THE OMNIVORE'S DIALOG

What Have We Done?

Here is a direct quote from an investment letter:
"Wheat shortages are causing Italian pasta makers to raise prices so much, consumers are demonstrating in Rome."

Why, we might ask?  Land that was used to grow wheat is being gobbled up at record pace by people (not farmers! - or we can't call them that any more) cashing in on the race for ethanol crops.  "Across the fruited plain. . ." no longer stands.  Wheat, in the land of broad fields and rolling hills, will end up being imported from somewhere else because all our land is being used for genetically engineered corn and soy to consume more energy to make ethanol to run our SUV's and Hummers.  Oh my!  Breadbasket, indeed.

Redefining Sustainability

Michael Pollan wrote a brilliant piece in the NYT magazine on October 16th.  He writes about how we need to redefine the word "sustainable" which is now being embraced by not only those who are truly searching for a solution to the health and environmental epidemics facing us, but by anyone with a corporate interest in the appearance of sustainability.  The ramifications of the environmental offenses created by our industrial food system loom before us.  Mr. Pollan's forthcoming book, In Defense of Food, will address how we as individuals think about our food needs and how to fulfill them with a clearer conscience.  To quote the publisher's description:

"Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Michael Pollan's sensible and decidedly counterintuitive advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food."

Sounds like a must-read for the authors of The Omnivore's Solution!  It's already on my list.  This book is available January 1st.

Mounting Evidence of Ethanol’s Grip on Food Prices

An article in todays New York Times gives yet more evidence supporting the fear that the ethanol folly will have a devastating effect on the cost of food in the world.  So much has been written about the negative energy consequences of raising crops for ethanol.  Yet, our government continues to pursue and support with subsidies this dangerous direction away from sustainability.  When will some sanity enter the chambers of Washington DC?

One of the more ominous side effects of this push for ethanol (or maybe, NOT) is that conventional farmers will be searching for alternative cattle feeds as corn and soy are becoming the caviar of the commodity world.  Maybe those farmers might have to resort to a new and strange food:  grass!  They might even have to let those cows forage for their own food – Oh NO!  The more things go around, the more they come around.  I suspect, however, that some mega-corporation (the names of which we all know) will develop a chemical substitute for cattle feed, yet further “enhancing” the health-giving qualities of our SAD; or, a variety of grass that will led to genetically marbled cows, or better yet, will kill any invading species and have to be replanted each year!  Then our government can, in its infinite wisdom, subsidize the growing of this "terminator" grass.

Subsidized Pork by the Barrel

The more I look into this farm bill thing, the more I feel a need to shower. Another article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle about political jockeying on the farm bill. Briefly, this bill proposes spending something like 286 billion (that’s right, with a “b”) over five years for subsidies of a few “big agriculture” grain crops (corn, soy beans, wheat, barley, rice, cotton) at the expense of nothing going to the small farmers who raise most of our produce. Critics of this bill include conservatives like Dick Lugar (an actual farmer from Indiana) and presidential hopeful McCain, as well as liberals like Senators Ted Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg. The criticisms are simple enough to see; huge amounts of money are flowing from tax coffers to large institutional farms and the companies that own them, to subsidize unwanted agricultural produce that shows up in our diets as largely fast food, empty calories, and schemes to burn food as fuel in SUV’s. It artificially supports a higher market price, and prevents the food from otherwise being eaten by the world’s poor, so that we can keep this unwanted food here at home and experiment with new ways to modify it into products that poison us, and ... Well, it gets too crazy to go on.

But it all makes sense when you throw in a quarter trillion dollars of tax handouts (make that our spare cash). The relatively small number of hands that divide up this vast sum of unearned lucre can afford to spend wild and free, corrupting our elected officials, all running for re-election and in desperate need of cash. After all, they’re spending our money, not their own. So liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken tons of heat for writing this mischief, and forcing it through,  It seems that this time around, because Democrats control the Congress, the corn/soybean network grudgingly allowed in smaller but still sizeable sums for their brethren who raise rice and cotton, benefiting primarily Pelosi’s own California. In addition sops to various social causes were thrown in, funding nutrition programs and public servicew ads about the evils of overeating the various subsidized products.  Shocking? Just wait. Until recently, both California senators had been in on the plan, but now are having second thoughts. They voted to support a Lugar amendment to the farm bill that changed the subsidies to flat out free crop insurance, with a limit of two million dollars per “family farm”, available to all farmers of every description. This would save billions, which was earmarked for research on nutrition and food for the poor subsidy programs. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the California senators, voted for this amendment, even though they also voted for the original bill, which does the exact opposite. According to the Chronicle, though, this amendment (defeated 37 to 55) was certain to fail, and may have been offered to give the political left a chance to go on record without letting the pork out of the barrel. Only lawyers could come up with something that devious. If you are wondering how your favorite presidential candidate voted, he or she abstained. All Senators in the race from both parties were absent, including McCain, who was one of the bill’s sponsors. Interestingly President Bush, who isn’t running for election, is threatening to veto this oh so Republican proposition. We’ll see, we’ll see.

