, their new ideas and all the technologies that help process, sort, package and preserve the freshness of the produce.    There are more than a thousand booths and a great many of them offer samples like the one pictured above.  You get to see new and exotic fruits and vegetables, some of which eventually make it into the mainstream (I’ll talk about some examples in a later post).  

So, basically I juist got to spend three days talking to people about produce, traceability, food safety and sustainability - all the while eating delicious produce samples.  If it didn’t cost $700 to get in I’m sure this event would be over-run.  I think they should have an additional week for consumers at some lower cost (maybe with a lottery for who gets to come).  

Anyway, I was encouraged to find that “sustainability” was a major theme this year - far more than two years ago which was the last time I got to go to the PMA.  I could blog for days about what I saw, but I’ll hit some highlights. 

There was a very cool alternative to the traditional cardboard “flat.” Most fresh produce is shipped in case boxes or in “flats” which are the units that retailers put out on the display if they don’t actually transfer the produce into bulk displays.  ECOPACK has come up with something they call a Green Box which is made of stackable flats or trays made of recyclable or returnable plastic that are 1/2 the weight of the cardboard.  The marketing and traceability information is on small sleeves attached to the ends of the tray. The link I will give you is directed to the produce industry, but you can see it’s sustainability focus.

I talked with some folks from  CSX who are involved in shipments of produce by rail.  They have done a lot of work to understand the carbon footprint of their transport and have monthly contests for their train engineers to see who can achieve the best fuel efficiency.  They are working on ways to make rail a more competitive option with trucking, even for fresh produce, by providing points of freight consolidation.  Especially for or those of you who live in places with that thing called “winter,” this is great for increasing the sustainability of your fresh produce supply.

On the trucking front, there was a company called Universal Container Inc. that has developed a refrigerated container technology for fresh produce shipping (could be on trucks, trains or ships) that uses liquid nitrogen for cooling rather than the standard diesel compressor technology.  It consumes little energy and has no carbon, particulate, NOX emissions or noise in operation.  Its only emission is nitrogen gas which is already ~80% of the atmosphere.  There is obviously energy involved in producing the liquid nitrogen, but that is really largely a co-product from companies that are after other atmospheric gases.  I’d like to see a full-blown LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) on this because I’d bet money that this will come out on top in terms of GHG in addition to the air and noise pollution advantages.

There were also some really cool sustainability things in the packaging area.  I’ll put that in a later post.

Perhaps the best example of sustainability innovation by a produce company came from the largest Onion company in the US, Gills Onions.  They put in an anaerobic digester to deal with the waste from their operations and are now generating enough energy to power 460 homes.  

I was encouraged, because even though I met some folks at the PMA who didn’t even have sustainability on their radar, I met far more produce industry people who were on-board with the importance of this issue.   I’m not at all saying that the sustainability challenge has been fully addressed by the fresh produce industry, but I was very impressed with the momentum I observed.

Your are welcome to comment on this site.  You can also email me at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com.

All images from me, Steve Savage (Not a great photographer).

Turkey farmers growing greenhouse tomatoes have been using this technology since 2005. California is going to get it before the end of this year.

LA-based ClimateMinder now completely owns the Turkish company Kodalfa and it is eager to bring some of its technology to the US. This company’s “new” climate-monitoring and control system helps greenhouse farmers to monitor their crops and adjust the conditions of their greenhouses with wireless technology. This helps farmers and consumers in numerous and significant ways.

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Even if your child knows that milk comes from a cow, does she know that there is more than one variety of cow? A hands on approach at the farm could also help kids understand which foods are real and which ones are processed. They won’t see any Pop Tarts or red, blue and green grains that could make up their Fruit Loops on the farm. Showing your kids where food comes from could set them up for a lifelong, healthier lifestyle. And actually being able to reach out and touch a cow is invaluable compared to watching a farm DVD or playing a video game.

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Lots of people in America are worried about their food - usually not about having enough food, but mostly about things that might be in their food that could potentially hurt them or their children.  People also worry about the environmental impacts of food production.  At one level I’m glad that people are engaged in this way and I do believe that there are legitimate concerns.   I happen to think that some of the fear about food is misplaced.

I believe that much of this fear stems from a limited understanding of toxicology, molecular genetics, and also what farming is actually about today.  Very few Americans have any real contact with farming.  Frankly, some of this fear is also driven by the activities of businesses and organizations with a vested economic interest in alarming people.

I’ve been working as an agricultural scientist for 32 years.  I’ve had the opportunity to learn about lots of crops grown all over the world.  I’ve been involved with all sorts of different technologies.  I’ve seen huge changes in agriculture over time. So from all of this experience, do I worry about anything to do with food?  Yes, absolutely I do worry! But my list of worries is a little different from the norm

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]]> http://sustainablog.org/2009/09/17/what-does-an-agricultural-scientist-worry-about-in-the-food-supply-part-1/feed/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/09/17/study-finds-organic-foods-are-more-healthy/ http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/09/17/study-finds-organic-foods-are-more-healthy/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:30:19 +0000 Becky Striepe http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2009/09/17/study-finds-organic-foods-are-more-healthy/ The French Agency for Food Safety (AFSSA) released a study last week that outlines a number of health benefits to eating organic food.

This comes on the heels of a UK study that said just the opposite. According to the AFSSA study, organic foods are not only more nutritious, but they’re safer. Here are the study’s main findings:

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Since having a child I’ve made breakfast important. I mostly make meals from scratch and make the best attempt to stay away from anything packaged. The chickens have been such a blessing. We’re able to cook eggs most days any which way you can think of and have them for breakfast or “breakie” (what we call it here).

Pancakes are the biggest hit for breakie…just ask my son, he’ll tell you he wants *pancakes*! Before I knew about this recipe I’m going to share; I’d always thought I was making pancakes from scratch.

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Catherine Gund, filmmaker and co-founder of the feminist Third Wave Foundation, chronicles Sadie and Safiyah’s journey as they talk to chefs, farmers and food activists, as well as their own friends, about all manner of food policy and health issues. The girls educate themselves and the audience as they start asking very intelligent and probing questions about their own school lunches, how their food is grown, how far it has traveled, how it is packaged and prepared, food access, farmers markets and what healthy, sustainable options exist where they live. Director Catherine Gund explains that helping to teach her daughter Sadie how to make healthy food choices and to feel a connection to her food was part of her motivation for making the film:

Kids need to know the full benefits of local food: more energy-efficient production, more prosperous farmers, healthier communities, longer lasting and better tasting fruits and veggies. Kids need to know that their food doesn’t only come from the supermarket or the factory, but from nearby farms, trees and the ground.

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Click here to find an upcoming screening of the film near you.

It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.

—Alice Waters, chef, author and founder of the Edible Schoolyard

We were a busy working family, and I would find it difficult to feed my family in a healthy way - quickly. So I decided to change our diet, and this happened throughout the course of the campaign, with simple things. I started adding more fruits and vegetables, trying to sit down and prepare a meal as a family a couple times a week, and eating out a little bit less. Trying to eliminate processed and sugary foods as much as possible. And I saw some really immediate results with just those minor changes. I thought well, if I could help other families learn these small changes in my role as first lady, that would be a good thing.

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While she gobbled down the melon, I surveyed the fridge for dinner. I needed to use up some leftovers from a party earlier this week where I served dips and chips. I had a half jar of salsa and some sour cream left over. With the red potatoes and jalapeños I bought today, I had the makings of a good side dish for dinner.

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