Changing Climate Change

Leaders from 192 nations are gathered in Copenhagen for what has been called "the largest and most important UN climate change conference in history." Certainly the stakes are high. And the science is telling us dramatic action must be taken to prevent the worst effects of a warming globe. The worst, because the climate change ball is already in motion...

What does this have to do with nutrition? A whole heck of a lot it turns out.

Agriculture is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector alone accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions- more than transportation- according to the FAO.

Climate change is also a public health issue. "The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded greenhouse gases are endangering people's health and must be regulated."

And as the effects of climate change become more drastic, we won't have a choice in rethinking the way we feed ourselves- plant hardiness zone changes, drought patterns, flood impacts, and more are already shifting the way we are able to grow food.

National Public Radio's Marketplace has been airing a series recently called the Climate Race with a companion web portal in which you can listen to the series and explore an interactive US Climate Change map (compiled by the US Global Research Program.) Open the map on the region you live and you'll find effects of climate change that are already occurring and what we can expect by the end of the century if the pattern continues. The Midwest region has already seen two record breaking floods in the past 15 years (many of our local farmers were impacted.) If that isn't scary enough the forecast shows, "Great Lakes water levels to fall 1 to 2 feet by century's end, depending on emission levels." The Great Lakes-- our greatest supply of fresh water. The fresh water situation in other parts of the country looks even more grim.

These are just some of the reasons that so much is at stake in Copenhagen right now. Rising sea levels, already affecting countries like Maldives, will also dramatically change the way we live. Sweeping change is only possible if leaders around the world agree to reduce our collective impact. (And unfortunately, the popular cap and trade solution seems to only switch the pieces on the chess board.) But as individuals, I believe we have some power to create change as well.

Choosing a "low-carbon" diet is one way to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Locally grown foods tend to be lower impact- both in transportation cost, but also, importantly, in processing and packaging costs. Fortunately, the side effects of increased consumption of local foods could turn out to be stronger communities and healthier people. Check out the Center for Food Safety's Cool Food Campaign for more tips on stopping global warming with the food we eat.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line: Our food choices impact the world around us. Less meat, more local, less processed, more home made.... you get the drift. While global politicians continue their politicking, we can choose to reduce our own impact while building the resilience of our communities. Maybe, just maybe, our choices will help our voices trickle up to our leaders.

The Thanksgiving Story

This year, as we sat around the table with family and friends, enjoying the American Bronze Heritage Turkey, Sibley Squash, home grown potatoes, just picked brussel sprouts, and the many more delights that graced our table, I gave thanks for the health and wellness of our group and reflected on the origins of the very first Thanksgiving.

Certainly, humans of all cultures have been giving thanks for a bountiful harvest throughout the millennia, but the holiday we Americans celebrate each November commemorates a real occurrence- the survival of Plymouth colonists due to the generosity of the native Wampanoag people, who shared their knowledge, skills and food with the starving settlers. This is where our bucolic image of the “first Thanksgiving” usually ends- a large 3 day feast of venison, wild game, pompion, and brotherly love between the Pilgrims and Indians. This story is, of course, incomplete. The “survivalist training” provided by the Wampanoag was rewarded with massacre only a generation later. The first Thanksgiving was actually a scene in a horror story.

Even so, showing gratitude at the end of a harvest season remains ever appropriate. But the story we tell ourselves about our celebrational food is often much like the fairy-tale version of Thanksgiving. On the surface (or on the package) our food appears bucolic, yet underneath it’s a bit more sinister with corresponding environmental, health, and ethical horrors. This is especially so of the industrial holiday turkeys that grace most American’s plates.

Barbara Kingsolver, in her book detailing a year of local eating, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, famously penned her quest to establish a breeding flock of heritage turkeys. In describing why, she writes about the state of the turkey industry.

“Of the 400 million turkeys Americans consume each year, more than 99 percent of them are a single breed: the Broad-Breasted White, a quick-fattening monster bred specifically for the industrial scale setting. These are the big lugs so famously dumb, they can drown by looking up at rain. (Friends of mine swear they have seen this happen.) If a Broad-Breasted white should escape slaughter, it likely wouldn’t live to be a year old: they get so heavy, their legs collapse. In mature form they’re incapable of flying, foraging, or mating. That’s right, reproduction. Genes that make turkey behave like animals are useless to a creature packed wing to wing with thousands of others, and might cause it to get uppity or suicidal, so those genes have been bred out of the pool. Docile lethargy works better, and helps them pack on the pounds. To some extent, this trend holds for all animals bred for confinement. For turkeys, this scheme that gave them an extremely breast-heavy body and ultra-rapid growth has also left them with a combination of deformity and idiocy that renders them unable to have turkey sex. Poor turkeys.”

