The Farmer's Dilemma
I was raised eating plenty of meat. My Dad had occasionally gone hungry in the great depression, but was very prosperous as an adult. He liked for Mom to cook a lot of beef. I still like the taste, but in view of the environmental and health costs, and the grocery store prices, I have cut back on all sorts of meat.
Even on a family farm, slaughtering and eating animals isn't a kind, warm and fuzzy process, but it has become difficult to reconcile our appetites with the realities of industrial scale of food production. Agribusinesses respond by essentially asking if we'd rather go hungry.
The LA Times reports how Harris Ranch is pushing back against new ideas about farming:
California agribusiness pressures school to nix Michael Pollan lecture
Threatening to pull donations from the school, a major California agribusiness has succeeded in turning what was to be a campus lecture by Pollan tomorrow into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert and one of the largest organic growers in the U.S.
"While I understand the need to expose students to alternative views, I find it unacceptable that the university would provide Michael Pollan an unchallenged forum to promote his stand against conventional agricultural practices,'' David E. Wood, chairman of the Harris Ranch Beef Co., wrote in a scathing Sept. 23 letter to the Cal Poly president.
Wood has pledged $150,000 toward a new meat processing plant on campus. In his letter, he said Pollan's scheduled solo appearance had prompted him to "rethink my continued financial support of the university.'' He also criticized an animal sciences professor who said that conventional feedlots like the one run by Harris Ranch were not a form of sustainable agriculture.
(Isn't a meat-processing plant on a campus sort of redundant?)
[Pollan] said the Harris letter raised troubling questions about academic freedom.
"The issue is about whether the school is really free to explore diverse ideas about farming,'' he said. "Is the principle of balance going to apply across the board? The next time Monsanto comes to speak at Cal Poly about why we need [genetically modified organisms] to feed the world, will there be a similar effort? Will I be invited back for that show?"
On the other hand, in Gagging Michael Pollan, Counterpunch, which is trying to raise funds to stay afloat, notes:
... agribusiness has the University of Wisconsin-Madison to deal with.
The land grant, ag-based university, in the middle of dairyland, clearly doesn't remember its roots. It gave Pollan's In Defense of Food ... free to all incoming freshmen as part of its common book read program ...
Protesting farmers who came to hear Pollan speak at the university's 17,000-seat Kohl Center in September wearing matching green T-shirts which said "In Defense of Farming: Eat Food. Be Healthy. Thank Farmers." were clearly outnumbered. So were bumper stickers reading No Food; No Farms and Don't Criticize Farmers With Your Mouth Full in the parking lot.
Students get all their facts from writers like Pollan, the farmers, who were bussed in by Madison-based feed company Vita Plus, told the Capital Times. They have never visited a farm for first-hand knowledge of food production and don't know what they're talking about.
But efforts to open farms to the public are not always successful.
This month United Egg Producers' "Opening the Barn Doors" media tour at Morning Fresh Farms in northern Colorado, for example, only confirmed the size of today's egg farm that make humane conditions impossible (36 barns; 23,000 birds each, 23 million dozen eggs a year) and raised further questions about environmental blight by showing the press wearing white HazMat suits to enter the barns.
Clearly, the farms have grown into agribusinesses in response to demand. But, no matter what ag students learn, what sort of change in demand could lead to more sustainable practices?
My Dad had occasionally gone hungry in the great depression....He liked for Mom to cook a lot of beef
Did you ever see the video of the October 7, 1960 presidential debate? There's a pertinent section:
That cracked me up when I first saw it a few years back, because of the change that has happened in our culture as to food.
My parents were also kids of the depression. When I was little, I was struck overhearing my mother telling someone that when they married my father told her that as long as he was working, there would be meat on the dinner table. And no bread in the damn meat! So I paid attention to this topic--turns out that people who didn't eat meat were poor, you see. But I actually just loved those casseroles and meat loafs that other moms made, they were a rare treat, I just thought the poorer people's food tasted better than my mother's well done tough round steak, scoop of canned vegetables and scoop of rice or potatoes.
(I also later realized that with the tiny little freezer we had, only big enough for a couple of ice cube trays and some ice cream, that my father's demands meant she had to go to the grocery store every couple of days. And also that their food bills might have been one of the reasons that we rented until I was 14 years old. while other people from the neighborhood--except those kind of grown ups that drank a lot of beer--moved on to their own houses.)
I think there's been a lot of progress on the front of meat not being the be-all and end-all of diet in pop culture of this country. The problem health wise is that the meat diet got replaced with the fancy junk diet. (A lot of those popular frozen dinners actually have a lot of soy and other substitues in them replacing the meat.) The marketing process on that front has already happened, and has been successful. I think people who eat a lot of meat do it despite it not being cool and not being a signifier of a healthy diet, it's mostly considered being "bad" or sinfully indulgent to the detriment of one's health. I see lots of marketing for meat producers fighting the concept of meat as "bad" all the time, it's like a losing battle for them. So I really don't see how much more can be done on that front, people buy and eat meat now because no one can seem to stop many humans from liking it very much.
