Summer Salad

I cannot believe that I've let a month go by without posting--it will not happen again. Though I've not been writing, I have still been gardening, learning, reading, and cooking. I also helped a friend of mine with her Young Writers program and traveled to a bluegrass festival. But enough of that, let's talk food.

The photo you see is from a recent lunch with my friend Glenna, which was inspired by watching an old DVD of Julia Child making Salade Nicoise on the French Chef.

This beautiful salad deserved a photo of its own, but I couldn't help posting our little table in the corner of the kitchen with the beautiful napkins we bought while in Apt, France, two glasses of my favorite Sancerre, fresh cut flowers, and crusty French bread. Bon Appetit!

There was a bit of timing involved with this as I had a few potatoes left in the garden to harvest, and I wanted to use those potatoes for our lunch. Only one tomato was ripe from the garden, so I used that in our salad as well; and the eggs and cucumber came from Randle Farms. I wish I could say everything was local, but I cannot.

The potatoes have definitely been a learning experience, but that's what this year's garden is all about--learning so that we can be more productive next year. You can see the potatoes poking through the soil. This plant was fairly typical of what was produced this first season in the garden; each plant had two to three small red potatoes with lots of tiny spud babies (you can see one at the top center of the photograph).

The harvest at the left was what remained of the three last plants in the garden. With twelve plants, we did have a few meals with our own potatoes, but this was disappointing. What did I learn? A number of things. Potatoes are soooo easy to grow. I let a few potatoes from Earth Fare sprout eyes, and then I cut them into one-inch pieces and threw them into the ground, and covered them with straw after the plant appeared. Then I just waited. Even though I planted them during the window of opportunity suggested by Farmer's Almanac, it was too late in the season for this part of Alabama, I think. One of the causes of a small crop is hot temperatures, and we had plenty of that beginning the last week of May with temperatures consistently 90 and above. Potatoes also take up a good bit of room in the garden, and they take a lot of nutrients from the soil, so when I plant another crop in the fall, I'm going to plant them in a huge container. We'll see what happens.

Like a summer salad, this post will be several things tossed together in order to catch up.

In March and April, I wrote about Meatless Mondays, which was started by the Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health. Today is Monday, and I wondered what might be floating out there on the internet from recipe sites, so I went to two sites with which I'm familiar. Apparently Meatless Mondays was not on either site's radar this week.

Yahoo has a weekly feature called "What's for Dinner This Week," and this week is mainly about meat. Five of the seven days feature pork, beef, or chicken; one day is vegetarian with a Mediterranean pizza; and one day features a fish recipe. Epicurious.com also has a section called Everyday Cooking that features menus for weeknight suppers, and meat is definitely on their menus this week with four out of five offerings made with poultry, beef, or salami. The remaining weeknight features fish. As for me and mine, we're having a summer squash and mozzarella tart for supper tonight. Father's Day weekend (yes, weekend at our house!) was filled with meat, and I'm ready to get back to vegetables.

Speaking of meatless meals, I did finish Diet for A Small Planet by Frances Lappe, which was listed as one of the top 10 sustainable food books by the Audobon Magazine website. While I enjoyed much of what the book had to say, especially Lappe's emphasis on connecting food to values, I was a little unsure of the recipes offered. I will try some of them, though I don't think she will replace Deborah Madison as my go-to cookbook guru for vegetarian fare. It is a good read, though, and may give you pause in considering US farm policy, hunger, and eating. Lappe looks at the "values" associated with policies that promote boundless growth in grain production and how that grain is exported not to hungry people around the world but to ranchers who feed that grain to animals who will then nourish anyone with the financial means to put meat on the table, which, incidentally, doesn't include any of the world's starving people. I agree with one of her concluding statements saying that turning everyone vegetarian isn't the answer to feeding the world's hungry, and while she seems to think it is a good place to start, I realized after reading her book and other food-related news, hunger is a much more complicated issue with no one solution. I do think a good place for everyone to begin is to look at their own set of values and bring their eating habits in line with those values. That's my family's focus this year.

'Tis the Season

The garden is growing wonderfully well, although when I dig beneath the surface, I may find another story! The top photo shows some zinnias, potato plants, and lettuce that I've let flower. Another week or so, and the potatoes are supposed to be ready to harvest. I can't wait! The bottom photo is a picture of the first butternut squash blossom, one of the seedlings from the compost pile I wrote about last month, I think.

This post will be short and very local. If you haven't yet taken the leap to growing some of your own veggies, and you're not fortunate enough to belong to Randle Farms' CSA, you might be interested in two local farmers' markets that are opening in the next two weeks.

On Thursday, May 26, The Market at Ag Heritage Park on Auburn University's campus is opening from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. every Thursday through August. Word is they are going to have an expanded offering with baked goods from local bakeries. I'm interested to see that because I really don't know of any local bakeries. There will also be an array of local fresh vegetables, local goat cheese (which I can say from experience is wonderful!), local honey, stone-ground grains, and homemade soaps. For the last couple of years there have also been plants for sale, and last year you could purchase fresh-cut flower bouquets. There are usually products from the university as well, such as farmed shrimp and fish.

