Roummane

The hunger problem

2009-04-28T13:22:00.004-04:00

UN Chronicle:

"The dramatic rise in global food prices over the past twelve months, coupled with diminishing food stocks and escalating fuel costs, has gravely jeopardized global food and nutrition security, and has re-emphasized the critical actions needed to realize the right to adequate food. Hunger and under-nutrition are the greatest threats to public health, killing more people than hiv/aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. Some 854 million people worldwide are estimated to be undernourished, and high food prices may drive another 100 million into poverty and hunger. The risks are particularly acute among those who must spend at least 60 per cent of their income on food: the urban poor and displaced populations, the rural landless, pastoralists and the majority of smallholder farmers."

Food security in Indonesia

2009-04-28T13:11:00.004-04:00

The Jakarta Post (April 28):

"The number of poor people is growing. Most of these people are small scale farmers (petani gurem) with less than 0.25 ha of land, or agricultural-wage laborers. In accordance with the World Food Programme (WFP, 2005), poor and malnourished people in Indonesia will almost certainly not be able to escape poverty unless drastic changes are made to policies."

Farming Detroit

2009-04-03T13:54:00.001-04:00

Detroit Free Press (April 2)

"With an estimated 40 square miles of vacant parcels, Detroit offers many sites where, in theory, a big farm operation might work. Hantz, a resident of Detroit's Indian Village district, is tentatively looking at a blighted area near Eastern Market, but exact boundaries would depend on whether he wins the city's cooperation."

More land to be grabbed

2009-04-02T23:01:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg (April3)

"South Korea, Asia’s second-biggest grain importer, will lend money and give technology to companies to develop farms overseas to ensure the nation’s food security after prices surged last year."

Maple sugaring in New Hampshire

2009-03-26T17:05:00.003-04:00

The HippoPress (March 26)

"Maple sugaring season has arrived once again in New Hampshire. And the state’s maple producers have their trees tapped and their evaporators fired up, ready to welcome visitors for this year’s Maple Weekend, Saturday, March 28, and Sunday, March 29.
For a complete list, plus more information on maple syrup, check out the New Hampshire Maple Producers Web site, www.nhmapleproducers.com."

American food history

2009-03-26T16:56:00.003-04:00

The Philadelphia Inquirer (March 15)

"Mark Kurlansky, who wrote a masterful little book titled Cod, has compiled those lost files in a new book due out this spring, The Food of a Younger Land. It is billed as "A portrait of American food before the national highway system - before chain restaurants, and before frozen food, when the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional." And so it is, and a tasty stew at that."

Arctic metldown and food

2009-03-26T15:41:00.001-04:00

New Scientist (March 25)

"The bigger picture has got much less attention: a warmer Arctic will change the entire planet, and some of the potential consequences are nothing short of catastrophic. Changes in ocean currents, for instance, could disrupt the Asian monsoon, and nearly two billion people rely on those rains to grow their food."

GM food imports in the US

2009-03-26T15:32:00.002-04:00

"‘the USDA has no controls in place that would identify… undeclared transgenic plants unknown to the US regulatory system’."
Read more.

Food security discourse in Kenya

2009-03-26T14:52:00.004-04:00

AllAfrica (March 25)

"In Kenya how farming communities are formed has its roots in colonial vestiges whereby some ethnic communities such as the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin who once used to till European farms in the Kenyan Rift Valley have remained dominant in farming. A system of cheap manual labour was inculcated into the farming system and by the mid 1920s almost all European farms in the Kenya Rift Valley were growing cash crops which were being farmed by able-bodied men from the Kikuyu tribe. Until independence and some time after that, the transition from colonial to neo-colonial farming took into consideration the general fabric of commercial cheap labour farming and made concessions whereby the British way of farming would continue but under a new regime: the Africans."

Low Carbon Diet

2009-03-25T19:03:00.006-04:00

"The Bon Appétit Management Company Low Carbon Diet Calculator is designed to allow you to compare the relative carbon impacts of your food choices."

Calculate the carbon emissions created by your meals here.

Read more.

GM food in Kenya

2009-03-25T18:33:00.003-04:00

Business Daily (March 26):

"Genetically modified foods will eventually provide answers to the food security situation in Kenya, according to agribusiness leaders. Kenya Government has strongly supported GM foods and made into law the Biosafety Bill 2008 last month. The basis of the support is that it will increase food production.

Kansas City CSAs

2009-03-25T18:01:00.002-04:00

Kansas City Star (March 24)

"CSAs feed the locavore movement — people who strive to eat food grown within 100 miles of their dinner table — but they’re also fostering a common-sense approach to eating."
"When the expo was organized 11 years ago, only a dozen farmers participated. Now that number has grown to 50. Last year 1,600 local consumers attended the expo to learn more about CSAs."

Eat your winter season in New England

2009-03-25T17:48:00.004-04:00

The Boston Globe (Feb. 11)

"In the winter, however, even the most committed New Englander could be forgiven for falling off that wagon. People cite deeply felt reasons for becoming locavores, or those who choose to eat food grown and produced in the region where they live.
Not necessarily, say many who eat predominantly local food throughout the winter.

With a little planning, it's surprisingly easy to be a locavore in the winter. Even in New England."

Eating local food in Occupied Palestine

2009-03-24T21:38:00.006-04:00

An excellent post from the blog Mapping the Margins: Edible Palestine

"The colonization of Palestinian land has led to a colonization on Palestinian tastes and expectations towards food."

New York food deserts

2009-03-24T19:28:00.003-04:00

Gotham Gazette (March 2009)

"Currently, an estimated 3 million New Yorkers live in "high-need neighborhoods," defined by a lack of supermarkets and a prevalence of diet-related health problems. These areas lack food security, meaning that people who live in them have difficulty getting "nutritious and affordable food." An estimated 750,000 city residents live in "food deserts" -- areas more than five blocks from a supermarket. Often food deserts are located in low-income and minority communities with a prevalence of diet-related disease, such as obesity and diabetes."

Food desert in West Oakland, California

2009-03-24T17:06:00.005-04:00

City on a Hill Press (Jan. 15)

"Roach asked her why she was feeding her child candy instead of nutritional food. She replied, “Mr. Roach, where can I find any good food around here?"
"The lack of food security, or having physical and economic access to sufficient and healthy food, pervades the places that are most in need — inner cities with low-income populations. Other “food deserts” across the nation include East Harlem, Detroit, South Los Angeles, and the South Side of Chicago. The California Food and Justice Coalition, a food advocacy group, extends the meaning of food security to include safe, culturally acceptable food acquired through sustainable means."

Careless sea-foodie-ism

2009-03-24T16:34:00.006-04:00

Gristmill (March 23)

"Until that happens, there's an urgent need to educate the public about the dismal state of the oceans. The effort starts with food journalists -- people who have a direct impact on the public imagination about fish.
It seems to me that food journalists have generally failed at this task. I see examples all the time of foodie articles blithely extolling the culinary virtues of this or that fish species, without considering the impact of consuming them.
The oceans have become too fragile for careless foodie-ism."

Hungry Namibia

2009-03-24T15:54:00.003-04:00

IPS (March 24)

"Don't talk about food prices in Namibia. Wedged between costly imports from South Africa and failing projects to achieve food security, Namibians are upset, and hungry"

"Fifty Namibian dollars - five U.S. dollars - for a 10 kg sack of mealie meal... in a country where the UNDP's latest survey found 60 percent live on less than two U.S. dollars a day, and the inhabitants of Havana squatter camp are more likely to be in the 35 percent that survive on less than a dollar.

Measuring resilience

2009-03-24T00:17:00.002-04:00

IRIN (Jan. 16)

"The idea is that this concept could complement the early warning systems (EWS) approach. The EWS tries to predict crises, while the resilience framework tries to assess the current state of health of a food system and hence its ability to withstand shocks should they occur," said the paper."

