Civil Eats

There’s a scene in Terry Gilliam’s 1991 movie “The Fisher King” in which a man plucks the discarded wire cage from a champagne bottle off a pile of garbage bags as he walks down a New York City street with a woman he is trying to impress.  He fiddles with the wire in his hands as they walk, eventually holding up what looks like a delicate and beautiful little metal chair, fit for a dollhouse. “You can find some pretty amazing things in the trash,” he says to her.  She is smitten.

That transformation of a piece of trash into a thing of beauty transfixed me then, and still does.  When I traveled to Cuba a few weeks ago, on a food sovereignty study trip with Food First, I had the opportunity to be transfixed again and again. Read More

With the incredible generosity of cool companies like Nau, an eco-conscious clothing company based in Portland, Oregon, we are able to make the site more financially sustainable through donations. For the next few months (or until it sells out) you can snap up this fabulous breathable, wind-resistant and water-repellent eco-dress jacket, modeled by a Civil Eats fan Allison Arieff, former Editor-in-Chief of Dwell magazine, a regular New York Times opinion columnist, and food advocate.

She is featured in Nau’s “Portraits” series wearing the Chrysalis dress from their spring collection–and five percent of every sale will be donated to Civil Eats. In addition, Nau has extended to Civil Eats readers a 10 percent discount on all other clothing on their site just by using the “CIVILEATS” promotional code at the point of purchase. Read More

Walmart made big news yesterday with a press conference alongside the First Lady to announce new company commitments. Most of the mainstream media coverage of the Walmart announcement seemed to buy the company PR that it was taking valiant steps to improve the affordability and health qualities of the food it sells. Among these commitments, Walmart said it will be working with food suppliers to reduce sodium, sugars, and trans fat in certain products by 2015; developing its own seal to help consumers identify healthier products; and addressing hunger by opening Walmart stores in the nation’s “food deserts.”

Do these Walmart promises really hold big upsides for health and food insecurity? The Times seemed to think so, running with this headline: “Wal-Mart Shifts Strategy to Promote Healthy Foods.” (Am I crazy or does that read remarkably like the Walmart press release: “Walmart Launches Major Initiative to Make Food Healthier and Healthier Food More Affordable”?) Had the Times been aiming for accuracy it might better have titled the article: “Walmart Launches PR Campaign Promoting Promises to Win the Hearts and Minds of Urban Consumers.” 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

I spend a great deal of my time on extremely small-scale food production.  Growing, procuring, cooking, eating, and writing about locally produced food is my bread and butter.  Thus picking up a copy of Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations was in some ways a departure for me.  Authors Evan D.G. Fraser and Andrew Rimas are examining a world that looks to me much the same as the Grand Canyon must look to a mouse. Read More

Interest in how our food is grown has been rekindled in recent years, with particular focus on sustainable agriculture. But what exactly is sustainable agriculture? Recently, everyone from certifiers like the Food Alliance, to resource groups like the National Center for Appropriate Technology, to producer groups like the California Farm Bureau Federation, to multi-stakeholder efforts like the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture have been clamoring for authority on the matter, framing up widely varying definitions and criteria to steer the national dialogue.

Last week, the National Research Council (NRC) upped the ante with the publication of Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems for the 21st Century. The report will surely be an important milestone on the path toward agricultural sustainability. Read More

Urban farming has the potential to help us take charge of the foods we eat, green our cities, build community, and increase food security for urban residents.

Everyday, there’s articles about backyard chickens, bee keeping, or urban yard sharing. Clearly urban agriculture is at the top of the trend pile. But is it just a trend, or a part of a sustainable future? Read More

After months of uncertainty, the Senate is expected to bring pending food safety legislation to the floor within the next week. Read More

One almost expected to see a Monsanto executive among the honored guests and presenters at the 19^th annual Farming for the Future Conference held Feb. 4 – 6 in State College, Pa. After all, the St. Louis-based agri-giant was recently named “Company of the Year” by Forbes magazine. And in its well-funded advertising campaign that strategically targets such media outlets as National Public Radio, Monsanto proclaims itself to be the very champion of sustainability.