On May 31, also from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., the Opelika Main Street Farmers' Market will open at a new location. Formerly, farmers set their tents up on Railroad Avenue, but the market will now be located in the Courthouse Square. For now, they're projecting they'll be open every Tuesday through September. Many of the goods you find at Ag Heritage Park will also be available at the Opelika Farmers' Market.

Not all of the items at the markets are organic, but they are local. Some say that if you can't buy organic, at least buy local. I would tend to agree because I like my food dollars to support local farmers whenever possible. I hope to run into a few of you there!

Oh, What Worms Can Do!

I visited my friend Angela today, a visit we've been trying to arrange for about two months. She's been keeping red worms for nearly five years now, and I wanted to see how she does it. They make easy pets, she says, thriving though neglected for three months at a time. Her son Jackson is a big fan of the worms, too! As luck would have it, I left the camera on, so the battery was completely run down when I tried to snap a photo of her worms and their rubbermaid container home. After our visit, Angela gave me a garbage bag with several pounds of vermicompost, or worm compost, and a few worms to take home.

As many of you already know, Alabama soil is less than fabulous for growing things because of the clay content, which is terrible for drainage and lacking in nutrients. Anthony and I amended the soil when we started the garden, but our hope is to get a good solid three seasons of growing, so that will mean we'll have to diligently amend the soil throughout the year. We have a compost bin in the backyard, but it's soooo slow in breaking down the kitchen and yard waste. I thought having a second source of nutrient-rich, organic fertilizer would be a terrific addition to our little organic garden.

Vermicompost, or worm compost, is composed of red worm castings (informally known as worm 'poop'), worm bedding (something as simple as shredded newspaper), and organic waste in various stages of decomposition. According to a New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service vermicomposting guide, this organic material is 5 to 11 time more rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as the surrounding soil and much higher than traditional garden compost. You can check out their comparison by following the guide link. Journeytoforever.org says vermicompost has five times more nitrogen, 7 times more phosphorus, and 11 times more potassium than ordinary soil. If you've ever done a soil test, you know these are the minerals most important to having good, balanced soil for growing fruits and vegetables.

Housing red worms can be fairly simply and inexpensive, although Angela referred to them as 'Goldilocks' worms because they can't be too wet or too dry, and they can't get too hot or too cold--conditions need to be just right, which is really easier than it sounds. Her little creatures are kept on a small, enclosed back patio in summer and winter, which provides just enough protection from temperature extremes. She feeds them the same things you might add to your compost bin: fruit and vegetable scraps, used tea leaves and coffee grounds, and scraps of paper--and they can eat half their weight in food every day. You can also add egg shells, but Angela says the shells never seem to get digested. She also shreds sensitive documents and feeds them to her worms. Great idea! They don't like meats or fats. In roughly 4-6 months, though the worms slow down in winter, you'll have pounds of dark, rich, vermicompost.

The containers for vermicomposting can range from an inexpensive, do-it-yourself Rubbermaid tub (get directions here), or a deluxe worm hotel. Jouneytoforever.org and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Service has plenty of information on the how-to's of vermicomposting.

I see another project in Anthony's future!

Food Values

Maybe I should take it as an omen that the draft I began and hoped to post yesterday disappeared, but I want to continue with ideas from Diet for A Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe, who excitedly wrote about the food revolution she saw emerging in the early 1990's. I was busy with children and college, so I don't recall any great food revolution, and I'm not entirely convinced that the revolution grew or was sustained. I think for there to be a true food revolution, we Americans will have to rethink our values surrounding food.

For example, it seems that Americans, in general, don't want to spend a lot for food--we don't value food and farmers (not agribusinesses, but farmers). Americans, in general, want to spend money on things, maybe because they are tangible and food is gone once it's consumed. Hans Herren, president and CEO of Millenium Institute, spoke of "cheap food" during the Washington Post Live: The Future of Food Conference earlier this month. Follow the link to see video clips of speakers and panels. I quote Herren, whose institute's mission is to manage economy, environment, and sustainability for the benefit of all: "This idea that it's a God-given right for cheap food has to go. ... We have to produce more foods in different places, by different people. We have to deal with externalities which will take political courage, which I haven't seen here today."

The externalities he speaks of are the hidden costs to individual health and the environment, and access to food. I couldn't agree more with his entire statement. It will take courage and a re-vision of our values. It will take what Lappe calls citizen democracy, which she says is values-driven problem solving and empowerment through action, our action.

"Thus, citizen democracy is not about learning to give up one's interests for the sake of others. It is about learning to see one's self-interests embedded in others' interests." (Lappe xxxv)

I think that everyone could agree clean water, access to good food, food safety, a healthy environment, and a decent wage are in everyone's interest. Apply that to food and food production, and we can see that producing food in a way that protects the integrity of the environment and the food itself, as well as protecting those who grow, harvest, and eat that food, is also in everyone's best interest.

Believe me, I haven't--and may never--reach the point where my values around food keep me from buying coffee and wine, flour (though looking at farm subsidies in Alabama, it seems we grow wheat in the state), lemons, and the occasional exotic ingredient. But I can say with all honesty that my "food values" continue to evolve, and I'm willing to invest my dollars and cents toward those values.

