Civil Eats

In case you think pickling is just another excuse to put Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein in goofy wigs, think again. Along with products like jam, flour, and beef jerky, pickles count as “value-added” foods, and they’re at the core of what it will take for the local food movement to mature beyond an easily parodied trend.

You see, without these higher-value, less perishable products, farmers and ranchers working at a small, sustainable scale and selling their products locally can rarely make a real living. In addition to the home food preservation trend, small businesses are also working to fill the gaps that exist between heavily processed, industrial foods and local produce—and the result is often minimally processed “value-added products.” Such products allow farmers to extend their season, providing a way for locavore consumers to, say, eat peaches in February, and—perhaps more important—providing a product for farmers to sell long after peach season is gone.

Not that it’s easy to expand a farm operation in that way. It takes seed funding, market testing, and food safety chops to grow your business. That’s where—believe it or not—our government is trying to help. Read More

While the big news among good food activists has been the unsettling possibility that a secret farm bill could be snuck into the super committee’s recommendations and passed with no public input, Republicans have furtively dealt a crippling blow to family farmers and consumers. This week, House Republicans included language in a budget bill that gutted the fair livestock rules that have languished for more than 80 years. Once again, Big Meat has derailed the commonsense protections that allow small livestock producers to compete and check the abusive practices of the poultry industry. Read More

Over the last couple of days, news outlets have been having a field day with a proposal from Congress that pizza sauce be considered a vegetable to qualify for the National School Lunch program. Headlines like this one were typical: “Is Pizza Sauce a Vegetable? Congress says Yes.” (The blogs were a tad more childish; for example LA Weekly: Congress to USDA: Pizza is So a Vegetable, Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah.)

Most reporters, pressed for time and resources, tend to simplify complex stories and this was no exception. In one camp, so the stories went, are nutrition advocates who want healthier school meals, while Republicans are saying the feds shouldn’t be making such decisions. Read More

In case you missed the announcement, this week is National Farmers Market Week. No matter. If you shop regularly at one of the more than 7,000 markets across the country, every week is farmers market week. That’s true in my neighborhood, where FreshFarm Markets started the first producer-only farmers market in Washington, D.C., 14 years ago. Read More

Poor Uncle Sam’s got a lot on his plate these days: a curdled economy, an overcooked climate, a soured populace. It’s enough to give a national icon a capital case of indigestion. Anti-government sentiment is running so high that half the country seems ready to swap his stars and stripes for tar and feathers.

Sure, Uncle Sam’s always been kind of a drag, with his stern face and wagging finger. But to “nanny-state” haters, he’s a Beltway busybody in drag, democracy’s Mrs. Doubtfire, a Maryland Mary Poppins. If you believe that government is always the problem, never the solution, then you have no use for, say, more stringent food safety regulations, or Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign to combat obesity.

But the new exhibit “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam? The Government’s Effect on the American Diet” at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. offers an intriguing display of documents, posters, photos and other artifacts dating from the Revolutionary War to the late 1900s which serve to remind us that our government has long played a crucial role in determining how safe, nutritious and affordable our food supply is. Read More

In my recent critique of the new USDA dietary guidelines, I wrote that we’ll never see a real food version of MyPlate as long as the food industry holds sway over the guidelines and USDA continues to promote industrial foods.

While this is true, there’s no reason we can’t create our own “Real Food” version of MyPlate to promote what we think is healthy and what’s not. Read More

The European Union (EU) made a substantial step toward establishing a binding food labeling policy for its member states. According to an agreement reached by negotiators yesterday, all food products in the EU will be required within five years to display their energy, salt, sugar, protein, carbohydrate, fat, and saturated fat content. Once finalized, the food label policy would conclude a debate over the redesign of the European food label that started in 2008.

In the U.S., a comparable debate is about to take place. The Department of Agriculture recently released the “MyPlate” image as a replacement of the decades old food pyramid and the Food and Drug Administration is currently considering a redesign of the Nutritional Facts label, which lists values for calories, fats, sugars and other nutrients. While Americans negotiate which label might most effectively communicate nutritional values to consumers, it is worth looking to the experience of the EU. Read More

The USDA finally did away with the much-maligned Food Pyramid and replaced it with MyPlate. Many in the food world are calling it progress. It’s certainly a clearer and more concise image and deserves some credit for the fact that half of the plate is comprised of fruit and vegetables.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Marion Nestle wrote in an email. “It’s the best they could come up with and some education needs to go with it, as always.”