Rather excitingly, Barbara’s Red Bourbon turkeys do end up mating naturally by the end of her story, but the lineage of the Broad Breasted Whites continue to be left up to human “sperm wranglers.” It is for this and many other frightful reasons that I gave up eating turkey even at Thanksgiving for more than decade in favor of what I presumed was the only sane alternative: vegetarianism. For much of my life I avoided factory farming and it’s moral, environmental, and health atrocities by avoiding all meat. It wasn’t until I moved to a community in Vermont, teeming with small scale farms, that I realized there existed a viable alternative to factory farming aside from altogether abstaining from meat: pasturing animals in the brilliant out of doors. In the case of birds, pastured poultry can result in a healthier animal, food, community and ecosystem.

The American Bronze heritage turkey we enjoyed (after a quick brine and simple oven roast) came from JenEhr, a local family farm whose turkeys are raised on pasture have an opportunity to do what turkeys do best: walk around in the fresh air and eat grass and bugs. In the process, their meat develops a rich flavor and healthier nutrient profile than grain fed industrial birds. Pastured poultry has increased beneficial omega 3 fatty acids, conjugated linoleic acid, and beta carotene from the diverse diet they’ve had access to as well as less fat overall. Our Bronze turkey yielded a remarkably tiny amount of fat in the pan as it roasted, but what drippings it did yield were very rich in flavor and made a delectable gravy.

Heritage breeds are making a comeback due to dedicated conservationists- chefs, farmers, and eaters. Groups like the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy and Slow Food are working to maintain biodiversity and prevent further food extinction in our food system. Our local chapter of the national organization, Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast, pairs local eaters with local growers of heritage breeds like the Standard Bronze, Red Bourbon, and Narragansett, with the Heritage Turkey Project- a basic list of heritage turkey growers. Heritage Turkeys in other parts of the country can be located on the ALBC and Local Harvest websites.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line:
It costs more to buy a heritage breed- they take more time and skill to raise. And takes more time to purchase than simply picking out a cheap bird from a pile in the freezer section of mega-mart. But it is a mistake to believe that a cheap price is a bargain. All down the food chain, the cost of cheap meat is felt- in the waters polluted by factory farm waste, in the unsafe conditions and poor wages paid the to industry workers, in the effects of chronic diseases on the eaters whose options are often limited to industrialized, processed foods. My recommendation is to buy better meat less often or just altogether skip it- and all the problems associated with cheap meat can be avoided. I choose quality over quantity and reserve my meat eating to those rare occasions when I’m comfortable it was raised in a way I can stomach. And when we do eat heritage meat, it is something we can truly be thankful for...

Native Alaskan Wellness

Beluga Point, Cook Inlet, Alaska

While in Anchorage for an Indian Health Services conference, I had the chance to meet many extraordinary Alaska Native people working to preserve their traditional food ways and lifestyles.

One such man, a tribal councilman from the Sitka tribe, generously shared with me his herring roe. Collected by laying hemlock branches deep under water during spawning season for the herring to lay eggs on and then gathered and frozen for safe keeping, he told me the Clupea pallasii is considered the first “big food” of spring; before the green shoots and leaves begin to show. The roe tasted like droplets of ocean breeze.

One beautiful woman artist and jewelry maker gave me a tiny fish made out of fossilized ivory to wear around my neck.

Another man, a cultural artist and teacher, shared with me a story about two elders he once met in a remote village. They were a traditional married couple who didn't appear to be nearly as old as their stated age of 90 years of age. He asked them what the secret was to their apparent youth and they replied, "food and love." He then shared with me how his aches and pains of “old age” (he’s 50) were cured one day when his brother gave him a jar of salmon roe. The salmon roe was so delicious, he ate half the jar in one evening- the next morning he awoke without pain. Now he makes a point to enjoy fish more regularly and he takes fish oil daily- he does not need aspirin any longer to be pain free. But the same brother who gave him the roes had to close up his salmon fishing operation earlier this year- a lifelong fisherman, he apparently had never experienced a salmon population so low.