When my children were growing up, I spent money on good foods--fruits, milk, vegetables, grains. There wasn't a lot of money to spend, and snack food, trips to McDonald's, sweetened cereals, and pop were rare treats. Ask them; these items were so rare, the girls say they were "deprived" of them. I've always believed in spending money on healthy food first and everything else second.

About six years ago after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, I began to see that industrial farming wasn't good for me, and it wasn't good for nature (include the environment and the animals that wound up on my plate). I quit eating meat, and I bought eggs at Dayspring because they came from a small farm in Tallapoosa County.

The next "stage of evolution" happened gradually as I learned about agribusiness (Monsanto, ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, and their ilk) and how their practices endangered the environment, people's health, and access to food by patenting and controlling the seed used for growing food. I learned about Randle Farms in Auburn two to three years ago, and I began participating in the farm's Consumer Supported Agriculture. Randle Farms patterns its practices after Polyface Farms, which is featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma. I liked that I was able to find a source of vegetables, fruits, eggs, and meat that was produced with respect to the animal and the land AND that supported a local farming family, not agribusiness. It is a little more expensive, and I'm fortunate that I can participate in the CSA. Perhaps more people would be able to access good, healthy, local food if farm subsidies didn't go almost exclusively to commodity crops (which are among the first crops to be genetically engineered).

Now, Anthony and I are trying to grow some of our own food. The garden is looking good so far. Beets can be harvested in just a few days and potatoes in a week or two; we've already been picking tomatoes. I'm eyeing a patch of soil to start asparagus next year because I love asparagus, but I just can't buy something that is shipped from Peru, produced by God-knows-what methods, when I know it can be grown in my region.

My little family alone isn't going to solve all the issues associated with industrial vs. sustainable food production, but that won't stop us from doing our part. As our oldest daughter says, "If everyone would quit saying they can't change everything and just DO something, things would change."

Of Reading and Relationship

I haven't been able to write for more than a week, and in that time I've read and listened to more news about the destructive practices of Monsanto, the projected consequences of the demise of honeybees, and more calls for increased organic food production practices. So much to write about, so little time to prepare and write! That will change soon.

Those will be future topics, but today I'll share a bit about a book I recently began reading Diet for a Small Planet, a book I had heard about from Audobon Magazine's list of the top ten must-reads in food writing. After reading the first chapter, I knew I had to share what I was reading. Despite being published initially 40 years ago, and last published 20 years ago in an anniversary edition, the book continues to connect with issues and problems that concerns us about food today. The author, Frances Moore Lappe, makes two initial statements in her introductory pages: first, "There is no away. ...everything is connected" (xli); second, "we are defined by relationships" (xxix); and third, "...but for me, the issue of Diet for a Small Planet is about abundance, not scarcity. The issue is how we use that abundance" (12).

I'll keep coming back to these ideas as I talk about her book and in future posts related to this and other topics. When she wrote "there is no away," she was talking about the falsity of thinking that we can produce nuclear waste, for example, and put the radioactive waste away somewhere--there is no place to put it away safely with 100 percent confidence.

To broaden that idea, we cannot escape the consequences of our actions, not in our personal relationships, not in our relationship to the growing and tampering of our food. Policy can push farmers into producing more and more crops to the detriment of the soil, and we cannot escape the infertility and erosion of that soil brought about by unsustainable farming practices. Just as the decision to tamper with nature and evolution in force feeding cattle grain and antibiotics has led to the consequence of antibiotic resistance in strains of staph that now infects much of our commercially grown meat and the subsequent evolution of "super bugs," both of which have health consequences for consumers as well as the animals produced for food. Or consider in the same light the policies and health issues surrounding the "deconstruction" of corn to make high fructose corn syrup. Type 2 diabetes should come to mind as the natural consequence, not to mention the problems associated with Monsanto and genetically modified crops (of which corn tops that list).

And what of relationship? Somewhere man began to see himself as ruler over nature, superior to nature. There has been a blurring of the relationships between man, animal, and the earth--water, air, and soil, and all its creatures. Are we, collectively, thinking we can use and abuse these relationships yet still be smart enough, or science will be good enough, to make the subsequent problems go away? What of our relationships to other human beings and their ability to feed themselves? There are any number of cases we can find where corporations and countries have taken over farmland from independent farmers to produce food for export and reducing a country's ability to feed itself. Haiti should come to mind.

Joe Collins and Frances Moore Lappe founded The Institute for Food and Development Policy to address issues around hunger and the injustices that cause hunger. Follow the links and look around; you'll find news that won't appear on Fox News, or likely any other news network. This Food First link will connect you to the Institute's blog. When Lappe began looking into issues of hunger decades ago, she felt a responsibility to do something about and so joined forces with her co-author from another book, Collins, to create the institute and make a difference. Not everyone can make a difference in that way, but I think that by being more knowledgeable about how food gets to our table, and by voting with our consumer power, we can all make a difference collectively.