Biofuels and hunger

2009-03-23T22:48:00.003-04:00

Oil&Gas Journal (March 20):

"According to the OFID study, under current biofuel targets in different countries like the US, the European Union, China, and South Africa, an additional 140 million people will face hunger by 2020. At least 150-240 million tons/year of cereal crops would be required for first generation biofuels and 30 million hectares of land would need to be set aside for production. "

Japanese agrarian immigrants

2009-03-23T19:21:00.003-04:00

Mariko Asano Tamanoi, “Victims of Colonialism? Japanese Agrarian Settlers and Their Repatriation to Japan” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 6-1-09, February 2, 2009.

"Manchukuo is the state that Japan created in Northeast China (Manchuria) in 1932 to serve its interests. To populate this vast overseas empire with Japanese, the government sent approximately 380,000 farmers and their families as “agrarian immigrants (nōgyō imin).” Many of them were victims of the depression at home. By participating in the construction of Manchukuo, they joined the circle of “colonizers”: they received large tracts of land which the Japanese military had confiscated from Chinese farmers. Their life as settlers, however, was by no means easy. Many did not know what to plant or how to till the land. When they hired Chinese agricultural laborers,” many tensions arose. The settlers’ relations with more than six hundred thousand Korean rice-cultivating farmers, who also settled in Manchuria in the 1930s, were also fraught."

Boston food public market

2009-03-23T13:57:00.003-04:00

Boston Globe (Feb. 21):

"The market would be opened in a vacant building that occupies a full city block near Haymarket, an area of old cobblestone alleys where city officials want to create an expansive year-round shopping district with dozens of local growers, bakers, seafood merchants, and other businesses."

"Local farms and agricultural businesses have long sought a daily market because of the expense and complication of traveling to Boston to participate in weekend farm stands. Massachusetts farms rely on local markets because of the lack of major agricultural distributors in the state to buy and sell their products.

Eat your seasons- Massachusetts

2009-03-23T13:40:00.009-04:00

Massachusetts crop availability guide (From MDAR and NRDC Eat Local (MA)):

Time of Year	Fresh Produce
June (early)	Beets, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumber, Greens, Lettuce, Peas, Peppers, Radishes, Scallions, Spinach
June (late)	Beets, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Cucumber, Greens, Lettuce, Peas, Peppers, Radishes, Scallions, Spinach
July (early)	Beans, Beets, Blueberries, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Cucumber, Greens, Lettuce, Onions , Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Radishes, Scallions, Spinach, Strawberries , Summer squash
July (late)	Beans, Beets, Blueberries, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Cucumber, Greens, Lettuce, Onions , Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Radishes, Scallions, Spinach, Strawberries , Summer squash
August (early)	Apples, Beans, Beets, Blueberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cantaloupes, Carrots , Cauliflower, Celery, Corn , Cucumber, Eggplant, Lettuce, Onions , Peaches, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Radishes, Raspberries, Scallions, Spinach, Summer squash, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watermelon
August (late)	Apples, Beans, Beets, Blueberries, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cantaloupes, Carrots , Cauliflower, Celery, Corn , Cucumber, Eggplant, Lettuce, Onions , Peaches, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Radishes, Raspberries, Scallions, Spinach, Summer squash, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watermelon
September (early)	Apples, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Celery, Corn , Cranberries, Eggplant, Lettuce, Onions , Peaches, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Radishes, Raspberries, Scallions, Spinach, Summer squash, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watermelon, Winter Squash
September (late)	Apples, Beets, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrots , Cauliflower, Celery, Corn , Cranberries, Eggplant, Lettuce, Onions , Peaches, Peas, Peppers, Potatoes, Pumpkin, Radishes, Raspberries, Scallions, Spinach, Summer squash, Tomatoes, Turnips, Watermelon, Winter Squash
October (early)	Apples, Cabbage, Cranberries, Lettuce, Onions , Potatoes, Pumpkin, Turnips, Winter Squash
October (late)	Apples, Cabbage, Cranberries, Lettuce, Onions , Potatoes, Pumpkin, Turnips, Winter Squash

RI food stamps

2009-03-23T13:29:00.002-04:00

Forbes (March 23):

"The extra allocation, ranging from $2 to $24 a month, comes from the federal stimulus plan.
Enrollment in the state's food stamp program is up almost 20 percent since last year. Nearly 100,000 Rhode Islanders are now receiving the benefit."

MA food services

2009-03-22T16:07:00.001-04:00

Boston Herald (March 21):

"More than $300 million in federal money will be used to increase benefits for Massachusetts participants of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly know as Food Stamps. On average, households will receive about an 18 percent increase. Nearly 600,000 people in the state use the program to buy food."

Eat real food

2009-03-22T15:53:00.002-04:00

The New York Times (March 21):

"And the truth is that most Americans eat so badly — we get 7 percent of our calories from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by caloric intake is “sweets”; and one-third of nation’s adults are now obese — that the organic question is a secondary one. It’s not unimportant, but it’s not the primary issue in the way Americans eat. To eat well, says Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food,” means avoiding “edible food-like substances” and sticking to real ingredients, increasingly from the plant kingdom."

Hunger in India

2009-03-21T00:48:00.005-04:00

The Sunday Morning Herald (March 21):

"But India is also home to a quarter of the world's hungry - about 230 million people - according to a World Food Program report released last month. More than 455 million Indians survive on $US1.25 a day or less, compared with 420 million in 1981."
"Prakash believes the crisis in Madhya Pradesh has deep roots. During the 1970s local people switched from growing traditional crops to cash crops such as soya beans and cotton."

Boston legal sea foods saga

2009-03-21T00:33:00.003-04:00

Boston Globe (March 20):

"Get ready, Green Line riders. The foul-mouthed fish are back. After months of negotiations, Legal Sea Foods said it has received approval from the MBTA for a new series in its "Fresh Fish" ad campaign.
The new insults include zingers such as: "Kiss my bass;" "If that's your girlfriend, I'd throw her back;" and "Darn, you smell like carp.""

Obama's food system

2009-03-21T00:13:00.001-04:00

AlterNet (March 20):

"The budget also increases funding for the National Organic Program, and removes direct payment subsidies for farms that pull in over $500,000 in revenue per year. This reduction in subsidies represents an important shift away from a commodities-based agriculture system where certain crops (namely corn and soy) permeate our food supply and serve as the primary ingredient in everything we eat, from processed snack foods to meat and cheese."

Iraq marchland livelihoods

2009-03-20T18:46:00.004-04:00

IRIN (March 16):

"..the Iraqi government and a number of UN agencies launched a $47 million initiative to remove dykes and canals built by the regime of former President Saddam Hussein so that water can flow back into marshland areas. "

US food aid policy

2009-03-20T16:44:00.002-04:00

IRIN (March 4):

"At present, American legislation requires that 50 percent of commodities be processed and packed in the US before shipment, and that 75 percent of food aid managed by USAID and 50 percent of the food aid managed by the US Department of Agriculture be transported in "flag-carrying" US-registered vessels."

Sustainability myths

2009-03-20T16:30:00.004-04:00

Scientific American (March 2009):

"You cannot really declare any practice “sustainable” until you have done a complete life-cycle analysis of its environmental costs. Even then, technology and public policy keep evolving, and that evolution can lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences. The admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis."

Score your diet

2009-03-19T17:17:00.003-04:00

From the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

This is a quick check-list to show how your diet scores on nutrition, the environment, and animal welfare. Calculate you score.

"Scores are affected by such considerations as:

Health: saturated fat, cholesterol, dietary fiber, etc.
Environment: air and water pollution from manure, cattle belching, production and overuse of fertilizer, and pesticides; etc.
Animal welfare: castration, hot-iron branding, debeaking, detailing, cramped cages and feedlots, cattle feed high in grain, and inhumane shipping and slaughterhouse practices."

Food now!

