Civil Eats

Proposition 23–an effort by out-of-state oil companies to kill California’s landmark clean energy law–has been among the most hotly debated ballot initiatives this election. As a Central Valley rice, almond and wheat farmer, it’s one whose outcome will affect my business. Here’s why: Read More

Despite recent crowing by the United Egg Producers—an agribusiness trade association—evidence shows that the national trend toward cage-free eggs is growing. Read More

The USDA has a law on the books that levels the playing field between family farmers who raise cattle, hogs and poultry and the large meat packers who purchase their livestock and bring it to market. It’s called the Packers and Stockyard Act, and its overseen by the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyard Administration or GIPSA. But don’t tussle with that mouthful because it doesn’t explain what you need to know about the complex livestock market system. Just keep reading. GIPSA makes sure small producers have equal access to market that larger producers do. It’s fair competition, which is, of course, the American way.

Sounds great, right? And just in time for the good food revolution. But instead, this law has been gathering dust because the USDA hasn’t enforced it. New proposed rules (previously covered here on Civil Eats) amending the act would prevent large meat packers from artificially lowering the price of cattle, hogs and lamb. But four companies control over 80 percent of the U.S. meat market, and these “Big Four” are fighting an effort to strengthen the rule. Read More

Recently, the Canadian government declared bisphenol-A (BPA) toxic, a step I hope the U.S. will soon take since the scientific evidence is mounting that BPA–along with many other endocrine disruptors in our environment–are abundant in our bodies and are having deleterious effects. Read More

The cast of farmers in our documentary GROW! have something in common: a desire to grow clean, fair food on their own terms. They’re growers of vegetables, fruits, and grain, and they raise pigs, cattle, sheep, and chickens. They’re Georgia’s next generation of young, organic, and sustainable farmers. Most have college degrees covering all sorts of disciplines ranging from Physical Chemistry to Engineering, Pre‐Med to Political Science, English Literature to Accounting. Some have never worked in their chosen fields. Some have, got fed up, and left. Read More

On October 15th, the trade publication The Packer reported on an issue of growing concern for farmers market vendors and shoppers: grocery chains are copy-catting farmers markets by using “farmers market” signs outside of their stores. The Wall Street Journal had previously reported on the issue, including retailers that use the term “farmers market” in their name, like Sprouts Farmers Market and Sunflower Farmers Market. Farmers in Washington State interviewed about the phenomenon seemed dismayed that retail chains “want to attract people and give the illusion that there are all these small farmers there.”

Kathy Means, vice president of government relations and public relations for the Produce Marketing Association defended the sale of produce at grocery chains under the name “farmers market” as a “legitimate marketing tactic.” Aside from military connotations, ‘tactics’ are generally defined as “isolated actions or events that take advantage of opportunities offered by the gaps within a given strategic system.” The Farmers Market Coalition opposes marketing tactics that cloud the truth. Taking advantage of the public by leveraging the term out of context is not only misleading, but, I believe, illustrates an unfortunate failure of creativity. Read More

A lot of ink, airtime, and media megabytes are being used to cover the huge number of elections going on all around the nation right now. One of the most important is getting very little coverage, even though it affects every single person in my home state and indeed the US in very personal ways. It is the race for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. Read More

Food news hound Kim O’Donnel is often ahead of the culinary curve.

In a longtime online gig for The Washington Post, the seasoned journalist began blogging about all things edible and conducting kitchen chats before such venues took off in gastronomical cyber circles.

She started Canning Across America before pickling and preserving D.I.Y.ers turned up in a photo spread in the New York Times Magazine.

And she was one of the first mainstream reporters to cover the meat-free Monday phenomenon.

She began writing about the subject for the Post a couple of years ago in a recipe-focused column that proved the impetus for her new cookbook, The Meat Lover’s Meatless Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes Carnivores Will Devour (Da Capo Press, $18.95). Read More

Last week, Wal-Mart–the largest grocer in the world with over 8,600 stores in 15 countries, two million employees and sales of $405 billion–made news when it launched sustainable agriculture goals for the U.S. and emerging markets focused on regional food systems. The move is part of decade-long trend of food businesses–from producers to purveyors–adapting, or at least claiming to adapt, to the consumer demand for sustainable food.