November 1, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
p.s. On the personal story end, there's a very frustrating kicker. My father continued to eat that way and still does-including the strict 3 overcooked meals a day thing with the meat and eggs and sugar breakfasts--the broiled meat with the iceberg lettuce salads dinners--the margarine--the hatred of fish--milk as a frequent beverage--the lunchmeat and white bread sandwiches--and is 83 and very healthy. This is the cause of many frustrating arguments about proper eating for a mentally disabled brother under his care with a weight problem and high blood pressure, you can only imagine. How can you tell someone 83 years old who still cross-country skies and participates in bike marathons that his ideas about proper diet are ignorant? All I can do is say "dad, what's right for you is not right for everyone else."
November 1, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
He probably just has good genetics.
Genetics determines your range of possibilities. Diet, exercise, etc., determine where you live within that range.
The lucky few will live long and healthy lives no matter what they do (though longer and healthier if they eat right and exercise); the unlucky few will live short, unhealthy lives no matter what they do (but shorter and even-less-healthy if they eat badly and fail to exercise). Most, however, fall in that vast middle, where eating right and exercising will make all the difference.
November 1, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or, maybe not.
November 1, 2009 8:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are farms, and there are farms.
One side is agribusiness, where a very few people, answerable to investors far away, produce huge quantities of things designed (and is it not truly strange to be using that term in a description of foodstuffs?) mostly for long-distance transportability or industrial-processing-friendliness.
On the other, we have the sorts of farmers I buy things from at my local Farmers' Market. Real people, who bring carrots and cabbages and leeks and potatoes and very good meat and chicken nearly to my front door. And Haralson apples - a University of MN-developed variety, maybe the most "apple-y" apples I've ever seen.
And smart cooks know that meat can be a flavoring as well as a centerpiece. And very smart cooks don't throw the bones from their roast chicken away - they boil them into a nice broth for soup with the leftover meat. A little bacon (more flavor!), carrots, onions, and some noodles or potatoes or barley (that most wondrous of grains!) and it's a second meal, maybe tastier than the first.
And if your only choice is the grocery store, go around the perimeter. That's where the real ingredients live. And it takes no longer to make dinner from real food than it does from the brightly-colored boxes of unpronounceable substances that pretend to be "food".
Find your local Farmers' Market. Do real farmers a favor. Buy from them instead of the mega-corps.
November 1, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We have a Farmer's Market here but unfortunately most of the produce sold there is exactly the same as is sold in the supermarkets. You see, this part of Florida no longer has any agribusiness. All the land was sold of as real estate quite some time ago.
C
November 1, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Need a good, well-run market. St. Paul does that. Minneapolis has a market featuring pineapples, oranges, bananas, and such.
I know climate change is coming, I just don't think those are quite "local" yet.
November 1, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
All good advice.
November 1, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not being an ideological vegetarian, I occasionally sin and eat meat, although it's more often poultry than beef or pork. I try, when I have the information, to avoid meat from animals raised under inhumane conditions, although I probably fail at times to make the proper distinctions.
As mentioned above, it's now more or less well recognized that meats - particularly red meats - are health hazards in terms of both cardiovascular disease and cancer (although the evidence for the latter is not quite as conclusive). Let me add one more indictment.
The meat industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions responsible for most global warming, and by far the worst offender is beef production. This is the result of multiple factors, including transportation and production costs, diversions of land for grazing, and methane released from the cattle themselves.
As China and other developing nations increase their beef consumption, the threat to the world's climate is likely to increase.
November 1, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
particularly red meats
And I've read very interesting speculation that it's the corn-fed nature of the red meat we produce that's the main problem for most people, and that grass-feed beef would not have the same effects (nor would it have the taste that afficianados love. I believe it was a very lengthy and well-researched piece in The New Yorker several years back.)
To be honest, I don't think we know enough on that, I don't even think you can prove that a heavy red meat diet means an early death for every single person. I think we're at a stage where people have to teach themselves what kind of diet is best for them. Conventional wisdom changes every few years. The current most popular evil demons are corn syrup, overly processed food and trans fats, that strikes me as something with more wisdom in it than picking on certain types of meat.
The nutritional aspect of health is an infant science partly because so much research is given over to drugs to treat symptoms, the latter is where the potential big profit is. There's no profit in studying nutritional supplements precisely because they are classified as foods, you can't patent them.
