Spring Meal

Yummy.

Neat

http://www.devilsfooddictionary.com/dfdentries.html

Wal-Mart

"Today, twenty-one cents of every food dollar spent in the United States is spent at Wal-Mart (and some experts say it may be fifty cents by 2010" (from "The End of Food," by Paul Roberts, page 61).

Whoa. I had no idea that Wal-Mart was so pervasive in our eating habits. I wonder if its success at infiltrating our diets has something to do with the fact that there are really no limits to what products it can sell. People know Wal-Mart as an everything store, not limited to foods, and it has no particular niche. We all know Monsanto is evil, but they only sell seeds; McDonald's is equally threatening, but its specialty is fast food, etc. Wal-Mart can and does sell everything...

I spent a little time at the Wal-Mart website. They categorize their products into fourteen different departments, ranging from jewelry to baby items, grocery to pharmacy. They also sell discount iPods and music downloads for only 64 cents a pop. The site even offered to sign me up for updates from their stores, so I'd be sure to not miss out on the latest sales and new products. I guess they really are the epitome of the One Stop Shop.

Wal-Mart has really played the desire of American's for convenience. Hell, can you think of many others places that you can buy a flatscreen tv, diapers, and a gallon of milk all together? And the stores are everywhere, and everything is cheap, cheap, cheap.

The website also boasted new recipes appearing every week - so, at Wal-Mart, you can not only buy your food, you can learn to cook. Or perhaps learn to serve microwavable foods in various forms... The top two categories of recipes were "Fresh & Healthy" and "Budget Friendly." Ah, now doesn't that say something about our society's culinary habits. We say we want to eat healthy, but it all depends on the price. And can I also point out that the "healthy" Mexican Taco Salad recipe calls for "one 1.25 ounce envelop taco seasoning" and "one package assorted greens." Uh-huh. A packet of artificial colors and flavors and some shrink-wrapped lettuce... real healthy.

Very interesting. Everything you (think) you need, at one place, for cheap. Everywhere. They must have some surprisingly sharp executives at the steering wheel of the Wal-Mart enterprise to make it happen.

Also -- this came up when I searched for an image of Wal-Mart. Do you think the Wal-Mart big guys followed those rules?

Money, Power, and Work

I feel like most of the human-related problems (and really, what isn't human-related anymore?) today are caused by issues stemming from money, power, or work. People have an inherent desire for money and power, and many have a innate disdain for work.

So many of the issues I'm encountering in my reading are either explicitly or implicitly caused, directly or indirectly, by - you guessed it - the never-ending quest for money, power, and less, or at least easier, work.

For instance...

• Joel Salatin's frequent attacks by government officials, threatening to shut him down for "noncompliance." These people like wielding their government-given POWER. I distinctly remember some of the more transparent officials Salatin spoke to admitted that they wouldn't be in this line of soul-crushing business if it wasn't for the big ol' paycheck - MONEY.
• The fact that people like the ones mentioned above try to squash the little guys, and look the other way at the big producers that churn out pesticide-ridden vegetables, e. coli-contaminated meat, and milk full of blood and puss - these guys are scared of the powers above them that decide whether they have a job or not - MONEY. Also, guess what? Size matters. It's a lot harder to monitor huge industrial companies than to scrutinize small farms - so they don't. Too much WORK.
• The continuation of ignorance towards people's food sources. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe it's too much WORK to seek out higher quality, more nutritious, local foods. It also could be a lot of WORK to prepare your own meal from fresh, whole ingrediants - a hell of a lot easier to slip a TV dinner out of the plastic packaging and slip it into the microwave. Faster, too, and we're impatient. It's the American way.
• Environmental and social degradation. It's easier to let things go to shit than maintain them. Isn't that called entropy, the natural tendency of the world to gravitate towards a state of chaos and disorder? It takes WORK to keep things healthy and happy. Same goes for humans. No wonder we're all fat and depressed.
• More and more farmers opting out of the small, local systems and moving up towards industrial-sized production. That classic mindset: bigger is better. The allure of more MONEY. More land, more production also means more POWER over more people who depend on you.
• Anyone who own or operates industrial agricultural farms, factory farms, processing and packaging plants, fast food empires, anything that has to do with corn monocultures... MONEY and POWER at the cost of environmental, wildlife, economic, social, and personal health.
• People who buy into the whole "industial-organic" complex. Often these are the people who buy into the "organic is elitist" thing. Being one of the so-called elite gives the illusion of having POWER over those less.. what? Fortunate? Conscious?

I have a tendency to become overwhelmingly pessimistic and critical of humanity. The above observations most likely reek of that sentiment. Moments like this, I have a very low level of tolerance, respect, and hope for humanity. For this, I apologize. I have a frequent urge to say that humans are a repulsive race who in the end will only lead to their own, and everything else in the physical world's demise. I would say, we never should have evolved. I'd even offer to give up my sentient brain to go back and live as some creature before the time of homo sapiens.

But I won't say that here. I'll just stick to, we humans can really suck.

"Fast Food Nation"

Before I even opened Eric Schlosser's book, I was struck by the book's subtitle: "The Dark Side of the All-American Meal."

Isn't that pathetic? Our country is so young compared to others. The USA is totally a baby, with its.. what? 233 years? Not only does our nation have a short history, but I think some aspects of our culture have really suffered because of it. For example, our "All-American Meal." The food symbolic of our nation and our nationalistic pride is a friggen cheeseburger and fries. That's what we have to show as our country's culinary talent?