In this land of ocean and lakes and rivers and streams, foods of the water are central to the cultural identity and health of the people as well as the ecology of the region. Along with berries, greens, roots and mushrooms and wild meat, fish, seaweed, and marine mammals make up a significant part of the many Alaskan’s traditional diets. We know that omega 3 fatty acids found in fish are cardio protective. We know that antioxidants in berries protect against cellular damage. When colonization forced changes in diet and lifestyle, these, and other protective effects of the traditional diet began to wane. There are many different tribes in Alaska, but one thing in common is their rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer are increasing, along with alarming rates of suicide.

The reasons for these changes are many and complex, and so must be addressed on many levels. One group working to address these problems from a wholistic health perspective is the Southcentral Foundation, an Alaska Native owned healthcare organization. Southcentral Foundation's vision is a Native community that enjoys physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness; its mission is to work together with the Native community to achieve wellness through health and related services. One visit to the site showed happy staff and clients in an environment celebrating native heritage and values in the art and architecture, traditional healing services, and models of care.

I found another group working to address the wellness issues of people and places of the region at the Alaska Federation of Native’s trade show: the Nunamta Aulukestai.

Nunamta Aulukestai means Caretakers of the Land in Yup'ik. The group is made up of eight village corporations that have come together with this common goal of carefully managing the future of Bristol Bay. We are the people who live here year round. Our people have lived here for thousands of years. At the forefront of caring for our land is stopping the development of an open pit mine, Pebble Mine. This mine would sit precariously at the headwaters of the Kvichak and Nushagak Rivers. These rivers are the largest sockeye salmon producing rivers in the world. Millions of fish come back every year to spawn. Native people have been subsisting off of these fish for thousands of years. To put this resource at risk for an unsustainable resource such as gold is not only foolish but it endangers the livelihoods of the residents, animals and plants that live here.

The Nunamta Aulukestai shared literature that included the technical background of the proposed pebble mine, salmon ecology 101, DNR reports showing declines in the majority of Bristol Bay salmon species, and a flyer titled “Protecting Subsistence in the Age of Mega-Development.” The flyer captured my eye with a photo of a painted, pink, protest sign stating, “YOUR LAND LOVES YOU. LOVE IT BACK.” Across the room was a coalition of mining proponents.

I thought about the work of the Nunamta against the proposed mine on a trip north of Anchorage to the Eagle River. There my traveling companions and I witnessed a rare sight- a grizzly bear catching and eating a spawning salmon. Bears are the largest of the many species that directly or indirectly benefit from salmon runs. As our brown grizzly feasted away on his prize, I wondered how his relatives in the Bristol Bay watershed would fare if the mine went through.

Salmon aren’t the only marine species in trouble. Along with such stars as the endangered leatherback sea turtles and stellar sea lions, there is downward trend in several whale populations. The Oct 15, 2009 Turnagain Times headlined, “Cook Inlet beluga population declining; Scientists alarmed by recent count of endangered whales.” Loss of habitat and pollution (from development and mining) are cited as two key reasons for population declines.

Protecting endangered and threatened species is an issue of food sovereignty and environmental justice. Sustainable nutrition is not just about choosing sustainable foods, but also about choosing to raise our voices against unsustainable resource development and buying less “stuff” made from these processes (mining in Alaska yields copper, gold, molybdenum- all used in many industrial processes such as refining petroleum, making plastics, stainless steels, flame retardants, light bulbs and agricultural chemicals.)

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom line:

We do not live alone on this fair planet of ours. Personal and environmental health depend on each of us understanding how our choices affect the people and places of the world. For info on choosing sustainable seafood, see prior post form April '08; Finding Sustainable Seafood. For a great video on how our seemingly harmless little purchases impact the globe, see the award-winning online video, the Story of Stuff.

Take action for School Lunch

Labor Day is the National Day of Action to Get REAL Food into Schools. The Time for Lunch campaign, Slow Food USA's first national political campaign, is a truly democratic effort to improve our children's health by improving school lunch. With its greatly limited resources, the National School Lunch Program struggles to provide anything but cheap, processed food to the more than 30 million children its feeds each day. Getting healthy, real food into schools could help to stem the tide of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease already plaguing our youth. The Time for Lunch Campaign urges our legislators to invest in our nation's health by prioritizing real food in schools when the Child Nutrition act is reauthorized later this year.

Feeding kids better food in schools is one of many greatly needed steps towards growing healthy people. We are now in crisis mode-- lifestyle related chronic disease rates are skyrocketing. One in 3 American children born after the year 2000 is expected to develop diabetes. Nearly a third of children are overweight or obese and these rates are expected to climb. The Robert Wood Johnson foundation recently came out with their 6th annual report on obesity: F as in Fat: How Obesity Rates Are Failing in America 2009.

