Saving the planet one meal at a time

“My generation, I know, has the reputation of sticking iPods in our ears and declining to care about what might happen in ten years, or even next week. We can’t yet afford hybrid vehicles or solar homes. But we do care about a lot of things, including what we eat. Food is something real. Living on the land that has grown my food gives me a sense of security I’m lucky to have. Feeling safe isn’t so easy for people my age, who face odious threats like global warming, overpopulation, and chemical warfare in our future. But even as the world runs out of fuel and the ice caps melt, I will know the real sources of my sustenance. My college education may or may not land me a good job down the road, buy my farm education will serve me. The choices I make now about my food will influence the rest of my life. If a lot of us felt this way, and started thinking carefully about our consumption habits just one meal at a time, we could affect the future of our planet.”
–Duke University student Camille Kingsolver, co-author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, about her family’s year of eating local food, mostly grown on their farm in Virginia.

Colony collapse

No that’s not a new name for the  global economic crisis, but it may be an omen of something far worse. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is the term given to the mysterious killer or killers that have felled one fourth of the honeybee colonies in the U.S. and untold numbers across Europe during the last two years.  Honeybees, of course, are necessary to pollinate crops all over the world. If they disappear, we’re all in deep trouble.

In Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agriculture Crisis, food/environmental writer Rowan Jacobsen tries to figure out what’s gone wrong. He concludes it’s a lethal combination of several factors as these industrious pollinators are stressed out by overwork and poisioned by toxic chemicals and dangerous pathogens. (Egads, sounds like modern homo sapiens; could our falling bees be the yellow canaries of our human habitat? .)

“Trucked to new sites every few weeks, jacked up on high-fructose corn syrup, dosed with pesticides and antibiotics, invaded by parasites, and exposed to exotic pathogens, they are worn thinner and thinner,” Jacobsen writes, calling this frightening syndrome ”‘a symptom of a larger disease — a disease of fossil fuels and chemical shortcuts, of billion-bee slums and the speed of the modern world.”

It’s not all doom and gloom. Jacobsen believes the bees that survive this plague, and their descendants, will emerge stronger and better able to resist mankind’s abuse. Jury’s still out on whether or not they will also be much meaner.

Read more in John Murawski’s review in the Raleigh News and Observer Jan. 18, 2009.

Eat local, save energy

Consider this: If each of us living in the U.S. ate just one meal a week (breakfast, lunch or dinner) using food that was locally grown and pesticide-free, we would reduce our national oil consumption by more than 1.1 million barrels of oil — every single week. That’s more than 57.2 million barrels of oil saved per year. Here’s why.

We use almost as much petroleum raising food in America — 400 gallons of oil per year per resident — as we use driving our cars. That’s because the mega commodity farms that provide the mass-produced food we find in fast-food joints, convenience stores, supermarket chains and most restaurants requires oil for tractors, harvesters and other farm equipment, as well as for pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilizers to compensate for the soil depleted by mono-culture farming practices.

But producing the food in this wasteful manner takes only about one-fith of the total oil needed for the American diet. The big culprit is transportation, getting the food from the field to the processing plant to the warehouse and eventually to your supermarket. Each ingredient in a typical American meal travels an average of 1,500 miles.

Then there’s the energy consumed in processing (drying, milling, cutting, sorting, baking), packaging, storing and chilling our food. Turns out that the energy calories used for all of this outweighs the calories we receive when we consume this food.

(From Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, based on data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and “The Oil We Eat,” by Richard Manning in Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2004.

V is for Vilsack

Looks like harvest time for former Iowa Govenor Tom Vilsack. Following a pro forma confirmation hearing yesterday, he’s a shoe in for Secretary of Agriculture. Why are we not surprised?

His Iowa pal Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, praised Vilsack as one who “knows production agriculture [and] what it takes to promote profitability.”  (Where’s the Roundup when you need it?)

Though there were petitions from organic food groups complaining about the nominee’s support for genetically modified food (thank you, Monsanto), that didn’t even come up in the questions or discussion.

In fact, from the news coverage it looks like the word “sustainability” may not even be in the future Aggie-in-Chief’s vocabulary. When asked about his position on Obama’s platorm for limiting subsidies for commodity growers, Vilsack very carefully straddled the center of the cornfield, saying “I think it’s incumbent upon [the USDA] to…. make sure that people who deserve to get support are getting that support and folks who don’t deserve to get it aren’t getting it.”   Wow, maybe all of the small sustainable farmers across America should organize a pick-up caravan to Washington next week to pickup the checks they deserve.  (Oh, sorry, he may not have meant you, actually we don’t know who he meant.)

But here’s a flash: he promised not to discriminate against blacks. (What a relief. We’re delighted that Tom Terrific has read the Civil Rights Act of 45 years ago.)

Still waiting to harvest some “change we need” for sustainable agriculture.  Doesn’t look like a bumper crop.

