Does Healthy Eating = Healthy Environment?

Whenever I order the vegetarian option on a menu or say "no thanks" to a steak from the grill, I end up in a discussion about the evolution of farming methods, meat-eating, and the health of the average American diet.

The truth is, I occasionally eat meat. We are, after all, omnivores and have the capacity and desire to eat meat. What I cannot, in good conscious, eat is factory farmed meat. It is the opposite of what nature intended and - consumed the way it is today - is undeniably bad for the planet and bad for human health. A few years ago, the United Food and Agriculture Organization published findings that current production levels of meat contribute between 14 and 22 percent of the 36 billion tons of "CO2-equivalent" greenhouse gases the world produces every year. On top of that, consider how much farmland is dedicated to growing that feed instead of bio-diverse crops. 

On the same token, I will not purchase an organic apple from New Zealand over a conventionally grown American apple just because one is organic and the other may not be. Pesticides and herbicides are under a lot more scrutiny and regulation than many of the items deemed 'natural' by a label and I like to believe, however idealistic and blindly optimistic, that buying American is almost always a good choice. 

So how about canned veggies? And a lot of the things that we pick up at the grocer because Dr. Oz tells us they are healthy choices? Does the saying 'good for you, good for the environment' really hold true? Brian Palmer, for Slate's Green Lantern, answers this question in this week's Q&A: 

"Too often, environmentalists slip half-knowingly between human health and environmental health. Ask a stranger in the grocery store why he buys organic, and he’ll almost certainly conflate the two issues. We’re all one, after all… Unfortunately, there’s no natural law saying that planet health and human health are unitary. Consider the potato. According to a 20-year study involving more than 120,000 people, potatoes correlate more closely with obesity than any other food (including soda). And yet, potatoes aren’t exactly giving Mother Earth diabetes, so to speak."

Read Palmer's articulate response to the question: is eating healthy better for the environment too? HERE. He examines transportation, farming methods, storage methods and compares fresh vs frozen foods. It turns out that there are many circumstances in which limp, salty canned food - which may not be better for your taste-buds or fit the idea of 'fresh' - is better for the environment. 

Back to the Start

Simple. Sweet. Back to the start.

Potty-Training Pigs?

Pretty good idea, if you ask me. Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration has pledged to toilet train train their six-million-swine pig farming industry in an effort to reduce the impact of farm pollution on water supplies. Popular Science reports:

Starting in 2009, one southern Taiwanese pig farmer began smearing special “toilet” areas on his farm with excrement and urine to attract the pigs, cajoling them into doing their business in areas where the waste can be contained (waste from farms is among the primary water pollution complaints received by Taiwan’s EPA, and the farmer was trying to avoid costly fines). The effort was such a success that the EPA recently conducted a study on the technique and plans to adopt it across the island. The effort didn’t just cut the amount of waste water at the farm to 20 percent of previous levels, but also made the farm a cleaner and less odorous operation, boosted fertility y 20 percent, and reduced illness among the animals. The farmer who piloted the initiative told local media that he thinks he collects up to 95 percent of all pig waste produced, rather than letting it slip into nearby rivers.

I'll spare you guys the dirty details about pig "toilets" but if you're curious, read more via Treehugger and Yahoo Green.

The CAFO Reader

I know it's 4th of July weekend and everyone wants to have their barbecue and ignore its environmental cost too, but we've found a new book for the summer reading list and it's all about CAFOs. The who's who of the sustainable food movement got together and penned a fearless collection of essays on factory farming for The Cafo Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories. Favorite of ours, Anna Lappé, contributed a chapter on the link between livestock and the climate crisis. Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser contributed as well.

The University of California Press summarizes:

These essays analyze and vividly depict the devastating impacts and current conditions in and around factory farms. The collection also provides a compelling vision of  “putting the CAFO out to pasture,” in which food systems become more healthy, humane, and sustainable. The CAFO Reader will quickly become an invaluable educational resource in the battle to reform the tragic state of industrial livestock production. It will also inform and influence the growing public movement of activists, farmers, policy makers, and consumers who are aiming to make our food healthier for ourselves and the planet.

Word on the street is that a larger photographic volume fit for a coffee table will be out this fall.

Summer Reading

If Michael Pollan calls it "a searing, and utterly convincing, indictment of modern meat production," you better believe it is jumping right to the top of the summer reading list! The book is Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms by attorney, environmental advocate and livestock rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman and I can't download it to the Kindle fast enough.

(Thnx Amy L.)

"Walk me through it. Bum me out."

Steven Colbert talks to Jononthan Safran Foer about his latest book Eating Animals. Succinct lesson. Typical Colbert. Watch it here thanks to hulu (who, by the way, is a big supporter of charity: water).

