Filed under: Urban Farming
Across the nation, as more businesses find ways to “go green”, more city and state governments are starting conversations regarding their food systems. Last week the state of Tennessee held its first “Food Security Summit” – a forum that encouraged the exchange of ideas on how to develop a locally based, sustainable food system for the state.
I find this news very encouraging! People are starting to wake up to the fact that our current system of shipping food over long distances is extremely wasteful, expensive and largely unnecessary – especially during the local growing season.
When referring to matters of food, diet, and even the economy, one of the most important concepts is one of BALANCE. Weight management is achieved by balancing energy intake with expenditure and a healthy body requires a balance of exercise and rest. In order develop vibrant communities; the idea of balance must extend to the entire food system. When we choose to purchase the vast majority of our food from faraway sources it not only results in food of lower quality, but it directly affects the local economy – it puts local farmers out of business.
Local farmers and other locally owned businesses should be able to exist in equal numbers alongside corporately owned chains, but this is not currently the case. Look around your city, how many businesses do you see that are owned by people that actually live in the community?
I am not suggesting that we must return to the days of home canning and suffer winters void of any fresh fruit whatsoever, but if we would only pause and think about how we spend our food dollars then we can start to bring the system back into a more balanced equation.
Consumers have already begun to voice their opinions. It has been reported that the number of farmer’s markets across the nation has almost tripled in the past decade and the sales of organic produce have been growing 20% each year. These numbers alone send a powerful message to both the food companies and our government officials.
The people are speaking loud and clear; it is now time for government to do its part. It is time for city, state and even the federal government to step in and encourage the balance. I’m not suggesting communism here, but simply setting reasonable limits on the size and number of absentee-owned businesses in a community. Several states have already begun doing this. Nebraska and South Dakota have anti-corporate farming laws written into their state constitutions while Kansas allows individual counties to vote on the issue of corporate farming. Establishing and enforcing a limit on the number of corporately owned farms within a county or state helps to ensure that local farmers receive a share of the market and are thus more able to retain their land.
I believe it is possible to bring balance back to our communities, just like it is possible to bring balance back to our diets, but it will not happen without increased awareness of the problem and assistance from those in public office.
Gk
Filed under: Urban Farming
Many people think that gardening is a complicated, daunting and “icky” dirty task. When I talk about being involved in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and growing most of my own vegetables, they say things like,
“Oh, I wish I had the time to do that”, or “oh, I wouldn’t know how to do that”, or “that sounds wonderful, but it’s just too much work!”.
I think that the desire to grow your own food is mostly a matter of perspective and deciding how you really want to spend your time. Consider the following two scenarios:
On a mid-summer day, I decide to have a fresh green salad for lunch or dinner.
Scenario #1:
I walk out into the backyard and harvest a huge bowl of fresh salad greens, pull up a few carrots and an onion, trim the ends and toss them into the compost and then walk back into the house to wash and prepare the salad.
Scenario #2:
I get into the car, drive to the store, park the car, find a shopping cart, push the cart through the store, pay $15.00 per pound for organic greens in a plastic bag, $3.00 for ½ a lb of organic carrots in a plastic bag, .50 for an onion in a plastic bag, put it all into another plastic bag, walk back to the car, drive home, and then walk back into the house to wash and prepare the salad!
I have to ask, which scenario takes more time? Which takes more work? Which produces more waste? Which costs more?
“Oh, but it’s not that simple”, you say. “What about tilling the garden, and the weeding and the bugs? I just couldn’t deal with that”…
Once again, it’s a matter of desire and perspective. Gardening techniques have evolved with the times. My home garden consists of 4, 3 x 8’ raised beds that my husband and I built in ONE Saturday morning. It took me the rest of that Saturday to fill the beds with dirt and plant my seeds. Weeding and watering of these beds takes about 30 minutes a day, 3 or 4 days a week. To deter the bugs and the squirrels, I cover the beds with a light fabric held in place by bungee cords or just a few stones leaning against the frames.
That’s it.
