Civil Eats

March 1, 2010

Sao Paulo. Some call it the New York of the Southern Hemisphere. A sprawling megalopolis of nearly 20 million people known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world and the best example of Brazil’s tragically large gap between rich and poor. With these tidbits conglomerated together into wary expectations, I sat tensely as we idled in standstill traffic en route into the city. Sao Paulo’s skyscrapers, its sagging favelas, its ugliness—every instinct told me to do an about face and head back to Rio’s inviting beauty. But for just one week, I told myself, I can stand almost anything. Read More

When it comes to local food, supply and demand aren’t always in sync. Many Bay Area shoppers still lack convenient access to affordable local food while many farmers struggle to expand their markets, even as awareness of the value of their products continues to grow. And while traditional farmers markets and CSAs are crucial to the success of many small farms, they ultimately account for a relatively small percentage of the total food that people buy.

How then can communities provide access to more fresh, healthy local food that is sustainably produced? How do we to create more demand (and a fair market) for farmers, while ensuring food security for people otherwise entirely dependent on the industrial food system? These were a few of the critical questions on the table at Produce for the People: New Ideas for Local Distribution, a panel co-hosted last week by CUESA and Kitchen Table Talks. Read More

In a move to help consumers make more informed choices when choosing to eat humanely sourced animal products, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) developed and launched the very first restaurant database. The resource identifies 150 restaurants in 15 U.S. cities that offer products and menu items created by methods that benefit animal welfare, human health, and the environment. The free database includes 11 Bay Area restaurants and others in: Atlanta, Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Read More

Gramercy Tavern is voted the “most popular” restaurant in New York all the time. It’s a restaurant with regulars like most don’t have anymore. People go there to eat in an unfazed New York, where restaurant eating remains a polished, “Now I shall dine,” sort of affair. Popularity is an unfortunate thing to vote on, but in a city that’s brutal whenever it’s not convinced, it seems people like reminding themselves that they like this restaurant.

Like other cities’ favorite restaurants, Gramercy Tavern has a quality that can only be gotten from being liked. It’s warmth a place can’t try for because it’s a side effect of confidence. Whatever the restaurant does well, it knows it owes a good deal to how attached its city is to it: Gramercy exists in two places at once, in a gray, stone building on 20th street, and in its patrons’ memories, in versions each of them owns and tends.

How bound those two Gramercy Taverns are to each other makes changing the restaurant’s buying priorities difficult. Its executive chef, Michael Anthony, who took the kitchen over from Tom Colicchio in 2006, is trying to. He’s committed to a local food economy in the quietest, simplest way a chef ever is. Read More

Ever feel like you were playing checkers and the other guy was playing chess?

That’s the sort of feeling I get often when I watch many of the recent spate of food documentaries to be released.  Activists announce that this or that is wrong with the food system, and on the rare occasion when something appears to be getting done about it, the folks who are doing things badly simply change their tactics, but not their strategy.

It happened again while watching the British documentary film Pig Business. Read More

February 17, 2010: I crawled out of bed in a stupor this morning. The electricity blew out in my shared room last night, and by 8 o’clock, the bedroom—usually just tolerable enough to sleep in with the fan constantly whirring overhead–had turned into a sweatbox. I stumbled towards the kitchen for coffee and fruit. It wasn’t until I sat down and took my first sip that I realized it was finally over: Carnaval. Read More

Annie Novak is a young farmer on a mission to engage her community about real food.

This weekend, she will be putting on an event called Food from Field to Fork to help raise funds for her organization Growing Chefs.

Through Growing Chefs, Novak has held workshops, most often focused on cooking with children, in order to show that simple fresh food is fun to grow, easy to prepare, and delicious to taste. “When I started Growing Chefs five years ago,” Novak said, “I was simply creating a program I hadn’t yet seen in the world.” She continued, “The philosophy of Growing Chefs is quite simple: through action-based education, telling the narrative of food, from field to fork.” Read More

I grew up in Kansas – the land of corn-feed beef, boneless, skinless chicken breast, and pork: the other white meat. I never gave much thought to meat except whether it was low in fat and calories, so when I told my family I was becoming a vegetarian, I was met with blank stares and a heated disagreement surrounding my anemia (with the lack of red meat, the family was concerned about my iron levels). My shift towards vegetarianism began slowly with Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation followed by Peter Singer’s The Ethics of Eating Meat, Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and eventually, I found myself reading Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s The Face On Your Plate. For three years, I was vigilant about my food, checking the labels of grocery store purchases and grilling restaurant servers about the ingredients in each dish. It took me nearly 6 months to go completely meatless and only one In-and-Out cheeseburger, three years later, to fall off the proverbial wagon. What happened? How did I devote such a significant amount of my life vegetarianism only to be tempted by a cheeseburger? Read More