France has artisan cheeses, developed from ancient recipes using milk from domesticated mountain goats. Italy has wine from heirloom grape varieties indigenous to different regions of their country. Each of these countries also traditions celebrating the sitting down and lengthy enjoying of meals with others, as well. Let's see, what else... even the Jewish religion has celebrated food items that are symbolic of their people's struggles and what they've overcome.

What does America have? A meal made out of unhealthy, crappy ingredients which is made to be consumed on the go, on a whim, or gobbled up behind the wheel of a car. Our national meal symbolizes waning health, obesity, the rise of industrial agriculture and big box companies, the triumph of efficiency over quality, the forgotten tradition of enjoying meals at a table with others, the buried talents of cooking and providing for oneself and one's family, and basically, the destructive powers of our culture.

And we export this. There are McDonalds in 119 countries. Remember in France, when a new McDonalds opened up in some little village and some proud Frenchmen took a bulldozer to it? What a guy. No one would ever do that here. Fast food is too American. A person who did what that French guy did would be called a terrorist, or something here.

Like I said, pathetic.

The Last Supper

Ok, not really. As my final project/product of this independent study, I have the hopes that I can create a full meal from all local, in season ingredients.

The tentative menu is as follows...

Hors d'oeuvre: Fresh baked sourdough bread and local cheeses

Salad: Spring greens salad

First course: Handmade pasta with chévre and asparagus

Second course: Maple roasted meat something (chicken, pork, or beef TBA)

Dessert: Rhubarb pie with sheep milk yogurt

I've begun assembling recipes from various sources (muchos gracias to mi madre in particular) and have begun planning where I might find all of these ingredients.

Cheese and milk products are easy - I'll get them from home (Appleton Creamery).  A&B sells Maine stone-ground flour, which I can continue to use to bake bread from my sourdough starter.  Similarly, I will use that flour to handroll the noodles for the pasta dish (with eggs from Appleton Creamery, as well).  I've already got a jar of local honey (to use as a sweetener), from Gardiner's Honey & Pollination.

I remembered a local sea salt seller from Maine Fare a few years ago.  Apparently their business took off and can now be found in local health food stores: Maine Sea Salt.  Yippee!

My hope is that the farmers markets up here will be in full swing in a few weeks, so I can find the traditional May fare of spring greens, and other early spring veggies.

Herbs I can collect from the gardens at home.

I'm very excited!!

Seasonal Product Guide

Courtesy of the Rockland Farmers Market - here.

Addition to Bibliography

• Katz, Sandor Ellix. The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2006. 
• Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. 
  
• Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food. New York: The Penguin Press, 2008. 
  
• Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.  
  

The Coffee Hypocrisy

The one true roadblock to me ever becoming a full-on, 100% "locavore" would be, of course, my coffee. I love coffee. I can't live without it. I'll never give it up - I can't. I won't.

This, of course, poses a challenge to all coffee addicts like myself, who don't want to give up the beans but still want to eat all local. Reflecting back on my readings, Joel Salatin doesn't consume coffee (much to Michael Pollan's dismay, if I remember correctly), I wouldn't be surprised if Alyssa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon of "Plenty" don't drink the stuff, either (New Age yuppies..), and of course, most recently, in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," the Kingsolver family allowed each member one item - and only one, in limited quantities - that they could continue to have, even after their own local foods challenged commenced. Kingsolver's husband and co-author, Steven, chose coffee as his own item (good choice, Steven).

How do we amend this? I've never heard of a local coffee bean grower. I highly doubt we have the correct climate anywhere remotely near here... unless global warming transforms us into a tropic. Well, there's the upshot, I guess. But anyway - there's no such thing as local coffee beans here.

There are local coffee bean roasters, though, for sure. Rock City Coffee of Rockland, Maine (a personal favorite); Carrabassett Coffee, adjacent to Sugarloaf; and there's even a woman who roasts and sells beans at one of our own farmers markets (my lovely Hanne, of Cornerstone Farm). So, roasting locally is a start... but the beans are still coming in from Mexico and beyond. How much of a difference does roasting locally make? Is it any different than comparing an imported whole tomato to an imported can of tomato paste? Does where the processing takes place overwhelm the fact that you're still starting with an imported item?

(This is not to condemn or belittle any of the aforementioned coffee roasters. If any of them stopped doing what they do, I would probably die.)

On my darling disposable cup of gas station coffee this morning, I took a moment to examine what was printed on the cup. A very eco-friendly design, I must say... rolling hills, happy clouds, and of course, endless green forests - you know which coffee company I'm talking about. The cup told me that it was, in fact, an "ecotainer." What does that mean? It doesn't actually explain itself anywhere on the cup itself. Is it made from recycled paper? Is the slick coating on the inside of the cup not made from harmful chemicals? Are they equating ecological health with cultural health, and are trying to tell me the coffee is fair-trade? I don't know!

On my handy-dandy heat-resistant sleeve was a big green heading, commanding "drink globally - act locally." Underneath, the words are elaborated upon: "a portion of the profits from the coffees we source around the world helps support social and environmental programs in our local communities." Okay... what? Where are they saying is local? I'm damn sure my local isn't the same as their local. And wait a second - they're taking money from other countries to boost our local economy? That's not acting locally. That's exacerbating import issues.

So what the hell are we to do about our coffee? Some coffee companies claim to be making the world a better place, but just how is still unclear to me.

Conventional vs. Revolutionary

One recurring issue I've found I'm having with all these books I'm reading is a matter of terminology. Pollan, Katz, Kingsolver, and even Salatin... they all use the term "conventional farming" to denote industrial agriculture, whereas organic, local farming is "new," "revolutionary," and "alternative."

This, I don't get.