The current economic crisis could exacerbate the obesity epidemic. Food prices are expected to rise, particularly for more nutritious foods, making it more difficult for families to eat healthy foods.

The report includes an extensive list of specific recommendations of how to "Make Obesity Prevention and Control a High Priority of Health Reform" and how to "Launch a National Strategy to Combat Obesity."

Clearly, we can not continue chalking our dramatic rates of diet-related diseases to personal responsibility. Our food environment matters. Our food system is currently perfectly designed to do what it does best-- deliver large amounts of cheap, processed food. And this is making us collectively sick. We must do something entirely different if we are to expect different outcomes. I believe that getting real food into schools takes us one step closer towards building a food system that keep us healthy, happy and whole. So lets get to it.

There are 3 Steps to Time for Lunch:

• Sign the Petition

  "I believe that change can’t wait: It's time to provide America's children with REAL FOOD at school."

• Spread the Word

Tell your friends and legislators about Time for Lunch.

• Attend an Eat-in

TODAY! Over 300 Eat-ins are happening in all 50 states!

From Slow Food USA:

An Eat-In (part potluck, part sit-in) takes place in public and gathers people to support a cause - like getting real food into schools.

On Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009, people in communities all over the country will sit down to share a meal with their neighbors and kids. This National Day of Action will send a clear message to Congress: It's time to provide America's children with real food at school.

Getting Congress' attention is a big job, and we need your help. On Sept. 7, attend an Eat-In taking place near you.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line: As a dietitian, I believe it is imperative to do more than encourage people to eat more nutritiously-- we must all take part in building a healthier food system that delivers more nutritious food.

How Local Can You Go?

Today kicks off the start of the Milwaukee Eat Local Challenge- an effort to promote local food as an integral path to community wellness. For the first two gloriously harvest-able weeks in September, people across Milwaukee (and beyond of course) will be challenging themselves to increase their consumption of local food because- more matters. To celebrate (in addition to enjoying good local fare) I've included a round of local food pics recently taken. Bon appetite!



Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line:
Healthy local food systems= Healthy people and places. To learn more visit the Eat Local Milwaukee website.

Buried Treasures

Unearthing potatoes makes one think of buried treasure. Our row of Austrian Crescent and New Red elicited cries of delight as spud after glorious spud made its way into the light. We were digging for true sustenance.

The poor potato too often gets a bad rap. I hear often from clients who have been sadly misinformed that there’s no nutritive value to a potato. Whether this is a hangover from the Atkin’s diet craze or a result of misunderstood diabetic education, I’m not sure, but, “potatoes are just like white sugar” seems a common misconception. And while all things carbohydrate will eventually break down into blood glucose (our body’s preferred source of fuel) the potato has a lot more to offer than just the energy from it's storage of complex carbohydrates...

Potatoes are a good source of vitamin C, B-vitamins, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium as well as providing dietary fiber and cancer fighting antioxidants. Unfortunately, the most common form of potatoes enjoyed in the U.S.- french fries- do not get distinguishing marks for good nutrition. Ditto for processed potatoes like flakes and other such nonsense. The nutritive value remains highest when the potato remain whole- skin and all.

And while not a substitute for whole grains, unlike wheat, rye, barley, quinoa, and so on, potatoes are a good source of carbohydrate energy that can easily be grown and processed (processing is the key here) by home gardeners. Home grown carbohydrates = very local and very delicious.

Originally hailing from Peru, potatoes are now one of the world's largest crops- likely owing to the economic virtues of the energy dense tuber. The few varieties grown on a large scale and found in the grocery store (yellow, russet, and red) belie the wide diversity of potatoes that exist- there are literally thousands. A few of my favorites- Purple Peruvian, La Ratte, Adirondack Blue, Rose Finn apple, Red Norland, Russian banana, Russet Burbank. The lovely Ozette potatoe has made it’s way onto Slow Food’s Ark of Taste- a catalogue of delicious foods in danger of extinction. Farmers and gardeners keeping these varietals growing and in circulation improves biodiversity- a marker of health and resilance in our food system.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottomline:
Eat potatoes. Eat a wide variety of them. Eat them roasted, grilled, baked, and steamed. Seek out new varieties from local farmers- 'tis the season! Grow them at home- if not this year, maybe next. Seed Savers Exchange gorgeous catalogue can get you started.

If you have diabetes or suffer from “portion distortion”- a reminder: ½ cup of potato counts as one serving of carbohydrate and balanced meals include 3-5 servings of carbohydrate.