2009-03-19T15:31:00.002-04:00

From the Feral Scholar (March 18):

"Hunger is not inevitable. Factory farming is not inevitable. Low-quality, tasteless, contaminated food is not inevitable. Repeated “food scares” are not inevitable. Soaring public health costs are not inevitable. Another and better food system is eminently possible — now, not ten years from now or after some promised, imaginary “scientific breakthrough”. It is possible right now, today — in our own backyard(s).
What are we waiting for?"

Land grab

2009-03-19T13:43:00.004-04:00

Electronic Intifada (March 17):

"Reflecting on what will happen if the remaining part of her family is turned into internally displaced refugees, Fatima explained, "If they destroy our houses they will destroy our crops and our ability to make food. If we cannot plant food any longer, what will happen to our livelihood?

To be sure, this latest phase in the ethnic cleansing of Aqraba is not unique to the West Bank nor to the part of historic Palestine that is now considered Israel. This week saw the destruction of two Palestinian homes and 100 olive trees in the Negev town of Beer Seba, now given the Hebraized name of Beersheva. In the West Bank, from Qalqiliya to Hebron to East Jerusalem, families await the status of the orders for their homes to be demolished. But while there is a great deal of attention paid to the impending destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, there is little if any media attention or support for families in small villages like Aqraba."

The struggles for clean water

2009-03-19T13:15:00.007-04:00

Electronic Intifada (March 18):

"The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says 150,000 Gazans still remain affected by inadequate and unsafe water supply. Of these, about 50,000 remain without any water while the remainder receive water only every five to six days.
Recent water tests indicate that piped water in Gaza is not safe for human consumption. Forty-five of 248 water samples tested were found to be contaminated, primarily in the North Gaza and Gaza City districts.
Israel shelled Gaza's biggest wastewater treatment plant in Sheikh Ajleen, south-east of Gaza City, which usually treats raw sewage from approximately 400,000 people. The torrent of raw, untreated sewage flowing into residential areas, agricultural land and the sea was visible from outer space, according to satellite images released by the UN."

Food in a 4°C warmer world

2009-03-19T02:26:00.009-04:00

New Scientist (Feb. 25):

"This will probably be a mostly vegetarian world: the warming, acidic seas will be largely devoid of fish, thanks to a crash in plankton that use calcium carbonate to build shells. Molluscs, also unable to grow their carbonate shells, will become extinct. Poultry may be viable on the edges of farmland but there will simply be no room to graze cattle. Livestock may be restricted to hardy animals such as goats, which can survive on desert scrub. One consequence of the lack of cattle will be a need for alternative fertilisers - processed human waste is a possibility. Synthetic meats and other foods could meet some of the demand. Cultivation of algal mats, and crops grown on floating platforms and in marshland could also contribute."

Ethanol colonialism

2009-03-18T23:20:00.008-04:00

Mother Jones (March/April 2009):

"I present a plausible nightmare scenario to ProCana's Corné Holtzhausen. His 75,000-acre farm/factory will have serious ecological impacts—lost wildlife habitat, greenhouse gases released as natural vegetation is destroyed, massive water consumption, fertilizer and pesticide pollution. On the greater scale of Africa, these might be considered small, but ProCana is not alone. What about the hundreds of other big investors who will rush in if he succeeds? Who will stop his beloved Mozambique, and much of the rest of the continent, from being turned into vast pesticide-and-fertilizer-soaked monocultures?"

Farmers markets or street grocery stores?

2009-03-18T23:05:00.004-04:00

Mother Jones (March/April 2009) :"In 1994, there were 1,755 farmers markets in the United States; by 2008, there were 4,685. In the big scheme of things, this is terrific news; it means Americans are learning to feed themselves properly. But not all parts of the country have seen commensurate explosions in the number of small-scale local organic farmers. And the driving force in opening a farmers market is less often the organic revolution than it is economic revitalization, maybe a local chamber of commerce hoping to tempt people back to Main Street on weekends.

Read more.

Food and the neo-colonialism of Iraq and Afghanistan

2009-03-18T21:06:00.006-04:00

Grain (March 2009): "In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and the surrounding regions. Seen together with the growing clout that the US and its corporate allies exercise over donor agencies and global bodies – such as the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres, which influence the food and farm policies adopted by the recipient countries".

A MUST Read "The Soils of War".

What's for dinner? Edible Insects

2009-03-18T19:12:00.006-04:00

The Record (March 14) : "Given that 70 per cent of the world's population eat insects as a regular part of its diet, are North Americans simply behind the times? Will a crunchy side of scorpion ever take the place of a juicy t-bone?
While most Canadians are not up to chowing down on grubs or ants, no matter how crispy, Stewart notes that of three million species of insects in the world, 1,400 have been identified as edible. Many are lower in fat and higher in protein than beef, lamb, pork or chicken.
Read more.

Connecticut College News (March 18) : "Scorpions are popular in Japan, filleted giant waterbugs in Thailand and Vietnam and termites in Africa. Gracer said he particularly enjoys jumiles or stink bugs, from Mexico, rich in iodine and bitter and herby like a combination of kale and cilantro.
"If Americans eat shrimp and lobster, why don´t they eat their terrestrial cousins?" asked Gracer, who described himself as a "finicky eater" as a child. "
Read more.

What's for dinner? Squirrel

2009-03-18T15:23:00.005-04:00

The New York Times (Jan. 6): "While some have difficulty with the cuteness versus deliciousness ratio — that adorable little face, those itty-bitty claws — many feel that eating squirrel is a way to do something good for the environment while enjoying a unique gastronomical experience.
The situation is more than simply a matter of having too many squirrels. In fact, there is a war raging in Squirreltown: invading interlopers (gray squirrels introduced from North America over the past century or more) are crowding out a British icon, the indigenous red squirrel immortalized by Beatrix Potter and cherished by generations since.
With a rallying motto of “Save a red, eat a gray!” the campaign created a market for culled squirrel meat." Read more.

What's for dinner? Raccoon

2009-03-18T15:14:00.006-04:00

Kansas City Star (Jan. 14) : "Raccoon, which made the first edition of The Joy of Cooking in 1931, is labor-intensive but well worth the time, aficionados say. Here in Kansas City, you won’t see many, if any, squirrel ads in the papers. But that’s where Brownsberger was advertising his raccoons last week.

The meat isn’t USDA-inspected, and few state regulations apply, same as with deer and other game. No laws prevent trappers from selling raccoon carcasses. As for diseases, raccoon rabies doesn’t exist in Missouri, state conservation scientists say. It’s an East Coast phenomenon. Parvo and distemper kill raccoons quickly but aren’t transferred to humans. Also, trappers are unlikely to sell meat from an animal that appears to be diseased." Read more.

Hunger in the US

2009-03-18T14:57:00.004-04:00

AlterNet (Feb. 4): " When people look at the facts for themselves, they discover the shocking reality: hunger amidst a sea of plenty is a phenomenon as American as baseball, jazz and apple pie. Today in the United States -- because tends of millions of people live below the meager federal poverty line and because tens of millions of others hover just above it -- 35.5 million Americans, including 12.6 million children, live in a condition described by the government as "food insecurity." Which means their households either suffer from hunger or struggle at the brink of hunger."

Food Slavery

2009-03-18T14:39:00.005-04:00

AlterNet (March 16):"If you eat tomatoes, in America, between the months of December and May, chances are some were picked by slaves.
Immokalee, Florida, is where 90 percent of the nation's winter tomatoes are grown.
While slavery is one of the most egregious human rights violations in Immokalee, it's hardly the only one. Thousands of workers are regularly cheated and sometimes beaten by their crew bosses in the area's sprawling tomato fields.

And while most places in America can't grow tomatoes in winter, is this really a problem? Those Immokalee tomatoes, which are picked green and ripened in gas chambers, don't taste like tomatoes anyway." Read more.

Food Democracy

2009-03-18T14:15:00.009-04:00

Counter Punch (March 18): "In writing Diet for a Small Planet, I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life's essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States-one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps-these questions take on new urgency.