Why is industrial agriculture "conventional?" Conventional is defined as "ordinary; conforming or adhering to accepted standards" (thanks to www.dictionary.com). Industrial agriculture adheres to accepted standards? I don't think so. Conventional also connotes some sort of presence in history. The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century that produced industrial ag. was only 150 years ago. That's barely a blip on the timeline of the history of agriculture.

Why is organic, sustainable farming labeled as new and alternative? Farming was done organically for millenia before chemicals and technology was developed. It may not have been called organic... it may not have been called sustainable... it was probably done before the word agriculture even came around - but still, industrial ag. is a rogue baby compared to organic.

Is organic farming only called revolutionary today because it is a form of rebellion against the current predominant form of farming? How did the two terms, conventional and revolutionary, get switched around - when did this happen? Was it when industrial farming overtook and overwhelmed the real conventional farming? This terminology baffles me.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Image from the first page of Barbara Kingsolver's book... I love it.

Nutritionism as Reductionism

I wrote this paper for my Chaos & Fractals class last term in response to our introduction to linear vs. nonlinear thinking.

(References Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food," Penguin Press, 2008.)

Part vs. Whole

(Linear vs. Non-linear)

 

            Our brief introduction to the idea of linear versus non-linear functions (and accordingly the concepts of reductionism versus holism) in class the other day got me thinking about the ideas of part compared to whole in more general terms.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I kept relating these mathematical terms to a key word that I’d recently discovered through my own independent research.  One of my biggest interests and passions is learning about sustainable food systems.  Consequently, I’ve been reading a lot of the work of Michael Pollan, renowned food author/activist.  By pondering what I learned in class, I was able to relate these mathematical concepts to a fundamental principle that Pollan puts forth.

            Michael Pollan uses the theories of reductionism vs. holism in his book, In Defense of Food, with regards to his idea of “nutritionism.”  His book outlines the problems that people are facing when it comes to choosing foods, and he offers his own ideas about how to solve these problems, or better, wipe their existence.  He describes the concept of nutritionism as the trend of studying and selecting foods solely based on their chemical components – nutrients.  For example, when we think about eating a cheeseburger, we could see the cheeseburger as individual thing – one unit of food.  What are we consuming? A cheeseburger, plain and simple.  However, a nutritionist viewpoint would be to look at the burger, and not see a burger, but see fat, carbohydrates, maybe a little protein.  The person would probably choose not to eat that burger, because all they see are way too many calories from fat.  They would most likely opt for a spinach salad instead – ah, antioxidants, vitamins A, B, and K, iron!  This, of course, would be the reductionist point of view – seeing something as its constituents, missing the bigger picture. 

            Pollan advocates the abandonment of nutritionist thinking and the adoption of what we would call, holistic thinking.  The biggest misconception that nutritionism instills in society is that focusing on the parts, not the whole, will lead to a healthy diet.  However, obsessing with the nutrients and forgetting about the big picture is what leads to those unhealthy crash diets (Atkins says throw out the carbs – they’re evil!) and strips the cultural aspect from eating meals.  But we all know by now (hopefully) that carbs are an essential piece in the diet of humans.  If we really think that the nutrient themselves are the only important things, we should all be taking pills – instead of just taking daily multivitamins or something, we should take pills for every essential vitamin and nutrient.  But the idea that we should give up eating food altogether seems absurd to us.  There’s more to food than its nutritional components – there’s also a huge cultural significance placed on eating.  We miss something, we lose the greater picture, if we only think of things in terms of their parts. 

            So why is reductionist thinking (or linear thinking) so popular?  For one thing, it’s just logical.  Like with our ice cream example in class, if one pint of ice cream costs three dollars, then two pints will cost six dollars, three pints will cost nine dollars, and so on.  It makes sense.  We think that we can understand something more if we can understand what it’s made up of.  We’ve been taught that attention to detail is paramount and comprehension of the bigger picture will follow after we lose ourselves in the details.

            Linear thinking makes sense, but we lose something by breaking things up into pieces.  Whether it’s the ice cream example (each pint is three dollars, but if you buy five pints, you get a discount! The discount would be ignored in a linear system, but is integral to the non-linear one), or Pollan’s nutritionism (I like to think of my dad’s mac and cheese as a traditional dish special to my family – not solely as a heaping mass of fat and carbohydrate molecules), the whole means more to us than the part.  

"Addicted to Plastic"

Yesterday I had the pleasure of viewing a documentary film, called "Addicted to Plastic," at Reel Pizza.

Though it was a thorough, educational, and entertaining documentary, I had one major concern with one idea that it offered up as "the future" of alternatives to plastic.

The film interviewed several business pioneers who believe whole-heartedly that the manufacturing of plastic replacements from vegetable starches - corn, potato, soybean - is what will save the world.  To be sure, many companies have already made popular plant-based alternatives to previously-made petroleum products, from disposable cutlery and food packaging to biodiesel.  My problem is this: the film's main concern was what will happen to the environment and its people if plastic continues to be so ubiquitous and overused - HOWEVER, the fact was NOT addressed that the monoculturing of crops like corn will led to other, different ecosystem depletion.  The film was quick to praise an "environmentally-sound" method -- after all, how can anything made from plants be harmful to the environment, right? WRONG. Acres and acres of corn being monocultured across the United States is harmful, as well.  Soil is depleted of essential nutrients without crop rotation, meaning that more and more land must be used to continually move and expand the corn crops.  All in all, this method would be equally detrimental.  How does this conundrum get recognized and eventually rectified?

Simple Eating

After I posted my paper on 'simple living,' in our meeting on Friday, Davis brought up the question of how eating fits into my prescription.  How does one maintain a healthy and satisfying diet while living simply?