Wal-Mart’s decision–the details of which I will get to in a moment–comes on the heels of the success of chains like Whole Foods, which also touts local foods. But unlike Whole Foods, which is considered “niche”, Wal-Mart is mainstream. Some say that this announcement is going to shake the ground under agri-business, which has vehemently fought against anyone suggesting changes to the food system for years now. But agri-business companies are not going to take this shift in consumer demand lying down.

In fact, agri-business elites have been trying either covertly or otherwise to convince the consumer that sustainable food advocates have misled them into thinking the current food system is unsafe, unjust, and unhealthy. And the evidence shows that more of the same is coming down the pipeline. Read More

Bay Area chef and teacher, Jessica Theroux spent a year traveling throughout Italy, cooking and talking with Italian grandmothers from whom she learned the true art of food, family, and love. Her new cookbook/travelogue, Cooking with Italian Grandmothers, features over 100 delicious recipes, stunning photography, and the poignant stories of 12 grandmothers from nine regions, each of whom welcomed Theroux into her kitchen to share their wisdom and a soulful meal. Along the way, she meets Armida in Lunigiana and her Pasta di Farro with walnut-parsley sauce; Maria in Sicily and her homemade Ricotta; and Usha’s dense, flaky hazelnut roll in Le Marche. I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Theroux about her journey and how Italy’s grandmothers profoundly changed much more than her approach to cooking. Read More

On the National Park Service website, under the heading, “Things To Do at Minidoka National Historic Site,” you will find this:

Walk through the remains of the entry station, waiting room, and rock garden. Read the names on the plaques. Try to imagine what it must have been like to be brought to this remote area. Look around and compare what you see to your own more comfortable surroundings.

Soon, this contemplative visit to the Minidoka War Relocation Center will have a much different feel–and smell.  After decades of activism to get the former incarceration camp named a national historic monument, an Idaho dairy wants to build a Confined Animal Feeding Operation, or CAFO, just 1.2 miles away. Read More

Four Worlds Bakery is a small business stemming the tide of a bad economy with sustainable practices–and good bread. This winter when I moved from New York City to Philadelphia, I found out quickly about this hot spot for baked goodness. A new Philly friend raved about Michael Dolich, the owner and head baker, as I bit into one of his delicious almond croissants at a local coffee joint. Her enthusiasm matched with the buttery magic in my mouth inspired me to investigate this West Philadelphia community staple. Read More

Despite the efforts of many communities that are working hard to support local agriculture and improve nutrition standards, the majority of the food consumed in the USA is still highly processed, unhealthy and unsustainable. Mark Winne, the co-founder of Connecticut Food Policy Council, End Hunger Connecticut!, and the National Community Food Security Coalition and author of the recently published Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture talks about the myths of Big Agribusiness, the possible casualty of American democracy and how Food Citizenship can reclaim our dilapidated food system. Read More

When Yeo Valley Organic in the UK set to make an ad about their dairy products, they wanted to inspire people to pronounce the name correctly (it’s pronounced “yo”) and to get people talking about the brand. Of course, this led them to rapping about “cows, tractors and wax jackets” in a much talked about two minute music video. Read More

Last year, I was struck by a simple idea: What would happen if I went for an entire month without eating any processed foods? I had recently started on a personal journey of eating healthier, getting more exercise, and losing that extra 30 pounds. As I became more aware of the foods I was eating, I began to realize that almost every processed food—nearly anything that comes with an ingredient list—is likely to be laden with extra sugar, fat, and salt.  And preservatives, flavorings, and artificial colors.