I took what is called January Term (J-Term) at University High School this year. The focus of the term was the importance of sustainable food and understanding our current food system. I feel that what I learned about the food movement, and slow food, has inspired me to one day develop my own farm and grow vegetables. Read More

Katie Couric’s special report on the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture aired in two parts this week, exposing the intransigence of the industry. Read More

The agribusiness sector has been abuzz with complaints about ABC’s recent Nightline exposé of the biggest dairy factory farm in one of the largest dairy production states: New York. The segment features footage compiled by Mercy for Animals showing inhumane treatment of dairy cows, followed by ABC’s interview of the operation’s owner rationalizing that he doesn’t know if it hurts the animals, because as he put it, “I can’t speak for the cow.”

Agribusiness spokespeople predictably dismissed the story as a “propaganda piece” and “lacking…factual information.”

Reading industry responses to these kinds of investigations is always interesting to me. Whether it’s exposés of pig factory farms, egg factory farms, or now this dairy investigation, some ag producers seem to have a “circle the wagons” mentality that prompts them to attack anyone who’s critical of industry practices. In many cases, they resort to the industry mantra that farm animal suffering only occurs as isolated cases, not as part of standard industry practices. Read More

This is the first in a series of posts from our new Foodshed Nomad column.

January 29, 2010
It’s difficult to explain, and I’m certainly aware that I’m still in a phase of first impressions rather than any sort of intimate. But in short, I find this city absolutely magnificent. There’s a phrase in Brazilian Portuguese that has no literal translation: saudade. It connotes a sense of longing, a deep yearning and nostalgia for a person or place, and is often used when expressing your love for something or someone while you are still with it or them (perhaps the sentiment Toni Morrison was trying to express when she wrote, “It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody before you leave them” in her book Sula). I’ve been here just a week, but it already feels like much longer. Rio’s languorous pace draws you in very quickly, and running around Brooklyn packing up and saying goodbyes already seems months behind me. One of my new friends and I were just discussing the intoxication that comes from being in Rio, the sense that you are living in Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, a place with no life or time outside its limits. Here we all move as one, and even those of us who move at the quickest pace in our outside lives are forced to give up the hurry here. It is as giving in to love. Read More

A reader recently asked me if I could expand the post I did last year on “choosing the right milk” to include eggs, another food for which there a lot of confusing buying options. Although there are more details below, the short answer is that you should look for eggs that are “pasture-raised” from a farm near you. Pasture-raised is pretty much what it sounds like — they are eggs laid by hens that are raised with open access to pasture where they can scratch, peck, bask in the sun, eat and run around to their hearts content.

Unfortunately, “organic”, “cage-free”, and “free-range” classifications/certifications do not guarantee that the birds are fed a natural diet or that they live the life of a normal chicken, complete with keeping their beaks (egg-laying hens raised in factory farms routinely have their beaks cut off–a truly horrible practice that is done to prevent them from hurting each other in their extremely close living quarters), having enough room not just to turn around but also to run around in, as well as unlimited access to the real outdoors and all the sunlight, yummy grass, and nutritious bugs they desire. Read More

Kitchen Table Talks is excited to announce its new partnership with the Center for Urban Education About Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA). We’ll be co-hosting some events together and starting off with a great panel on Tuesday, March 2, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. to discuss, “Produce to the People: New Ideas for Local Distribution.” The conversation will focus on alternative models for local produce distribution and will be held in the Port Commission Hearing Room on the second floor of the Ferry Building. The event is free and open to the public. No RSVP is required.

The Bay Area is fortunate to have abundant local produce available at multiple farmers’ markets and stores. But not everyone has access to, or can afford, farm fresh produce. Many restaurants and businesses also want to buy local, but don’t have the time or staff to shop locally. The conversation will tap into best practices and lessons learned from three of the Bay Area’s most interesting initiatives and address the creative ways these organizations are getting local produce to more people, including those in underserved and neglected communities. Read More

This is the first in series of posts about food systems issues in and around Brazil. Sara will contribute to a new column called The Foodshed Nomad. Look for her updates regularly.