In my paper, I emphasize relationships as the most important aspect of life.  I urge people to eschew the accumulation of material goods, as they aren't alive and cannot possibly lead to a fulfilling life, because one cannot establish a relationship with them.  The only mention of food, as far as I remember, is a quote from Thoreau, encouraging people to eat only as much as they need, not to be gluttonous just because they have the opportunity.  

Davis told me to consider the onion. Or ketchup. Do we really need either?  Certainly neither hold important nutrients that are exclusive to that food and cannot be obtained from other foods.  So, does that mean that we should only eat a handful of foods,  that each contain all the essential vitamins and minerals?

Here's my take on how to eat simply.  We don't need onions, or ketchup, or many cultivated or processed foods.  What we do need, though, is variety and culture.  As I stressed in my paper, relationships are paramount.  This absolutely includes relationships to food.  A gigantic goal of sustainable agriculture and food systems is to reconnect people with their food sources - this is establishing a relationship.

Food is more than a mere source of sustenance.  If it were only that, then certainly we would take no pride in the variety of foods we can grow, make, and consume.  We would have no desire to eat more foods than necessary to stay alive.  But we are a society of eaters - eating is a huge part of culture.  Where would America be without corn?  Asia without rice?  We have as much a relationship with what we eat as with other humans.  Food, be it based in vegetables or animals, was alive.  It's still another living thing, connected to us in the ecosystem of our world.

Relationships are reciprocal.  Each side gives and takes.  We can grow our food, nurturing it, giving it the necessary elements to grow and flourish.  In return, it nourishes us our body with its nutrients, and our minds with its associated culture, heritage, etc.

We don't need onions from South America or Heinz ketchup.  But if we can grow the onions in our own gardens, or mash tomatoes from farmers market into home-made ketchup, why shouldn't we?  Humans relish experiencing multitudes of tastes and textures.  If we can somehow establish a relationship with what we eat, then there is no reason to limit the number or varieties of foods we consume.

I know my life would be considerably emptier, if not for the onion.

The Ethics of Roadkill Dining

In "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved," Katz devotes an entire chapter on scavenging - or, a how-to on relocating the hunter-gathering within each of us.

One particularly memorable experience he had was with a group of people who, to fulfill their daily protein requirement, dine exclusively on roadkill. This was fascinating for me to read about, and actually resulting in the reconsideration of my personal vegetarian values. I may have to now refer to myself a "lacto-roadkill-vegetarian."

I've been a vegetarian in various degrees for about six years. I chose this "lifestyle choice" for a number of reasons. First and foremost is because I refuse to support factory farms - I refuse to dignify the maltreatment of animals with my dollar. I have absolutely no problem with other people eating meat - as long as it is from local farms who have treated their animals humanely. You will never hear me trying to sell another person on vegetarianism - at most, I will implore them to choose their meat selections wisely (go local!). The more people who support local animal raisers and butchers, the better. I choose not to eat happy, local animals myself simply because I just am uncomfortable with putting the flesh of an animal, that was raised for slaughter, in my body. The few times I have been persuaded to try a bite of a local, grassfed beef steak, I feel guilty for days after, the face of an unnamed heifer haunting my mind with her sad, soulful eyes. I can't make myself do it in good conscious - but as I said, it's totally a personal thing. I would encourage others to eat good meat instead of shy away from all of it. I don't think I get enough protein as it is. If others can eat a good meal, get the necessary nutrients, and feel good about it, then go for it!

But then I read about the niche individuals who dine on roadkill. It got me thinking.

Consider the roadkill. You can't get more free-range than critters living on their own in the wilderness. They're also 100% organic, and as local as made possible by their own furry little legs. Not being raised by humans, they would undoubtedly be free of growth hormones, monocultured corn crop silage, and antibiotics. All things considered, before that SUV or jeep bombing down the road led to their untimely death, the pre-mortum roadkill must have had pretty great lives, living in the wild as they're supposed to.

This all sold me on the health and sustainability aspects. As far as the moral/ethical side of this goes, here's what I think:
1) Someone else killed the animal. I didn't do it. I didn't want it to happen. Whereas purchasing a t-bone steak would support the consumer demand for meat, thereby meaning I indirectly killed an animal/caused it to die, picking up a dead animal from the side of the road isn't going to encourage more cars to hit and kill more animals. There's no market for roadkill.
2) I believe in honoring animals. How better to honor them then to save them from a humilating decomposing on the roadside, and putting their full bodies to use? Their deaths will not be worthless - in death, they can give others life.
3) Unlike in feedlots, "survival of the fittest" actually happens in the wilderness. I would be eating the dumber, less fit animals. The smarter, fitter ones would continue to live on and prosper away from the highway.

And what variety: deer, rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, various birds - maybe even larger quadruped mammals in you're lucky/they're unlucky.

So we shall see. Next time I'm driving down Route 3 and I see a poor dead creature on the side of the road, maybe (if I can convince who ever's driving) I'll pick 'er up and make a true scavenger dinner.

Prescriptions

In "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved," Sandor Ellix Katz warns of the prescriptions for eating that seem so popular and prevalent in our food systems today (i.e. marketable diets).  This made me wonder what a prescription for eating would look like if it followed along the lines of the ideas of Katz, Salatin, and Pollan (maybe just a copy of Pollan' Eater's Manifesto?) and at the same time reminded me of an assignment I did in high school.