An interesting factoid that, if nothing else, presents a big-picture perspective to arguments about U.S. diet:
goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world. That's something you don't see in most western supermarkets. Is that a white meat or a red meat? hah! That's not to say that the many cultures that contribute to that number all have life expectancy numbers that we should envy.
I've read just enough to know and experienced enough nutrional advice to know that I am a cynic on the diet front. As I said, conventional wisdom changes every couple years. The only nutritionist I would trust is one who tailors advice to actual results for each client using a food diary.
The current popularity of the locavore movement, for example, while obviously good for environmental causes, flies in the face of the results of the kind of diets people had back in the last incarnation of locavorism. From personal family history of the family farm--moldy cabbage the only available fresh vegetable for months on end, lard sandwiches sprinkled with sugar to satisy cravings for sweets, and tales of an orange as a special treat at Christmas, because FDR subsidized shipping of them across the country due to growing incidence of scurvy. Winter diet: pickles, dairy and salted meat. I'm sorry, those produce aisles that we are supposed to shop, with locavorism, in non-tropical cities, they would be quite empty for many months of the year. I do produce a lot of food in my Bronx garden six months of the year, but I also appreciate being able to eat grapes and berries and asparagus in November.
As for the evils of mega corporate farming, and there are many, they have also had some signficant wins in reducing world hunger. Certainly not an increase in world health, but definitely a decrease in death from starvation. I do produce a lot of food in my garden six months of the year, but I also like eating grapes and berries and asparagus in November. And the truth is that of the many green tomatoes sitting in my garden right now, half will rot and half will turn orange in the garage and those will taste no better than winter tomatoes in the supermarket. And I actually had a harvest of tomatoes this year due to spraying them with a funcigide in ample time, while most northeast farmers did not. There were few local tomatoes in the Northeast markets this summer because it was a very rainy June and the tomato crop was devastated by early blight.
A reminder about those healthy fats people are supposed to use to cook with. They need to be transported. Olive trees don't grow everywhere.
November 1, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I actually had a harvest of tomatoes this year due to spraying them with a funcigide in ample time
I should add that I also had to hand pick off many of the infected leaves daily, so as to cut down on the reinfection. This is not something one can do to produce tomatoes one can make a profit on, unless you want to use slave labor, this is what gardeners jokingly like to refer to as a $50 tomato.
November 1, 2009 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the subject you raise about different diets for different people being necessary, the Eat For Your Blood Type Diet made a lot of sense, the idea being that different blood types evolved over time, and that we all have different ancestry, and have our roots in different climates, etc.
We ate by those standards for a couple years, and were not wholly satisfied with the results, really, butthere may be even other factors that affect one's dietary needs than even just blood type.
The nutrients, especailly sulphur (and maybe selenium?) in cabbage and other cole crops seem lacking in most of our diets, and some nutritionists argue that they are a great addition.
November 1, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Different Strokes:
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/salma-abdelnour/should-we-be-eating-more-bugs
November 1, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blood type is a really poor marker for dietary requirements. If you did a thorough genetic analysis, you could probably find some good markers, but "blood type" is just laughable.
November 1, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay then! That's decided!
November 1, 2009 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grass-fed dairy cows have higher levels of ALA (alpha lipoic acid) in their milk than non-grass-fed. (The milk and butter also taste better, in my opinion.) It stands to reason, although I don't know if there are statistics to support this, that grass-fed beef meat is probably better for you. I do know that (again in my opinion) it tastes better. It's kind of funny that some places advertise "corn-fed beef"....
November 1, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think that "demand" has driven agribusiness. Corporate agriculture has driven agri-business and driven the small farmer out of the market. We no see the same thing happening with corporate agriculture. Small farmers had found a niche providing what industrial agricultural could not - wholesome, humanely raised meat and produce. Now that folks are increasingly aware of how bad some of the food supply is, and for other considerations, corporate ag is after the the small organic producers as well.
November 1, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think people, driven by lower prices, bought what they assumed was cheaper food. Now we're starting to realize that a lot of it isn't really food, only "foodlike."
November 1, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me leave aside the ethical, moral and humane considerations for a moment.
Are we absolutely sure that the meat, eggs, and dairy from the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, etc. are nutritionally identical to those of today? Have we discovered all there is to know about nutrition in our food and the long-term impact on human health?
Also, are we letting our image of chickens from the book we read to our 3-year-old overwhelm reality? We eat chickens altered (either naturally through breeding or through gentic manipulation) to have more breast meat and as a result these chickens are certainly not normal since they can't cluck around a barnyard at all. And they certainly are eating easily tossed out grain as their diet instead of the bugs from a pasture. Does the changed "life" of a "to be slaughtered" anaimal change the nutritional value? Are we at the level of knowledge where we even know the answer?
