I recently watched Food, Inc., with my ten-year-old daughter, who just finished reading the young reader’s version of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The documentary, based on Pollan’s book and the work of Eric Schlosser, was well made and highly accessible to her. It was funny to hear her finally comment, “What’s up with all these companies that ‘decline to be interviewed’?” A valid question….

Bad news from Reuters on a report released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS): “Biotech crops cause big jump in pesticide use.” 

“This report confirms what we’ve been saying for years,” said Bill Freese, science policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety. “The most common type of genetically engineered crops promotes increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of resistant weeds, and more chemical residues in our foods. This may be profitable for the biotech/pesticide companies, but it’s bad news for farmers, human health and the environment.”

Having just watched Food, Inc.,  the comments from Monsanto (yes, one of those “declined to be interviewed” companies from the movie) in the Reuters piece are particularly creepy for me:

Monsanto officials declined to comment on the report. But the Biotechnology Industry Organization, of which Monsanto is a member, said the popularity of herbicide-resistant crops showed their value outweighs any associated detriments.

“Herbicide resistance crops are incredibly popular with farmers. They help them manage their weed problems in ways traditional crops don’t,” said Mike Wach, BIO managing director of science and regulatory affairs.

“If a farmer feels a crop is causing them more trouble than it is worth they will stop using it,” Wach said. “Farmers are continuing to adopt these crops because they provide benefits, not liabilities and problems.”

This despite the fact that

…biotech corn seed prices in 2010 could be almost three times the cost of conventional seed, while new enhanced biotech soybean seed for 2010 could be 42 percent more than the original biotech version. 

I somehow doubt that farmers can’t wait to spend more money on these seeds, regardless of their purported benefits….

If you are interested in supporting the repair of our broken food systems, I urge you to check out the Food Declaration and add your voice to the clamor for change – the deadline to add your name is Monday, November 30. And in the interest of giving thanks where it is due, send Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan your thanks for the work done thus far here.

As we gather for the Thanksgiving holiday, let’s give some thought (and some aid, whether it’s a donation of food, volunteer hours, or money) to those less fortunate: here are some sobering statistics from the NY Times: “Hunger in US at a 14-Year High.”

If you’re like me and still need to pick up a few things for Thanksgiving dinner (I’m headed to Back Forty Acres to pick up my turkey this afternoon!), consider joining in the Alliance for Fair Food’s National Supermarket Week of Action and dropping a letter to your local store manager to give them the message that you support fair wages and working conditions for farmworkers who produce our food.

And finally, if you do know those who produce the food on your table, give them a huge, personal THANK YOU! Happy Thanksgiving.

This is a great winter comfort food that is quick to assemble but does need some time to cook. Of course, you could make this vegan by leaving out the pork and using a vegetable broth. I made a fun discovery about daikon by mistake (apparently I put the daikon too close to the cold air flow of the fridge): if you’re using it for soup, it can be frozen from its fresh state! (It wouldn’t work too well for other dishes after thawing – too watery.) Thaw it slightly to slip the skin off, then cut as indicated.

If you want to add the seaweed, you should look for kelp (scientifically called laminaria, known as haidai in Mandarin) that has been dried in strips. If you don’t have an Asian market nearby, you can alternatively order from the Maine Seaweed Company if you already know you like seaweed. For more information on seaweed, you can visit this page about the medicinal value of seaweed and Michael Guiry’s Seaweed Site, which has a lot of scientific info and great pictures.

ingredients:

• 3/4 lb pork spareribs, cut across the bone into 2″ sections, then separated into individual ribs or 1 lb baby back ribs separated into individual ribs (try to buy pastured pork – you’ll do your health, your tastebuds, the pig, and the environment a favor!)
• 1 qt water or broth (low sodium if you’re using canned)
• 1/2 lb daikon
• 1-2 strips of kelp, optional
• salt to taste – seaweed is salty, so you may not need to add any

method:

1. Place the ribs in the liquid and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce to a simmer and skim any scum from the top of the liquid – if you boil too rapidly, your soup will be cloudy. Simmer for approximately 1 h, or until almost completely tender.
2. In the meantime, peel the daikon and cut it into 1″ thick rounds, then quarter or halve the rounds.
3. If using kelp, wash it, soak it in cool water for 15-30 m, rinse and repeat, rinsing it again before cutting it into 2″ sections.
4. Add the daikon to the soup, and simmer for 30 – 60 m more, adding the kelp about 15 m before pork and daikon are both completely tender. The kelp will help to thicken the soup slightly and give it a smooth, glossy look and feel.
5. Adjust the seasoning, and serve.

We’re moving into week #2 of the piglet flu at our house, so I feel the need to start off with some fun:

For all you punsters and word wizards out there, a fun piece by John Hershey on RakishWit: “What the garden gives us.”

And who can resist the gang at Sesame Street? First Lady Michelle Obama recently visited with her message on childhood health and the importance of eating vegetables.

On a more serious note (but in keeping with the First Lady’s message), a good post on dailySpark by guest blogger and registered dietitian Suzanne Dixon: “Can You Be Both Overweight and Malnourished?”