Joel Salatin interviewed by The Guardian

Since being highlighted in Eric Schlosser's film Food, Inc, local food movement hero Joel Salatin is bringing much needed attention to horrors and human arrogance of industrial farming and then to the chemical-free farming methods Michael Pollan praised him for in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

The Guardian recently interviewed Salatin and oublished an incredible article. Find it here. Here are some highlights:

From The Guardian's Gaby Wood:

"...in the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled 25% of the market; now the top four control more than 80% – meaning that if ever meat is tainted by bacteria or chemicals it has the potential to reach vast numbers of people; in 1972, 50,000 food safety inspections were conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration, and three decades later that number had gone down to 9,164; 70% of all processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient; in 2007, E coli from food affected 73,000 Americans – something the film correlates directly with the increase in consumption of processed foods and the scale and cleanliness of the country's huge industrial slaughterhouses."

And from Salatin:

[Quotes Joel Arthur Barker on paradigms] "...every paradigm, he says, exceeds its point of efficiency. Agriculture is always the last sector to join the new economy, because farmers are very conservative. So only now has the industrial paradigm in agriculture come to the end of its workability, Salatin explains. "What happens is all these things we're seeing – campylobacter, E coli, mad cow, listeria, salmonella, that weren't even in the lexicon 30 years ago – that is the industrial paradigm exceeding its efficiency. So these Latin squiggly words that we're learning to say – bovine spongiform encephalopathy – are nature's language screaming to us: ENOUGH! And the question then is: what will it take for us to listen? And my contention is that Wall Street is still wearing conquistador mentality and uniforms, and nobody is listening to the pleadings of nature saying: 'Enough.'"

And Salatin's five reasons why we should eat his meat:

1.) "...it's safer from a bio-security standpoint. If you eat our stuff, it's gonna be only sold real close right here. There's a short chain between field and fork, and the shorter that chain is – the fresher, the more transparent that system is – the less chance there is of anything from bio-terrorism to pathogenicity to spoilage. You wanna get diarrhoea? Eat industrial food." 2.) "Number two is what I would call your own personal immune system." The more antibiotics are given to the animals we eat, he explains, the less responsive we become to antibiotics when we need them for medical reasons. "You've been drugging yourself at dinner every day." 3.) "Thirdly, he goes on, they've had their meats checked, and they are unequalled in their nutritional density and power, however you want to measure it – "Omega 3, omega 6 ratios, riboflavin, polyunsaturated fats, vitamin A…" 4.) "It tastes better." 5.) "It's better for the environment. It's a very landscape-therapeutic production model."

(Thnx MP)

State of the Mooooooooonion

So apparently the Great Recession has shrunk the U.S. cattle herd to its smallest size since 1958 but fear not, meatatarians. According to Jim Robb, the director of the Denver-based Livestock Marketing Information Center, an industry and government-funded researcher (hmmmm...), there will still be plenty of beef to go around. "We're forecasting that beef production in 2010 won’t be the smallest since 1958, because the average animal processed now weighs twice as much,” he told Business Week. That's right, folks. The weight of an average catle for slaughter has doubled in the last fifty years.

Read all about the state of the meat and dairy industries - and the corn industry that they rely on - here.

(What you see in the photograph accompanyng this post is a revolving platform at a dairy "farm." It was this image or one of a slaughter house so enjoy the lesser of two evils.)

You're not foolin' me, FarmVille.

If you've got a Facebook account, chances are you've seen the status updates about your friends "working hard in FarmVille," receiving the green thumb award, or a bid to become their friendly neighbor. If you participate in FarmVille already, you know all about it and how to climb the ladder to industrial farming as fast as possible and gain access to those elusive Lily and Asparagus seeds, but for those of you who are reading this on JustSaying and not on Facebook, let me explain.

After "allowing this application," users/players begin with a patch of land upon which they can:

- Plant trees for harvest
- Plow land and cultivate grains, fruits, veggies, etc
- Purchase cows for milk, pigs for truffles, chickens for eggs and so forth
- Build farm houses, fences, picnic tables
- And so on and so forth happy farming fun

In the beginning, most of the items on one's farm have been given as gifts by neighbors and only certain "crops" are available. The more you plant, grow and harvest, the more seeds are available to you thus unlocking more levels and allowing you to raise baby elephants (for circus peanuts), build a dairy farm (that holds 20 of your cows - regular, chocolate, strawberry or green), and expand your acreage! The more you can cram onto your little patch of pixels, the more coins and experience you gain and purchasing power you achieve. Not surprisingly, most farms that I've (virtually) visited have come to look like this:

A virtual CAFO! Seems oddly realistic, right? Well... yes and no. The encouragement for rapid development is spot on but the green fields and animal-friendly pastures are about as realistic as that beautiful agrarian scene on the Land o' Lakes butter container that the film Food, Inc recently debunked. So here are the top ten reasons why I am fed up with this FarmVille foolery:

1.) Real farms are a thing of the past and this game just encourages the disillusioned idea of happy cows. 99.9% of meat (chicken, turkey, pigs, cattle, etc) is grown/created (not "raised") in factory farms. There is no option for your animals to graze. Animals don't get "brushed." Chicken coops don't house 20 happy chickens. Pigs aren't loyal pets out collecting truffles for their owners. There is no place like FarmVille! 0.1% of real farms are like this. That is hardly enough land for 1/1000th of the Facebook nation.