For me, the story of Brazil's fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a rich trove of such lessons. Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market-you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you." Read more.

Feeding the world

2009-03-18T14:08:00.000-04:00

The Daily Star (March 3): "Organic and eco-friendly farming can feed the world, contrary to the common belief that biotechnology and chemical-intensive farming are indispensable modern strategies to increase production, agricultural experts say. "It is not necessarily about producing more food, but about producing more quality nutrition through less energy use and pollution,"

The best way to mitigate climate change and gain food security is to support small-scale, ecological farming, scientists and economists said during the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Governing Council in Rome, Italy, in late February. This would be a turnaround from international agricultural strategies of the past two decades that heavily promote monocropping and the use of biotechnologies. " Read more.

Beirut Earth Market

2009-03-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

The Daily Star (March 18): "Every Tuesday, 15 small-scale food and flower producers set up shop in a narrow alley sandwiched between Radioshack and Bread Republic in Beirut's bustling Hamra district, and sell anything from fresh greens and sweets to soap or traditional cooking pots. The concept of a farmers market is by no means revolutionary, but in Beirut, where the sight of delivery boys handing over bags of cholesterol-packed fast food is as commonplace as the city's noisy traffic jams, Slow Food Beirut's "Earth Market" may well have the potential to change a few people's eating and consumption habits.
Earth Market not only helped reintroduce dishes that were disappearing from the national palate, but forged a link between the customer and producer where they could "exchange knowledge of food and build trust." The market also celebrated Lebanon's agricultural diversity, with the producers each bringing with them the specialty of their district. " Read more.

Meat the Truth: What Al Gore forgot to say

2009-03-17T04:08:00.005-04:00

"Although such films have convincingly succeeded in drawing public attention to the issue of global warming, they have repeatedly ignored one of the most important causes of climate change, namely: intensive livestock production. Meat the Truth has drawn attention to this by demonstrating that livestock farming generates more greenhouse gas emissions worldwide than all cars, lorries, trains, boats and planes added together.." Read more.

See here and download a table showing carbon savings that could be achieved in the USA through a reduction in meat consumption.

See Meat the Truth documentary trailer here.

Coffee

2009-03-14T20:57:00.003-04:00

This map shows the countries of the world sized according to the amount of coffee they produce (2007 established.)
Learn more about all things coffee: sustainable coffee production with suggested fair trade and organic coffee producers and retailers, and the impact of coffee production on the environment and bird habitats at this excellent site: coffee and conservation.

The Atlantic (March 14): "We generally estimate caffeine content to average 1% for coffea Arabica and 2% for Robusta (coffea Canephora) by weight. The real issue is the caffeine content of the cultivar, i.e. the species (Arabica or Robusta) and especially the variety of the coffee within the species. [Curator's note: As Jerry helped teach me for my book, good coffee -- everything Peet's and also Starbucks sells -- is Arabica.] The word "varietal" is often incorrectly used referring to coffee.
"Variety" or "varietal" is an important word to an American wine producer since our tradition is to label wines by varietal, eg. Zinfandel. In France or Italy, the tradition is to label by the appellation where the wine is grown, and most wines are blends. But generally only coffee professionals encounter the variety of coffee; the consumer rarely knows whether she is drinking Catuai (red or yellow), Caturra, Typica, Mundo Novo, SL28, or Kent, to pick six of the more than 3000 named Arabica varieties. [Curator's note: For single origin coffees, what customers see is a name derived from the country of origin like Guatemala Antigua or a specific farm like Guatemala San Sebastian; for blends you'll see a proprietary name, like Peet's Major Dickason's Blend.]" Read more.

The Financial Express (January 17): "Global coffee production is likely to rise 15.45% to 134.2 million bags in the 2008-09 crop year, while India’s output would ratchet 17.72% from the previous year, the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) said. ICO is a London-based inter-governmental body of coffee exporting and importing nations. " Read more.

Sardines

2009-03-14T20:42:00.008-04:00

This is a dated article, but it touches on one of my favorite fish of all times, sardines. I remember eating sardines frequently in Lebanon, freshly bought during the height of their season, which is Spring time. Now that I am living on the US east coat, I have been bying sardines from Whole Food (they sell them at ~$10/lb), and they are mostly imported from Portugal. They tend to be a bit larger in size than the small sardines I remember eating in Lebanon.
My favorite way of cooking and eating sardines is very simple (I buy them already cleaned): deep fry them and eat them whole (bones included if the sardines are really small but excluding the head and tail) with salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice.

The Atlantic ( July/August 2007):

"The best way to rediscover sardines— and overcome residual aversion based on the tins of childhood—is to eat them fresh, just as diners graduated from canned tuna to grilled tuna to tuna tartare. (“It’s phenomenal how it spread,” Nancy Oakes, the chef of the popular Boulevard, in San Francisco, told me during the tuna expedition. “People don’t eat much cooked tuna anymore.”) Almost any ambitious restaurant has grilled tuna on the menu, cooked to remain raw in the middle. My uncharitable theory is that people like grilled tuna or salmon because it’s good for them and has very little flavor—just a bland richness. Sardines do have flavor. The fresh sardines that come to restaurants are about 6 inches long, and with their slim bodies and silvery skin they arrive on a plate looking as pretty as trout. But the taste is trout with character. (The trout you get in restaurants and markets is farmed and pallid.)
I go frequently to Rendezvous, a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Steve Johnson, the chef, almost always has grilled sardines on the menu. The height of the season is summer, but he also buys sardines frozen, and always from the same Portuguese fishmonger; the fresh sardines available on the East Coast come from across the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean. Johnson, himself an “amateur fisherman,” defends oily fish like mackerel and bluefish, a great Northeast treat: “When they’re really fresh, they’re pristine, and they smell the way they’re supposed to—clean and like the sea.” Johnson serves sardines with classic accompaniments to oily fish, such as a fennel and black-olive salad with preserved-lemon vinaigrette, and he likes them with smoked paprika, too. "

Local community supported farms

2009-03-13T21:33:00.006-04:00

Here is a list of Community supported agriculture (CSA) farms that serve the extended metro Boston. The list is exhaustive and includes the price share for the season.

Massachusetts Maple Month

2009-03-12T01:25:00.004-04:00

The Examiner (March 4): "March is Massachusetts Maple Month, the time when trees around the state are tapped for and their sap collected to make all of your favorite maple-flavored treats.
For information on events at sugar shacks around the state, check out the Boston Globe's Maple Sugaring Guide."

Read more.

Africa's Slow Food

2009-03-12T01:05:00.004-04:00

New Agriculturist (March 2009): "The reawakening of interest in African indigenous foods is evident in apanoply of initiatives and approaches, including agroforestry, permaculture and organic agriculture, all dedicated to producing healthy, locally-grown food and fostering nutrition security. Efforts to strengthen indigenous national and regional cuisines include encouraging local markets, communal tastings, conferences, debates, workshops in school canteens and using magazines to promote the idea of "eating local". These campaigns are raising public awareness of the social impact of food traditions and the importance of local consumption in order to support traditional food production." Read more.

Farmed Kindai bluefin tuna

2009-03-11T22:29:00.006-04:00

Washington Post (March 11): "In fact, Kindai tuna (whose name comes from a contraction of the university's Japanese name) still has many of the disadvantages of its other farmed counterparts. Trident Marketing Inc. President Nick Sakagami, who distributes the fish to a handful of U.S. restaurants, said Kinki researchers use between 12 and 13 pounds of wild fish to produce a single pound of tuna. And though they are raising hatchlings rather than ranching tuna the traditional way, the scientists still keep the fish in open-ocean pens and must catch a few dozen wild bluefin each year to ensure the population has enough genetic variability."Of course Kindai tuna isn't perfect, but I think it's a major step forward," Sakagami said." Read more.