While we were all busy voting on Tuesday, chefs at Windsor Castle were making culinary history – at a feast for the Celebration of Faiths and the Environment, the presence of 9 different faiths made menu planning a bit difficult, so the castle kitchen went vegan for a day! I haven’t seen any reviews of the meal, but the planning process is described in the Telegraph.

Meanwhile, back on this side of the pond, a very helpful piece by CBS News on the importance of the place of preventive medicine and integrative care in the currently raging health care debate: Health Reform and Integrative Care. I know some folks who are pretty happy to have this in the mix – a quick shout-out to thank Maureen Halnon Wheeler at It’s All Connected for the link!

For those pondering whether buying organic is “worth it” in this economy, here is an oldie but goodie: “Why Organic Is the Healthiest Choice for Kids.” I understand that we can only expect people to do their best within their means, but it does give me pause when I see parents driving gas-guzzlers and buying the latest video games and “must-haves” for the under-18 set moan and groan about the cost of buying organic food….

The assistant White House chef and food initiatives coordinator, Sam Kass, has been in the news a lot recently – I’m happy to see someone raising awareness of the deplorable state of school lunches and urging parents to consider what they can do to improve things.

“You look around our country and you see that we have a lot of major challenges, the origin of which is food…. It’s not a big step to think about …What am I doing? How is that affecting this problem? How am I helping?

Of course, it’s sad to see him toning down stronger statements that he made earlier, such as

“We find ourselves in a fight to salvage a food system that has been ravaged by an approach of quantity over quality,” he wrote. “The industry our society has built around food is harmful and unsustainable.”

Is that really an offensive statement? I guess it probably is if you subscribe to the “always get the most for the least amount of money, regardless of quality” mentality pushed by Costco, Sam’s Club, and the like. For a paradigm shift, it’s good to consider Michael Pollan’s advice to “pay more and eat less” – that is, pay more for quality food such as pastured meats and eat less of it, filling in the calorie gap with more vegetarian meals per week.

News to be cheerful about: “Bringing Fresh Produce to the Corner Store.”

A new documentary to watch: Food Beware.

And finally, another trip back to an oldie but goodie which sums up exactly how I feel about cooking from scratch at home and, even more, explains why I detest the Food Network-type shows: “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch.”

“[A]s a chef friend put it when I asked him if he thought I could learn anything about cooking by watching the Food Network, ‘How much do you learn about playing basketball by watching the N.B.A.?’”

Definitely off target – to paraphrase Michael Pollan, don’t buy food where you shop for anything else: check out Cornucopia Institute’s post on the Target organic food troubles.

And paraphrasing Pollan again - don’t buy food that makes health claims. Apparently, working with the FDA after receiving a slap on the wrist from it, the Smart Choices program has been postponed. I for one am happy to see “Smart Choices” postponed, since its intent is not to improve the consumer’s health and education about healthful foods, but to maintain the big food companies’ bottom line in the face of growing concern about their products.

In “Smart grocery shopping,” Jennifer LaRue Huget points out that maybe the desire to get a checkmark is not a bad thing if the processors are forced to make their products healthier, but she is quick to note

…there’s another matter that makes me think Smart Choices wasn’t so smart. For all its carefully calibrated calculations, the program wasn’t designed to help me find the most healthful foods in the supermarket. Only companies that paid to join the program, including Kraft Foods and Kellogg, got the big checkmarks. So while whole-grain, low-sugar, nutrient-packed Post Grape-Nuts may be among the most healthful breakfast cereals, it has no checkmark because Post isn’t part of the system.

In an NPR story about Michelle Obama’s ongoing crusade to improve the health of our young people, Jocelyn Frye, director of policy and projects for the First Lady, has also thrown down the gauntlet, saying, “I think there are certainly companies that are exploring all sorts of ways to make foods healthier and to address these concerns about healthy eating and still be profitable in what they do. And we’re relying on them to do it.”

It will be interesting to see how this pans out; in the meantime, I’m not holding my breath – I’m going to keep listening to Michael Pollan’s advice and trying to buy whole, close to the source ingredients for my cooking.

Another not officially Chinese recipe, but a fun Asian tweak on glazed carrots, a common side dish this time of year. The idea comes from the September 2009 issue of Food & Wine, but I’ve changed the ingredients and cooking method a bit. A great side dish for an east-west fusion dinner.

ingredients:

• 1 lb carrots, peeled and roll-cut
• 1 T unsalted butter, melted
• 1 T light soy sauce
• 1 T fresh ginger root, minced (or cut into matchsticks if you prefer a “bigger” ginger kick)
• 1 T honey
• salt, to taste

method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F. Preheat a sheet pan in the oven for 5 minutes.
2. Combine the carrots with the butter, soy sauce, and ginger.
3. Put the carrots on the hot sheet pan, and roast until almost tender.
4. Remove the carrots, toss with the honey, and return to the oven until tender.
5. Remove the carrots to a serving bowl, adjust the seasoning with salt if necessary, and serve.