Not all “processed” foods are bad, of course, but I realized that if I could define this nebulous term in some sort of meaningful way, I would have a short-hand way of choosing healthier foods. I wanted to find that sweet-spot where processing increases, rather than decreases, the healthfulness of food.  My current working definition became:

I’m an aspiring farmer from a non-farming background and these days I join a growing number of Americans doing the same. For us, farming is attractive as a community rather than strictly commodity enterprise. When we look back at American agriculture for inspiration we see models of collective enterprise that break the dichotomy of a “hippie commune” ideal versus Green Revolution industry. I work with a grassroots nonprofit group of young farmers called The Greenhorns (est. 2007) that serves as a network of support for America’s young and aspiring farmers. Everything we do endorses agriculture as a community act. Take the Greenhorns’ online mapping project, Serve Your Country Food, which charts the daily appearance of new farmers like honeybees in the national hive. Read More

When Chez Panisse board members met to talk about expanding its Edible Schoolyard organic garden and kitchen program, board member John Lyons immediately volunteered: “I know just the place!” Lyons began volunteering at Brooklyn’s Arturo Toscanini Elementary School (PS 216) five years ago as a Pencil Principal For A Day, where he became acquainted with the principal, students, and the school’s quarter acre-sized parking lot–perfect for a school garden. Read More

Salt is on the tip of everyone’s tongue and this, we’re finding, may be a big problem. When the Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, announced a health initiative to reduce sodium in prepared foods by 2015, reports suggested that lowered sodium levels could prevent 100,000 deaths a year, save $3.21 billion dollars in health-care expenses, and reduce cases of high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases—a number that will continue to climb with rising obesity rates.

While Bloomberg’s motion may have only been a voluntary movement, it has sparked a lively debate around sodium reduction at all levels of the food production chain. Read More

Today, the man who encourages us all to eat food, mostly plants, and not too much will bring his prescription for a healthier population and planet to a group that, surprisingly, he hasn’t spoken to before: Doctors and other healthcare professionals.

The man, of course, is Michael Pollan—who talks about the importance of eating and growing sustainable food to folks as diverse as urban ag advocates and Oprah fans. The best-selling food book author will address physicians, dieticians, hospital food service staff, and others at the Food for Health Forum in San Francisco sponsored by HMO giant Kaiser Permanente. Read More

The New York Times made a long-awaited (and much emailed) announcement on its front page last week: The mystery of the ongoing and agriculturally devastating bee die-off (aka Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD) has been cracked! Read More

Last month, the University of Minnesota caused a stir when it decided to postpone the release of a film that focuses on the effect agriculture is having on U.S. waterways from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Troubled Waters–a film directed by Larkin McPhee for the University’s Bell Museum of Natural History, part of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Natural Resource Sciences–was held up, according to University Relations (the university’s PR office) to “allow time for a review of the film’s scientific content.” Yet ace reporting by Molly Preismeyer at the Twin Cities Daily Planet revealed that the film’s team had already thoroughly fact-checked the film, and followed the review process utilized by the PBS science program NOVA. Attempts to get the university to outline a standard procedure for research-based films were not fruitful. Then the story shifted once again when Dean Allen Levine told Minnesota Public Radio that the film “vilifies agriculture.”

Even though the University caved under pressure and allowed the scheduled premiere of the film to take place on October 3 and on October 5 on a local television station, the story of Troubled Waters has developed into a debate on academic freedom and the role a university’s donors should play in its research priorities. Read More

More and more individuals, foundations, and other institutions are showing an interest in investing capital in food companies that address social and/or environmental issues, a phenomenon both mirrored and encouraged by a growing number of conferences, panels, workshops, and even entire organizations dedicated to the field. At first glance all this activity might seem like great news–but if we dig a little deeper, there are some hidden impacts that good food advocates would be wise to examine a little more closely. I challenge all of us to begin to recognize and acknowledge the differences inherent amongst food system investors, entrepreneurs, and the organizations, events, and capital tools that serve them) in an effort to make appropriate connections between them. Read More

A new compelling documentary tells the complicated story of the federal school lunch program, its origins, challenges, and opportunities, teasing out nuances without leaving viewers in the weeds. Lunch Line, a film by Michael Graziano and Ernie Park, resists taking sides on this divisive topic even while it deals with vampires and wolves. Read More

School gardens are as old as schools themselves. As Arden Bucklin-Sporer and Rachel Pringle see it, however, their return might just be the key to a modern education. Bucklin-Sporer and Pringle are the executive director and programs manager (respectively) of the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance (SFGSA) and authors of the new book How to Grow a School Garden: A Complete Guide for Parents and Teachers. I spoke with them recently about the book, their network, and what it will take to change education—one green schoolyard at a time. Read More

As a long-time regular of Angelica Kitchen restaurant in New York City, I’ve come to consider it a “second kitchen,” a place I feel good about supporting because it shares the values I keep in my own kitchen: High quality ingredients that provide a fair income to farmers who are working to protect the environment–and which provide nutrition without sacrificing any of the flavor–all for the reasonable cost afforded by buying direct.