Eventhough the new approach to farming Kindai type of bluefin tuna is an attempt to address the un-sustainable methods of bluefin tuna farming, note that the EDF considers bluefin tuna, which is popular for sushi and sashimi, as an eco-worst choice of seafood due to depleted stocks and high mercury and PCBs levels.

Croatian cuisine

2009-03-11T22:11:00.001-04:00

The Budapest Times (March 10): "The specificity of the Croatian variety of Mediterranean cuisine is in the method of food preparation, which the doctors and the nutritionists deem particularly healthy. Vegetables are cooked with very little water and are seasoned with olive oil and herbs such as rosemary, sage, basil and marjoram when already cooked. Fish is prepared in stews, cooked or grilled, while the meat, cooked under bell-like cast iron lid covered with charcoal called peka, acquires a unique taste. Different types of cheeses, smoked, young or oil-based, are served as appetizers, in combination with prosciutto and olives.
The most famous Croatian dessert wine is called prosek." Read more.

Food Rules

2009-03-11T20:27:00.005-04:00

The New York Times (March 9): "I’ve also found that many ethnic traditions have their own memorable expressions for what amounts to the same recommendation. Many cultures, for example, have grappled with the problem of food abundance and come up with different ways of suggesting you should stop eating before you’re completely full. The Japanese say “hara hachi bu” (“eat until you are four-fifths full”). Germans advise eaters to “tie off the sack before it’s full.” And the Prophet Muhammad recommended that a full belly should contain one-third food, one-third drink and one-third air. My own Russian-Jewish grandfather used to say at the end of every meal, “I always like to leave the table a little bit hungry.”" Continue reading.

Food prices and world hunger

2009-03-10T22:19:00.009-04:00

From the BBC special report; The cost of food: Facts and figures

Food for Everyone

2009-03-10T20:33:00.008-04:00

Chek out the Spring 2009 issue of Yes! Magazine. This is a special Theme Guide that features a food-related collection of articles.
Food for Everyone. How to Grow A Local Food Revolution

Solving the Food Crisis

2009-03-10T20:23:00.006-04:00

YES! Magazine (Spring 2009): "The solutions to the food crisis are those that make the lives of family farmers easier: re-regulate the market, reduce the power of the agri-foods industrial complex, and build ecologically resilient family agriculture. Here are some of the needed steps:

1. Support domestic food production.
2. Stabilize and guarantee fair prices to farmers and consumers by re-establishing floor prices and publicly owned national grain reserves. Establish living wages for workers on farms, in processing facilities, and in supermarkets.
3. Halt agrofuels expansion.
4. Curb speculation in food.
5. Promote a return to smallholder farming. On a pound-per-acre basis, family farms are more productive than large-scale industrial farms. And they use less oil. Because 75 percent of the world’s poor are farmers, this will address poverty, too.
6. Support agro-ecological production.
7. Food sovereignty: Recognize the right of all people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound methods and their own food systems."

The Myth of Free Trade

2009-03-10T19:31:00.004-04:00

Democracy Now! (March 10): This is a transcript and an excerpt of Amy Goodman interview with Ha-Joon Chang, author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism.

"AMY GOODMAN: —talking about the hypocrisy of the West? But explain what that is, what the US has done or what the West has done with poorer countries when they’re in trouble, and then what we do when we’re in trouble.

HA-JOON CHANG: That’s right, yeah. For example, when the developing countries go into financial crises like the rich countries are experiencing today, they were told by the IMF and the World Bank, and ultimately the rich country governments which control these institutions, that they have to cut spending; ideally, they should run budget surplus. They have to raise interest rate to 30, 50, even 80 percent in some countries. And basically, they have to tighten the belt. Now that the rich countries have the financial crisis, they have cut interest rate to practically zero. You know, I mean, when South Korea had its financial crisis back in 1997, the IMF insisted that the country runs budget surplus equivalent to one percent of GDP. This year in the US alone, budget deficit is estimated to be equivalent to something like 12 percent of GDP.
Now, I mean, how do you explain that? I mean, that these policies are not good enough for you? I mean, “We’ll use one set of policy, which we think are the good ones, but you have to use something else.” You know, the American writer Gore Vidal once upon a time famously said that the American economic system is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, and the international macroeconomic policies have been like that. I mean, it’s what I call monetarism for the poor and Keynesianism for the rich. So when the rich countries have a fall in demand, they think nothing of boosting it up by printing money and increasing government spending; the poor countries shouldn’t do that.
Now, it’s not only the macroeconomic policy where this hypocrisy has a role. For example, the rich countries have been telling the developing countries to adopt free trade and told them, “Look, I mean, all countries in history probably, with the possible exception of Japan, have become richer through free trade. So how do you think that you guys can manage it otherwise?” Well, actually, if you look at the British history, American history, you find that today’s rich countries used protectionism, center, left and right, when they were developing countries. You know, I mean, for about one century, until the Second World War, the United States was actually the most protectionist country in the world. You know, there’s something there when Pat Buchanan said free trade is not free American, because in its 200 years of history, it has practiced free trade only for about fifty years"

AMY GOODMAN: One of the people you take on big time in your book is Thomas Friedman. Your first chapter, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited: Myths and Facts About Globalization.” We only have a minute to go, but what do you think are the myths that need to be debunked in this country?

HA-JOON CHANG: Well, basically, the myth is that America has been founded on the free market; the government has done very little; it has thrived under free trade. But actually, if you look at the history, this is actually the country that has succeeded most with protectionist policies. This is a country which has huge industrial policy, only that it’s called research funding in defense industry and research funding in health research. It actually spends, in proportional terms, a lot more money than Japan or European countries in supporting research and development, thereby steering the industries into certain directions. So let’s put it this way. I mean, this country has to basically come to terms with what it has done. I mean, it has been haunted by this ideology that, “Oh, we never did anything other than free market and free trade.” It’s time to give that up."

Read more or watch the entire program here.

Food crisis in Nepal

2009-03-10T03:12:00.004-04:00

IRIN (March 9): "According to the government’s national bank, Rastriya Bank, food inflation outpaced that in India last year, reaching 17 percent compared to only 10 percent in India.
Nepal has one of South Asia’s worst malnutrition rates, with almost 50 percent of children under five stunted and suffering from chronic malnutrition, according to the government’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).
Floods and landslides in several districts throughout the country had affected summer crop production in 2008, damaged farmland and severely cut crop yields, particularly of rice and millet.
At the beginning of 2008, Nepal became vulnerable due to drought, over-reliance on rain-fed cultivation, heavy dependence on food and oil imports, poor transportation infrastructure, and a high percentage of average household income - 60 percent - spent on food, according to WFP."
Read more.

The Mediterranean cuisine

2009-03-08T18:40:00.010-04:00

The New York Times (Feb. 19) ran an intersting article explaining the culture of the Mediterranean diet.

"“One of the basic tenets is the enjoyment of food, and respect and pleasure of food,” says Nicki Heverling, program manager for the Mediterranean Foods Alliance, part of Oldways, the nonprofit food issues think tank that has promoted Mediterranean eating for nearly two decades. “When you’re in the Mediterranean, your meals are three hours and you savor your food.”
"The Mediterranean eating plan is based on foods that have traditionally been consumed by communities situated along the Mediterranean sea. Many of the recipes we typically associate with Mediterranean countries don’t come from coastal communities, but from regions farther to the north. Today’s Mediterranean diet pyramid is largely based on the dietary traditions of the Greek island of Crete and southern Italy around the 1960s, when rates of chronic disease were among the lowest in the world, and adult life expectancy was among the highest. Unfortunately, many of the communities where the diet was first studied have changed dramatically, a concern chronicled in the recent Times story “Fast Food Hits Mediterranean; a Diet Succumbs.”

Read more.

Sustainable fish choices to the European consumers

2009-03-08T15:45:00.010-04:00

The Marine Conservation Society (MSC) published lists of Fish to Eat and Avoid to the Uk and European consumers on its Fishonline website.