Now, of course, there are much larger gardens and yes, they involve more work, but the reward – the amount of food you harvest – is also much greater. Once again, it comes down to desire and perspective.
Consider for a moment what would happen if everyone who lived in a city made the effort to grow even a small portion of their own food. What if neighbors got together and shared a garden space? What if cities designated permanent garden plots in close proximity to every neighborhood? Perhaps we would actually end up with more time, more money, and greater knowledge than we have now. We would actually be expending far less energy while at the same time creating healthier, and quite possibly, happier people. Gardening would no longer be considered a bothersome, dirty task, but an enjoyable exercise in self-sufficiency.
It all depends on desire and perspective.
Gk
Filed under: Wholistic Nutrition
I recently finished reading Michael Pollan’s new book, “In Defense of Food” and it is my opinion that this book is going to cause quite a stir in the world of food and nutrition. In a nutshell, Mr. Pollan debunk’s all mainstream nutritional advice by saying that the field of nutritional science has been flawed from the very beginning. Because of the tendancy to employ ”reductionist” techniques, studies done on diet, nutrients, vitamins or any other aspect of nutrition, are basically doomed from the start because there are just too many variables that science cannot control. Despite the thousands of studies conducted over the past 60 years, we really don’t know any more about nutrition than we did in the 1950’s. In fact, all of the studies, recommendations, diet books, etc. have really only accomplished one thing – they have succeded in making the question of “what to eat” more confusing and anxiety-ridden than ever before.
Well, basically, I agree with Mr. Pollan.
Over the past 20 years I have read dozens of diet/nutrition books, but what I am seeing more of lately are books like Mr. Pollan’s, calling for a return to “real foods” while shunning the advice of experts (who really don’t know as much as they would like us to believe). What these authors are saying is that the foods that our grandparents and great-grandparents ate were never really bad for us, and there is really no reason to worry so much about fats, carbs, or even protein as long as you are eating a variety of foods in moderation – “real” foods, that is, not the processed food products that currently fill the shelves of our grocery stores.
I am definitely in the same camp as these authors. I grew up on “real” foods including vegetables harvested from our own gardens; milk, eggs and chicken from my aunt and uncle’s small farm; and family dinners made from scratch every night. Like most Americans, I was later convinced that these foods were “bad” for me and throughout the 1980s and early 90s I succommed to the “low-fat” mania and eliminated virtually all fats from my diet. Oh, I got skinny all right, way too skinny, with dry skin and hair, and a nasty temper, too.
Several years ago I stared returning to the “real foods diet” and not only do I feel much better, but I am much more pleasant to be around. :-) So I welcome Mr. Pollan’s book, and I hope many people read it and take the advice to heart. As a nutritionist and yoga teacher, I have often mentioned to friends that one of my dreams in life is to live long enough to see the demise of the food “industry”. By turning “real” food into food “products” and crops into commodities, this industry has not only destroyed small family farms, but has destroyed the health of Americans in general and is quickly destroying the health of people in other nations as well.
Gk
Filed under: Wholistic Nutrition
My role as a teacher of nutrition seems to be becoming less about the food itself and more about the Politics of Food. A recent bloglines feed from “The Daily Green” sent me an article concerning the new Farm Bill that Congress has been working on the for past 2 years. This massive piece of legislature ($288 BILLION) covers every aspect of our U.S. food system, but it is mostly concentrated on making sure that large food companies and even larger argi-business corporations continue to enjoy fat subsidies on corn, wheat, soybeans and sugar.
Most consumers (including myself) – and even most farmers, do not fully understand how “subsidies” work and it seems that Congress would prefer to keep it this way. Basically, the government (or rather U.S. taxpayers like you and me) pay farmers the difference between what it costs to plant their crops and what they are being paid for them at harvest, this helps to keep farmers in business. OK, that sounds good, right? Wrong. Qualifying for subsidies has all kinds of complicated rules and loopholes and in the end, the largest farms get the vast majority of the money. The system is so lopsided that small farmers are disappearing (going bankrupt) at a rate of one every 30 minutes!!!!