Thank you, Eva Clayton

Nourishing NC’s economy

Excerpted from former Congresswoman Eva Clayton’s op-ed in the Raleigh News and Observer, Jan. 5, 2009:

….Building a local sustainable food economy in North Carolina can yield statewide economic development, create jobs and stop money from leaking out of the state in this time of recession. And it comes with many additional benefits as well.

Since food is essential for life, no matter how bad the recession gets, the need and demand for it will continue. This is one industry that we can keep and expand in our state, if we choose to. Expanding our local agriculture does not mean that we don’t trade with other states and nations, but that we buy from ourselves as we trade with others.

According to the USDA, we spend approximately $4,000 per capita annually for food. If we spent just 5 percent of that (amounting to 55 cents per day) on foods grown in our state, it would bring $1.7 billion in revenue to North Carolina farmers and related businesses. In addition, money spent on local food has a multiplier-effect, circulating in the local economy rather than leaving the state to a corporate headquarters elsewhere….

Take apples as an example. N.C. farmers currently grow enough to supply 42 percent of fresh apple consumption in the state. But as a consumer, you are more likely to find an apple from Washington state in your grocery store than you are to find one grown locally. One study has found that on average food travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate….”

She calls on on Governor Purdue and the General Assembly to invest in sustainable agriculture and a regional sustainable food system. And she reminds us that if we as consumers spend even a fraction of our food budget on local fare, we would boost the local economy (keep more dollars in the community) while supporting farmers, ensuring a healthy diet, protecting the soil and water and reducing our carbon footprint.

Click here for the rest of the story.

Can sustainable food survive the recession?

Business is way down at Chatham Marketplace, our locavore natural foods co-op and cafe. Like many shops and eateries,  it’s feeling the impact of consumers spending less even on the daily necessities like groceries. It’s not that people have decided to eat less food (though that’s often a favorite New Year’s resolution). But when the going gets tough, savvy shoppers have to make tough choices about where to spend their limited dollars. Consumers are dining out less or choosing fastfood and frozen pizza over more costly natural cuisine. They seem to be cooking at home more and filling up on cheaper groceries, such as the generic store brand at the supermarket, or the discounted fare at Wal-Mart and Costco. It’s no accident that Wal-Mart and McDonalds are the only two of the 30 Dow Industrials whose stock prices did NOT fall by more than 10% in the past year, according to the New York Times today.

So how can those who grow and market sustainable food survive the recession? By emphasizing that sustainable farming and cooking are part of the solution, not the problem. The first order of business is acknowledging that natural whole foods often DO cost more than the mass-produced, less healthy, federally-subsidized commodies at the supermarket. And that this is a challenge for folks who are juggling tight budgets and accustomed to comparative-price shopping, with price being the primary consideration.

The second and crucial step is showing consumers that despite the higher product cost, it’s possible to feed your houshold healthy food on a tight budget and that doing so will make you feel better and help local farmers and businesses, maybe even save you some healthcare dollars in the long run. A friend recently pointed out to me that Europeans spend twice as much as we do on food, but half as much on health care. 

Maybe I can’t afford as much artisanal bread as I’d like, but that’s no excuse to buy junk bread. Instead I’ve made a resolution to try baking my own bread at least once in awhile. I’ll buy the best organic and locally ground flour (from Lindley Mill) at Chatham Marketplace.  And while hormone-free, organic meats are pricey, often twice as expensive as the unhealthy option that’s shipped here from who knows where, I know that its worthy buying when I’m using less meat in my diet these days. We can afford the free-range chicken and grass-fed beef if we choose not to make meat the center of the meal. The healthiest plate is the one heaped with organic veggies and whole grains, with meat playing a supporting role rather than being the star. 

I also know that milk, beans, flour and other staples are cheaper or at least as cheap at my local food co-op as they are in the chain supermarket, so there’s no excuse for me NOT to buy these items regularly at Chatham Marketplace.

Even the harried working parent with hungry kids to feed between soccer practice and school, can save money by cooking ahead on the week-ends and heating up leftover casseroles rather than stopping for Chicken McNuggets on the fly.  By managing our food dollars wisely, we can eat healthier at home and when we do dine out, we can afford to patronize the locally owned restaurant that serves local seasonal cuisine.

Other options are to buy food directly from the farmer, either at the farmers’ markets or through a communty-supported agriculture (CSA) program.  

We may not always be able to choose local and natural, but we can make it a priority. By shifting more of our food dollars to natural, whole, local food, we can enhance our health, support our local farmers, and enjoy better food, despite the recession. 

This doesn’t mean giving up on seeking better farm and food policies at the national and state levels, including subsidizing sustainable farming so that whole food becomes more price competitive. But meanwhile, I’m looking at the new year as a chance to start over –break bad food and spending habits, make better choices more often, and savor the flavor of meals at home and occasionally at local eateries focused around local whole food. If we all resolve to do this, we’ll not only survive the down economy, we, and our community, might just be better off.