Exporting our Flawed Food System

NPR shared two significant stories about our food system today. One story told of an industrial farm community's lack of good food, and the other told of a plan to boost industrial farm aid to poor nations.

From the ongoing series Hidden Kitchens by the Kitchen Sisters came Central Valley Disconnect: Rich Land, Poor Nutrition. The story details how California's Central Valley, one of the largest producers of fruits and vegetables, has very little healthy food to eat. "... the children of this valley rarely taste those fruits and vegetables." The poverty of these farming communities creates major health disparities. Residents and public health workers are trying to overcome the obesogenic environment through walking clubs and farm stands at schools and farmer's markets.

And from the news: the G8 meeting pledged 20 billion dollars in food aid for Africa. President Obama said, "There's no reason why Africa shouldn't be able to feed itself." NPR's Planet Money blog seemed to laud the decision in the post G8's New Approach to Hunger.

"Today's G8 announcement of $20 billion for food aid actually takes a fairly revolutionary step. Instead of just delivering food, G8 countries are going to help poor countries develop their agriculture industries. It's almost like a farming stimulus, only provided by outside countries rather than local governments. The American share of that pledge is about $3.5 billion, which would be a doubling of previous hunger spending."

It sound great- right? "Teach a man how to fish..." But here's the problem- the biotech industry in behind this aid push and the biotech industry doesn't have a good track record in helping to feed the world's poor. Environmental, economic, and human woes have been the primary outcomes of the biotech agenda. Basically, with biotech, instead of growing food to feed themselves, the small farmers grow food for the world market The industrial farming techniques bankrupt the soil and the farmers. Instead of saving seed, like farmer's have done since the dawn of agriculture, farmer's must buy patented GMO seed and fertilizer and pesticides, year after year, form giant corporations like Monsanto, then they are subject to world market forces larger than themselves, ultimately reaping prices for their crops that can't sustain them. They go hungry while biotech gets rich. In India- the disastrous result has been horrific epidemics of farmer suicides and food riots.

Civil Eats explored this topic back in June in the article, All That Glitters is Not Gold: Biotechnology Has Failed Us, So Why Promote It Abroad? In the post, Paula Crossfield connects some of the dots between big ag and food insecurity. "Meanwhile, here in the US, 36 million people are food insecure, and yet we are one of the biggest agricultural producers in the world." In her interview with global food policy expert and Stuffed and Starved author Raj Patel, he says, "Everyone agrees that African farmers need support. But this story is like the vacuum cleaner salesman who dumps dirt on your floor to show you how his product can pick some of it up."

While food policy folks have been arguing for years to solve the problem of hunger by increasing aid for agriculture, this move by the G8 seems more like aid to biotech. Industrial ag can not feed people without lots of oil and water and profits for big ag companies. Real agro-ecological alternatives that respect a culture's food traditions are the only long term solution.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottomline:

Industrial ag does not solve world hunger, in many cases it perpetuates it as it keeps control of resources in the hands of the few. If millions of people across the United States are going hungry each day and millions of people are overweight while undernourished-why would we export our flawed food system? Feeding people nourishing food requires a transformation in the way we grow and think about food.

Placing good food within reach

With our summer solstice dinner featuring spinach, mache, lettuces, mustard, snow peas, strawberries, garlic scapes, and herbs, from the garden, it was easy to believe for an evening that good food is within easy reach. Though this backyard garden harvest was not truly easy, per se, as many hours go into planting, tending, harvesting, cleaning, preparing food from the garden- the unfortunate reality is that the food within easy reach for most Americans is bad food. The food that is most easily accessible, both financially and most convienently, is processed food that offers little nutrition- in schools, in the corner stores, and in the fast food outlets that litter our streets. So how can we design our lives, individually and collectively, so that our food actually nourishes us?

What we must consider in order to create a functional food system is a fundamental shift in the way we go about procuring our food. Eating real good food takes some thought. On a personal level, this means spending more time on food preparation and planning- planting, visting farms and markets, cooking, preserving...or spending money for someone to do this for you. On a community level it can mean making land available for urban gardens, supporting neighborhood programs to teach kids and adults to grow and cook food, changing ordinances to allow composting and hen keeping and opening community kitchens. On a national level it means reprioritizing nutrition and changing our industrial-get-big-or-get-out-cheap-food farm policies.

And certainly, we must first acknowledge that our food system is dysfunctional. Not only has the quality and safety of our food system suffered by making production so large, energy intensive, and cheap, it has hidden environmental, health, and financial (in current subsidy system) costs that disproportionately harm people with little incomes or social safety nets.