In my view though, when you look a little deeper, you see that beyond the clearer image not much has really changed. Read More

On a slow Friday afternoon, a surprising bit of news came down the pike: Roger Beachy, head of  National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the main research arm of the USDA, has officially resigned his post, effective May 20.

Who is Beachy? When Obama hired Beachy in 2009, I got a case of policy whiplash, because it seemed to me that the administration kept whipping back and forth between progressive food-system change and agribusiness as usual. Beachy, you see, came to the post from the Danforth Plant Science Center, where had he served as the organization’s president since its founding in 1998. Nestled in Monsanto’s St. Louis home town, Danforth has long and deep ties to Monsanto. Read More

Last Friday, the USDA announced the partial deregulation of genetically modified sugar beets, defying a court order to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in advance of a decision. This move follows on the heels of the full deregulation late last month of genetically modified (GM) alfalfa, the fourth most common row crop in the United States, which is most often used as feed for cattle.

If you eat beef, or take milk and sugar in your coffee (and even if you don’t), here is why you should care: The move could put organic foods at risk for contamination and make it more expensive. Read More

Every five years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes dietary guidelines for Americans. The 2010 dietary guidelines are in and to spare you the trouble of reading the 95-page report, here are the key points: Enjoy your food, but eat less; avoid oversized portions; make half of your plate fruits and vegetables; switch to fat-free or low-fat (one percent) milk; compare sodium in foods like soup, bread and frozen meals and choose the food with lower numbers; drink water instead of sugary drinks.

These are decent and reasonable guidelines for the most part, and in general, the response from experts has been subdued—no one is jumping for joy, but no one is up in arms either. Read More

Ending a dramatic months-long legislative limbo, the House approved major food safety legislation 215-144 Tuesday. The FDA Food Safety Modernization act, the first significant reform of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight over the food supply since 1938, is expected to be signed by President Obama before Christmas.

The legislation survived a near-fatal constitutional snafu, fierce debate over controversial amendments, filibuster threats, and managed to gain ground amidst a jam-packed legislative agenda in one of the most productive Congresses in recent history. In the last 18 months, food safety legislation cleared the Senate twice and the House three times. Read More

Over the last year, in towns around the country, thousands of farmers, ranchers, and concerned citizens have packed auditoriums to overflow capacity–not for a rock concert or even a farm auction, but for the leaders of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the USDA. The departments have been on a listening tour, taking them from Iowa to Alabama and Wisconsin to Colorado, to hear from food producers about how corporate consolidation in food and agriculture markets has affected their livelihoods. Next stop? Washington, DC, this Wednesday, December 8. Read More

As shocking as the news is that the United States Department of Agriculture facilitated a cheese bailout with a $12 million marketing campaign to help sell Domino’s Pizza, I believe there is much more to the New York Times story as it affects average Americans and their ever-expanding waist lines.

The story makes a strong case for the correlation between saturated fat consumption and obesity. Michael Moss nails the issue of the USDA’s two-sided policy: promoting cheese consumption in the form of Domino’s Pizza, while simultaneously working to fight obesity by discouraging some of these very same foods.

But as I see it, cheese in itself is not the problem—the issues are deeper and more complex than that. Conventional wisdom says that saturated fat is bad and at the root of the American obesity and diabetes epidemics. The Times article says, “[O]ne slice contains as much as two-thirds of the day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease.” But let’s look a little deeper at this claim. Read More

Chalk up another victory for Stephen Colbert’s gut. Back in January, the touter of all things truthy declared Domino’s Pizza his “Alpha Dog of The Week” for a “game-changing ad campaign” to promote its new pizza recipe. Consumers had complained that the old formula tasted like ketchup-covered cardboard, a factor that presumably contributed to the company’s sagging sales.