Tuesday Hash

This will be a little of this and a little of that--oh, and pardon the photos. I just bought a new camera, and these are the first shots. I'm playing with manual settings, so they are not perfect--yet.

I was thinking today about Monsanto and GMO crops and pesticides (oh my!), and I was thinking about updating everyone on the garden. To the left, you'll see my beet babies. I am giddy with anticipation. Subbing has kept me busy and away from the computer, so I've not been doing my homework on what to plant AFTER I harvest and/or clean out space. The broccoli, I fear, will result in stir fried leaves and no more. It's just too warm in Alabama to try a spring crop.

Huffington Post had an interesting, though not earth-shattering piece on GMO foods. I did learn something new, though. Evidently there is another protein on the horizon that will be part of the patented GMO products: pork. Another reason to only eat from Randle Farms. The article listed the usual suspects: corn, soy, sugar beets, salmon (not yet approved), canola, golden rice, and tomatoes (which consumers said "NO" to).

During my meanderings on the web today, I found lists of foods that are high in pesticides, and therefore best purchased organic, and those low in pesticides--so save your money. Eating Well magazine had a list dubbed "the dirty dozen" foods that are heavily treated in pesticides; we've already talked about one: strawberries. I've long known that potatoes are one of the most heavily treated crops, which is why I decided to grow them this year. They are planted next to cosmos, which is supposed to attract beneficial insects to our garden. We'll see as summer heats up how effective this is. Others crops making the list are celery, peaches, nectarines, apples, blueberries, bell peppers, spinach, kale, cherries, and grapes. If all goes well with the garden this year, we're planning to add muscadines/scuppernongs to the garden, and they will replace grapes for our diet. We already planted seven blueberry bushes, and it looks like there will be some fruit from them this year. Peppers will likely replace the broccoli this summer.

Eating Well also published a list of 15 foods that are low in pesticides and suggests you purchase conventionally grown veggies and fruits on this list to save money. Onion is one crop on the list, and even though I knew this, I had decided I wanted to grow them this year. Maybe I'll use the space for something different next year, but this year I just wanted to see if I could do it. Other pesticide-reduced crops are kiwi, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, sweet potato, mango, sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, eggplant, watermelon, grapefruit, and honeydew.

As a friend commented on an earlier post, though, we have to think about more than just pesticide use and organics when we think of our food. We really need to think about the carbon footprint, the fossil fuel it takes to get these foods to us, which is why Anthony and I would also like to expand the garden next year to include asparagus and kiwi (we already do eggplant). I can find local sources of watermelon, and I can live without grapefruit, but I love asparagus and kiwi. I'm hoping Alabama will be favorable for kiwi; I already know the South can grown asparagus, I just don't know why we don't.

I'm ending today's post with a before and after post of the garden. It's grown quite well in the past month or so. Mr. Wilson is in the photo on right. He wanted equal time since Beo has already been on the blog! Forgive the photo on the left--I don't know who took that or with what camera, but the brown dirt serves to make the comparison.

Now go grow something!

Fields of Plenty

"Our inability to feed the world is not an agricultural failure; it is a failure both of the imagination and of kindness."

Alisa Smith (p. 162)

When I first picked up the book Plenty:One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, I was bored. I don't know why, exactly, except that perhaps I thought the idea of eating locally was old news and, therefore, not very interesting. When I finished reading Plenty Thursday, I was inspired. Maybe not inspired to the point of eating only what I can find in a 100-mile radius, but inspired none-the-less. And, yes, eating locally is an old idea--people have done so for centuries before cheap oil was able to transport exotic foods half way around the world to more affluent consumers.

A few facts from the book before I share on what I'm inspired to do and some real connections I made when reading the book.

• "From mad cow disease to E. coli bacteria to genetically modified ingredients, many North Americans have begun to fear their daily nourishment; 300,000 Americans are hospitalized each year by the food they eat..." (p. 48)
• "...in 1952, just 11 percent of American corn was treated with pesticides and herbicides; today that statistic is over 95 percent." (p. 56)
• "At the farthest end of the spectrum, millions of pounds of seafood taken on North American coasts are now shipped to China to be processed--and then imported back into the United States and Canada. (p. 67)
• "The daily food supply in America now contains enough calories to feed almost double the American population, without reducing food exports by one iota. People spend 7 percent of their disposable income on food, down from 22 percent in 1950." (p. 99)
• According to the biologist and author Edward O. Wilson, some 7,000 species of plant are known to have been used by different human societies throughout history. Today, just twenty species provide 90 percent of the world's food." (p. 103)
• "In 2005 a team of academics from the University of Essex and London's City University estimated the environmental price tag of U.K. farming at £ 1.51 billion. A switch to strictly organic production, the study found, could reduce those costs by 75 percent." (p. 222)

I found the above facts interesting because it seems to support the idea that when we eat foods outside of our local region, we lose control--and sight--of how our food is produced, as in using GMO crops and dousing everything with pesticides and herbicides; we let multi-national corporations decide which foods we can eat based on which are the most profitable and easiest to raise, reducing food security (remember the Irish potato famine, caused in part by a lack of genetic diversity in the potato crop); and we waste enormous amounts of energy we can no longer afford to waste through transportation and petroleum-based fertilizers. And, we blindly accept the word of multinational corporations who say GMO crops, pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, and herbicides are the best ways to feed the world. Not only does the UK study question this, but a United Nations report, "Agroecology and the right to food" questions it as well.