In an exciting development in the movement to change our food system, the new food movie, FOOD Inc, promises to "lift the veil on our nation's food industry" and offer up some solutions. Watch the trailer here and visit the website to learn more.



Sustainable Nutrition Bottomline:
Learn about your food, share what you learn, and act on it- work to get more good food within reach. Spend more time planning and making your meals- for the week, for the season, and for the years to come. Weekly plans can include visiting a farmers market, cooking dinners, and bringing your lunch to work. Season plans can include getting a CSA share, farm trips, preserving food and growing a garden. And long term plans can include planting perennials or fruit trees, moving to a location that allows for more food production, or investing in local farms.

Industrial Nutrition

Good food guru Michael Pollan was recently interviewed on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now show. You can watch, listen, or read the transcription on the Democracy Now website. In the interview, he mentions having to revise the rules he urged readers to consider when choosing real food (as opposes to edible-food-like-substances- think yogurt vs. gogurt.) in his book “In Defense of Food- An Eater’s Manifesto.” Apparently, food industry marketers read his book too: in response to Pollan's rules urging folks not to eat any food with more than 5 ingredients and to avoid high fructose corn syrup, the ever clever marketers have come out with products that co-opt these ideas: he names Hagen-Daz "5", and the “real sugar” (not HFCS) campaigns of Snapple and soon Coke. What this all means is “business as usual”: bad products still get sold and our real underlying problems don't get addressed.

While the food industry continues to deliver new and improved products that promise to bring consumers health and happiness with some even claiming to be "green", this status quo approach does little to address the underlying problems related to the general public's food illiteracy or our environmental woes. Most people have little understanding of where food comes from or how our food system impacts the planet, let alone their own health. As a registered dietitian, I've taken it upon myself to add this type of basic food system education to my job description as a nutrition educator. By exploring the very foundations of our industrial food system, we all can better understand all the ways in which this system fails to deliver healthy, sustainable, and delicious food for everyone. When health professionals learn the basics of the food system, they can more effectively address the compound issues their clients and communities are facing. What follows is an explanation of certain key issues related to health and the food system and resources for further information.

Industrial Nutrition 101: A system both inefficient & unsustainable

Our modern, industrial food system has become increasingly complex since the industrial revolution. This energy intensive, heavy input system creates huge amount of waste—each step in the elongated process of getting food to mouths requires the use of fossil fuels, fertilizers, and/or chemicals and ends up creating waste problems in the form of CO2, trash, chemical run-off, and animal manure. One problem that exemplifies this system’s inefficiencies is the problems that result when manure becomes a waste product instead of valuable farm input. In an almost ironic twist, the nitrogen that makes manure such a great fertilizer makes it absolutely devastating to rivers, lakes, and streams when large amounts of untreated animal waste from factory farms is allowed to seep into our waterways. But at each step, this system operates without regard to climate change and as if the earth’s resources are inexhaustible—which they most certainly are not.

Not only is the industrial food system energy intensive, wasteful, and convoluted- it is inefficient at it's very core. The US food system uses more energy than it creates. Over 7 times more—meaning that when you eat food produced in the industrial food system, for every kilocalorie of food you eat, 7 kilocalories (or equivalent) have been used up to produce and transport that food to you. See the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems Fact Sheet, “US Food System” for further details on this and for references.

These ineffieciencies can’t go on forever. The twin problems of climate change and peak oil force us to change strategies. You know about climate change certainly, even the most skeptical scientists will acknowledge its existence, if not it's cause. But what is this epic problem "peak oil," you might ask. It’s simply the peak amount of oil we can produce within nature and humankind's limit. Peak oil is an un-debatable physical phenomenon- the only piece of this reality that can be debated if when its going to happen and who it will hurt first. Some peak oil experts say the peak of our ability to produce oil has already occurred, others forecast it in the next few years. The end of our oil based economy doesn’t just mean we have to wean ourselves off big cars- it means we have to change the way we farm, produce, and procure our food- or many more people in the world go hungry. It means that we will have to change the way we go about our lives- from buying presents to building homes to accessing healthcare.

Industrial Nutrition: Public health takes note

The world of public health is beginning to take peak oil seriously- not only for concerns surrounding food security and hunger, but also healthcare delivery. This past March, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health hosted a conference on Peak Oil and Health. Speaker’s included a congressman, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health, economists, and public health officials. The conference aimed to connect the dots between peak oil, climate change, the built environment, and declining ecosystems, to describe the potential impacts of peak oil on the public health sector, and to explore solutions. Presentation slides are available online.