While many of the more than 2,200 attendees of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s yearly gathering would have gladly entertained a dialogue with a Monsanto representative, it’s safe to say they view the conference’s central concept in a quite different light. Read More

Is tradition ever changing or static? Where does it actually come from? What happens if a tradition is no longer serving its followers or their environment? If these questions sound like they could have been formed in a therapy session about relationship patterns, in a way, I guess they were. We do have a relationship with food (especially when it comes to so-called traditional foods) and it’s not always a healthy one for the planet or for us.

To explore these questions with customers and the community and to start a conversation about what a more sustainable, local, seasonal Jewish deli tradition might look like, Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen in Berkeley, CA. hosted a Referendum on the Deli Menu last week. 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

My family operates a grass-fed beef and lamb farm in Meredith, NY. I am on a New York state beef producers email list that shares information on beef news in New York, and when I received an email about a proposed CAFO that would house 72,000 cows, I was alarmed. Not only is the scale extremely big (it would be the largest CAFO east of the Mississippi) but it was being advertised as sustainable. I began to reach out to my personal network of academics and beef farmers and was surprised by the differing reactions. The resulting conversations and viewpoints brought to light the complexity of our current agricultural debate and the dire situation most rural economies find themselves in, especially in upstate New York. 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

An open challenge to rethink suburbia put forth by Dwell and inhabitat.com a few months ago got me thinking about the possibilities of suburban farming. Urban farming helped renew the inner city. Suburban farming can revise sprawl. Read More

Hospitals around the country have taken a crucial first step toward building a sustainable meat production system by joining the Balanced Menus Challenge. Launched in late September, the Balanced Menus Challenge is a voluntary commitment by healthcare institutions to reduce their meat and poultry offerings in patient meals and hospital cafeterias by 20 percent in 12 months. Balanced Menus is a climate change reduction strategy that also protects the effectiveness of antibiotics and promotes good nutrition. Fourteen hospitals are already participating in the national challenge, which was developed and piloted by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and nationally launched in partnership with Health Care Without Harm’s Healthy Food in Healthcare Initiative. Read More

When I first moved to Auburn, Alabama from Los Angeles almost a year ago, I immediately set out to find healthy, humane, local, and sustainably grown food sources. My quest was not easy. In a state where the obesity and heart disease rates are the second highest in the nation, I wasn’t sure what kind of healthy food might available, much less easily accessible. As it turns out, there is a growing local and sustainable food movement that, if nurtured, may turn into a revitalizing force for the environment, rural communities, and citizen health in Alabama.
 Read More

I’m an American with Midwestern roots raised on French fries, potato chips, and meat and potato dinners. I’ve been known to order mashed potatoes for dessert (I’m not joking), lived on baked potatoes and salsa in college, and generally think scalloped potatoes are manna from heaven (on par with a classic, homemade extra cheesy mac n’ cheese.) However, I didn’t’ truly appreciate the sheer joy of the potato until I had an opportunity to harvest rows and rows of them on a New Zealand family farm. I didn’t know that this ubiquitous part of my existence, this foodstuff I took for granted for so long, was such a treasure. Read More

The second installment of Kitchen Table Talks was held last Tuesday in San Francisco. The evening featured Jessica Prentice, a professional chef, local foods activist and author and a clip of Edible City, a forthcoming documentary which follows the lives of Bay Area residents who are creating a local food system in their neighborhoods and communities.

Slated for distribution in early 2010, Edible City is a project of East Bay Pictures, a film company committed to making motion pictures that inspire reflection, compassion and imagination. The film, which uses character vignettes, showed Joy Moore, a longtime activist and teacher, discussing gardening and nutrition with the students at Berkeley Technology Academy. To help bring this inspiring film about growing local food systems to a larger audience, East Bay Pictures is seeking funds to finish the film. Read More

Author’s note: Lately a number of people have asked me what I think of how the Obama administration is approaching agriculture. Do all the gardens and talk of healthy food represent significant change, or are they a leafy green veneer on what amounts to nothing more than business as usual? Here’s my response, which was mailed by post today. Read More

I recently had the pleasure of eating lunch next to Dr. Wes Jackson, President and Co-Founder of The Land Institute in Kansas. Among a plethora of other accolades, Rolling Stone Magazine just named him as one of the nation’s top 100 “Agents of Change” due to his lifetime commitment of creating a healthier agricultural system. The setting was a sunny spring afternoon on Earthbound Farm in Carmel Valley, in conjunction with Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Cooking For Solutions annual Sustainable Foods Institute for members of the media. We sat there, sipping iced tea and munching on salads and savory tarts (all made onsite at one of the few completely certified organic commercial kitchens in the U.S.), but the pleasant environment, the chitchat of food lovers and chirping birds nestled in the children’s herb playground, seemed to highlight an ironic contradiction as the self-described “Dr. Doom” earnestly discussed with me how we are running out of time. Read More

Thomas Keller is one the world’s most celebrated chefs with his fleet of restaurants in Yountville, Los Vegas, and New York. At the same time, he is a vocal “thorn in the side” of local food advocates, with his direct dismissals of the locavore movement.