The book, however, is not a dry compendium of food-related facts. There was a recipe for each month related to a local, in season food, and countless "reminders" of simple truths. At least twice the authors remarked on how satisfying and flavorful fresh, local food is in comparison to "imported," non-local food. I recently had a friend remark, wide-eyed, how delicious and rich and visually beautiful her recent locally "grown" egg had been. The yolks are a deep orange, especially in the warmer season when chickens are allowed to peck at grass and grubs, and the taste is more luxurious and satisfying. Compare, if you can, tomatoes and strawberries shipped to the grocery store versus the tomatoes and strawberries you find in your garden or roadside stand.

Smith and Mackinnon also write about how the taste of their food seemed better, more satisfying because they were directly connected to the sources of their food--the farmers in some case and the land itself in others. The authors lived in Vancouver during the writing of the book, and they lived in an apartment, so they were unable to grow anything on their own except herbs. Luckily, Anthony and I can grow a few things, and I readily identify with their idea about being connected to the food. I made fried green tomatoes for the first time in my life last weekend because we had green tomatoes, and I wanted to include something in the meal that came from our garden. They were simple and delicious, and maybe only because I picked them from our yard.

I recently made strawberry jam, as readers of this blog already know, for the first time in my life because I had a local source of fresh strawberries from a farmer I know. I also used honey from a beekeeper about two miles away in place of some of the sugar, and I think the local, fresh, connectedness of the ingredients are what make me think it's the best strawberry jam I've ever eaten (as was the strawberry ice cream we made from said berries).

And I can't tell you how excited I am to include in some future meal the potatoes, carrots, and beets from our garden.

Now for what I'm inspired to do. Even though I don't think that I could live without coffee or the occasional grouper or salmon filet, and I don't want to live without wine, I am inspired to eat more locally and to see what more I could grow on our little urban lot. The authors mentioned several foods that had been grown in their 100-mile radius in the distant past but that had disappeared with "modern" agriculture. Some pioneers in their area were trying to bring back old, familiar and beloved crops. I'd like to see what more I could grow, including chickpeas, black turtle beans, and a lemon tree. I also want to find out just exactly what we have in our 100 to 200-mile radius, and I'm curious to see if there are crops that had previously been grown in that area which have now been abandoned--and why. I'll let you know what I discover.

The Meat of the Matter

After reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma several years ago, I decided to give up meat for Lent. It stuck for two or three years after that, and I never missed a bite; well, maybe I missed a lovely medium-rare steak every now and then. Then I met Anthony and rejoined the meat-eating world. We only ate chicken because we deluded ourselves into believing that organic chicken, free of hormones and antibiotics, was good food.

For the past eight months, we have limited our meat consumption mainly to the 16 pounds we get each month from Randle Farms' meat share with an occasional trip to the meat counter at Earth Fare. We like that the animals on Randle Farms graze on grass-covered hills in a large pasture, that they aren't pumped full of antibiotics and other drugs to make them grow faster, and they aren't fed food that wasn't meant to be eaten by them.

The news this week about bacteria inhabiting the meat we buy at the grocery store--all manner of meat--suggests organic is a little better for you, and local, farm-raised meat is even better.

On April 15, Time posted, "What's Lurking in Your Meat and Poultry? Probably Staph" that reported on a study by Lance Price, a professor at the Translational Genomics Research Institute. Price began the study when he noticed reports of farm workers picking up staph infections from the animals, and he wondered how this affected the meat from those animals once they were slaughtered. The results of the study indicate you're likely to bring home something extra with your beef, pork, and poultry: consumers purchasing meat at the grocery store have a one-in-four chance of bringing home meat contaminated with a strain of staphylococcus aureas resistant to three classes of antibiotics. We can now add staph to the list of bacterial contaminants we've become familiar with in our food: E coli, listeria, and salmonella. Yum.

The Christian Science Monitor posted an article one day later, "Staph in meat. Are US cattle and poultry over drugged?" This article put a precise number on the study: 47 percent of the meat and poultry sampled was contaminated with staphylococcus aureas, half of which was resistant to three classes of bacteria. In this article, Prince clearly states the problem is a result of how antibiotics are used in food-animal production. He continues to say that proper cooking of the meat kills the bacteria, but I like my cow nearly mooing when it reaches the plate. I don't see why I should have to kill the steak twice when contamination occurs in the "production" process. Oh, and guess what? The National Cattlemen's Beef Association questions the study and called it's findings irresponsible. Isn't that a surprise. Again, I point to Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to get a glimpse into the conditions factory farmed animals live in and are slaughtered in. Pollan may also address this in his book.