The methodolgy used to compile the lists incorporates factors such as stock status, the management measures employed in the fishery, the fishing method used to catch the fish and its impact on the marine environment and other species, assessments such as how vulnerable a species is to exploitation and whether it is listed as threatened, methods employed in fish farming and what effect that has on the surrounding environment, and whether the fish has been certified by any other body.

Get here the 2008-2009 pdf version of the MCS Pocket Good Fish Guide.

I am posting this specifically with my sister, who lives in France, on my mind. Here is your pocket guide sis.

Mercury in fish and choices for women

2009-03-08T04:11:00.009-04:00

Check here the complete list of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) for fish choices for women based on mercury levels:

Avoid If Pregnant:
Shark, Swordfish, King mackerel, Tilefish, Tuna steaks, Canned tuna, Sea bass, Gulf Coast Oysters, Marlin, Halibut, Pike, Walleye, White croaker, Largemouth bass.

Eat No More Than One Serving From This List Per Month:
Mahi mahi, Blue mussel, Eastern oyster, Cod, Pollock, Great Lakes salmon, Gulf Coast blue crab, Channel catfish (wild), Lake whitefish.

Lowest In Mercury:
Blue crab (mid-Atlantic), Croaker Fish Sticks, Flounder (summer), Haddock, Trout (farmed), Salmon (wild Pacific), Shrimp.

Sustainable Seafood

2009-03-08T01:59:00.012-05:00

Check the complete list of the eco-best, eco-ok, and eco-worst seafood choices from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) here.

Eco-best seafood:
Char, Arctic (farmed)
Mackerel, Atlantic
Mussels
Oysters (farmed)
Sablefish (Alaska, Canada)
Salmon, wild (Alaska)
Sardines, Pacific (U.S.)
Trout, rainbow (farmed)
Tuna, albacore (U.S., Canada)

Avoid Eco-worst seafood:
Chilean sea bass
Grouper
Orange roughy
Rockfish (trawl)
Salmon, farmed/Atlantic
Shark
Swordfish (imported)
Tilefish (Gulf of Mexico/South Atlantic)
Tuna, bigeye/yellowfin (imported longline)
Tuna, bluefin

Also, check EDF new smart sushi choices:

Eco-Best Sushi
Amaebi Spot prawns (Canada)
Ikura (roe) Wild Alaskan salmon
Kanikama Alaska pollock (U.S.)
Masago Capelin, smelt roe (Iceland)
Mirugai Pacific geoduck
Sake Wild Alaskan salmon
Shiro Maguro Albacore tuna (U.S., Canada)
Surimi Alaska pollock (U.S.)
Suzuki Farmed striped bass
Uni Sea urchin (Canada

Avoid the Eco-Worst Sushi
Ebi Imported shrimp and prawns
Hamachi Farmed yellowtail (Australia, Japan)
Hirame Flounder/Sole (Atlantic)
Hon Maguro Bluefin tuna
Ikura (roe) Atlantic salmon (farmed)
Maguro Bigeye/yellowfin tuna (imported longline)
Sake Atlantic salmon (farmed)
Tako Octopus
Toro (belly) Bigeye/yellowfin tuna (imported longline)
Toro (belly) Bluefin tuna
Unagi Freshwater eels
Uni Sea urchin from Maine

Hope to Palestinian farmers

2009-03-07T18:24:00.002-05:00

The Guardian (Feb.23): "The first Fairtrade product from Palestinian farmers is going on sale in Co-op supermarkets as olive oil from co-operatives in the West Bank are promoted for their ethical trading status.
The UK-based company behind the imports hopes foods such as dates and almonds might soon qualify for similar certification, followed later by soaps using olive oil from similar marginalised communities.
At present, Palestinian producers only use about a quarter of the 2000-tonne a year EU quota for their olive oil, but campaigners hope the formal recognition and first supermarket sales for the Zaytoun product will establish a more secure market.
Brown said: "Olive oil production provides an essential part of the West Bank economy. In buying this oil, British shoppers wil be helping the farmers of Palestine to make a living."" Continue Reading.

Food justice

2009-03-06T21:07:00.006-05:00

Worldpress (Feb. 13): "Starvation in developing countries was made worse, according to Lappe, when investors in the United States pulled money out of the sub-prime mortgage crisis to invest in commodities, contributing to the over 50 percent increase in food prices between 2007 and 2008. Lappe, whose book "Diet for a Small Planet" has sold over three million copies worldwide, said the requirements on poorer countries to reduce spending on agriculture, liberalize trade and allow "unfettered imports," while "we in the global north did not follow the same," is also a source for starvation.
"So what we see, from the Philippines to Haiti and elsewhere, are countries that were once largely food self-sufficient — the Philippines, for example, which was a major rice producer is now the leading importer of rice," he said." Read more

Food colonialism

2009-03-06T20:39:00.004-05:00

The Times (March 5): "In isolation, it looks trifling but we should look again at what governments are doing in agriculture. The rice shortage in Venezuela, threats of government intervention in farms in Argentina and a land grab by sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf tells us more about the future than Sir Fred Goodwin's pension.

Saudi enterprises are scouting the world; there have been missions to Brazil and Pakistan. The Bin Laden group is mulling over a plan to grow rice in Indonesia. In hot pursuit are the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of the UAE, recently visited Kazakhstan in search of farmland and the Abu Dhabi fund for Development has bought vast tracts of Sudanese land for cultivation.
Libya has invested in farmland in Ukraine while Cambodia is hoping to do multibillion-dollar deals with Kuwait and Qatar. The Sudanese Government is marketing some 800,000 hectares and it is gaining a huge response in the Gulf states, which import 60 per cent of their food and would like to reduce their vulnerability to food price spikes.
In an investment late last year in Madagascar, a country where 600,000 depend on food aid, Daewoo, the Korean conglomerate, is leasing 1.3 million hectares of land to produce 4 million tonnes of corn for export. In Sudan, where the UN's World Food Programme is feeding millions of people, the irony of the Saudi farms is particularly bleak." Read more.

Organic food safety

2009-03-06T18:32:00.007-05:00

The New York Times (March 3): "To emphasize that reporting basic health violations is part of an organic inspector’s job, Ms. Robinson last week issued a directive to the 96 organizations that perform foreign and domestic organic inspections that they are obligated to look beyond pesticide levels and crop management techniques. Potential health violations like rats — which were reported by federal inspectors and former workers at the Texas and Georgia plants — must be reported to the proper health and safety agency, the directive said.
Meanwhile, consumers are becoming more skeptical about certification, said Laurie Demeritt, president of the Hartman Group, a market research firm. Some shoppers want food that was grown locally, harvested from animals that were treated humanely or produced by workers who were paid a fair wage.

The organic label doesn’t mean any of that. " Read more.

Maine community supported fisheries (CSF)

2009-03-06T14:20:00.009-05:00

The Washington Post (January 14): "The idea behind the CSF goes back to the Libby brothers' sense, in Glen's words, that "30 years ago there was a lot more fish, and the gear was a lot less high-tech. So maybe we should take a step back and lighten things up." They were convinced that the only way to save the fishery was to fish more sustainably, which meant harvesting fewer fish but better-quality ones that would command a higher price from savvy consumers.

Those subscribers get access to the freshest seafood imaginable -- the only thing fresher would be catching it yourself -- at an affordable price. It's also (magic words) locally sourced, with a small carbon footprint. The fish doesn't travel to your kitchen from Hawaii or Chile or New Zealand, and it looks, smells and tastes all the better for it. And it's a good deal cheaper than what you can buy at seafood counters in supermarkets, where, even in Maine, fresh wild fish starts at about $7 a pound." Read more.

Sign-up for a weekly share of fishery harvested by the Midcoast Fishermen’s Cooperative of Port Clyde, Maine here.

When will MA get its own CSF?