I’m on the floor of my father’s Manhattan apartment, surrounded by luggage, paperwork, books and a sprawl of clothes and toiletries. It is a mere two days from my departure for Brazil, and it feels like there are mountains of tasks to complete before I get on the plane. Sitting here, pounding away at my keyboard, catching up on emails and typing up loose ends, I finally forced myself to find a moment to write.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sara Franklin. I have worked in food systems for several years now in a variety of capacities— I have studied nutrition and agriculture; I have farmed; I have worked for anti-hunger organizations dealing with a lack of healthy, accessible food in urban areas; I have worked to build capacity among community-based groups across the U.S. using agriculture as a tool of empowerment to work towards eliminating hunger and poverty; I have been a restaurant critic, a freelance writer, and consultant for various organizations; and I have built gardens in cities and the countryside. But what has, perhaps, taught me most about food systems issues and their pervasiveness is travel. In visiting farmers and activist groups working in food and agriculture in the U.S. and abroad, I have learned that the issues related to food systems are a universal language. Read More

On Wednesday, Michael Pollan appeared on Oprah to discuss the food system and the film Food, Inc. At the beginning of the program, entitled “Before You Grocery Shop Again: Food 101,” Oprah said that she saw Food, Inc., and it inspired her to host this discussion. “We all have to start paying more attention to what we’re putting in our bodies,” she said. “Do you know where you food really comes from? What’s been added, what’s been taken out? What goes down before they put a label on it?” Interspersed throughout the show were clips of the film, including the film’s introduction on the disconnect between our idea of food production and its reality; chicken production, featuring a farmer speaking out against the industry; and a family that can’t afford to eat real food and is forced to choose fast food. Read More

It’s citrus season in California, and yet many of us are drinking orange juice out of cartons — juice from Florida oranges picked last spring, stored without oxygen and then flavored with synthetically produced “flavor packs.” I recently spoke to Alissa Hamilton, author of Squeezed: What You Don’t Know about Orange Juice, about this irony, the industry behind it, and the value of fresh fruit. Read More

School gardens are an excellent way for children to get to know fresh fruits and vegetables, supplement classroom instruction, and just plain spend more time outdoors. Alice Waters created the model for the Edible Schoolyard over a decade ago and dozens of school gardens have followed suit. With a recent critical article in The Atlantic getting people talking about the value of school gardens again, it seemed an opportune time to take a peek into eight programs that are teaching kids a love of gardening and cooking and then share some resources for starting program to your own school. Read More

In 2007, a research vessel stationed off the coast of eastern Canada cast two fishing lines, each with 1,500 hooks, in order to estimate how many cod were left in this region’s waters. They caught only a few fish. Eleven years earlier, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had declared a moratorium on cod fishing with the goal of rebuilding the species’ population back to a secure, if not profitable, number. The Arctic cod population, like that of Western Atlantic bluefin tuna, Chesapeake Bay scalloped hammerhead shark, Atlantic salmon, North Sea haddock, Southern Atlantic snowy grouper, East Gulf of Mexico red snapper and American plaice, is reaching what director Rupert Murray foresees as “the end of the line.” His so-titled documentary examines the decline of our ocean’s diverse species while proposing immediate solutions. Read More

Michael Pollan wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma when I was too young to read it — honestly I may still be too young to read it at thirteen. The new version, the Young Readers Edition, is written for us kids. The book begins with a really great introduction that puts into words what you might be thinking: “I never gave much thought to where my food came from. I didn’t spend much time worrying about what I should and shouldn’t eat. Food came from the supermarket and as long as it tasted good, I ate it.” I felt that way in the beginning, too. It’s food, why worry about it. ‘People’ wouldn’t let us eat food that is bad for us, right? Unfortunately this is not the case, and Mr. Pollan’s book can help kids understand why. Read More

I spent a day volunteering at the SF Food Bank over the holidays and spending hours sorting through canned goods really got me thinking. What will it will take to stop hunger and what it will take to transform our current food system so that it’s good clean and fair?

In order to build a meaningful and sustainable food system, we need resources, ideas, learned lessons and creativity. So, as a kick-off to 2010, I’ve compiled a list of some studies, documents, interesting projects, and other ideas I hope will inspire next steps in the evolution and transformation of our current food landscape. Read More

Last week in Trafalgar Square, British historian and freegan Tristram Stuart served lunch to 5,000 people. The meal was made from 6 tons of food that would otherwise have been thrown away by farmers, supermarkets and wholesalers because of failed cosmetic inspection, overproduction or expired sell-by dates. All of the food was perfectly edible. Although not strictly a hunger relief event, the meal was a practice in mindful eating and food redistribution. In Stuart’s view, we could be doing even more to cut waste on a global scale. His newest book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal, demands that we eat all the food we buy and become informed about larger inefficiencies in the food system. Read More

For those committed to growing, buying and eating local, the choice to support regional producers has become gospel. Local food devotees fiercely defend our farmers and the beautiful food they produce. But for those who have been working in food systems for the past few years, it has become clear that new players are entering into discussions around food and agriculture. We now have people at the food systems table we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago; from a First Lady who touts the benefits of eating local, organic produce to governments that are integrating farmland into their city plans (a la Detroit and Flint, Michigan), from social service agencies that are directing “troubled” youth to agricultural jobs to nutrition practitioners who are engaging with local bodega owners to get more fresh produce into low-income neighborhoods.