It was in a class called "Humans and the Environment," and we had just been reading excerpts from "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" (H.D. Thoreau).  Our assignment was, based on our personal values and any insight we may have gleaned from Thoreau, to come up with a "prescription for living" - in other words, a basic how-to on leading a fruitful and happy life.  I thought I would include what I came up with:

Prescription For Living

“Our life is frittered away by detail; simplify, simplify.”  Henry David Thoreau’s words here can truly be thought of as a prescription for living, for everyone.  What is important in this life is pure, unadulterated, and austere.  As a society, though, we have come to forget this, and instead have crowded into our lives a world of complexity and superfluity.  We convince ourselves that we need this excessive amount of detail, so we continually add more and more, until we have shrouded our lives in a veil of addendums and falsehood.  We are left with superficiality and have no memory or awareness of the simplicity and genuineness of true living.

In today’s world, we have come to believe that objects, what we own, is what makes us content.  We rely upon what we can buy, spend money on, waste time on, to keep us happy.  As a result of this dependence, we are in perpetual want.  We always want more.  The desire for more overwhelms and overshadows what we actually need.  We forget the necessities of life, in favor of accumulating the luxuries.  We judge our happiness by our property.  We regard the man with the Porsche, the uptown mansion, the bimonthly vacations to the Bahamas, and the seven-plus digit bank account as being the epitome of happiness.  The less well-endowed community amuses itself with its laptops, video games, high-end clothing, and fast food binges.  But no matter what we have, we always feel that we would be happier with more.  We believe we will never know true happiness until we have accumulated the maximum in money and objects.  The grass is always greener: it doesn’t matter how much we gain, we will always want more than what we currently have.  

We need to realize that objects are not what makes us happy.  The acquisition or loss of an Abercrombie sweater or a PlayStation 2 will not make or break our lives!  These things, because that is truly all they are, are not necessary.  We do not need them.  In fact, they only add to the confusion.  The details like this don’t augment our lives, they clutter them.  We get too caught up in the muddle of detail, and are drawn away from what is real, and simple.  It is only when we strip away all this detail that is cluttering our lives that we are left with what we need, and what will truly make our lives worth living.  Happiness results from simplicity.  To live well, remove all unnecessary things that disarray your lives.  Live with what you need, not what you think you want.

What do you need in life? The basics: food, water, shelter.  But you don’t need them in excess.  You should have only the amount that you require, nothing more, such as Thoreau describes, “Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion.”  This is how such necessities should be approached. 

Fill your life with people and your relationships with them.  The people are what really enrich our lives.  Other people is what is important.  Surround yourself with relationships, not objects.  Objects will get you nowhere; people will.  Humans are what we are because we connect to others.  It’s our nature to associate with other people, build bonds, share emotions, communicate.  You can’t connect with an object.  An object won’t talk to you, respond to you, show you love.  They’re inanimate; they’re not real. You can’t create a relationship with them.  So why busy yourself with something that will never give you anything in return?  Instead, use your efforts on people.  But quality, not quantity, rules: otherwise, it just returns to the “always wanting more” philosophy, and that is exactly what we are striving to avoid.  The amount of people in your life is not important, the significance lies in the essence of the affiliation.  Remember that people are what’s real; relationships are the most absolute, natural, age-old establishment.  There is nothing truer or simpler than the link between humans.  

         “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of  life?  We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.  Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow,” Thoreau continues.  To truly enjoy life, we all just need to slow down and live it.  It’s impossible to be content if all your time is spent worrying about the future.  Concerning yourself wholly with tomorrow means that you’ll completely miss today.  Living in the moment is what it comes down to.  Stop and smell the roses, or else they’ll wilt and die before you ever give them a second glance.

This is all that life will give to you.  To make the most of it, simplify your life so you don’t get bogged down by detail.  Focus your energy on your relationships, not your objects, because in the end, people are what matter.  Finally, live in the moment; live for today. Life is about the journey, not the destination.

Apostrophe to Man

Detestable race, continue to expunge yourself, die out.
Breed faster, crowd, encroach, sing hymns, build 
bombing airplanes;
Make speeches, unveil statues, issue bonds, parade;
Convert again into explosives the bewildered ammonia 
and the distracted cellulose;
Convert again into putrescent matter drawing flies
The hopeful bodies of the young; exhort,
Pray, pull long faces, be earnest, 
be all but overcome, be photographed;
Confer, perfect your formulae, commercialize
Bacateria harmful to human tissue,
Put death on the market;
Breed, crowd, encroach,
expand, expunge yourself, die out,
Homo called sapiens. 

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

And Another...

|experiential|-----------------|research-based|

Another Spectrum of Paradigms, Perhaps?

Proponents of Sustainable Agriculture:

---Traditional
|(those who have been farming sustainably
| because that's just "how it's done")
|
|
|
|
|
|
---Revolutionary
(those who rebel against the current industrial
system, and aim to return to sust. farming)

Spirituality

Spirituality and religion are interesting topics when it comes to farming, as Davis and I discussed during our meeting last Friday.

Most farmers I know, while perhaps not practicing a common religion, have some inherent sense of spirituality, and it comes forth when they are farming. I've noted that a lot of the farmers I've met seem to have some variant of Christian undertones to their personal spirituality. I don't know why; it's not something that I feel altogether comfortable approaching them about. Perhaps it's Biblical land stewardship, maybe it's being grateful to God for bestowing the means to feed ourselves. I don't know, but I'd love to know more about the spirituality of the farmer.

My family of farmers is somewhat different. My mother claims to have some paganistic beliefs, while my father describes himself as a filthy heathen. I consider myself to fall somewhere in between, but overall we're a family of atheists.

I don't believe in a God. I don't believe in multiple gods. There is no higher power, no greater spirit. There are people. People can be individuals, or they can operate as a common force by sharing values and goals. The phrase "something bigger than us," to me, isn't some sort of god, it is the entire population. Everybody working together, besides being some sort of idealism, is the only sort of greater governing force I can believe in.

