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Sorry Buffalo! I shuttered when I read the report of hundreds of motorists stranded for hours on the New York State Thruway when over two feet of snow fell over two days this past week. Yes, winter is upon us – at least for those who live in northern climates!
One of the most obvious ways that we use energy in the U.S. is to heat (or cool) our homes. We are keenly aware of this when the bill comes and many of us do all we can to insulate well and keep the thermostat low to avoid sending most of our paycheck to the oil, natural gas or to electricity companies that provide the energy.
Most U.S. electric plants use mainly coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, and petroleum to generate power. Each of these entails a huge economic cost as many of the fossil fuel-based sources of energy grow scarce. But the environmental and societal impact is also enormous for each of these – think oil spill, nuclear meltdown… At the same time, ridiculously small amounts of our electric energy come from solar, tidal harnesses, wind generators, and geothermal sources, all of which have a tendency to work with nature rather than depleting natural resources.
Like I said, in the winter we’re totally aware of the costs of heating energy, but in other times of the year do we carry some of the same awareness about what energy we expend in everyday tasks? The truth is that as a nation we consume lots of energy – and about 20 percent of total energy consumption comes from normal people like you and me just doing what we do in our homes every day.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency backs energy-efficient appliances and consumer products with the ENERGY STAR label. These products meet energy efficiency requirements aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants caused by the inefficient use of energy; and allow us consumers to save on energy bills through a trusted system to identify and purchase energy-efficient without sacrificing performance.
Check out your own energy use by scrolling over each of the appliances that appear on this website. Note which appliances have ENERGY STAR models available. If you are in the market for a new major appliance and choose an ENERGY STAR product or renewable energy system for your home you may even be eligible for a state or federal tax credit for energy efficiency.
This summer at the DC Fringe Festival, a friend of mine, John Feffer performed a one man drama that he had written. This amazing piece of work looks at a man’s fascination with dining and his search for “the perfect meal.” More than that, John develops three very distinct characters who share their own passions for research and perfection. It is food that brings all three characters together and reveals the touching way in which John works out one of his own tragic life struggles.
If you are in the DC area you can still catch John’s show. Edible Rex will be performed 5 more times at The Warehouse (1019 7th St., NW — across form the Convention Center). Show times are 8 p.m. on September 24 and 25 and October 1 and 2. John will also do a matinee on October 3 at 3 p.m. So, if you missed the show during the Fringe Festival, I urge you to go by and see it at the same great price of $15. I laughed and cried and absolutely savored this performance. Click here for ticket information.
As 500 million eggs are recalled, the salmonella scare underscores the way in which the U.S. food system, that values “free trade,” comparative advantage and idolizes efficiency and specialization, may not be the safest model to be trusted with our daily breakfast. In a recent Food and Water Watch statement, Assistant Director, Patty Lovera states that “[t]his egg recall is not a fluke. It’s just the latest example of how the consolidation of food production puts consumers at risk…”
Iowa State University’s Ag Marketing Resource Center reports that in 1987 there were 2,500 producers that kept at least 75,000 laying hens compared to today’s 205 producers who supply 95 percent of the eggs eaten in the United States. In business terms this is a remarkable model of efficiency, but the extreme consolidation that has taken place in the egg industry over the past 23 years had led to an alarming statistic: five states (Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and California) produce half of U.S. eggs. When almost all our eggs come from one of five baskets, it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong that has a negative impact on much of the country.
My work at the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns doing education and advocacy toward creating vibrant, resilient communities in an age faced with climate change and peak oil. In that capacity I work closely with allies at the U.S. Working Group on the Food Crisis. We are pushing for policy changes that support locally grown food systems that support food sovereignty – the right of peoples and communities to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fishery systems, and to choose systems that are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances.
In light of recent U.S. salmonella outbreak, though the eggs that were contaminated came from one source, they were distributed under a variety of labels – giving consumers the illusion that they were choosing their own brand of eggs. The movement for food sovereignty is rejecting this notion of false choice given to us by industrialized food systems in favor of having a real choice about what to eat, as well as how and where it is produced. This is a movement focused on “exercising actual democracy” re-democratizing, diversifying and decentralizing the food system. As Elanor Starmer, an organizer for Food and Water Watch in California states it, “We can’t buy our way out of the problem if we don’t have any choice about what we buy.”
Food recalls are not new to the United States. In 2009 a peanut recall affected nearly 4,000 products. In 2008 143 million pounds of ground beef were recalled, including some that had been distributed through the National School Lunch Program. And in 2006 E. coli-contaminated bagged spinach that had of that sickened hundreds of people in 26 states was recalled. The best way to avoid outbreaks of the current egg recall magnitude is to encourage smaller and regionally dispersed production of our eggs and other foods.
Do you know what you’re supposed to be doing in the month of February? No? Well, there are some brilliant minds out there who say you should be SNACKING! Since 1989 February has been named by those at the Snack Food Association and the National Potato Promotion Board as National Snack Food Month.