What does all this mean for our FOOD supply? It means that U.S. farmland will continue to overproduce crops like corn, soy and wheat for these are the crops that are the most heavily subsidized. The vast marjority of these crops are made into cheap ingredients for JUNK FOOD. At the same time, despite the rise in consumer demand for organic food – including vegetables - the government gives virtually NO subsidies or support to farmers who wish to transition to sustainable, organic practices.
I find this all very frustrating…yet there is hope!
Consumers at the local level are slowly beginning to turn the tide. Interest in organic farms, community gardens, farmer’s markets and farm-to-school programs is rising steadily. People of every walk of life seem to be waking up to inherent dangers of our industral food system and are actively looking for healthier options.
When I think of it this way – and then have to face my nutrition classes – I remind myself that the more I learn about the Politics of Food, and how to change them for the better, the more I become a part of the solution to our nation’s food/ health crisis.
Of course, it would be easier to simply not ask so many questions. I could simply follow the government’s Food Pyramid guidelines and continue to urge consumption of low-fat food products, but at this point, I know that these recommendation are more about political correct-ness than actual nutrition. Not only are those foods full of empty calories, but false promises as well.
GK
Filed under: Uncategorized
A Response to Time Magazine’s Joel Stein
Time Magazine recently printed an opinion piece written by Joel Stein entitled “Extreme Eating” in which Stein describes the current “eat-local” food movement as “anti-globalization idiocy”. He has already received more than a few comments challenging him on this view and I am certainly going to add my voice to the crowd. If you are interested in reading the piece, here’s the link.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1702353,00.html
Stein’s comments stand as evidence of the depths of his ignorance – on several issues. First of all, he implies that Iowans, if urged to eat more locally grown foods, would have to eat only pork, corn and soy. While it is true that Iowa (along with Illinois and Indiana) does grow thousands of acres of corn, the type of corn you see filling the fields along Interstate 80 is NOT the type of corn you would make into creamed corn or top with melted butter and wrap your lips and teeth around – that’s sweet corn, idiot. The vast majority of field corn is fed to steers in feed lots (not their natural diet, by the way) or made into highly processed, unnatural sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup (one of the real reasons we have an obesity epidemic). Having been born and raised in Iowa, I must cease to comment any further on this particular issue lest I spiral further into the depths of name-calling.
Stein’s paragraph in which he described the 21st century eating as “part-travel, part cultural mashup” ends with the equivalent of a spoiled 3-year-old’s whining, “I want… I want… I want…” Well, I guess by buying all of your ingredients for dinner from as far away as possible you also want to increase poverty and hunger levels in poor nations, and you want to put local farmers out of business because there is no market for their lamb right here. I guess you would also prefer that Chilean sea bass become extinct because their numbers have been so desecrated by greedy consumers like yourself, and you prefer the taste of pesticides which are sprayed on asparagus fields – pesticides like DDT which was banned from use in this country in the 1970s, but is still used in many less developed countries like Peru.
And as far as dining like a rich person, well, you did. Considering the prices Whole Foods charges for the items you described, that meal surely set you back $100 or more – certainly not what the average American family would be spending on a single meal and far more than you would have spent at a local farmer’s market for foods of similar, if not higher, quality. By the way, Whole Foods is NOT the local-food movement’s most treasured supermarket – the local farmer’s market is. At the farmer’s market, and at the farm itself, you can talk to and get to know the people who actually grow your food – which is one of the most important aspects of the eat-local movement.
So, Mr. Stein, if you prefer to go on shopping in ignorance, and contributing to the huge, multi-billion dollar food industry that cares nothing for our health or the health of our children, then go ahead, this is America and you do have that freedom of choice, but I must ask you, who is the real idiot here? I urge you do just a little more research on these issues before you go around “giving the finger” to educated, concerned citizens. When the huge, globalized, unsustainable food industry starts to crumble, which I believe it eventually will, you and many others will be turning to the local farmers in earnest, and you will be GRATEFUL for that sweet corn and roast pork.
GK