Industrial Nutrition: Resources & Solutions

Interested in learning more about peak oil? Check out the Oil Drum- an important resource for peak oil activist's whose opinion I hold in high esteem. This will link you to an Oil Drum article on Ecological Economics and the Food System. For communities and people interested in building resilience and finding solutions; Transition Town offers a construct to help people, neighborhoods, cities, and so on to work together to address issues relating to transitioning to a more sustainable human-scaled economy.

Sustainable Nutrition Bottom Line: The industrial food system has little to offer in the way of real solutions to our health and planetary problems. It is essential we begin working to drastically change the dynamics of our food system. What can you do? Learn. Build your local, sustainable food economy by supporting local farmers using low energy intensive growing methods. Plant food. Connect with others in your community and work collectively to find creative ways to address climate change, peak oil, and health.

Planting the Seeds of Hope

Gardeners across the country are giddy with spring: watching life sprout from seeds always fills one with hope.

This must be one of the reasons why so many people are returning to gardening this year: record seed sales, garden initiatives, organized seed swaps, and a much hoped for kitchen garden on the "First Lawn"! On April 9th, the Michelle Obama planted the first seedlings. The vegetables grown are meant to be eaten in the White House and shared with a local meal site for the homeless. On the garden, Mrs Obama said "In many countries they really believe in the importance of planting and growing their own food." She also emphasized the economic benefit of kitchen gardening. You can see a map of the garden by clicking here.

A kitchen garden is one of the most healthful, economical, and ecological options for filling your plate.

For your own edible landscape project check out the Kitchen Gardeners International.

Locally, in Milwaukee, the Victory Garden Initiative is growing. Check it out for resources, updates on the Memorial Day Gardening Blitz, and to learn how you can get involved.

Renewing Food Traditions

Kanin Rouston teaching apple grafting. Photo by Mark Dohm

Renewing America's Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance is a network of people and organizations dedicated to identifying and restoring food and food traditions that are in danger of being lost...

From a nutrition professional's perspective, this loss of food traditions in inseparable from the decline in our collective health: the rise in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and certain cancers can be traced to our change in food ways.  Not only have the foods we eat changed, but the way we go about procuring food and eating food has changed dramatically in the past several decades.  RAFT initiatives help restore some of our important traditional foodways to our landscapes and our plates.  

RAFT has become a true force for good under the watch of author, ethno-botanist, and advocate Gary Nabhan.  Founding members of the RAFT alliance include the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, the Center for Sustainable Environments, Chefs Collaborative,Cultural Convervancy, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Seeds Savers Exchange, and Slow Food USA.  Each organization contributes in their own area of expertise.  An example of this synergistic work is the Ark of Taste: Slow Food USA's catalogue of delicious foods in danger of extinction.  Slow Food facilitates the Ark of Taste program, Seeds Savers Exchange offers Ark of Taste heirloom seeds to their customers, and Chefs Collaborative encourages chefs to use Ark of Taste foods on their menus.

Recently, I was privelaged to attend several RAFT events in Madison, WI, focusing on heritage apples.  What follows is my excerpt from the Slow Food Wisconsin Southeast spring newsletter.

While perhaps the most beloved of American fruits, our dear apple’s diversity is in decline.

“The diversity of heirloom apples historically found in American orchards, backyards and hedgerows—upwards of 16,000 distinct named varieties—is greater than the diversity found in any other crop domesticated here or introduced to this continent. Now, the bad news: the number of apple varieties considered to be at risk of being lost from American landscapes and tables is also greater than that for any other kind of food— fruit, vegetable, livestock breed, fish or game.”

- From the Renewing America’s Food Tradition Forgotten Fruits Manual & Manifesto

But recently, apple advocates gathered at the UW-Arboretum in Madison to collaborate on ways to restore biodiversity to our orchards, markets, and plates. The Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT) alliance, Slow Food USA, and Slow Food Madison coordinated a series of events dedicated to this fair pomme. A Forgotten Fruits Summit, a Heritage Orchard Restoration Workshop, an artisanal cider tasting, and a Great Lakes Food at Risk Workshop all took place in late March.