So, Domino’s did two things: it reformulated its pizzas to contain nearly twice as much cheese; and launched an ad campaign which took the bold step of acknowledging just how awful its old pizzas were, while gushing about the “cheese, cheese, CHEESE!!!” that distinguishes the new recipe from the old one.

With the logos of Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Fannie Mae, Bank of America, and AIG on display behind him, Colbert applauded Domino’s “for joining the great American corporate tradition of screwing your customers and then having the balls to ask them to come back for more.”

Turns out that Domino’s had something else in common with these ethically challenged entities, aside from the dubious products they dumped on unwitting dupes. Read More

Last Friday, August 27, USDA and the Department of Justice hosted the fourth in a series of historic workshops on corporate concentration and lack of competition in agriculture; this time the topic was livestock. With more than 500 ranchers, farmers, workers, and concerned consumers turning out for an evening public forum and an estimated 2,000 people in the audience the next day for the official hearing, it was a chance to generate some long overdue public attention on the vital issue of who is in charge of our food supply. Read More

As consumers scramble to check their egg cartons and federal officials investigate two Iowa farms at the center of a half-billion egg recall, it’s becoming clear that no one was overseeing egg safety in Iowa. Read More

In late April, a trio of Republican senators––John McCain (AZ), Saxby Chambliss (GA), and Pat Roberts (KS)––wrote an angry letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, debunking a recent USDA program called “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.” This initiative distributes grant money and loans with the goal of strengthening local food chains and linking consumers with farmers.

The Senators accuse USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan of diverting urgently needed funds from rural communities in favor of: 1) “specialty crops” (the government’s term for fruits, nuts, and vegetables, of which the USDA recommends each of us eat at least five servings a day); and 2) small growers and organic farmers (who the Senators stereotype as hobby producers “whose customers generally consist of affluent patrons at urban farmers markets.”) Read More

The film What’s Organic About Organic? explores how the organic label has evolved, how organic farmers view their work and the tension between maintaining high environmental standards and rapid market expansion. I recently spoke with Shelley Rogers, the director of the film, about the real meaning of organic, the barriers to going mainstream and good dirt. Read More

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, and more than 80 farmers, public health, environmental, and organic food organizations today sent a letter to Michael R. Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Food at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and to Kathleen Merrigan, Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), expressing serious concerns that a proposed U.S. position on food labeling would create major problems for American producers who want to label their products as free of genetically modified (GM)/genetically engineered (GE) ingredients. A copy of the letter can be found online [PDF]. Read More

With a click of her mouse, EatingLiberally’s Kerry Trueman corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author of Pet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:

KT: Monday’s New York Times had an editorial supporting the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, a bill that would give the US Agriculture Department “new powers to set nutritional standards for any food sold on school grounds, particularly junk foods that contribute to obesity.”

The current standards leave a lot to be desired, as Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution has revealed. In the first episode, Jamie stood accused of shortchanging the kids on carbohydrates because he omitted the bread from a meal that already included rice.

Last Friday, in episode three, Jamie found himself charged with the violation of “insufficient vegetables,” despite the fact that his noodle-based entree featured seven different vegetables. The remedy? Add a bunch of french fries to the meal to meet the veggie quota.

How did the USDA’s school lunch standards ever get so nutritionally nutty? Would passage of the CNA support the wholesome, made-from-scratch meals that Jamie Oliver’s trying to bring back to our cafeterias? Read More

“There seems to be three ways for a nation to acquire wealth:  the first is by war…this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way.”  Benjamin Franklin

The twenty-first century’s uncertainty about the future abounds with predicaments like climate change, depletion of our water resources, and the end of cheap energy.  And farmers are being called upon to assume a new role as innovators and stewards of the land because they know how to produce food. Read More

Of the 50 or so food and farm conferences I’ve attended in the last several years, the Drake Forum for America’s New Farmers: Policy Innovations & Opportunities held March 4-5 in Washington, D.C., rises to the top. Actual farmers — not just commodity crop growers but innovative “agripreneurs” like Xe Susane Moua from Minnesota and Rosanna Bauman from Kansas — got to tell the USDA what they needed to survive.

But were policymakers listening? Many of the invited speakers with a political row to hoe seemed to be concerned about one segment of farmers in particular. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack kicked off the conference with the message that to preserve and grow rural America, which is the heart and soul of this country, we need to stop thinking about big versus small and start thinking more inclusively. He shared the usual dismal statistics — the increased unemployment in these areas, the lower per-capita income, and how more than 57% of rural counties have shrunk. All to say, what we’ve been doing to conserve and grow rural America isn’t working. Read More

USDA has until Wednesday, March 3 to receive public comment on its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on approval of GE alfalfa. In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued USDA on behalf of farmers and others regarding its approval of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa, saying that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) should have prepared an EIS. CFS won and USDA was required to prepare a full EIS analyzing the impact of approving genetically engineered (GE) alfalfa on the environment, farmers, and the public. While USDA prepared the EIS, Monsanto appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which will hear the case later this year. In the meantime, farmers are in limbo about the legality of planting GE alfalfa this spring.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, today released new poll data showing that two-thirds of organic food consumers are concerned about GE ingredients contaminating organic food. Given the popularity of alfalfa sprouts among health-oriented eaters, Consumers Union urges USDA to consider the overwhelming consumer concern before deciding to allow GE alfalfa on the market. The poll results can be found online [PDF]. Read More

Causing no end of difficulties in our national discourse is the steadfast belief held by both the right and the left that everything is either right or left: bad or good, strong or weak, despotic or patriotic.  You’re either with us or you’re against us.  President Obama addressed this very effectively before both House Republicans and Senate Democrats in recent days.  It is media driven to a large extent because the media need controversy to sell papers, or bytes or views or whatever it is they’re selling these days.

The most common form this takes is the old build’em-up-then-tear’em-down routine.  Perhaps the only thing many Americans enjoy more than the uplifting emotion of a success story is the schadenfreude of watching that success come tumbling down.  So when an idea comes to the fore, the critics ooze from the woodwork and their primary tactic is divide and conquer.  Label it, frame the debate, and the fight is won or lost before the story is even told.

For a long time in the circles I travel in this was not a problem because the ideas embodied in what some have come to call SOLE food (Sustainable, Organic, Local, & Ethical) were not perceived as a threat to the established paradigm.  Recent successes such as Michael Pollan’s work have, however, shined a very bright spotlight on advocates of real food.  As a result, people who have been toiling at these ideas for decades are becoming targets of powerful interests in the Big Food lobby.  Such is the case this week at WeeklyStandard.com, where Missouri Farm Bureau vice president Blake Hurst has found his most recent audience. Read More

“The less we spend on food, the more we spend on health care,” said Michael Pollan last week on Oprah.

Today, Americans spend almost 20 cents of every dollar managing disease–diabetes, allergies, asthma, cancer, obesity–and only 10 cents of every dollar on food.

The jury is still out on what exactly may be causing all of these epidemics, but genetics don’t change that quickly, the environment does. And increasing evidence points to the role that diet is playing in the onset of disease. Read More

The Imperial Stock Ranch, which began in 1871, faces a new and serious challenge to its very survival: how to create new markets for its products to compensate for longstanding existing markets that have declined or shifted overseas. Some bold steps were needed to rethink what to do with the wool from the sheep they raise on their 30,000 acre ranch in Eastern Oregon. Their solution? Direct, value-added marketing to yarn retailers and apparel designers.

Jeanne Carver is following in a long tradition of farmers striving to distinguish their product in the marketplace—first and foremost by its quality, but also through processing, product enhancements, packaging, and suggestions for how consumers can use the product. As you watch the video, note the four key areas where producers focus their efforts in order to achieve success: Read More

Beginning in 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) took legal action against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts agreed and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an environmental impacts statement (EIS).

USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. CFS has begun analyzing the EIS and it is clear that the USDA has not taken the concerns of non-GE alfalfa farmers, or organic dairy farmers seriously, for example, having dismissed the fact that contamination will threaten export markets and domestic organic markets. You can review the EIS here and supplemental documents here.

This is the first time the USDA has prepared an EIS for any GE crop and therefore will have broad implications for all transgenic crops, and its failure to address the environmental and related economic impacts of GE alfalfa will have far-reaching consequences. CFS is spearheading a campaign to make sure all affected parties know and are involved in the public process and have the opportunity to comment. Read More