Now on to the really bizarre. One of the groups lobbying the hardest for support of the farm bill was the Association of California Produce Growers, who seemingly have nothing at stake. This is an association of large commercial farm factories that produce things like garlic and salad greens and apricots and almonds, on real estate owned by the food processors and distributors (e.g. - Blue Diamond). You see, the farm bill contained a last minute addition of advertising funds to support fruits and vegetables by enouraging export, even though the bill itself subsidizes primarily pork (no kidding, along with chickens and cows, that's who eats government corn). These guys are betting that in the absence of massive subsidies for corn and soybeans, Eastern and Mid-Western farmers will lose money, and then switch to other crops like fruits and vegetables, which will be cheaper in those localities because of the high freight costs from California. This will force down prices by opening up honest competition from local producers. In other words the thing some of us are hoping will happen has motivated the current vegetable growing establishment to part with millions in political donations. Hmm, maybe we aren’t so wrong after all.

Doesn't this all remind you of the tobacco lobby? This bill subsidizes the raw materials for fast food, and biases the diversion of American agricultural output to those materials, but also pays for commercials to tell people how evil it is to eat it. And what do you supposed all that subsidized barley is used for? Do you suppose the big guys at Annheiser-Bush need tax help on their raw materials so they can maitain price breaks for the homeless?

Point of View: Organics

On occasion, we will post articles sent to us by invited guest authors.  This eloquent piece on organics was sent to us by Napanite, a West Coast writer as well as a foodie in the medical field.

“I read with interest the London Times article on “organic” food, and I agree with Greensgal and the Times writer that it’s hardly surprising. On the other hand I would be cautious in allowing any measured “nutrient analysis” to be used as proof, one way or the other, about the superiority of organic methods. This is exactly the point of Mr. Pollan’s book, that thinking of food as a collection of chemicals caused the current problems, when chemists began to tinker with natural food substances. This still goes on. If some organic carrot has 15% more vitamin A than a standard carrot, and if that is used as the justification for its higher price, you can bet your wallet that next year a non-organic carrot will be advertising it has 30% more. Carrots have been bred to be orange and crunchy, but they can be bred to any other purpose. I would hate to see grocery stores touting lines of “nutritionally enhanced” produce that competes with the organic. The government would probably see no reason not to mix them.

The biggest travesty in all of food science is the box of sugar coated corn balls that is passed off as healthy breakfast food because a vitamin pill was crushed and added when they put the toy inside. Ditto for candy bars that are called “energy bars” because they replaced a little chocolate with carob. The English “nutrient analysis” would automatically support these claims. As Mr. Pollan pointed out, the evidence that organic food is healthier is so far scanty, and is unlikely to come from a chemical laboratory. More compelling evidence rests with population studies showing various groups eating their local diets have lower incidence of cardiovascular disease. The reason may well be with what’s left out of the local food, or with the way it’s prepared, or even with the combinations of ingredients, like beans and rice.

I would offer a couple of examples. Locally produced fruits ripen on the vine, whereas the agribusiness variety are picked green, shipped early, and ripened in a booth of hormones, like ethylene oxide. Hence iron hard pears and crunchy tomatoes. There is no reason that the nutrient contents should be at all equivalent. The plant is still alive and viable when you eat it, and the longer it spends between harvest and your mouth, the more of its nutrients it uses maintaining its own metabolism. Fresh is better, duh. The difference isn’t about fertilizer and pesticides (which is also a difference) but about travel time and processing philosophy. Another factor influencing nutritional content is hydration. Big California farms irrigate with government-subsidized water. They get paid by the pound, so the more water they pump into a fruit, the better for profit. This water lowers the nutritional content by dilution, but it also explains why those huge red strawberries taste like kiwi, and those little strawberries from Michigan taste so much richer and sweeter. It’s the same reason cooks reduce the volume of a sauce, to concentrate the flavor.

Remember the undeniable virtues of local farming: 1. It decreases fuel consumption and carbon emission by decreasing shipping. 2. It stimulates the local economy and protects the food chain from centralization 3. Sustainable farming is much better for the soil. 4. The food tastes better and is more satisfying in smaller portions, because it’s vine ripened and fresh. 5. Pesticides have never been proved absolutely safe, and they build up in the ecosystem. 6. Chemical fertilizer is ruining our watersheds. 7. No organic food ever comes with special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion or on a sesame seed bun. And, 8. You can’t super-size it, you can only ask for seconds. These will remain true no matter what they do with the nutrient content of the rest of what we eat.”