Another survey of chicken in Seattle grocery stores found similar results: 42 percent of the chicken sampled contained staphylococcus aureas, and a host of other bugs. You can read it on the Marler Blog. Bill Marler is a lawyer who began prosecuting cases of foodborne illness in 1993 and runs a blog about food poisoning outbreaks and litigation.

While surfing the net to find these stories and related material, I also came across "Egg recall: DeCoster-linked farm releases contaminated eggs. Again" in The Christian Science Monitor. A "megafarmer" Jack DeCoster, as the Monitor describes him, was involved in a 550 million egg recall from retailers in Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. The article is dated Nov. 9, 2010. Don't breath a sigh of relief just yet; DeCoster has been cited at least three other times for problems ranging from how he cares for his animals to how he cares for his workers. Iowa named him a habitual violator, so it's likely he'll strike again. He may not sell his eggs in Alabama, but I'm willing to bet there's another DeCoster out there who does.

So, the moral of the story? We have to care more about the food we eat and how it's raised--I say raised rather than produced because these are animal products, and I still prefer to refer to them as animals rather than products. Americans balk at spending more for food; we'd rather have big screen TV's and drive gas-guzzling SUV's. Okay, a generalization that isn't fair to all, but we do spend less per capita on food than most nations. A report by Rosen and Meade on Askville by Amazon states: "Within each income group, percentages differ considerably (table 1). Residents of Canada, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom, like the United States, spend less than 12 percent of their PCE on food. Among the 24 countries in the high-income group, 5 spend more than 20 percent of their PCE on food, with the highest share held by Israel (22 percent)"(see the figures here and read here). We have to stop believing that big corporations, "megafarmers" and government agencies have our health and welfare as their top priority. They don't.

I feel very fortunate that I can buy my meat and eggs from farmers I know and talk with, whose animals I see in the fields. (The steaks in the photo are from Randle Farms.) I'm also glad Auburn is home to places like Blooming Colors and Dayspring; both businesses sell eggs gathered by local farmers, and Blooming Colors sells a variety of locally grown vegetables. Supporting local farmers and businesses is good them, and it's good for consumers.

Strawberry Jammin'

Okay, I didn't just look at the strawberries Wednesday--I bought one of those brimming buckets of beautiful red berries. Bonus! I also received a half bucket from the Randle Farm vegetable share I'm sharing with someone. Forget planting Sunday; I had berries to play with!

I decided my first order of the day was to make strawberry jam. If you look in our refrigerator, you will see zero jars of commercial jam or jelly, only a jar of fig preserves my friend's mother made. I switched to local honey years ago to avoid high fructose corn syrup. That can be a post for another day. Googling "making strawberry jam" yielded many results, but they basically seem to have the same steps: hull and chop 6 cups of red berries, mash berries, cook with 1/4 cup sugar and 1 package pectin (if you use pectin; I did because I wanted to be sure it was of jam consistency), bring to a boil and boil 5 to 10 minutes before adding the remaining sugar and 1/3 cup lemon juice (I used fresh-squeezed), bring to a boil once more and boil 1 minute. Pour your jam into sterilized jars and seal before putting into a hot water bath.

This being my first time making jam, I didn't quite have the right equipment set up. I tried to use the pressure canner to give my 8 pints of jam a hot water bath, but the water wouldn't go 2 inches above the lids as suggested. A bit of frantic searching, which included throwing things out of a cupboard trying to find "the" item, which ended up not working. At this point the husband and the nervous dog left for a long walk. Finally, I transferred the hot water to a pasta pot and gave the jars a 5-minute+ hot water bath. A chorus of "pop, whop, pop" followed as the lids sealed.

Voila!

Family dinner was less than 2 hours away, and the planned dessert--fresh, homemade strawberry ice cream--hadn't even been started. Nor had the chickens. Both needed seasoning and one needed to be butterflied, so I started the ice cream first: Perfect No-Cook Strawberry Ice Cream from Epicurious.com. We ate at 4:30 instead of 4, and the ice cream was still quite soft, but everything was yummy! The girls went home with two jars of jam each, and we still had four to put up in the cupboard. All in day's work!

Strawberries-Yum?

Who doesn't love strawberries? They're like little bursts of sunshine in your mouth when just picked and a flashback to summer when eaten in ice cream or jam. We planted eight a week or so ago, which I think is half the number we really need, but I wanted to grow some as summer treat without having to worry about pesticides.

Wednesday, I picked up our meat share from Randle Farms and saw white buckets brimming with gorgeous, red berries--pesticide free. I wish I had taken my camera with me. Maybe I'll learn.

Seeing those beautiful berries piqued my curiosity about just how tainted with pesticides most commercially-grown strawberries are, so I did a little surfing to see what I could find.

Googling strawberries and pesticides produces pages and pages of hits from 2010 related to strawberries, California, and methyl iodide. I did a second search adding "2011" to find more current information, too. A New York Times article from June 2010, "Dispute Over Pesticide for California Strawberries Has Implications Beyond State," details the battle between the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and a scientific review committee over the approval of methyl iodide, evidently it is a battle still not settled. Outgoing Gov. Arnold Swarztenegger approved its use, and California farmworkers and environmentalists filed a lawsuit in December 2010 to prevent its use. Not to worry though, the website American/Western Fruit Growers quotes a spokesman for the company that produces the pesticide saying the lawsuit will have no affect on the "roll-out" of the product. The same article also devotes space to "Methyl Iodide Misconceptions." And who points out these misconceptions? The very same spokesman for ArystaLifeScience, the pesticide producer.