I have immense respect for the earth. I respect the soil, the water, the air. I respect the plants and animals. The earth and all of its constituents are what allows us, humans, to have life. How you can lack respect for what keeps you alive? My mother undoubtedly has a much closer relationship with, and thus greater respect for, the earth. She works the land: she farms it. She reaps what she can sow (figuratively and literally), and it is all made possible by what the earth provides her with.

I understand the intense relationship between farmer and earth. I do not experience it firsthand much, but I respect it, condone it, encourage it. The relationship can be spiritual.

I like farming and food systems because they are real. Food is physical, tangible, and scientifically explainable. I like agriculture because it is only possible/successful through a combination of scientific logic and passion. You can thank God for giving you a good corn crop this season; I prefer to thank the farmer for putting the right combination of skill, wisdom, and care into his field.


I don't want to save the world. I want to save my piece of it. Everyone should save their piece of the world. There's no point in me working to save the whole thing unless everyone else wants, and tries to do, the same thing.

One basic way to expand our efficacy is through modern science
and technology. But another is through integrated (emotional, mental,
physical, and spiritual) growth and enhanced wisdom. This means
growing in our sense of connection with nature and one another and
learning to live in ways that naturally cultivate our capacity to be human.
-Peter Senge

One More Link

Husson Talks Involve Ethics, Animal Rights

 “My sister in Connecticut prefers to believe that the grocery store sows pork chop seeds on Styrofoam trays.” <-- I hate people.

Works Cited (Thus Far)

So that the books that I'm referencing can actually be located:

• Salatin, Joel. Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal. Virginia: Polyface Inc., 2007.
• Salatin, Joel. Holy Cows & Hog Heaven. Virginia: Polyface Inc., 2004.
• Smith, Alysa and J.B. Mackinnon. Plenty. New York: Harmony Press, 2007.
  

(I know the book titles are supposed to be underlined. However, I cannot figure out how to do that in the typeface options. Apologies.)

Spectrums

... under which I can categorize/rate/describe the books I'm reading:

|--------------------------------|

farmer consumer

|--------------------------------|

science spirituality

|--------------------------------|

farming, "dirt- yuppie, incomplete

under-your-nails" analyses

"Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal"

Joel Salatin wasn't kidding when he subtitled his book "War Stories from the Local Food Front." Halfway through the book and I'm already shocked and disgusted by all the bureaucratic bullshit involved with the legal/illegal side of farming. I don't know why I've never been more aware of all the ridiculous and unfair laws and regulations set forth by the government - I mean, I've definitely watched as our own farm encountered its own share of government annoyances, but never so devastating or infuriating as the horror stories Salatin speaks of.

Salatin's got some especially unfortunate experiences about dairy farms. I couldn't help but relate, just a little bit. The most frequently asked question I get at farmers market (after, of course, "Can you really milk a goat?" and "Do you have to kill the goat to get the cheese?") is "Is your cheese made from raw milk?" There are two different groups of people who ask this: the ones who are hoping that the answer is yes, and the ones who will cringe if the answer is anything but "of course not!" The first group consists of the children of the farmstand cheese movement and the cross-cultural types who have tasted the wonders of raw milk cheese in Italy and France. The latter group consists of the people who worship USDA regulations and trust the government wholeheartedly.

Anyway, the answer I always have to give is "By law, any cheese made in the US has to be pasteurized if aged under 60 days." This usually generate blank looks, so I then point out the hard cheeses, made from raw milk, and aged for more than 60 days, and then sweep my arm over the soft cheeses, the fresh ones made from pasteurized milk. You know what, though? No one ever asks me why we can't make raw milk cheese unless it's been aged for x amount of time. I highly doubt that this is because our customers don't want to bother us vendors with nitty gritty questions. No, I suspect its probably because of the the concept that Salatin references: "the government-can-fix-it mentality." Government says this is the way it's gotta be, okey dokey - they must just be looking out for us.

Hah.

Salatin has this great analogy to describe the arbitrariness of the licensing process. He creates a little story about what it might be like to try to get a license to have an active account on eBay - something everyone's familiar with. Some of the requirements would include: a license proving that you are qualified to operate your computer; fire marshall license proving that your computer cords are up to date; proof of building inspection so the structural soundness of the desk on which you computer sits is acceptable; government labeling verification that your description of the item you are selling is accurate... and so on and so forth. I thought this was a humorous and creative analogy to convey how ridiculous the bureaucratic element of farming is.

Salatin keeps reminding us of the "ends justify the means" idea. He says, if he is able to provide a safe, clean, healthy, nutritious, and good-tasting product in the end, who the hell cares what his infrastructure is? Why should he have to adhere to all this government regulation crap if, in the end, he puts forth a superior product. Salatin had an apprentice who was also conveniently a biology major compare one of his chickens to an industrially-produced chicken in terms of potentially harmful pathogens. Turns out, his chickens were 25 times cleaner than generic supermarket chicken. There is solid, scientific proof - and yet, USDA officials still give him crap about his wall-less poultry slaughtering facility - "unsanitary and adulterated." Geeze.

Hah.

The Delicate Matter of Teaching a Child Where Meat Comes From

More Links: One Funny, One Sad

Death by Dinner

Hood Drops More Organic Dairy Farms

Youtube Vid from Ivy

Ensuring the Future of Food (Japan-style)

"Plenty"

"Like many people, we had been to farmers' markets occasionally in the past.  Too often they seemed first and foremost to offer shiatsu massage, mantelpiece knickknacks, espresso blends, folk music, face-painting."