Voices from the Field

Posted by Napanite on November 10, 2007

This week the San Francisco Chronicle, usually a friend of Senator Diane Feinstein and her liberal coalition, blasted her support of the Farm Subsidy Bill, accusing her of selling out her principles (do politicians ever have principles?) to win over support from big agriculture in California. What especially aroused the ire of the Chron was the subsidy for cotton farming in the Central Valley. This enterprise exists solely because the large cotton producers (some owned by insurance companies and the like) are given huge amounts of free water to produce cotton for a “flooded” world market that pays about half what the production costs are, and maybe a tiny tenth of what they would be if the producers paid the same rates for water as the rest of us, who mostly just shower in the stuff. These agricultural endeavors remain profitable because the federal government buys up their unwanted surplus at rates far higher than the market rate, to the tune of some billions of dollars per year. Of course in doing so, employment is generated for thousands of farm workers (documented and undocumented) who belong to unions that support the Senator.

Issues about water use in California are complicated, but suffice it to say the place is actually a desert, and needs all it can get. There are many competing agricultural uses, the fishing industry is desperate to decrease the salinity of the rivers to improve salmon spawning, large urban and suburban areas need more water for growth (sprawl), and all the watersheds are being degraded by runoff. Plus, nobody wants dams built in their favorite recreational areas, and the chance of managing more areas of runoff are poor. Given that the Central Valley is enormously fertile, and the source of almost half the nation’s truck produce, any attempts to subsidize an overproduced commodity crop (see also: cotton, rice) give an advantage to their growers that diverts water away from carrots, asparagus, your favorite mesclun lettuce mix, garlic, almonds and the like. This runs up their prices, and goes into the paradox where the double cheese burger at McDonalds (from the top of the food chain) is on the dollar menu, while the side salad is four dollars. This despite salad being what cows eat, or at least used to eat.

This farm subsidy bill is really on my nerves, not so much because it steals from taxpayers to support political donors and lobbyists (I’m used to that) as because the wrong people seem to be for it. We have an excellent child health care bill hung up in Congress because it doesn’t allow the “free market” (the only free part of health care) to govern access to care, but the same politicians are agog at the thought of letting that market govern something much more naturally suited, namely the food marketplace. That is why they call them farmer’s markets, after all.

Green Groceries (A California Voice)

(This post is by one of our guest authors: Napanite.  It was previously posted in The Omnivore's Solution.)

I just returned from a trip to the local grocery superstore, a market called Lucky, and related to the chain that has Raley's and other "upscale" outlets that compete with Whole Foods. It's one of those vast emporiums with take out restaurant kiosks, a bakery, pharmacy, bank, and children's play area inside; the kind of place where wealthy suburbanites feel most at home. I dropped in to get some extra ingredients for the soup I was making from my Thanksgiving turkey stock, but I got seduced by a number of incredible price deals that inevitably led me deeper into the store. Pork shoulder roast was 99 cents a pound, and eggs were $1.50 a dozen. By the time I was done I had wrung up $87 in mostly luxury items, including some farm raised salmon at $4.99 a pound, and some farm raised shrimp at the same price. Baby bok choy was 50 cents a pound, as was the full size. I didn't really want or need these things, they just looked good, but I'll be eating them for weeks.

They say you should never go to the store hungry, but I find modern grocery chains so depressing I probably couldn't go in them any other way. I spent most of my adult life in San Francisco shopping in small Asian markets, butcher shops and the like, and the Wal-Martization of grocers makes me as weary as the rest of the modern world, like health care and gasoline prices. Still, you have to eat, and these huge stores have full range selections of organic produce, health food, and health food suppliments. The cereal isle looks more like a pharmacy now than a toy store, which is how it looked when I was younger. All those ads about constipation and heart disease don't make the products more appetizing than the toys did, and the nutritional content is really about the same, with vitamins added in presumably to detoxify all the simple sugar.

This store tries hard to appear green. They sell reusable grocery bags for 5 bucks a pop. Half the items in the store say they are either "natural", whatever that means, or organic. Natural included a canned ham shaped like a triangle, though I never saw ham labeled "unnatural". At the check out line you get your choice of bags, but because the clerk was busy ringing up the wrong numbers, I missed the chance to intervene, and my small stock of food was divided among 11 plastic bags, including one containing only a lonely tube of toothpaste.  One trip to the grocery and I have enough plastic to duck tape into a drop cloth for painting the livingroom.

At home, I cooked the salmon for a sandwich while I was making the soup. I definately did not overcook it, but when I dropped it on the floor, it spread out like baby mush. They must have refrozen it and added water somewhere - inedible. Salmon puree. The precooked shrimp tasted like hominy, though when I buy them uncooked they're usually pretty good. I think the same farm in China cooked them that raised them. The apples were mealy and tasted like, well, not apple, but at 99 cents a pound, who could resist. I wonder if they had been frost damaged. They followed the salmon into the bin.

It isn't all bad. Except for the apples, the produce selection is high quality, including the free bok choy. I'm sure that pork will be OK, if fatty, and they certainly had a fine selection of fancy salad dressings and barbecue sauces, albeit pricey. The sweet and sour pork isn't bad, either. An entire planet is on display from figs to fusili pasta, if you have the money, but caveat emptor is the slogan. Green, after all, is the color of money.