According to the NYT article and an online article from Rodale, California grows 90 percent of the nation's strawberries. Strawberries have a long association with toxic chemicals. Growers used to treat the ground, before planting, with methyl bromide until it was found that this particular chemical, along with being toxic, was detrimental to the ozone layer. Methyl bromide is being phased out and methyl iodide is being phased in.

This new chemical seems to have a mixed review. There are scientists who say methyl iodide is far too dangerous to be approved for use. Some California farmers, according to the article, are in favor of approval and believe California's strict regulations would be enough to insure that prescribed use of the chemical will be safe for all--farmers, workers, consumers, people who live in close proximity to treated farms.

Rodale published an online article, "Coming Soon to Your Strawberries: Newly Approved Carcinogenic Pesticide," which lists some of the specific health problems associated with the chemical methyl iodide. The article quotes Susan Kegley, PhD, founder of the Pesticide Research Institute, saying, "The methyl group can affect your DNA and change the way your genes function." Methyl iodide has been linked to miscarriages and thyroid disease and is listed as a carcinogen in California. Hmmm. Despite this, 47 states have registered this chemical for use. In addition to strawberries, the Rodale article says that methyl iodide is also used on tomatoes, peppers, and nursery crops. Florida is one of those registered states and a supplier of strawberries to grocery stores in Alabama. The article raises a number of interesting questions about the long-term effects of this chemical, which, by the way, must be applied by persons wearing protective gear with respirators.

As I said, there are pages and pages of hits when one searches for strawberries and pesticides. Don't take my word for it, and don't take the word of pesticide producers or the FDA. Investigate for yourself. Here are three more links to get you started: An online article from March 2011, "The Midas Touch, The Midas Effect," from Monterey County Weekly; articles about methyl iodide collected on the ANR News Blog (Agriculture and Natural Resources by the University of California); and a March 2011 online article from Change.org, "EPA to Re-examine Carcinogenic Pesticide, Methyl Iodide?"

Salmon vs. Gold

Who knew yesterday's post would be so timely? If you care about protecting a pristine environment and wild salmon supplies, take a moment to sign the petition protecting Bristol Bay in Alaska, one of the most important salmon spawning sites left in the Pacific. There is a proposal to open Bristol Bay to multi-national corporations for copper and gold mining called Pebble Mine.

To read more about this, follow the link to National Geographic's article on Bristol Bay, "Alaska's Choice: Salmon or Gold."

To get more of your friends involved, share this on Facebook.

Where Have All the Salmon Gone?

"If we are going to continue to eat wild salmon, we must eat them sparingly as the rarest of delicacies and their price should reflect their rarity in the world."

--from Four Fishes (Greenberg 67)

Farm-raised vs. wild-caught, that is the question. In an effort to educate myself on one of my favorite foods, I started reading Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg. Greenberg begins with salmon. Since starting his book, I've come across a 2010 National Geographic article, "Alaska's Choice: Salmon or Gold?" and another online from National Geographic in 2009 titled "Kamchatka Salmon: Where the Salmon Rule." Neither makes me feel better about our Salmon supply; however, finding the Wild Salmon Center online and seeing what they're doing to protect salmon habitat makes me slightly more hopeful. Be sure to watch the video clip below from the WSC site.

But back from my ramblings.

I could find little information on the internet for salmon consumption around the world, but I did find some figures from SeafoodSource.com for three countries, which may provide some perspective on just how many people consume salmon (there was no way to differentiate between wild-caught and farm-raised salmon in the information I found). According to different articles on the site above for 2010, 6.1 million Brits consumed fresh salmon, China was the second largest export market for Alaskan salmon (followed closely by Japan), and the US imported 200 million pounds of Atlantic Salmon in the first six months of 2010. That doesn't take into account the native peoples in Alaska and Russia--and probably many other places as well--whose diets depend on what they can catch.

With the decline of wild salmon populations because of habitat destruction, over-fishing, and poaching, it isn't difficult to understand why salmon has become a farm-raised product. The debate over which is better rages on. From a consumer's perspective, farm-raised salmon has less appeal to me because the color is often added and the flavor does not compare to wild-caught. Throw in my view that farmed salmon is also bad for the environment, and I will by-pass farm-raised fish every time. An added concern for me is that salmon is on the road to becoming a genetically engineered, farm-raised product if the USDA approves (the product in question is called AquAdvantage Salmon by AquaBounty Technologies, see Greenberg, pg. 65-66). You can also read an MSNBC report about it and cast your vote for or against this or a similar product here.