Whaaaaat? Those aren't farmers' markets. Where are the farmers?  The places James and Alyssa are describing sound more like craft fairs, folk shows, hippie gatherings.. you know.  Real farmers' markets, like the ones I've been a part of, have strict rules and regulations.  All of the above-mentioned items would soooo not fly at a real market.  Arts and crafts? Nuh-uh.  The stricter markets don't allow anything that isn't an actual off-the-farm product: produce, dairy products, meats, cut flowers, seedlings, eggs, etc.  Even then, there are incredible regulations on which products are acceptable.  Organic standards and buy-in caps or prohibitions are the biggies. It pisses me off to no extent when people come to a FARMERS' market looking for totally not FARM products. Ugh.

"Even certified organic food is no longer wholly trusted; an $11 billion industry, "organic" foods today may include factory-farmed meat and dairy products, and even synthetic additives or artificial flavors.  Organic vegetables are frequently the end products of intensive production methods, and end up on your plate after, say, crossing the continent by diesel truck and passing through a plant that washes 26 million servings of lettuce each week."

The biggest misconception, I think, that people have about eating healthfully is that anything in the supermarket marked "organic" is automatically safe, superior, and good for you.  People who hold up tomatoes from Mexico, shrink-wrapped three to a package, or a box of pasta with 30 ingredients, most of the synthetic preservatives, and triumphantly declare, "Look! They're organic!" don't get it.  Organic almost always means NOTHING unless it is coupled with LOCAL.  The word "organic" is industrial agriculture's latest and biggest marketing ploy.  The USDA realized this in the early 2000s so they quickly decided to regulate the use of the word.  You can literally get sued for all you've got for wrongly using the term "organic."  Sure, small-scale farms can use 100% organic METHODS, treat their animals humanely, abstain from hormone use, and use nothing but all natural ingredients and the like, but if they can't afford to feed their animals USDA certified organic grain, then they cannot market themselves as organic - they can't even casually reassure their loyal customers for fear of getting slapped with a lawsuit.  This is what's going on as big box industries realize they can continue shipping crap in from all over the world, slap an infamous little green and white USDA organic sticker on it, and keep rolling in the dough, made possible by the poor suckers who don't REALLY care about where their food comes from and buy all the trendy new organic products so they can be part of the latest "fads." Disgusting.  And people laugh when I say the USDA is corrupt.

James talks about realizing the "human scale" of a salad he made from a dozen ingredients from a farmers' market.  "I could relate each item not only to its place but to its specific farm and to the faces of those farmers."  I like this because it reminds me of the presentation Russ Libby gave here at COA about a month ago.  His presentation was called "A Place, A Face, A Taste."  He described how you can identify good food - local, sustainable, etc. - by its associations with a place, a face, and a taste.  The place is simple - the geographic component.  Where does you food come from? Do you know where the farm is? Have you been there? Did you buy it directly from the farm, farm stand, or farmer?  Then of course, there is the face - the human component. Do you know the person who grew, raised, or made your food?  Do you know his name, or could you recognize him?  Can you develop a relationship with your food producers, and in turn reconnect to your community?  The third aspect is the taste - the actual nutrition and yummy factor.  Russ gave an example, if I remember correctly, about how a person he talked with went on and on about how sustainable, local food products just taste better.  When you're tasting your food, what do you taste? Bland, sterile food? Chemically altered or manipulated foods?  Or do you taste real flavors, whole and natural?

I remember reading in the book "Kitchen Literacy" about an experience of the author once when she was gathering a variety of greens and vegetables from her garden.  As she placed them on her cutting board in preparation for making her salad, a few little spiders skittered out from amongst her greens.  At first she was taken by surprise and more or less grossed out by these tiny bugs on her food, but then she realized that the spiders were just an affirmation of how fresh her food was.  Living things were literally still inhabiting her food as she plucked it from her garden.  In the end, she was grateful to know how fresh and alive the food was that she grew for herself.  I understand this.  I like dirt on my veggies. I don't think we eat enough dirt as a society.  Just like the bugs, residue of healthy, moist soil on my produce reassures me that my food hasn't been bathed in a serious of chemicals and sterilizers.  It hasn't sweat off the dirt by traveling thousands of miles.  It still retains its mark of the earth.  Dirt is my confirmation of a product's life and vibrance.

End of "Holy Cows..."

Just finished Salatin's guide to farm friendly food.  Overall, I really enjoyed it.  It was a little basic, I guess - but what did I expect from an introductory book - however, extremely thorough.  The only valid criticism I can come up with is the writing style: Salatin's words definitely show that he is a farmer first, and an author second.  From an editing standpoint I think his book could have been written a little more eloquently... he included great anecdotes and relevant stories, but I think maybe COA's Writing Seminar II could have given him a little boost.

But what's important is content!!  What I appreciated most about the book was how reasonable and practical Salatin is in all of his claims and instructions.  Unlike so many other opinions I've heard, he doesn't say that industrialism is 100% terrible, and he even admits going to Burger King every once in a while.  What he stresses the importance of is the "make it the exception, not the rule" ideology.  He says if it weren't for advancements in technology, we sure wouldn't have carcinogenic pesticide residues on our veggies - but we also wouldn't have treatment for cancer and the ability to perform open heart surgery.  Industrialization, he says, is pretty much okay in some respects, in that we definitely have a higher standard of living because of it, but our food systems are one area that industrialization never should have penetrated.  For instance, he admits that refrigerators and freezers are marvelous inventions - they allow people to store food that would otherwise go bad very quickly.  He reminds you, though, that that doesn't justify refrigerated monster trucks that drive tons of iceberg lettuce across the country from California so that we Mainers can eat a crappy salad in February.  Eat fresh, local food - freeze things when you have a surplus, so that you can eat produce or meat out of season and have a complete and nutritious diet all year round.