And I am not alone. Since it opened its door in 1976, Angelica Kitchen has cultivated a loyal following, and their sustainable business model–maintained without serving alcohol (you can BYOB)–is a case study for success outside of the mainstream restaurant industry. Angelica’s is also one of the most popular vegetarian restaurants in New York City, precisely because it attracts a clientele that includes many non-vegetarians. In honor of Vegetarian Awareness Month, I spoke with owner Leslie McEachern–who is being awarded for her long-time advocacy of small, local farms by the Northeast Organic Farming Association this month–about running a restaurant built on relationships. Read More

When I first heard about it, I thought I understood what Food, What?! founder Doron Comochero meant by “youth empowerment.” It meant turning around high school kids’ attitude about school and their futures, and changing their eating habits to better themselves and their planet. It turns out that was only the half of it. Read More

Last week while savoring the last of the stone fruit and the first crisp apples here in California, I worried about water. If you eat fruits and vegetables, you, too, should be very worried about water. This is because California, the state that supplies vast quantities of our nation’s produce, is running out. The culprit? Urban development gone wild, climate change, and generations of water transfer in a state with a high percentage land in the desert.

Reading excellent coverage of the farmers vs. fisherman water issue here on Civil Eats piqued my interest. Then, last week I heard a roomful of water experts discuss how our water issues impact food and farming. Presented by Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE), and Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), along with San Francisco Professional Food Society and Les Dames des Escoffier, the panel discussion made me more nervous and confused. What was true? After the panel I caught up with Dave Runsten, who heads up CAFF’s work with the California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative, to seek clarification.  Runsten’s July 2010 report Why Water Stewardship for Agriculture was published July 2010 and outlines some relevant points of the debate on water issues facing the state’s urban dwellers, farmers and the food system. Read More

It seems unthinkable that the People’s Republic of Berkeley has existed without a food co-operative for more than two decades.

Begun in the heart of the Depression, when families came together to form buying clubs so they could afford to put food on the table, the Consumer’s Cooperative of Berkeley was the place to shop for the politically correct for 51 years.

In its heyday in the 1970s, the store was a national leader in championing organics, whole grains, preservative-free foods, and meat alternatives. During the boycott of non-union vineyards in the 1980s some members boasted their children had never eaten grapes.

The last store closed in 1988, a victim of partisan infighting, financial woes, and changing times: the co-op still dispensed tofu puffs and six kinds of sprouts but refused to carry radicchio, according to the New York Times.

Well, don’t choke on your non-GMO, organic, fair trade, soymilk chai latte: The co-op is coming back to Berkeley. Read More

On Thursday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he had asked the US Department of Agriculture to allow the city to exempt soda from the permitted list of items its 1.7 million food stamp recipients can purchase with their benefits. This ban would last for two years, enough time to assess its effects and determine whether the ban should be continued on a permanent basis. New York City food stamp recipients spend an estimated $75 million to $135 million of their $2.7 billion in food stamps annually on soda, according to AP.   Read More

Industrial animal agriculture and meat production and consumption have become central issues of our time. Between 1950 and 2007, per capita meat consumption in the U.S. increased an astounding 78 pounds per person per year and world meat consumption is expected to double by 2050. The health consequences from the overconsumption of meat—obesity, coronary heart disease, and cancer—are now well documented.

The 2006 United Nation publication, Livestock’s Long Shadow articulated the environmental impact of industrial animal production—and a new study further estimates that livestock farming on its own—disregarding all other human activity—could negatively tip the balance for climate change and habitat destruction by mid-century.

Between the serious environmental and public health and food safety issues associated with Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)—known for their disregard for animal welfare, misuse of pharmaceuticals, pollution and mismanagement of waste, and concentrated corporate ownership; the importance of alternatives such as sustainable ranching; and the debate as to whether we should eat meat at all, lies an important conversation worth having regarding our role in meat’s global and local impact. Read More