Greenberg mentions previous reports about farmed salmon infecting wild salmon with sea lice, further decimating their numbers. I ran across two reports that dispute this claim, one from Science Daily in January 2011 and the other from The National Academy of Sciences in November 2010. Pollution from fish feces and uneaten food pellets in salmon farm waters is another concern as are health concerns surrounding the consumption of farmed salmon, which Greenberg also discusses. While detractors say Mercury and PCB levels are higher than in wild-caught salmon, Greenberg refutes the Mercury claim but not the PCB claim. He found that PCB levels are higher in farmed fish because of the ground fish pellets fed to the captives. But, he also reports on a new kind of fish farm that could eliminate both PCB concerns and pollution concerns surrounding farmed fish.

On page 69 of Four Fishes, Greenberg describes integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, or IMTA, where fish are raised with other organisms that help filter the waste. These polycultures, as he refers to them, combine salmon, seaweed, and mussels. The seaweed provide the salmon with nutrients, the mussels eat the waste, and you have two products to sell. Reading his description of this practice, which can be traced back thousands of years to the Chinese, gave me the same feeling I had when reading about Polyface Farms in Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: it is pure poetry.

I'm hopeful that efforts described here and increased awareness will mean hope for wild salmon. Next on the fish platter: tuna. I happen to love tuna as well; I hope the prognosis is better.

STRONGHOLDS; Hope for wild pacific salmon from iLCP on Vimeo.

Yes,Tofu!

I've written before about Meatless Mondays when I posted one of my favorite egg recipes. In our house, it's usually meatless Monday (Anthony is out of town), Tuesday, and maybe Saturday or Sunday. While we wait for more suitable planting days, and while I read a bit more on the topic rolling around in my head, I wanted to share another meatless recipe from Cooking Light: Toasted Barley, Green Bean, and Shiitake Salad with Tofu, yes, tofu!

The tofu is marinated in a wonderful soy-brown-sugar-ginger concoction that gives it a nice crispy, caramelized texture when baked. If you've never cooked with tofu before, there is one very important step to avoid the chicken-fat consistency my poor girls suffered through as children one of the few times I cooked tofu as they were growing up. You must press the water out of the tofu by wrapping it in paper towels and setting a heavy pan or cutting board on top of the tofu block for about 45 minutes. (I keep a stash of recycled, unbleached paper towels hidden for such occasions, but don't tell anyone. I make everyone use old newspapers for sopping up spills.)

Another important factor to consider when purchasing soy-based products like tofu is to be sure it is made with non-genetically modified organisms. Why avoid GMO's? An article from 2010 by Natural News.com lists the five major crops that are GMO's and why you should avoid them, including this statement by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine:

"Genetically Modified foods have not been properly tested and pose a serious health risk. There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation."

As 91% of American fields are planted with Monsanto's GMO soy, that may be difficult to do. This figure is quoted in a Huffington Post article from April 2010, but I've seen similar figures from other sources corroborating the fact that the vast majority of soy is genetically modified. So, when shopping for soy-based products, look for "No GMO's" or "No genetically engineered ingredients" on the label.

As I've said before, going meatless doesn't mean you have to sacrifice flavor or nutrition. My carnivorous husband has become accustomed to meatless meals and is even enthusiastic about them, which I credit to my favorite vegetarian chef, Deborah Madison. If you're ready to venture into meatless meals, look for one of her many titles on eBay or Amazon. There is a nice collection of meatless meals on Epicurious.com, too.

Cover Me in Flowers

Who needs food? Cover me in flowers instead.

Planting by the moon has its frustrations--certain days of the month are good for planting certain things. If you miss that little window, you anxiously wait (in my case it is anxiously rather than eagerly) for the next set of advantageous days. The marathon of planting Saturday still left a few herbs and flowers that needed permanent homes, even though today and tomorrow are designated undesirable days for planting.

Forgive me moon god; I could not wait.

Anthony is the king of frugal flowers. His secret is to buy the discounted flowers at Lowe's. The snapdragons in the photo were $2 for entire flat of plants. They are beautiful. So, while I planted the last batch of frugal flowers, Anthony ran a few errands. When he returned, he had more! Three containers of knock-out roses, a third of the normal cost; two pots of Gerber daisies, less than half the cost; and an unidentified perennial in need of TLC for $1.25. I have more to plant.

But that is fine because I have always loved flowers and have dreamt of having a garden like my Grandma Kiser's. She had everything. Crocus in late winter; tulips, hyacinth, iris, and lilac in the spring; daisies, roses, poppies, lilies, blanket flower, bachelor buttons, cone flower, and more in the summer through the fall. I think it strange she didn't cut them and bring them inside. I love to look around and see flowers scattered about the house.

Our holdings are not as vast. We do have irises everywhere--they're like weeds! And I'm looking forward to their arrival along with some old pink roses and gardenia in May. There's the promise of trumpet lilies, day lilies, cone flower and blanket flower for the summer. Oh, yes! and the knockout roses! I have a feeling each trip to Lowe's will bring another blossom to our house. We're already planning to prep places for a mass of impatiens and a shady flower bed of columbine, lenten rose, and hydrangea. We just have to wait until they're "on sale."

Maybe some day soon, I'll have my own secret garden!

"Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity."

~Lindley Karstens,
noproblemgarden.com