It seems that in 1989 the Snack Food Association felt that as a nation our snack food consumption seemed to slump in February. So it designed a month to get all of us back on the wagon. Why not February when Halloween candy has long ago gone stale and the winter holiday temptations have been gobbled to the last crumb? The month is literally “kicked off” with the Super Bowl. Where would we be without bowls of munchies in front of a TV set radiating as many ads as it does plays in the game?
If we took a snapshot of the snack food section of the grocery store in 1989 and compared it to now, we’d be floored by the hundreds of new products available to us. Collectively, as a nation we have become quite efficient at snacking. In many homes there are few meals eaten at a table where people take time to prepare food and share it together. Many people snack right on through the day. Our growing rates of obesity and other diet-related diseases are testimony to this.
As a health coach I work with a lot of elementary school teachers who plan their February entire curriculum around Black History Month. They often complain to me about the negative impact that snack stuff that bears little resemblance to food that is ever-present in children’s lunches. Cheese doodles, potato chips, ring dings and other sugary, salty snack stuff have kids literally bouncing off the walls. Hello Snack Food Association and National Potato Promotion Board people – you’ve done your job… We know how to snack – can we go back to reserving February to honor the history of African Americans in our country next February?
Corn on the Cob: 
What’s a summer picnic without corn on the cob? Of course when I lived in Central America corn in the form of tortillas, tamales, or just on the cob was part of my diet every day. In fact, the people I worked with called themselves “the people of corn” because in the creation myths handed down to them by their ancestors, humans were created from corn.
According to Dr. Weil, corn is a good source of vitamins B1, B5 and C, whole corn also provides many other valuable nutrients, including fiber (important for gastrointestinal function and weight control); folate, (which helps to promote heart health); vitamin B5 (necessary for healthy adrenal function); and lutein (important for healthy vision).
Corn on the cob can be steamed or boiled but for a real summer treat try grilling it on low heat brushed with a little olive oil.
Kale
Rich in phyto-nutrients, kale is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Packed with calcium and fiber, Kale is low in calories and provides you with a good dose of vitamins A and C.
If you like gardening, it’s a hearty vegetable that is usually pretty easy to grow. When shopping look for leaves that are fresh, not wilted and evenly colored. Don’t be fooled by quantity. A large bunch of kale can weigh more than a pound but, like spinach, it will cook down to about 4 cups.
In preparing kale, be sure to de-stem it, since the stem is course and and hard to digest. You can steam it, or gently saute it with onion, garlic and lots of black pepper — for a complete meal add black beans and a pinch of cayenne pepper!
Kale chips – a great substitute for potato chips also make a great snack. Farmers’ Markets are loaded with kale these days – take some home and enjoy!
The deregulation of the commodity markets in the 1990s and 2000 opened up these markets to speculators, who flooded them with Wall Street money. This drove up prices for food and energy across the globe, helping to cause the global food crisis of 2008. The U.N. estimated that an additional 130 million people were driven into hunger during this crisis. We need strong regulations to stop this from happening again.
Senator Blanche Lincoln has inserted language into the Senate bill that would set limits across all commodity markets and bring their trading out into the open. This language, which would stop speculators from gambling on hunger, must not be weakened. Her language is in the bill now, but it’s under attack.
The financial reform bill currently being debated in the Senate could have a direct and positive effect on the lives of the poorest and hungriest people in the world. It represents perhaps the best chance in a decade to pass strong reforms that will have such a concrete effect on the lives of the poorest communities in the world – but we need your help to make sure strong reform measures are enacted.
We cannot allow Wall Street use the commodity markets to gamble on hunger. Please tell your Senator to maintain the strong language proposed by Senator Lincoln.
Please sign onto the below petition to Senate leaders urging them to support strong financial reform measures that place limits on speculation in food and other commodities and do away with unregulated markets in order to stop gambling on hunger. Please go to www.stopgamblingonhunger.com and click on “Take Action” to sign the petition before May 17th.
On March 25, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) introduced HR 4971, the Greening Urban Food Deserts Act. The act would establish a new office in the Department of Agriculture to help increase local agricultural production and fresh food availability especially in underserved communities experiencing hunger, poor nutrition, obesity, and food insecurity.
“Food deserts” are areas with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. In many U.S. cities and rural areas, economic, demographic and land use changes over the past 50 years have created communities where supermarkets are non-existent and where poor quality food, limited choices, and lack of affordable food impact large segments of the population. What HR 4971 proposes to do is to create an office under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) focused on strengthening U.S. agriculture by diversifying U.S. food production – moving from reliance on globally consolidated and industrial food chains to a system that includes local production.
The findings section of the bill looks at key problems such as the high level of concentration in agricultural production and outsourcing; rising fuel costs making transporting food long distances significantly more expensive; and increased costs to treat diet-related diseases like obesity and diabetes. It also looks at positive trends – the fact that by the end of World War II over 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of domestically consumed produce; the recent rise in the number of new farms that have begun smaller, less consolidated operations within the past three years; and the steady growth of farmers’ markets throughout the United States – many of which now feature electronic benefit transfer devices allowing for food stamp purchases.