With all these new folks at the figurative table, a collective sense that the local food movement is gaining legitimacy outside of chef and hippy circles is growing. It is thus important for local agriculture advocates to be able to dialogue in many different jargons. Perhaps one of the most challenging is the economists’ tongue. Again and again, local food advocates have been criticized by economists (and, of course, the kings of corporate agriculture) as promoting a system that is outdated—cute at best. With the American (and global, for that matter) economy in a state of crisis, and the American people as underemployed as they have been since the Great Depression, it’s tough for any issue to gain credibility without the promise of more dollar signs. With his pioneering work in local food systems analyses, Ken Meter is working to “show us the money”, and give local food the backing of hard economic data that it so desperately needs. So when I was recently offered the opportunity to do some work with this innovative food systems thinker, I jumped at the chance to beef up my economic understanding. Read More

The pizza Jamie Smith and his staff are making for students on every Santa Cruz City Schools campus is so popular he has designated Friday the one day of the week when students can order it. He calls it Fun Friday. Read More

Reading agribusiness officials’ responses to undercover exposés documenting egregious acts of cruelty to farm animals can be truly mind-boggling. I’ve written about this before, and feel compelled to follow up with a couple more recent sordid examples.

When faced with gruesome images of mistreatment of farm animals, rather than simply condemning the cruelty, some in agribusiness just can’t leave it at that. They feel the need also to attack the compassionate investigators who put themselves at great risk to go undercover and blow the whistle on such abuse.

For example, a new Mercy for Animals investigation involved videotaping workers at one of the nation’s largest pork companies throwing piglets by their ears and legs across the room, cramming pigs into cages barely larger than their own bodies for months on end, and even leaving pigs with untreated prolapses, sores and other health problems.

And what’s the response of the president of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, Dr. Butch Baker? Quite simply: These types of investigations “really are an attack on the rural lifestyle of America.” Read More

Nicolette Hahn Niman has been thinking about livestock for nearly a decade. Before she married (and began ranching with) Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch*, Nicolette worked as a senior attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance where she was in charge of the organization’s campaign to reform the concentrated livestock and poultry industry. Nicolette spoke with CUESA recently about greenhouse gas emissions, the sustainable livestock tipping point, and her book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms (HarperCollins, 2009). She also authored a New York Times op-ed on Saturday called The Carnivore’s Dilemma. Read More

The Botany of Desire is not a political book. But as the author, Michael Pollan, said last Thursday in New York City at a debut of the film version (which airs tomorrow night on PBS at 8pm EST), it was the “sourdough starter” for the books that proceeded it, like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Specifically, writing about potato production in the last quarter, which focuses on large scale agriculture and GMOs, was “the wake-up call” that led Mr. Pollan to understand that our food system is unsustainable.

The film is not necessarily supposed to be political, either. However, it does bring up a lot of questions about how we view our relationship to the plants featured: apples, tulips, cannabis, and potatoes. Primarily, the documentary focuses on how these plants used our desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control to enable their propagation. But to propose that somehow plants have cultivated us is still revolutionary eight years after the book’s debut. Read More

It is disappointing to see members of the media spread misinformation due to their own ignorance, gullibility, or, worse, disinterest in digging for the truth — especially when it has to do with the health of children. Case in point, a reporter from a South Dakota talk radio show apparently believes that Baltimore City Public Schools’ Meatless Monday meals are lacking in protein. Read More

If you think diabetes and obesity are the two biggest health care crises Americans face these days, you’re missing the forest for the trees — literally. Because the roots of all this diet-induced disease lie in two less publicized but even more pernicious epidemics: nature deficit disorder and kitchen illiteracy.

The symptoms include a woeful lack of familiarity with that elusive culinary commodity known as “real food,” or “good food,” or “slow food,” and total estrangement from Mother Earth — who, by the way, keeps hanging around outside pining for a glimpse of you while you remain indoors, mesmerized by your monitor or TV screen and mindlessly munching on ersatz edibles.

Do you have no idea what you’re actually eating, where it came from, or how it was grown? You may suffer from one or both of these maladies. Are you fearful of naked food that’s not encased in microwave-friendly packaging? Petrified by perishable produce that demands any sort of prep? Read More

What if I told you that America’s food system is broken? What would you say?

Would you defend it by pointing out the abundance of choices offered in today’s average supermarket, estimated to be over 45,000 items? Would you cite that per capita spending on food has dropped significantly over the last 50 years, freeing up incomes to improve quality of life? Would you talk about how American innovation is not only feeding our citizens, but is also feeding the world? Or would you quietly ask what a food system is? Read More