The organic food vs. local but not organic debate

2009-03-06T14:06:00.007-05:00

Waterfront (Feb-March ): "More Mainers along the coast are having these kinds of debates at supermarkets and natural food stores, as they are following a trend toward increased interest in healthier eating and ethical eating. Many health-food consumers used to focus solely on buying organic produce, but there has been a growing shift toward buying food from local sources. The shift toward local food has created a spirited debate over whether local or organic produce is better, if one had to choose between the two.
But if activities at the Belfast Co-op are any indication, local and organic food camps along Maine's coast are meshing into a new group of food consumers who want a connection to their food and are willing to cross label boundaries to get there.
Many consumers experience sticker-stock when confronted with the price tag for local produce. Local farmers can't grow, distribute, and sell in bulk like giant agribusiness companies, and they often face a disadvantage in pricing. Their plight is made more difficult by U.S. agricultural policies which encourages the overproduction of commodities like soy, corn and cotton through subsidies, said Bob St. Peter, executive director of the Sedgwick-based Food for Maine's Future." Read more.

Amaranth grain

2009-03-04T16:50:00.002-05:00

The Guardian (March 3): "we were more varied in our choice of base ingredients, and lost heroes such as breadfruit (an indigenous, starchy staple of the Pacific islands), amaranth (a grain with high protein content and an ability to grow in extremely arid conditions) and tamarind (a tropical fruit tree) can dig us out of our blinkered state. All we need is a bit of consumer demand and this great global wrong can be righted.
Amaranth bread is already in our health shops, as an alternative to wheat, but this tropical crop has so much more to offer: its leaves may be used to make a delicious soup (I tried it in Brazil) called callaloo. It is revered for its high protein content, as well as being one of the fastest-growing and highest-yielding cereals on the planet. Beyond being ground into flour for bread-making it can be used for porridge, or the grains may be popped and puffed like corn or rice and used as a cereal or snack." Read more.

Malnutrition

2009-03-02T01:33:00.011-05:00

IPS (Feb 24): "Almost five million children under the age of five die of malnutrition every year in the developing world. Food aid – which mainly contains nutrient-poor carbohydrates - does little to address the absence of a diverse diet that would prevent the condition. Malnutrition is not only triggered by lack of food, as is commonly assumed, but also by poor nutritional quality. It is particularly prevalent in areas such as the Sahel region, where children have little access to a diverse diet that contains a variety of minerals, proteins and vitamins. ..."Small-scale farming has a woman’s face," said IFAD senior technical advisor on gender and household food security, Annina Lubbock. "Women produce 60 percent to 80 percent of the world’s food, yet their work remains largely unrecognised."
"Paradoxically, most of the hungry are those who produce food," agreed Thomas. "To address the root cause of the food crisis, we need to support small-scale farmers and livestock owners."" Read more.

Urban agriculture in MA

2009-03-01T23:28:00.007-05:00

Boston Globe (November 9, 2008): "These seemingly humble gardens are part of a local success story with national significance. They've blossomed because of the nonprofit agency Nuestras Raices -- Our Roots -- which has received numerous honors for its model of using urban agriculture to spur economic development, enrich a community through cultural pride, and improve nutrition for youth and the community in general. The gardens are cooperatively maintained but are overseen by Nuestras Raices, which helps people get access to the lots. The gardeners use the food for their own households, share it with neighbors, or sell it at farmers' markets. The nonprofit also has a 30-acre farm site where it teaches people who were farmers in Puerto Rico or other countries how to be commercial farmers in Massachusetts.....And it works extensively with young people, teaching them about gardening and farming and running programs on topics ranging from computers to health to leadership....". Read more.

Great Chefs Cook Vegan

2009-03-01T18:14:00.002-05:00

"...Although some of the chefs used tofu, there was no seitan or tempeh to be found in "Great Chefs." Instead there is an emphasis on vegetables, grains and mushrooms, the go-to ingredient for non-veg chefs cooking for a vegan. The recipes in this beautiful book are labor intensive and not for Tuesday nights after work. They are better suited for an adventurous cook preparing for a dinner party, especially if the cook has time to go to a gourmet market to find some carrageenan and wakame...."
Great Chefs Cook Vegan (Gibbs Smith, Publisher (August 11, 2008)) includes recipes from 25 of today's greatest chefs.

Salt regulation

2009-03-01T17:40:00.005-05:00

The New York Times (Feb.26): "“The E.U. is trying to change the way we bake our bread, change the way we market it — and of all things, change the taste of our bread,” Mr. Wiemers said. “And all this is taking place just months before we go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament. This is exactly the kind of interference and overregulation by Brussels that annoys citizens and even makes the E.U. unpopular.”
German bakers pointed out that this time around, the European Union was not only trying to dictate taste, but was undermining its goal of improving energy efficiency. “So, we are being asked to change our recipes by reducing the level of salt. But that means we will have to bake the bread for longer and use more energy,” a spokesman for Bavaria’s 2,500 bakeries, Roland Ried, said.... Back in 2006, in what was viewed as a move to improve people’s health, by, for example, helping them cut back their intake of salt, sugar and saturated fats, the commission published a consultative paper about labeling of food products." Read more.

French gastronomy

2009-03-01T17:33:00.008-05:00

"So around a half-dozen French chefs and culinary experts from the ad hoc “French Mission for Food Heritage and Cultures” are preparing for war with weapons they know best. They ate and drank their way through a three-hour strategy session recently to help their country face the daunting task before it: to persuade the United Nations to declare French gastronomy a world treasure.....Today, Unesco recognizes such cultural manifestations as the storytelling of Kyrgyzstan, the sand designs of Vanuatu, the Ugandan craft of making bark cloth, the folk singing known as iso-polyphony in Albania and ox-herding in Costa Rica.
In June, Spain revived its own initiative to win recognition of the health-conscious Mediterranean diet, based on olive oil, fish, grains, fruit, nuts and vegetables; Italy, Greece and Morocco swiftly joined the campaign. In Italy, Coldiretti, the Italian farmers’ association, even argued that Italy’s food heritage is superior to that of France, since the European Union recognizes 166 food specialties from Italy, but only 156 from France..."

Food system vulnerability

2009-03-01T16:40:00.002-05:00

Paper Abstract:
"Throughout human history, food production has had to adapt to continuously changing environmental circumstances. In most cases, these challenges are met without any great hardship. In other cases, seemingly small environmental problems (such as droughts or floods) have devastating consequences. This suggests some food systems are more vulnerable than others. Assessing and identifying which regions are vulnerable to environmental problems, however, is challenging because food systems represent constantly evolving systems where farmers continually make decisions that help adapt to changing circumstances. Many existing theoretical frameworks to assess vulnerability fall along a continuum from those that are too macro (because they are based on large-scale generalizations that ignore local contextual issues) or are too micro (because they are so site specific that they obscure general trends). A landscape ecology approach offers an interesting compromise whereby scholars have used a small number of local variables (such as the diversity of species present in the system and the extent to which individuals in the system are connected to other individuals) to characterize the vulnerability of ecosystems to shocks such as wildfires and pest outbreaks. However, preliminary research suggests this approach may not work particularly well on human managed ecosystems. As such, this paper uses a range of historical examples (such as the Irish Potato Famine and El Niño induced famines in the late 18th century) to integrate these frameworks to help identify vulnerability within food systems to environmental changes."
Evan D.G. Fraser
Ecological Complexity Volume 3, Issue 4, December 2006, Pages 328-335

The Roquefort - US beef trade dispute

2009-02-27T02:55:00.016-05:00

NPR (Feb. 26): "Roquefort cheese is about to become very expensive in the United States — and French cheesemakers are tres unhappy. On the way out of office, the Bush administration slapped a 300 percent tariff on Roquefort, in response to the European Union's refusal to lift a ban on hormone-treated American beef....
....Most bleu cheeses are made with cows' milk, but Roquefort is made with ewes' milk. Only sheep are able to thrive in the arid, hilly terrain...
Local legend says the cheese actually got its start some 2,000 years ago in Roman times, when a young shepherd happened on a beautiful girl and stowed his lunch away in a cave to follow her.
Upon his return, his cheese sandwich was covered in blue mold. Famished, he ate it anyway, and Roquefort was born. (We never do find out if our shepherd gets the girl.)
The U.S. first applied tariffs on Roquefort in 1999 to protest the EU beef ban...". Read more.