Specifically, the bill would create an Office of Urban Agriculture responsible for coordinating USDA activities focused on food security and economic development in underserved communities that do not traditionally participate in USDA programs; expand the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program which links farmers to consumers and create a farmers market infrastructure program to assist with the development of thousands of farmers markets; authorize up to $20 million in grants and micro-lending intended for organizations working toward urban agriculture; create nutrition programs in the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and school feeding program to use food production as a mechanism for teaching healthier food options and to better integrate locally produced foods into the feeding programs; and provide extra money to schools that teach children about gardening or food production if the food they produce is used in school meals. Currently, schools get about $2.68 per school lunch (less for breakfast). This bill provides an extra 20 percent for every meal that includes food from the school garden or other educational program (like agricultural internships).
This bill is an important step in rethinking the role of the USDA which has traditionally focused on maximizing large-scale production as a way of carrying out its mandate to promote agriculture, food safety and nutrition. One problem with large-scale agriculture is that many people – especially those living in food deserts – are left feeling disconnected from the land and sources of their food (see related article here). Few U.S. citizens can participate in mechanized large-scale agriculture since the capital intensive start-up costs and overhead make it prohibitive. The bill proposes that the USDA empower and capacitate community garden programs, expand access to nutritious food by better connecting local communities with local farmers and promote agricultural education in schools. This can ultimately serve to keep money circulating within local communities while creating strong local connections and providing viable livelihoods.
These proposals can be constructive in building an economy of thriving resilient communities – the kind of communities that Bill McKibben describes in his book Deep Economy. We are not independent individuals but interdependent members of Earth-based communities. Community-based investment – especially in community gardens that connect people directly to the land – keeps resources circulating locally. This has the potential to build community assets and strengthen social ties.
April Dávila, a writer living in Los Angeles, declared the entire month of March a “month without Monsanto.” She created this blog to record her daily struggle to completely rid her life of Monsanto products and bi-products.
It all started when a friend of Dávila’s sent her an article published in the Huffington Post reporting on an International Journal of Biological Sciences [IJBS] study that linked Monsanto’s GM corn to organ failure. The study prompted Dávila to swear off all things Monsanto for good – but after research she wondered if she could do it. She then challenged herself to try it for one month. She states in her blog: “I’m not doing this as a political statement…I am simply fascinated by the fact that one company can have such a profound grasp on the human species and I’m ultimately curious – if we decide, as individuals, we don’t want Monsanto products to be a part of our lives, is it even possible to live without them?”
Through the entire month of March Dávila details how difficult it is to avoid Monsanto. She cut out processed food (including Girl Scout cookies – a personal favorite), stopped dining out and turned to local sources of whole foods purchased at farmers’ markets. But even there she constantly consulted her iPhone to ensure that the seeds farmers used for their produce were “Nonsanto” – her word for Monsanto-free. She rejoiced at finding Johnny’s Seeds, an organic seed supply company that has struggled to stay independent since Monsanto began buying up seed companies in its quest for consolidation. Most of Johnny’s line of seed remains independent, but they source less than four percent from Semenis (now owned by Monsanto).
Dávila found that Monsanto’s reach is much broader than processed foods and vegetables. When buying animal products she looked for eggs and meat from grass fed animals to avoid the possibility that these animals had been fed Monsanto corn or soy. She also took to washing her hair with hemp-based and USDA organic soap since she could not verify whether organic shampoos could be traced back to Monsanto seed sources or not.
In addition to monitoring her food, Dávila took a look at her clothing. Her research revealed that Monsanto owns the patent on most of the cotton in the world – so she found herself painstakingly ordering clothing made from organic cotton, or cotton alternatives like hemp to guarantee that it was “Nonsanto.” She also found herself laundering frequently since she was limited to a few guaranteed “Nonsanto” pieces of clothing.
Dávila admits that the greatest challenge of the month was the inconvenience, but she also found that her experiment made her feel more connected to the sources of her food. The more she got to know people who grew her food, the more they replaced brands in her head. Dávila ends her month-long experience encouraging consumers to be informed and aware. The blog continues as a forum for discussion.
The Month without Monsanto blog highlights the stronghold that Monsanto has on seeds, and the reality of corporate consolidation in the U.S. food system. Of hundreds of brands of food we see in grocery stores, the vast majority are owned by a handful of industrial food companies like Kraft, Conagra and General Mills. Dean Foods and Dairy Farmers of America control most of the milk we consume and Smithfield, JBS and Cargill dominate meat processing. Decades of deregulation and governmental inattention to industrial consolidation have had a negative impact on U.S. and other family farmers around the world; and have created a food system that is “convenient,” but impersonal and quite possibly unsafe.
New, from the same people that brought us The Story of Stuff and The Story of Cap and Trade is a new story about bottled water. Today, March 22nd, The Story of Bottled Water is available for download online. Yes, drinking lots of clean water is important to good health, b
ut there are several hidden environmental and social costs in every plastic bottle of water sold. Watch this video and learn why it’s a good idea to fill your reusable stainless steal bottle with tap water and drink from it all day long. The Story of Stuff, The Story of Cap and Trade and The Story of Bottled Water are all available under a creative commons copyright meaning that you are free to share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work in a noncommercial manner without altering, transforming or building on it as long as you attribute it to www.storyofstuff.com.