I really admire Salatin's series of checklists.  He provides succinct, bulleted lists at the end of each chapter, less as a way of summing up each section, but more as a method of directly instructing the reader about what to do, so there is no way one could forget any single important step.  His lists range from how to identify an eastern food system to how to reunite yourself with your kitchen; from how to show your gratitude to your local farmers, to how to become a decentralized bioregionalist.

Salatin's book is all in all an optimistic one.  He continually reminds us that we have a choice every time we eat a meal.  Rather than simply lamenting the highly industrialized, highly corrupt, highly disconnect status quo of our nation's way of feeding ourselves, he gives you a number of ideas about how to fight back - and why you should.  He makes it inescapable for one continue "being part of the problem."

I look forward to week whatever, when I'll be reading another of his books!

Interesting Links

Fox News Kills Monsanto Milk Story

Say Goodbye to Farmers Markets

Farmers Leery of Food Bills in D.C.

...and just because it relates to last term's independent study, Water Packaging Gets Creative

Cowzilla

Joel Salatin says that he imagines industrial agriculture's ideal dairy system to be gigantic fucking cow with each orifice hooked up to a megapipe: mouth pipe to dump feed in; butt pipe to pour out manure; multiple pipes hooked up the udder, which would connect each major city to a constant source of milk.

Imagine that. They'd need a whole goddamn state just so they'd have a place to keep dumping the manure.

This Cowzilla would never know the pleasures of frolicking through green pastures.  It would never know contentment. Not that I've ever seen a cow frolick or even look slightly enthused. Come to think of it, cows look remarkably unperturbed most of the time.  But that's beside the point.  Salatin has emblazoned on my brain a revolting, disconcerting image and I challenge anyone who thinks industrial agriculture is a-okay to rationalize what an intense case of animal maltreatment that would be.

"Holy Cows & Hog Heaven" Ch. 1

Just began reading Joel Salatin's book "Holy Cows & Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide to Farm Friendly Food."

I have to begin by reiterating my undying love for Michael Pollan's writing (he wrote the forward for this book).  He just makes everything so damn approachable.  I honestly believe that he could dissolve Monsanto and the likes if he just took the head honchos out to coffee and shared with them his thoughts.  I must share how Pollan, in literally one paragraph, summed up the end-all be-all solution to the problem industrial agriculture created:

"Why should local - rather than, say, organic - be lynchpin to this revolution? Because a farmer dependent on a local market is far more likely to raise a variety of crops, rather than specialize in the one or two plants or animals that the national market demands.  That system wants all its apples from Washington State, all its lettuce from California (and make that Iceberg, please) and its corn from Iowa.  Well it turns out the people who live in Iowa can only eat so much corn and soybeans; if Iowans were eating locally, rather than from the supermarket. their farmers would soon learn how to grow a few other things besides.  And as they soon gave up on their monocultures of corn and soy, they would quickly discover they could also give up on their pesticides and chemical fertilizers, because a diversified farm will produce its own fertility and its own pest control."

That's it. Done. Follow, everyone - and problem solved! Thanks, Michael. And theoretical accommodating Iowan farmers.

But to move on... the first chapter in Salatin's book goes over the importance of integrity in the farmers from which you buy your food.  Salatin defines integrity by giving examples of what someone possessing this trait would and would not do.  I couldn't help but recall a particular test I once had to take in a high school science class.  During this time in school, we had been discussing ethics in science and moral dilemmas that modern scientists encounter.  On the test (since we all know every "unit" covered in high school culminates in test) on the first page there was printed a very simple command: define integrity.  Since we had been talking about the various levels of integrity that scientists show in their work, I wrote a lengthy paragraph, giving what I believed to be a thorough and coherent definition.  We were handed back out graded tests a few days later.  I got that question wrong.  My paragraph had been crossed out, and my teacher's correction, scrawled in red ink, was one word: honesty.  Huh. Apparently, all scientists have to do to have integrity is to be honest.

Salatin thinks there's a little more to it than that.  He offers up a check-list for how to tell is your local farmer possesses or lacks integrity.  These bulleted points include checking up on your farmer's street cred and scrutinizing his bookshelf to see if he's been reading pop junk or manifestos that align with your philosophical and political beliefs.  If only we each had that opportunity before we buy... and I bet there'd be some really interesting and unlikely texts on the bookshelves of farmers I know.

Salatin also brings up a point that I really respond to.  He says that you cannot take a passive approach when attempting to change or revolutionize the food system.  Unlike the people that remove themselves from the pollution problem and oil crisis by not owning a car, and those who throw out their televisions so they won't be part of the capitalist propaganda machine, you can't opt out of the food system.  I like this thought a whole lot. You wanna change something about how your food is made or where it comes from, you gotta get off your ass and make a conscious decision - each time you fill your plate.  You can't fight industrial agriculture without supporting the sustainable, organic, and local food systems.

One more thought from this first chapter - Salatin throws out the factoid that the average meal's constituents travel 1,500 miles from farm to plate.  He wrote that in 2004, and I remember using a strikingly similar number in a paper I wrote in high school, and moreso, I feel like I came across it again even more recently. It seems to me that this number should have changed at some point.  I mean, regardless if the mileage went up or down (more disgusting or less) it should have fluctuated a little.  I mean, I know there's a huge movement for local foods now, and the major food corps. are fighting even harder against it, so don't you think that one side of the fight would have made ground somewhere and influenced that number? Hmm...