2.) Expansion and overcrowding is encouraged. The more horses and rabbits you have, the more hair you can brush and sell so that you can but that tractor and harvest MORE crops at a FASTER rate!

3.) There is no climate or consequence. You would think that after a few solid months in FarmVille at least one of your neighbors would encounter a bigger problem than raccoons ransacking their crops. Like say... a drought. Or maybe an early frost? Late blight? Beetle infestation? Food borne illness? Nope. At least on the Oregon Trail there was a possibility of a broken axle or death by dysentery.

4.) There are no seasons or regions. Anything grows. Anywhere. Anytime. Or in no time rather. Pattypan Squash: 16 hours. Soybeans: one day. Rice: 12 hours.

5.) If only farms could be so bio-diverse. Crop rotation is a beautiful thing that happens practically no where except in backyard farms and biodynamic ones yet in FarmVille, it's as simple as click, click, plant.

6.) Supergrow: the fertilizer of FarmVille. Not only can you fertilize your own crops (because waiting two whole days for a mere pint-sized pineapple is just plain silly), you can fertilize your neighbors crops! So much for that certified organic rating and seal you worked so hard and paid so much for.

7.) The game refuses to acknowledge the actual yield from these animals. When I first received a baby turkey I was certain he'd be sold to slaughter on Thanksgiving - but the little guy gave me feathers instead. Still does actually. And the only chickens on these farms are layers. No broilers. Okay. Speaking of chicken farms... where have all the padlocks gone?

8.) Avatars wear overalls. Yeah, okay. Again... the happy farmer who wakes up via one happy rooster and milks his dozen cows, each with their name carved into their happy, hay filled space in a bid old barn.

9.) Seed purchase is the only part that is somewhat realistic. You'd think that once you purchase some strawberry seeds you could harvest the crop and re-use seeds from that batch yet, just like on real farms, Facebook has genetically engineered the seeds so that they only produce one batch and you have to purchase the same seed harvest after harvest. How fitting.

10.) For some reason, I am compelled to play it. When I first saw FarmVille I was pretty darn thrilled. A nice educational game for the Facebook tween population! Clearly I feel a tad differently today, and yet, I harvest my crops, pet my goats, and feel guilty when I don't log on in time and my squash withers. I even take pictures of my little farm, like this one that I call, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."

Natalie Portman on Foer's "Eating Animals"

My recently ordered copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, Eating Animals, which is a departure from his usual (awesometastical) historical fiction and instead a nonfiction "exploring the fictions we use to justify our animal eating habits," can not arrive soon enough.

Actress, Activist and Harvard Alum Natalie Portman shares how her experience with the book moved her from vegetarian to vegan in a recent post on The Huffington Post:

" ...what Foer most bravely details is how eating animal pollutes not only our backyards, but also our beliefs. He reminds us that our food is symbolic of what we believe in, and that eating is how we demonstrate to ourselves and to others our beliefs: Catholics take communion -- in which food and drink represent body and blood. Jews use salty water on Passover to remind them of the slaves' bitter tears. And on Thanksgiving, Americans use succotash and slaughter to tell our own creation myth -- how the Pilgrims learned from Native Americans to harvest this land and make it their own.

And as we use food to impart our beliefs to our children, the point from which Foer lifts off, what stories do we want to tell our children through their food?

I remember in college, a professor asked our class to consider what our grandchildren would look back on as being backward behavior or thinking in our generation, the way we are shocked by the kind of misogyny, racism, and sexism we know was commonplace in our grandparents' world. He urged us to use this principle to examine the behaviors in our lives and our societies that we should be a part of changing. Factory farming of animals will be one of the things we look back on as a relic of a less-evolved age.

I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just "This is tasty, and that's why I do it." He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).

But Foer makes his most impactful gesture as a peacemaker, when he unites the two sides of the animal eating debate in their reasoning. Both sides argue: We are not them. Those who refrain from eating animals argue: We don't have to go through what they go through -- we are not them. We are capable of making distinctions between what to eat and what not to eat (Americans eat cow but not dog, Hindus eat chicken but not cow, etc.). We are capable of considering others' minds and others' pain. We are not them. Whereas those who justify eating animals say the same thing: We are not them. They do not merit the same value of being as us. They are not us.

And so Foer shows us, through Eating Animals, that we are all thinking along the same lines: We are not them. But, he urges, how will we define who we are?"

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-portman/jonathan-safran-foers-iea_b_334407.html

Guess I won't be making exceptions for meat in the homes of others anymore. The more I learn, the less I can justifiably eat. Ugh. On a similar note... I sorta loved the last few moments of South Park's Whale Whores episode...

"It wasn't whales and dolphins... It was chickens and cows..."
"Great job son. Now the Japanese are normal like us." 

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natalie-portman/jonathan-safran-foers-iea_b_334407.html