Are the bland tomatoes of today that grow easily, gain size quickly and are not easily bruised on their way to markets thousands of miles away, the same nutritionally as the tasty counterparts of just decades ago that were grown in the next county over? Apply the same question to other fruits and vegetables....
I don't know the answers. But I suspect that the "business" owners who want to market their products and make a profit can chime in and convince a lot of us that the questions are invalid. But I wonder.....
November 1, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't stand those tomatoes that have the texture of freezer burn.
November 1, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Buy Romas when they are in your local market, quarter them, dust them with salt and pepper, drizzle some olive oil, and oven dry them. A slow oven and look in every half-hour or so, until they are shriveling and darker but not yet gone blackened.
They freeze.
A few of those over some pasta with garlic and olive oil is heaven. Just don't forget the nice green salad...
November 1, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tomatoes are tropical plants, period. And to get vine-ripened fruit requires a pretty long time of not just warm weather but lots of sun. And when vine-ripened, they are very fragile.
Hence some more leathery varieties were developed for shipping, but these aren't as common, what you mostly see in most of the stores, is just the result of picking your regular average tomatoes green and gassing them with ethylene to turn them orange (that's the harmless ripening gas that like bananas give off as they ripen.) They're still green tomatoes in fact, though, the ethylene doesn't work on them like it does on bananas.
Which makes me laugh when a locavore gourmand makes a big deal of getting local green tomatoes to make fried green tomatoes or something like they are something different from winter grocery store tomatoes--they're not, local or shipped, underneath they're the same green tennis balls.
Again, those tennis balls were mostly the only thing available in northeast stores this year because early blight devastated the tomato crop there. Your local vine-ripened tomatoes in the northeast when there isn't a problem with the crop will appear in in late July and August--again they are tropical and need a long growing season. (Gardeners in the north do a lot of things to get early tomatoes, jump through a lot of hoops, you can't put them in the ground too soon, you have to keep them warm, it means keeping them under lights and transplanting them to larger pots. In the nurseries--and hardware store garden centers over the last few years--you can get tomato plants already started that way elsewhere, to put in when it gets warm enough, but they are expensive, and the bigger they are, the more expensive they are, because you can get more tomatoes from a plant started earlier.)
So if one is a strongly ideological locavore, I would imagine to be true to self one would not eat tomatoes outside of tropical zones, vine-ripened or not.
Since I brought up cabbage earlier, I'd also like to bring up some thoughts after twenty-some years of gardening on greens and locavorism.
Cabbage, (and most brassicas,) requires a lot of sunny space, a ton of it. They also require cool weather. Seems to me it used to be real cheap but you don't see that much anymore as land got more expensive. I don't bother with brassicas in my garden, too little yield for the space and length of time required.
Leaf lettuces and other leaf greens of all types, those are a different story, now those you can pack in heavy and grow pretty quick and continuously harvest leaves without killing the plant. You can also get by without lots of full sun. But they also are cool weather plants, they die in the heat, go to seed, produce no leaves. You can make two crops, one in spring and one in fall, if you use your space right and are lucky with the frost dates.
So no leafy green salads for you tropical locavores and no salads for other locavores in the summer months, them's the locavore rules.
November 1, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
We either grow our own, get some from my brother-in-law, or buy the vine-ripened type.
November 1, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look, I don't know what the answer is... I'm not sure anybody does.
But we're coming up on 7 Billion people on this planet (ahead of schedule I might add). Just in simple mathematical terms it becomes evident that there will be (is?) a problem providing a well balanced and nutritional diet for each person on the planet. Only a relative small percent of Earth's land is arable. We are getting better at Sea Farming but we are getting extraordinary levels of mercury and chemicals in that food...
I often (believe it or not) wonder about MILK alone. Those poor cows! Seriously. I mean... I have approx 2 to 3 gallons in my frige at all times (I have a 2 kids)... But if there were only 1 gallon per person per week in the US, that would mean 300 Million + gallons per week... And you KNOW it's more than that. I shudder to think of those poor udders.
Don't even think about Thanksgiving Turkeys and all that... it'll make you ill.
How in the HELL does Las Vegas get enough food for ONE DAY? Ever think about that? How many Semi-Trucks FULL of food MUST roll into Vegas every single day??
It's crazy. People MUST be fed. If people go hungry then there will be big trouble. So... "CREATIVE" ideas are employed... There's all sorts of gawdawful nastiness in the business...
And we'll likely add another Billion to the population faster than projected... But, even if we ignore all other countries and their rising populations... our own population is growing, too.
Our land mass is finite. Our economy is in the shitter.
There's not going to be much else available to eat before long... I fear.
November 1, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Soylent Green?
November 1, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bugs, I tell you - dipped in corn syrup:
http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/salma-abdelnour/should-we-be-eating-more-bugs
November 1, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would that be high fructose corn syrup?
What's next? MSG?
November 1, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink