A rift in slow food reveals big growing pains.

The foodiverse was all atwitter over this article from Chow last week. A rift has been forming between two factions within Slow Food USA, a non-profit organization that promotes the pleasures of the table, artisanal food production methods, sustainable agriculture, and direct connections between producers and consumers.

On one side is what we’ll call the Alice Waters faction that thinks food is too cheap to keep farmers who are doing the right thing in business and that people should prioritize food over consumer goods – and pay more for it. On the other side is some of the newer leadership of Slow Food that seeks to counter the charges of elitism that have continued to dog the organization, and to broaden its appeal to a younger, broker, and less well-connected demographic.

Think $20 pasture-raised chickens compared to Slow Food’s Recent $5 meal challenge. In some ways, switching its focus to value, rather than preciousness has helped Slow Food. Membership is up. But, according to the Chow article, donations are down from well-heeled donors who are unhappy with the organization’s new direction.

Critics insist that Slow Food must reach more people or risk being irrelevant to most of the population. Anna Smith Clark, The San Francisco Bay Area Governor of Slow Food agrees, but also thinks the laser-like focus in the media on higher profile elements around Slow Food do the organization a disservice. She points out that ordinary members within the organization are continually finding ways to disseminate the ideals behind Slow Food to different groups.  “There’s nothing written about the people who volunteer hours of their time planting the seeds of change in their communities among their friends and family members, or working with like-minded organizations,” says Smith Clark.

Discussions about Slow Food tend to focus on the need of reaching two specific groups: low income people and well-off foodies. For low income people the message is that it doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming to cook local, organic, real food, while the message for foodies is that when they fetishize taste, no matter the cost, they leave out a huge proportion of the population, for whom their message is useless.

As Slow Food grows up and the focus shifts away from its famous founders, there’s a third group that it will be crucial to reach: The enormous swath of the population with plenty of money to pay for good food, but who simply doesn’t care. This group doesn’t care about farmers, doesn’t care where food comes from, doesn’t care if it has additives, doesn’t care if it has too much packaging. Some probably doubt that organic is even healthier. Let’s call them the honey badgers of the consumer food market.  They really don’t give a sh*t.

If you’re a foodie living in a foodie bubble, you might forget these people exist. To remind yourself of the reality, go to a high-end conventional grocery store in any town in America, look at the cars in the parking lot, and watch what people put in their carts. It’s not a rarity to spot someone walking to a late model Mercedes or $70,000 Escalade with a grocery cart full of hundreds of dollars’ worth of processed, packaged food. Stacks of hot pockets, multiple giant boxes of Froot Loops, cases of Coca-Cola, jars of cheese dip, enormous bags of chips, and nary a fresh (or even frozen) vegetable in sight. Now go hang out around the parking lot of a fast food outlet in any well-off suburb, and notice how busy the drive-thru is.

So how does Slow Food reach those people? Smith Clark says people gravitate to the ideas of Slow Food around any number of issues, from concern for farm workers to childhood obesity. They get little tidbits of knowledge from community, news, friends, and family members, and at some point, the flashbulb lights up: “What are you going to do with the money in your pocket?” I ask if there isn’t some way to reach these people more quickly than these myriad individual conversations.

“I think that’s why it’s called Slow Food,” replies Smith Clark.

The honey badgers of the consumer food market vote. Changing the food system so that it is fair for both farmers and eaters is going to mean breaking the stranglehold the food industry has on food policy. Good food advocates need to reach the honey badgers and convince them that organic, sustainable food is not only better, but it’s also worth paying for, spending time cooking, and going to the polls for. Until then, you can pay all you want for chicken and heirloom vegetables at the farmers’ market, but the fast majority of food will still be processed, a lot of family farmers will still be impoverished, and those $20 chickens will continue to reach only a niche market. It’s going to take time. That’s why it’s a movement, not a revolution.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

Be Still my Beeping Crackberry: In Defense of Slow

Slow Fashion Alchemy

Slow, Meet Furniture. Furniture, Meet Your Maker.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Lifesupercharger

The post Slow Going at Slow Food (And That’s the Point) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fun ways to ensure a waste-free harvest season.

It’s a sad fact that nearly 50% of the food we grow goes to waste. Some of that is wasted in the fields, after harvest, and some in distribution. Out of the food that actually makes it to the store, we, as consumers, throw away nearly 1/3 of the food we buy and take home.

Clearly we need to work on using what we have on hand. Even if you routinely use up your produce before it turns to mush in the crisper, if you’re a gardener, or a farmer’s market deal shopper, you’ve probably ended up with a bumper crop of vegetables and a shortage of ideas.

In honor of the harvest season, here are some tips for dealing with large quantities of produce.

Puree it—Pureeing produce can whittle large amounts of produce down to more manageable quantities. Take a large winter squash for instance. You can roast it and puree the pulp and use it in soups, risottos, pancakes, muffins, cookies, quick breads, and even oatmeal. Pureed squash also freezes well. You can roast and puree small quantities of odds and ends like summer squash, eggplant, peppers, and even greens like spinach and mix and match them to make a variety of delicious dips like Ajvar, spinach dip, and more.

Soup it—Of course you can puree anything (broccoli, peppers, potatoes, eggplant, greens, squash, tomatoes) and turn it into soup but you can also make a chunky, brothy, minestrone like soup with many different types of vegetables. Mix in some cooked beans for added protein. Green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, shredded greens, summer squash, and sweet potatoes all lend themselves well to this method. It’s fine to focus too. If you have a lot of leeks, onions, and garlic, and not much else, simply sauté in butter, add broth, and puree for an elegant allium soup.

Salad it—Anything can become a salad. Lettuce not required. Roast a bunch of beets, potatoes, squash, or sweet potatoes and combine with a tasty, full flavored dressing. Add protein if you like, herbs, green onions, cheese, toasted nuts. Anything goes. Some of these vegetables lend themselves to mixing with grains. Beet and farro salad anyone?

Dip it—If you have an abundance of peppers, carrots, fennel, and other sweet and crunchy vegetables, you may consider cutting them into sticks and making crudités. There’s no better excuse for making Bagna Cauda, a warm anchovy and garlic dip from the Piedmont region of Italy; a luxurious French brandade, or baba ghanoush.

Stock it—Lots of odds and ends, especially aromatics? Make up a big batch of vegetable broth and freeze it for soups later on. Or freeze the scraps from prepping over several weeks and make a big pot of stock once you have a good stash. Carrots, celery, leeks, onions, potatoes, mushrooms (including stems), garlic, chard stems, lettuce, and corn cobs, really just about any other vegetable that’s not too bitter is fair game for vegetable stock. Just make sure you include a balanced assortment.

Freeze it—We talked above about freezing pureed vegetables. Skip the potatoes, as they don’t freeze well. Fruits like berries and stonefruit are also great for freezing. Sliced plums and peaches will serve you well all winter in pies, cakes, and crisps. Too many tomatoes? Make a big batch of salsa and freeze it. The texture will suffer slightly but it will still taste better than store bought salsa come January. Cut corn kernels off the cob and freeze them in bags to add to casseroles and soups all winter long.

Shred it—Summer squash is easy to shred. Freeze it or use it right away to make savory cakes,  quick breads, and salads. Shred potatoes or sweet potatoes for potato pancakes.

Dry it—Make your own “sundried” tomatoes by cutting them in half (or slices), salting them, and putting them in a very low oven for several hours. This process concentrates their flavor and makes for a very versatile ingredient in soups, stews, pastas, and on pizzas. And then, of course, there’s the ubiquitous kale chip, which, when you get right down to it is dried kale, and an excellent way to use up a lot of kale in one fell swoop.

Can it—Saving the obvious solution for last…don’t forget canning, a method of preservation used by our foremothers (because they had to or risk starvation) and by plenty of current cooks (for pleasure and fun). Order a book and go to town. Or visit one of the many great websites focusing on canning and preserving. Two of my favorites are Punk Domestics and Food in Jars.

Happy Harvest! Use it or lose it!

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Vanessa Barrington

The post Easy Tips for Using the Last of Summer’s Produce appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnHow processed is it?

While sleepily shaking your cereal flakes into a bowl, and absently pouring the milk over them, have you ever stopped to think, just before taking a big, slurpy bite, “How is this stuff made?”

If you went ahead and took the time to find out, you’d be surprised to learn that no matter how healthy and natural the advertising on the packages makes those crunchy bits of wheat, oats, and corn seem, they are actually a highly processed food whose nutrient value is questionable.

But that wasn’t how it was supposed to be at all.

First marketed in the late 1800s by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his brother Will Keith as a health food, the original breakfast cereal consisted of unsweetened flakes made from wheat that had been baked, ground and then mixed into a dough. The dough was then pressed between giant rollers and flaked off before being cooked again.

Kellogg was a Seventh Day Adventist who ran a church-affiliated sanitarium. His religion informed his rigid ideas about lifestyle and diet. He was an early advocate of vegetarianism, believing a high fiber, plant based diet was healthiest, and also that eating meat contributed to sexual desire—which was to be avoided at all costs. He’s well known for his cruel attempts to cure adolescents of their propensity to masturbate, and also for being an enthusiastic early advocate of enemas. But that’s another story.

Though early cereals didn’t contain the artificial colors, flavors, added vitamins, preservatives, sodium, and sugar of most of today’s cereals, the actual manufacturing process hasn’t changed that much. Cereals have always been highly processed. Maybe Dr. Kellogg’s ideas about health were as questionable as his ideas about sexuality.

From Field to Flake

Whole grains are crushed, ground, and put into a giant vat where they may or may not be mixed with flavorings and vitamins and then cooked for several hours over high heat. The resulting porridge can then take one of two journeys:

1. It may be dried slightly and then conveyed to giant rollers that flatten the grains into flakes that are then moved to a super-heated drum that sprays sugar, vitamins, and other additives onto the flakes and then dries them.

2. The slurry of cooked grains may be moved to a cooker-extruder where it is mixed with water, sugar, additives like food coloring, vitamins, minerals, preservatives, and salt, and cooked and agitated over high heat with a giant screw. It is then extruded out, and cut into any number of shapes, before being dried and packaged. For a narrated visual, check out this video showing how flakes are made.

Leaving aside the long list of added sugars and additives that appear in the ingredient list of your daily Froot Loops or Frosted Flakes, the actual process of making the cereal robs the grains of their inherent nutrients. With most of the outer layers of the grain removed during processing and with cooking temperatures as high as 250 to 300 degrees F, it’s hard to imagine that much nutrition remains in this food so many of us eat as “our most important meal of the day.”

What does the industry have to say?

In response to criticism that breakfast cereal is a highly processed food devoid of good nutrition, the Kellogg company produced this video to clear up “misunderstandings” about breakfast cereals. Chock full of meaningless statements like, “Consumption of sweetened cereal and other nutrient dense foods is positively associated with children’s and adolescent’s nutrient intake,” and “Sugar in ready to eat cereals is a small percentage of overall sugar consumption,” it’s a laughable piece of marketing. Speaking of marketing, to address criticisms that cereal companies irresponsibly market unhealthy foods to children, Kellogg assures us that the company is “an active participant in expanding and improving marketing self regulatory programs around the world.”

So what should you eat instead of breakfast cereal?

-Steel cut oats or whole grains cooked in a big batch overnight in the crock-pot and then portioned into individual, microwavable jars for the office. Stock your desk drawers with toppings of your choice.

-Spend 40 minutes on the weekend making a batch of your own granola and eat it throughout the week with unsweetened yogurt and honey.

-Hard-boil eggs the night before and eat with whole grain bread and avocado.

-Bake bran muffins ahead on the weekend and freeze individually to take on the go.

-Whole grain toast with nut butter and a side of seasonal fresh fruit.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Sanbeiji, butkaj, the impulsive buy

The post Field to Flake: How Breakfast Cereal is Made appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnOur top columns on how to eat ethically.

Whether you’re new to Ecosalon, or just beginning to navigate the choppy waters of ethical eating, you’ll find the following 14 links instructive in helping you eat (and live) both well and deliciously.

1. How to Cook

Despite your best intentions, do you find yourself letting vegetables rot in the produce drawer while you rely on takeout? Learn how to integrate cooking into your daily life and you’ll find yourself eating in more frequently.

2. How to Eat Locally

Why does grocery store produce taste like an inferior imitation of that which you buy at a farmers’ market or grow yourself? It’s likely not in season, it was picked too early, and shipped from afar. With piles of produce from all over the globe, a trip to the typical grocery store is hardly instructive if you want to know what’s in season. Start here to learn.

3. How to be a Semi-Vegetarian

Not quite ready to go vegetarian, but would like to lower your consumption of meat for your health and the environment? Learn how you can have your chard and eat your chicken (once in awhile) too.

4. How to Shop at a Farmers’ Market

Have you ever headed to the farmers’ market with the goal of buying your weekly produce but become so overwhelmed by the crowds, the music, the tasty pastries, that you left with a jar of jam and a loaf of bread? Learn how to shop—really shop—at a farmers market.

5. How to Choose Sustainable Seafood

Part of the reason that our oceans are in trouble is because we’re stuck in our ways. We eat way too many of just a few types of fish, mostly from the top of the food chain. Mix it up with 11 sustainable seafood choices, which you may not have considered.

6. How and Where to Get Protein

If you’ve been trying to cut down on meat but are afraid you won’t get enough protein, learn how much protein you really need and how to obtain it from a variety of foods.

7. How to Source Ethical Coffee

You may chat up the farmers at your local market every week, but do you know where your coffee came from or who grew it? Ethical Joe is within your reach.

8. How to Clean your Kitchen Green

What do you do when icky raw chicken juice splatters on your counter? Do you stare at it in horror or douse it in toxic bleach? Learn tips for disinfecting your kitchen without bleach.

9. How to Choose Humane Meat

Concerned about factory farming? Learn who’s behind the different humane certifications for meat and eggs and how the standards are codified.

10. How to Choose the Right Cooking Oil for the Job

Oil, oil, toil and trouble. Peanut oil for frying? Canola for salads? Oh, wait! It’s toxic? Get the scoop on cooking oil here.

11. Why Bio-Plastics are Not Always a Green Choice

If you’ve been feeling good about your local casual fast food outlet or local food truck because of their use of compostable bioplastics, learn why you probably shouldn’t.

12. Why you Should Read Labels

Ever wondered what soy protein isolate is or what’s really in those fast food burgers? Find out if you dare.

13. How to Cook a Whole Chicken and Other Lessons

Innocuous boneless, skinless chicken breasts? Not so much. Discover why they’re not so benign and learn three ways to cook up a whole chicken.

14. How to Make a Sustainable Fish Taco

Did you ever wonder what type of fish is in those fish tacos that you see on menus everywhere? If it doesn’t say, you might not want to know. But then again, you should. Then go ahead and make your own.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Michigan Mom, Ron Dollete, Puuiki Beach, Andrea Nguyen, Wongaboo, Vanessa Barrington

The post How to Eat: 14 Greatest Hits from The Green Plate appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnReaders tell us what they’re growing in their summer gardens.

As a fun way to look at what’s in season across the country and in other parts of the world, we took this month’s Seasonal Superfoods on the road. We asked our readers via Facebook and Twitter what they’re growing, where they’re located and how they prepare the goodness from their gardens and compiled the results below.

If you didn’t get a chance to participate, leave a comment below and let us know what you’re doing with your garden’s bounty!

Lisa: Toronto, Canada—Lisa says she’ll be eating her Heirloom tomatoes sliced or like an apple.

Teresa: Boise, Id—Heirloom tomatoes in tarts and sauces will be all the rage in Teresa’s kitchen.

Katy: Rhode Island—Tired of kale chips? You aren’t the only one. “We are sick to death of kale chips,” says Katy. She suggests trying something different and putting Kale in green smoothies.

Leslie: Oakland, CA—If in Oakland, Black Mission Figs eaten off the tree or preserved are par for the course.

Susan: Merced, CA—For those lucky enough to have sage grow year round like at Susan’s place in Merced, the opportunity for it to be folded into Thanksgiving stuffing with lemons from her very own tree is the plan. She also likes to add her extra to turkey, chickens, pork chops, tomato sauces, vegetable curries, frittatas and chicken soup. “Cherry tomatoes are easy to grow and great eaten in salads or right off the vine.”

Wade: Lebanon, OR—Blueberries, lots of blueberries! Wade likes to eat them “hot or cold in breakfast cereals or frozen in a bowl with milk poured over them. And of course nothing is better than picking and eating the big plump ones in the garden.”

Haven Bourque: Oakland, CA—”I wrap fresh-caught sardines stuffed with garlic and herbs in the fresh-picked, blanched grape leaves from my native California grape vine and grill or roast, and serve topped with garlic yogurt sauce. You eat the whole thing- leaf, sardine and all. Accompany with roasted tiny okra, over rice.” Purloined from Claudia Roden’s Middle Eastern Cooking.

Oliver: Oakland, CA—”Herbs, lots of fresh herbs: parsley, thyme, dill, marjoram, spearmint, oregano, and basil. They’re great in nearly anything we make. One of our favorite easy dinners is a cheese and herb omelet, but also stews, soups, pastas, and bruschetta with fresh heirloom tomatoes and grated parmesan and pecorino. Spearmint in mojitos and in frozen pops with fresh fruit.”

Laiko: San Francisco, CA—Laiko’s Early Girl tomatoes, sage, two different kinds of oregano, rosemary, lavender and Meyer lemons all grow to full-on fruition on her back deck in San Francisco. We think she’ll be starting her own tomato sauce business soon enough.

Susie: Berkeley, CA—”Tomatoes but they have this problem on the base from lack of calcium,” she says, and because of that, she’s become an eating machine gobbling them straight off the vine.

Sarah Bird Lewis-Hammond: Brighton, UK—Sarah’s Purple Runner Beans and Lemon Crystal Cucumbers are more than adequately growing this summer. How is she eating them? “Lemon and orange glazed salmon with bean and bulgher wheat salad. Cucumbers got eaten as they were. Delish.”

Marianne Swallie—Marianne is all about oven roasted tomatoes. “Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, whatever herbs you have growing in the garden and bake slowly at 170 degrees. When they are withered and yummy, cool them off, then pop them into your mouth and enjoy! If you can force yourself to part with a few, they freeze very well and come out in December to add a little bit of summer to your winter-time pasta recipes.”

Abigail Wick: Berlin, Germany—Cherry tomatoes and potted basil are growing crazy on her terrace. “We make vegan thin-crust pizzas with them, plus arugula, toasted pine nuts, and browned garlic. In short…bliss.”

Amy Stevenson Hall: Auburn, AL—In Alabama? “Peas, eating fresh and freezing, putting up cucumber pickles and banana pepper pickles (and just eating raw). Sadly, the tomatoes, okra, and squash have run their course. Sweet potatoes weren’t very sweet this year.”

Blissoma Natural Body Care and Candles: St. Lewis, MO—There’s no shortage of okra, cucumbers, green beans, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon in St. Lewis. “Our pumpkins are still just babies right now and our tomatoes went in late. We’ve made several gallons of refrigerator pickles, and we eat a giant melon-based fruit salad every morning. We’re going to make a giant batch of oven baked/breaded squash fries as well. Yum!!!”

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Manjithkaini, Joe Quick, Richard BH

The post The Best Superfoods Are the Ones Growing in Your Garden appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnCould you eat on $4 a day?

There are more people on Food Stamps, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), than ever before in the United States. As of May, 45,753,078 Americans were enrolled in SNAP, an increase of over 60% since the recession began in April 2008 and a jump of 12.1% over May 2010. That’s nearly 15% of the U.S. population, or around 1 in 7 people. Additional program data can be found here.

Though the program was designed to be supplemental, according to data collected by The New York Times, about 6 million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income.

Who relies on food stamps?

• 49 percent of all participants are children (18 or younger), and 61 percent of them live in single-parent households. 33 percent of households with children were headed by a single parent.
• 52 percent of SNAP households include children and 76 percent of benefits go to households with children.
• 9 percent of all participants are elderly (age 60 or over).
• The average gross monthly income per SNAP household is $673.
• 43 percent of participants are white; 33 percent are African-American, non-Hispanic; 19 percent are Hispanic; 2 percent are Asian, 2 percent are Native American, and less than 1 percent are of unknown race or ethnicity.

What’s it like to rely primarily on food stamps to put food on the table?

The average amount food stamp recipients receive is $4 a day per person. In 2009 the amount was raised temporarily from $3 to $4, which makes a big difference. However this temporary increase was instituted as part of the economic recovery program and is due to expire in October 2013. To be eligible to receive any food stamps, gross income for a family of four must not exceed 130 percent or less of the Federal poverty guidelines ($2,389 per month/$28,668 per year for a family of four)

What can you buy for $4 a day?

You can buy a fair amount of cheap, processed, sugar-laden food. What you can’t buy is very much unprocessed, organic, responsibly raised fresh food. And you can forget about extras like coffee, wine, nice cheese, expensive fruit like peaches or berries, and welcome a whole lot of starch into your diet. Also, if you want to fulfill your caloric needs in a somewhat healthy way, you need to know how to cook and you need the time to do it. You’ll also need regular access to a kitchen and some basic kitchen utensils. Not everyone has those things.

For two years in a row I participated in the San Francisco Food Bank Hunger Challenge, which gave me a tiny snapshot of what it’s like to live on food stamps. After just one week, I was hungry, angry, bored, and tired. And that was with the luxury of time to cook, a well-stocked kitchen, and the lucky addition of a few extra items of fresh produce that would have been available to clients of the San Francisco Food Bank during that time.

During the 2009 Hunger Challenge I shopped for one week for 2 people and spent $41.08 out of a budget of $56.

My shopping list:

One Stick Butter  .88
Cooking Oil $2.59
1- Quart Milk $1.39
1 Organic Chicken  $8.85
Peanut Butter $2.99
Long Grain Rice from Bulk .75
1/2 pound Pinto Beans from Bulk .55
3/4 pound Ground Beef $2.47
Dozen Cage Free Eggs $2.85
1 Loaf Wheat Bread $2.49
Oatmeal from Bulk Bin $1.08
Corn Tortillas $2.39
Canned Tomato Sauce .79
Canned Enchilada Sauce $3.89
Monterey Jack Cheese $3.09
1 pound Sweet Potatoes $.54
1 piece fresh ginger .49
1 bunch cilantro $1
1 bunch green onions $1
1 bunch bok choy $1

Budget for Two: $56
Total Spent: $41.08

Cushion: $14.92

If you want to read in detail what I did with these items, read all the posts from my Hunger Challenge week in 2009. Other participating bloggers also blogged about their experiences in detail. Amy of Cooking with Amy made a new friend in oatmeal and learned that purchasing jam without high fructose corn syrup at a price she could afford was nearly impossible. Genie of The Inadvertent Gardener had an anxiety provoking shopping trip that had her choosing value over nutrition. Faith at Blog Appetite got creative with menus to help future challengers and food bank clients. Gayle at Been There Ate That notes that the Hunger Challenge is just a tedious, frustrating, eye-opening activity she does once a year, but for the 150,000 San Franciscans facing hunger every day it’s a way of life.

Find out for yourself what it’s like to live on food stamps in America and sign up for the Hunger Challenge this year. I promise you’ll learn something.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images:Jetheriot,  AJ Mexico, Andrea_44.

The post Hunger Pains: 6 Million Americans Struggle to Eat appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnFrom tuna to turtles, some cultural food traditions create such egregious ethical and environmental consequences, they can never be justified.

When is a cultural tradition a legitimate reason to continue to consume something that’s environmentally problematic? When is it just a convenient excuse to keep eating whatever we want or to keep a lucrative trade going? The examples that follow may not answer that question, but they will certainly get you thinking about the issue.

A Big Beef

At a deli referendum last year, the discussion around the sustainability and history of Jewish food traditions centered on the giant pastrami sandwiches served at Jewish delis. Panelists like Michael Pollan reflected on the fact that what people think of as a long-standing food tradition is really a relatively new tradition borne out of post-war prosperity and abundance. The panel discussed the wisdom of serving and eating smaller sandwiches made from more responsibility raised beef less often. Such a practice would not only be better for the environment and our health but would be more in line with older Jewish food traditions that treated meat as a special occasion food.

Fin Free

California legislators are in the midst of considering AB 376, a bill that would ban the sale, possession, and trade of shark fins in the state. The opposition has spent millions to convince legislators and voters that banning the trade in shark fins would be racist. Shark fin soup is a traditional dish served at Chinese banquets, but it’s only relatively recently that a wide swath of middle class population has enjoyed the dish. The popularity of shark fins today is causing the decimation of the shark population. This is not only a tragedy in itself, but the practice of ripping the fins off of sharks and tossing the live sharks back in the water to die is cruel. Whether or not you care about sharks, as top predators, they are crucial to the health of the ocean ecosystem, and by extension, our survival.

Sushi Shame

Despite the fact that the Blue Fin tuna population has declined nearly 90% since the 1970s and is considered endangered by most ocean advocacy groups, if not the US Government, it still appears on the menus of most sushi bars. Why? Because it’s one of the traditional fish used in sushi, it’s delicious, and people will pay a lot of money for it. Is that enough reason to decimate an entire population of a majestic top ocean predator?

Turtle Trade

Some questions of food traditions vs. environmental conservation are a little more complicated. Sea turtle meat and eggs are important culinary traditions in many parts of Latin America. Most species are protected, but there are some indigenous communities who have the right to hunt turtles in their territory for their own consumption. In Costa Rica, residents who have few other income opportunities, are allowed to harvest a small proportion of sea turtle eggs to sell. Unfortunately, both of the above types of arrangements often lead to illegal poaching and high black market prices, which just feeds the problem.

Are there any situations in which cultural food traditions should trump environmental concerns?

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: cephalopodcast, divekarma, sly06, Pink Sherbert Photography, Ingrid Taylar, istolethetv

The post Unethical Food Traditions: Stick a Fork in It appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnLearn how to prepare okra, eggplant, tomatillos, jicama, and nopales.

Are you in a corn, tomato, and basil rut? Read on to learn how to choose, use, and enjoy some of summer’s most overlooked stars.

Okra—Okra gets a bad rap because of its legendary sliminess, but when treated properly, it’s tasty, versatile, and super impressive in the nutrition department.

Choose small, unblemished, firm, plump looking pods. The smaller the pods the better because okra slimes when moisture hits the interior of the vegetable. Small ones are bite-sized and if you can cook them whole using high heat, you won’t notice anything but their delicious, green-bean like flavor.

How to prepare: Try tossing them whole in salt and olive oil and roasting them in a single layer in a 425 degree oven, pickle them, or dip them first in buttermilk and then cornmeal seasoned with salt and pepper and fry them.

Nutrition: Low in calories, high in fiber and vitamins C, K, A, as well as antioxidants.

Tomatillos—what do you do with those little green tomato-looking things with the papery husks? Answer: make the best salsa you’ve ever tasted!

How to prepare: Choose firm, bright green fruits with intact husks. To prepare, peel off the husks and rinse the sticky residue off. Boil for 10 minutes and puree with jalapenos, cilantro, onion, garlic, and salt to taste to make a spicy green salsa that’s great on everything from quesadillas to chicken.

Nutrition: Good source of iron, magnesium, phosphorus and copper, and a very good source of dietary fiber, vitamin C, vitamin K, niacin, potassium and manganese.

Eggplant—Love it or hate it, it’s a summer staple in the produce section. Learn how to get the most out of it.

For a side dish, I like the smaller Japanese or Chinese eggplants better than the Italian globe eggplants, which can tend toward bitter. All eggplants are sponges for flavor, and the small ones are particularly great for sautéing with strong aromatics like garlic, ginger, and Indian spices. They’re also like sponges for oil, so be sure you cook them over high heat to prevent them from absorbing too much. My favorite eggplant dish, hands down is baba ghanoush.

How to prepare: For this dish, use the Italian Globe eggplants and make sure you char the skins thoroughly to get that signature smoky flavor. If you don’t have a grill, you can char the eggplants directly over the gas burner on your stove.

Nutrition: Eggplant is rich in fiber and its deep purple color means it has lots of antioxidants.

Jicama—this unassuming root is sweet, crunchy, and refreshing in salads and as a snack.

How to prepare: Choose smaller roots, as they tend to be less woody. Peel and cut into slices and then sticks to serve raw Mexican street food-style with lime, salt, and chile, or add to salads, as you would radishes.

Nutrition: High in fiber, vitamin C, and potassium. Low in calories.

Nopales (cactus pads)—another candidate for the Slime Hall of Fame, but don’t knock them until you’ve try them because they have a fresh, earthy flavor and they’re great in a variety of dishes.

How to prepare: Choose unblemished, fresh looking, non-limp specimens. Holding a sharp knife with the blade away from you at an angle, carefully trim the sharp spines off. Slice the paddles into 1/4 inch thick slices. Boil in salted water for 15 minutes until tender. Drain and rinse. Add to salads, quesadillas, scrambled eggs, or sauté with squash and beans for a delicious side dish.

Nutrition: Lots of fiber and vitamins B6, A, C, K and minerals iron, copper, calcium, magnesium, potassium, and manganese.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Laura Padgett, Dave Parker, Tim Peartrice, Quibbly, La Grande Farmers’ Market, volante

The post Seasonal Produce Superstars appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnAre you willing to shop package free?

If you’re reading this you probably bring your own reusable bags to the grocery store. Maybe you even wash out your plastic produce bags until they’re in tatters. But how far are you willing to go down the no-packaging road?

If the Brothers Lane in Austin, TX have their way, you’ll eschew packaging all together and buy everything in bulk. You’ll bring cloth bags or pre-weighed plastic or glass containers to In.gredients, the store they plan to open this fall in East Austin. You’ll refill wine bottles and lotion containers. You’ll not purchase anything that comes in a box or package.

Their plan is to nudge Austinites along the path to no packaging, gently, by opening a package-free, zero waste grocery store that offers compostable and reusable containers to those who haven’t quite picked up the habit of bringing their own.

Why is this important? We send 1.4 billion pounds of waste to landfills per day in the US. 40% of it comes from packaging—much of it very convenient, but entirely unnecessary.

Think about it. Does cereal have to come in a bag AND a box? No, the box just makes for easy transport and shelving and provides convenient space for advertising. Eggs, on the other hand, kind of need to be transported in egg cartons. Luckily they’re compostable. Unfortunately Austin doesn’t offer curbside composting to residential customers. The city picks up yard waste, but unless you’re a really crack home composter, you’re going to have trouble composting packaging. Throwing compostable packaging in the garbage doesn’t address the issue. Hopefully people will reuse any compostable packaging the store provides as many times as possible.

Taking into account the impossibility of going 100% waste free, opening a store like this is still a bold move. Customers will be asked to completely change the way they shop. Cleaning products, beer, wine, lotions, oils, and such will all come in bulk, as will things like yogurt, milk, and other dairy products. Think about the center of the store with its shelves of packaged foods. It will not exist. This means no “good” processed foods like canned tomatoes and beans that make cooking from scratch quicker and easier.

“It sounds intriguing, but as far as I can tell the number of people that bring their own bags to the market – even at the farmer’s market – isn’t incredibly high, so I am not sure about folks bringing their own containers, said Briana Stone, East Austin resident. “Targeting food deserts is an interesting idea, and reducing waste is definitely important, but I hope they figure out how to keep the prices reasonable and  make their concept work for busy, not wealthy families. I plan to check it out when it opens,” she added.

Christian Lane, one of the founders of the market, addressed the issue of pleasing and attracting a diverse clientele:

“We’re hoping that our location, on the border between one somewhat gentrified neighborhood, and other less affluent neighborhoods will be an advantage in reaching the people who want and in cases need to get away from over-processed foods (and junk foods) and cook from scratch. There are many Latino immigrants and children of immigrants (us included) who have never stopped cooking from scratch. Post recession, people of all incomes and backgrounds are realizing that we need to slow down and do what we can to achieve sustainability.”

The store will offer produce, grains and legumes, spices, tea and coffee, dried fruits and nuts, baking ingredients, oils, dairy, and beer and wine. There will be animal proteins offered in proportion within the product mix to reflect the expense and resource intensiveness of their production. The focus will be on local, organic, non-processed pant-based foods without artificial ingredients. Products that require packaging for food safety will be “package light,” and recyclable and compostable whenever possible.

“We want to reduce waste, but we also want to offer better food at a fair price to everyone, while supporting farmers and food producers in our community,” said Lane. “We’re hoping to be a spark of change and an anchor in the neighborhood for the people that want to come along with us and make some simple changes. This will require education and community involvement – a very collaborative effort – which is something we’re really excited about,” he said.

The store is set to open this fall in a just-announced location in East Austin. The group hasn’t secured enough funding yet, but they announced early in hopes that the originality of their concept would attract the necessary funding.

Time will tell how many customers will go whole hog in supporting the store’s efforts by bringing containers, beyond the now pervasive reusable shopping bags. But I have high hopes. Think what could happen if the idea spread to other stores in other areas and we also got our food waste under control. A girl can dream.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: BC Mom, Rubbermaid, Editor B, Boedker

The post BYOB at Austin’s Pending No Packaging Grocery Store appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnNew Consumer Guide by Food & Water Watch Recommends Eating Invasive Fish.

The Northeastern Cod fishery collapsed years ago as a result of overfishing. And if you’ve been wondering why red snapper is so expensive and hard to find, it’s on its way out too. With so many of our delicious native fish decimated, why not turn our considerable appetites toward the destruction of a few species that really need to be eaten?

Food & Water Watch has released its 2011 National Smart Seafood consumer guide, and this year there’s a twist—for the first time, the guide lists invasive species like the Chinese Mitten Crab and the Walking Catfish in an effort to encourage consumers to think of these intruders as food.

It may sound humorous to recommend eating invasive species but, like the kangaroos in Australia, invasive fish species are a serious problem, though they are often considered delicacies in their native countries. And eating them can be a positive environmental act. For example, the Lionfish, likely introduced by people releasing aquarium fish into coastal waters, has established itself on the East Coast of the U.S. and in the Caribbean. With no known predators, this rapidly reproducing fish can eat enough to overtake native species. Luckily, when grilled, it tastes like a mild, meaty whitefish and can be a stand-in for that snapper you’ve been missing.

Similarly, the Asian Carp, introduced intentionally by U.S. Catfish farmers to control algae blooms, has spread throughout the major rivers of the Southeast and is beginning to reach the Great Lakes. Because they don’t just feed on algae, but also phytoplankton, their ravenous hunger can throw off local ecosystems and decimate native fish species. Thankfully they have a mild flavor and make a tasty ceviche. (Pictured above)

To highlight just how delicious these creatures can be, Food & Water watch invited a few chefs to demonstrate how to prepare them at an event at the James Beard House in New York City. One of the fish prepared by the chefs was a Lionfish, a species notorious for its venomous spines and insatiable appetite.

“Once you remove a Lionfish’s spines and neutralize the poison by grilling it, it tastes like any other whitefish – like snapper or grouper,” said Chef Kerry Heffernan, who is the executive chef at New York City’s South Gate Restaurant. “Cooking Lionfish, like cooking many other invasive species, may be intimidating at first. But with a little education even the most amateur cook can safely prepare it at home.”

Food & Water Watch’s 2011 Smart Seafood Guide also gives consumers information on more traditional seafood like shrimp, trout or tuna. The guide lists over 100 types of seafood in total and is the only guide assessing not only the human health and environmental impacts of eating certain seafood, but also the socio-economic impacts on coastal and fishing communities. Download it here.

Want to know how to prepare Lionfish yourself? Here’s a site with several recipes. But first, make sure you know how to filet one safely.

Still hungry? Here’s a video of Gordon Ramsey preparing Chinese Mitten Crab. Enjoy!

Images: Food & Water Watch

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

The post Invasive Fish Species: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Eat ‘Em appeared first on EcoSalon.