The EU showed that growth promoting hormones used by cattle farmers in some countries can cause cancer and should therefore be banned. The hormones of special concern that are routinely pumped into US beef are: melegestrol acetate, progesterone, testosterone, trenbolone and zeranol. These hormones are known to disrupt the human body's natural balance. Read more on the hormone use in US beef , why American beef is banned in Europe, and the EU- US beef trade dispute.

So, I wonder, why does not the US government ban using hormones in its beef, and actively promote healthy food policy?

la cannelle (cinnamon) throughout history

2009-02-27T02:03:00.007-05:00

".....Cassie Maroun-Paladin’s book on Lebanese cuisine features a number of recipes containing cinnamon. When listed here as an ingredient it is always part of a spice mixture. One could argue cinnamon distinguishes Lebanese lamb preparations. Still, in our review of Lebanese recipes, cinnamon works in consort with other spices. In Maroun-Paladin’s (2005) book cinnamon is used in lamb recipes in various combinations with garlic, allspice, nutmeg, black pepper, mint, thyme, cumin and onion. Looking at the African and Middle Eastern recipes provided by Josephine Bacon and Jenni Fleetwood (2005), one sees a flurry of recipes containing cinnamon. A closer inspection reveals cinnamon only functions here as part of a palette of other spices. For example, one Berber recipe form Atlas Mountains is entitled “Cinnamon-scented Chick Pea and Lentil Soup”. Even with this recipe cinnamon seems drowned within a sea of other flavorings: onions, ginger, turmeric, saffron, coriander, parsley and pepper. While cinnamon is listed first among “Spices” in May Bsisu’s (2005) book of over two hundred Arab preparations, only ten of the listed recipes contain the spice. Of these most are lamb recipes. They feature modest amounts of cinnamon countered by many other spices including: bay leaves, cardamom, allspice, cloves, ginger, chilies, garlic and pepper."
See full paper at: http://aof.revues.org/document5162.html

Mountain Dew Syndrome

2009-02-21T19:36:00.009-05:00

The 20/20 episode on the struggles, poverty, drugs, and neglect that the people in Eastern Kentucky face in their daily lives was heart breaking, particulary for a population that lives in a country such as the US and a land of plenty. But more outrageous was what the documentary revealed about the people's addiction to drinking Mountain Dew, feeding it to toddlers instead of milk, and the health ramifications for children and adults teeth. And still more outrageous was the PepsiCO response to the show: Instead of revising the content of their toxic soda drink to ut down on people's adiction and the epidemic, they are sponsering a mobile dentist clinic to eastern Kentucky.

In other words, PepsiCO goal is: keep people spending money buying our detrimental products, drinking terrible sugar loaded sodas, sustain their addiction, and we will treat their teeth so that they keep on buying and drinking.

The consumerist (Feb.12): "Central Appalachia is the number one spot in America for tooth decay to due to their poor diet, lack of access to dental care, and widespread addiction to Mountain Dew. They say it's used as a kind of anti-depressant, thanks to its high-caffeine and sugar levels. Good Morning America visited and found they even put it in baby bottles. Some 2-year olds have 12 cavities in their baby teeth. They discovered an 11-year old Dew-drinker boy who hadn't brushed his teeth in several weeks because they hurt too much. Crazy to think that's what acid, sugar and caffeine will do to your teeth when combined with a bad diet and little in the way of dentist visits." Read more.

Read more at ABC News (Feb.13) on Mobile Clinic Treats 'Mountain Dew Mouth'.

Food crisis in Gaza

2009-02-19T18:19:00.005-05:00

IRIN (Feb. 19): "Thousands of food-insecure Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are facing an even worse situation after large numbers of livestock and agricultural land were badly damaged or destroyed during Israel’s military assault, which began on 27 December. Chicken and meat are now very costly or unavailable, while fresh fruit and vegetables will be unavailable by May due to destroyed crops, according to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Gaza. Some 1,200 ha – 18 percent of Gaza’s total agricultural lands, including orchards of citrus fruits and olives – were destroyed, said Al-Khatib, as was 17 percent of vegetable land, including greenhouses, creating a 30 percent gap in Gaza’s food security. Around 200 ground-water wells were destroyed and 53 partially destroyed, of a total 2,300 water wells serving Gaza’s agricultural lands, said Al-Khatib. Gaza’s agricultural sector grew after the Islamist movement Hamas took control in June 2007 and since the 18-month blockade, most of the production has been sold on the local market. In 2008 about 14,000 families were considered subsistence farmers, while 60,000 people were agricultural workers, according to UNDP. Agricultural production and fishing comprised nearly 10 percent of Gaza’s economy. " Read more.

Food crisis and the green revolution

2009-02-19T18:13:00.003-05:00

UN News (Feb. 17): " Unless major changes are made – including the way food is produced, handled and disposed of around the world – last year’s food crisis which plunged millions back into hunger may foreshadow an even bigger crisis in the years to come, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new report. The Environmental Food Crisis: The environment’s role in averting future food crises, released at the 25th session of the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum in Nairobi, outlines a plan to reduce the risk of hunger and rising food insecurity for this century. Among the key points in its plan, the report suggested that recycling food wastes and deploying new technologies, aimed at producing biofuels, to produce sugars from discards such as straw and nutshells could be a key environmentally-friendly alternative to increased use of cereals for livestock.
The amount of unwanted fish currently discarded at sea – estimated at 30 million tons a year – could alone sustain more than a 50 per cent increase in fish farming, a rise needed to maintain per capita fish consumption at current levels by 2050 without increasing pressure on an already stressed marine environment. The report highlights a number of other measures, including the reorganization of food market infrastructure to regulate prices, a micro-financing fund to boost small-scale farming, the removal of agricultural subsidies, managing and better harvesting extreme rainfall and adopting more diversified and ecologically-friendly farming systems." Read more.

Quinoa

2009-02-18T15:21:00.003-05:00

"Quinoa, a plant native to South America and that has been consumed since long before the Europeans arrived, is attracting a lot of attention because of its high total protein level (12-18%) and its good balance of amino acids. Quinoa is not a true grain (although it is often referred to as a grain), but is the seed of the Chenopodium or Goosefoot plant"

"Conscientious omnivores"

2009-02-18T12:30:00.003-05:00

AlterNet (Feb.18): "The "new meat movement" is against industrial meat production, but not against eating meat. Their thinking is problematic.
More and more, people are also realizing the troubling connections between human starvation and eating animal products. It takes approximately 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat (thus feeding one or two people on meat versus approximately 16 people on grain). Much of this grain is grown in developing countries, where a large percentage of their land is used for cattle-raising for export to the United States, instead of being used to grow staple crops, which could feed local people directly. In a world where a child starves to death every 2 seconds, it seems impossible to justify such waste.

Articles on the "new meat movement" never pose questions like, "could all of America's animal products be grown locally?" And they never mention what the vast majority of Americans who can't afford the prized local animal products will be consuming if all factory farms shut down -- they'd be vegan.
These farms are described as ethical because of the fact that they are small, sustainable and have kinder animal-husbandry practices. As many people have pointed out, these farms can individually produce meat in a way that is arguably just as "green" as eating vegan.

The question is not, "are a few people eating local, sustainable, free-range pork worse environmentally than a few people eating vegan?" The question needs to be, "can we feed the world's entire growing population sustainable animal products?" I have never once seen this question addressed in one of these "new meat" articles.

But all of this is in many ways ignoring an even more complex question. Do humans even have the right to make other living beings into objects of production that we can kill even when it is unnecessary to do so, merely for our pleasure? " Continue reading.

This is an excellent analysis on the subject and to kick off this blog.