Like many parents, I’m sure, we took our kids to see WALL-E last year, and frankly we were a bit disappointed. Not in the movie itself, but in the way it was marketed as a funny kids’ flick. It was way over their heads (they were 5 & 9), and they didn’t enjoy it much – in fact, our 5-year-old found it horribly sad and cried a lot.

Yesterday, I took them (now 6 & 10) to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. And I had the same reaction. I liked the movie’s sense of humor, there were some great jokes for adults, and the film really does raise a lot of food system and envrironmental issues: GMOs, portion sizes, food as entertainment, obesity, environmental impact of food and food waste, etc. But once again, it was mostly over the kids’ heads, and mine are pretty aware of food issues because we talk about them a lot. My biggest disappointment was that again it had been marketed as a kids’ movie AND it is purportedly based (verrrrrrry marginally) on one of our favorite children’s books. There were only a few moments when the kids laughed out loud, and the plot was unrecognizable as being related to the book.

I am not against educating children about important contemporary issues through humor, but somehow I haven’t seen children’s filmmakers strike the right notes yet. They’ve learned a lot more by watching “adult” documentaries, such as Our Daily Bread and A Passion for Sustainability.

I’m hoping that Where the Wild Things Are turns out to be 1) closer to the book and 2) a fun kids’ movie! And in the meantime, I’ll keep looking for films that entertain AND educate kids on important issues – any suggestions out there?

First, just for fun, “Cakes Gone Wrong,” which has a fun link to CakeWrecks.

Now on to the more serious links.

Let’s take a close look at the new “Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation.” The objective:

The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF) is a unique partnership between retailers, non-profit organizations, food and beverage manufacturers and trade associations aimed at helping to reduce obesity. The HWCF will promote ways to help people achieve a healthy weight through energy balance – balancing calories consumed as part of a healthy diet with calories expended by physical activity – in the places where they spend much of their time: in the marketplace, in the workplace and in schools.

Sounds like a great plan, in theory. Here is what participating companies have agreed to do:

Participating companies are committing to build on existing efforts and will be making changes to their products, packaging and labeling to make it easier for consumers to manage their calorie intake while preserving or enhancing overall nutrition quality. Specific options companies may undertake include product reformulation and innovation; providing smaller portions; redesigning packaging and labeling; placing calorie information on the front of products; providing consumers with information and educational materials; and in-store promotion of the initiative.

However, if you look at the members’ list, it is composed mainly of huge agribusiness-type producers of processed foods. I will be watching closely to see how many of them actually “reformulate” their food products into real food rather than simply taking the easier route and repackaging, relabeling, reportioning. One of the first examples is Coca-Cola planning to put their calorie count on the front of the bottle. Hm. I don’t know a single Coke drinker that will be deterred by this. It makes me wonder how the calories in Coke can be counted as “calories consumed as part of a healthy diet.”

It will be interesting to track, but I fear that this foundation is mostly about fooling the public into believing that these companies care about their health while still convincing them that they need these food products – it is, after all, all about these companies losing money if people realize that their products are NOT part of a healthy diet, right?

Want a surer source of the basics of a healthful diet? Try the USDAs Farmers’ Market Search or go to LocalHarvest.

Some interesting and disturbing stats at the CDC’s Fruits & Veggies Matter site.

And finally, a controversial study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health mentioned in several places in the UK: “Are working mums’ children fatter?” both at NHS and NetDoctor. I’m not sure the study really reached any conclusions, and I’d have to say that working mothers have enough trouble without being blamed for their children’s obesity problems…. Or maybe I’m just sensitive, being on the verge of returning to PT work myself?

As the weather gets colder, we’re turning away from our old standby, Chilled Beancurd with Soy Sauce, and thinking of warmer dishes. This is a quick tofu dish that exactly suits that purpose and can easily be made vegan. If fresh mushrooms are not available, you can use 6-8 dried shiitakes, rehydrated in hot water for 30 m - the soaking water can be substituted for the broth or water.

ingredients:

• 1 pkg extra-firm silken tofu (we like Mori-nu brand)
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 lb fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems reserved for making broth or stock
• 2 T light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 T Shaoxing cooking wine or dry sherry
• 1/2 c homemade chicken or vegetable broth or water
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1 T chicken or vegetable broth or water
• 1 T cooking oil
• 2 scallions, roll cut into 1/2″ sections
• 1 T fresh ginger root, cut into matchsticks
• sea salt to taste

method:

1. Cut the beancurd into 3/4″ cubes, then soak in a bowl of cold water mixed with the 1/2 tsp sea salt.
2. Cut the mushroom caps into 1/2″ strips or into quarters
3. Combine the soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine, and 1/2 c broth and set aside.
4. Combine the cornstarch with the 1 T of broth and set aside.
5. Heat the wok over medium high heat, then add the oil just until it shimmers.
6. Explode the scallion and ginger just until fragrant, then add the mushrooms, stirfrying until just tender.
7. Add the soy sauce mixture, and bring to a boil.
8. Add the beancurd and return to a simmer, just until heated through.
9. Add the cornstarch mixture, stirring gently 1-2 m or until the starchy taste is cooked out.
10. Adjust seasoning and serve.