His message was much the same this year when he spoke at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sustainable Foods Institute a few weeks ago.  Speaking on a panel called “The Future of Food: Scaling Down,” Chef Keller made the distinction between geographically local and temporally local food.

That is, he personally considers local food to be anything that he can get at his doorstep within one day of harvest – even if that means flying that product overnight from across the country.

Here are some excerpts from Keller’s comments on the panel: Read More

At the Sustainable Foods Institute, part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s annual Cooking for Solutions festival, one of the panel discussions was called “Communicating Environmental Messages: How Journalists are Telling Stories of Sustainability.” Read More

Tonight, the focus of an hour-long sustainable agriculture chat on Twitter will be defining sustainability. The chat will begin at 8pm/5PT. All are welcome to join the chat, just please announce yourself at the beginning by telling everyone your name and affiliations, and use the #sustagchat tag on your tweets in order to create a searchable dialog. I am moderating tonight’s chat, and for the sake of transparency, no one had paid for me to perform this service. I come by my own desire to discuss these issues. You are welcome to send questions to the moderator, @sustagchat. But here are some questions to get you thinking about the topic: Read More

On this 39th anniversary of Earth Day, it seems our appetite for all things sustainable is increasing faster than ever. Every company, industry, and product is being repackaged and redesigned with sustainability in mind, and every newspaper, magazine, and television station has a growing list of sustainable themed programs. In the food world, everyone from large agribusiness to corner markets are flaunting their sustainable credentials…no one wants to be left behind. Read More

Every year, Americans find a new diet or pill to help them lose weight. Popular examples abound. There’s the low-fat diet, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the list continues. Fast food and quick service restaurants rush around to change their menus to offer low-fat dishes, more bread, less bread, 24 oz. burgers loaded with bacon, piles of cheese. And after a few months or years, the “it” diet fades from people’s minds until another one comes long and sweeps the country. These fad diets rarely lead to reducing obesity or making Americans healthier. Rather most lead to the over consumption of factory-farmed meat, cheese and “low-fat” or “low sugar” processed foods filled with high fructose corn syrup, fake sweeteners and partially hydrogenated oils. Well, I think its time we try another kind of diet: the low carbon diet. Except rather than getting you into that teeny, tiny yellow polka dot bikini, this diet helps reduce carbon emissions, fatten the slim wallet of small farmers and cut inches from big agriculture.  Read More

Part 1 of my interview with conservationist Gary Nabhan, we talked about impacts of modern farming, the implications of biological complexity, and the current direction of the sustainable food movement.  In this second installment of our conversation, Nabhan talks about his childhood on the shores of Lake Michigan, about how his Arab-American heritage has influenced the direction his career has gone, and about how a modern chef is like a jazz musician. Read More

Few people have been working as tirelessly to preserve the diversity of American foods than Gary Nabhan. Nabhan is a man who likes to shun labels and boundaries. He’s a professor of Geography, a conservationist, a poet, a rancher, a prolific author, and the founder of two groundbreaking food advocacy groups: Native Seeds/SEARCH focusing on preserving indigenous southwestern seeds, and later the RAFT alliance of food, farming, environmental and culinary advocates. Read More

The stimulus package has passed – and despite whether you are pushing tax cuts or waving the flag of infrastructure spending, perhaps its worth reconsidering the underlying goal either version looks to achieve: growth.   I’m not the first to propose that our entire economic system is in need of an overhaul, but thinking back even further, I think we could take a leaf from Helen and Scott Nearing. Read More

Is it possible for a fast food chain, beholden more so to its corporate number crunching than its customers’ waistlines and heart valves, to be socially responsible, or dare I say, sustainable?

My gut is telling me no. Read More