Of the Forgotten Fruits Summit, Slow Food Madison’s Heidi Busse said, “It was a truly historic event and the first (and possibly only) time that this group of fruit experts come together. Had it not been for the gathering that Dr. Gary Nabhan organized, this fruit knowledge may have been entirely lost and forgotten. This was a national gathering of apple growers, historians, authors and advocates who came together to talk about threatened apple varieties and discuss strategies for restoring apples in the landscape (and how to train a new generation of orchardists).”

At the Heritage Orchard Restoration Workshop, beginning growers learned from apple experts. A visit to Dan Bussey’s orchard (with over 200 varieties of apple trees) and an abandoned homestead orchard gave participants some field experience in grafting and tending trees.

The cider tasting featured delightful cider and cheese pairings, including an artisan cider made by Aeppeltreow, a winery located within Brightenwoods Orchard here in SE Wisconsin. http://www.aeppeltreow.com/ The tasting was preceded by inspirational readings by RAFT’s Gary Nabhan, Ark of Taste co-chair Ben Watson, and Aldo Leopold land conservationist Curt Meine.

The Great Lakes Region’s Food at risk workshop brought together wild food experts, fisherman, farmers, orchardists, health professionals, educators, and chefs to review, edit, and add to a list of all foods at risk in the region. A draft version of the list can be found on Slow Food USA’s website.  A publication of Renewing the Food Traditions of the Great Lakes is due to come out later this year.

To learn more about RAFT and the Ark of Taste, visit Slow Food USA’s program pages at slowfoodusa.org. 

Industrial Grade Sweeteners

The Corn Refiners Association was recently dismayed by a study finding detectable mercury in 31% of sampled products sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup.   After a multi million dollar industry ad campaign to promote HFCS's safety "in moderation... just like any sugar", written about here last year,  the CRA is now hard pressed to to make the "just like any sugar" case when their product has a secret ingredient most people don't want to ingest.   

Tom Philpott has written an excellent article outlining the peer-reviewed report published by the journal of Environmental Health on Gristmill.  

The CRA of course finds fault with the study, you can read their outraged press release here. 

One might ask at this point, how does mercury get into HFCS in the first place.  The CRA would tell you that the mercury found could have come from anywhere and furthermore, "the amounts of mercury the authors and the IATP purport to have found in food products containing HFCS are far below levels of concern set by the U.S> FDA and the EPA."   But the fact of the matter is that this highly toxic chemical can be traced to two of the many chemicals used to create HFCS.  And the millions of parents with HFCS-guzzling children may want to rethink how "natural" this sweetener made from corn truly is...

Now the American Dietetic Association, which is in part bankrolled by food industry moguls such as Coca Cola, stands by the assertion that HFCS is "nutritionally equivalent to sucrose."  And this is true, strictly speaking, when talking about weight or blood sugar control.  But when are we as a profession, going to admit that food is more than the sum of its parts?  While calorically similar, HFCS is a product of the industrialized agricultural and food system.  The ADA states in a white paper on the subject, "HFCS is a controversial topic and although not all nutrition professionals will readily accept the scientific evidence, this paper represents an evidenced-based, balanced perspective."  Well- this nutrition professional believes this is a very narrow view of one of the quintessential controversies of our time.  

Bottom line:  

While HFCS is calorically equivalent to other sweeteners, it may contain traces of mercury and stems from an industrial food system that does not support health and wellness of people or places.  Choose more sustainable options such as honey, maple syrup, and organic, fair-trade sugar to sweeten your day, in moderation of course ;)

50% less Meat

The next twenty minutes you have free, you should watch this online video of food writer Mark Bittman on TED. Bittman’s work has been featured in an earlier blog post: “Meat’s Deep Eco-Footprint”.

The Center for a Livable Future explains:

He calls attention to the lop-sided USDA food pyramid, the contribution of
industrial food animal production to climate change, and gives a pretty good
recap of how the American diet has changed in the last century.

Many gems can be found in this short segment. He connects the hyperconsumption of animal products and junk food to our health and climate crisis as well as the “death of the real community.” On the subject of nutritionism he says, “Its not the beta-carotene, it’s the carrot.”
He also proposes American’s cut their meat consumption in half and that we stop raising animals industrially and "stop eating them thoughtlessly". Bravo!

We all need to act individually and collectively if we want to improve the world we live in. Eating less meat and more plants is an individual action that, collectively, can have major impact.

Animal products are not needed for health, but they can be a part of a healthy diet. Animals raised right, such as grass fed beef and bison, can actually improve an ecosystem. But our planet cannot support our current (and growing)meat habit.

Sustainable Nutrition Recommendation:

If you eat animal products, choose small amounts of appropriately raised meat- grass fed beef and bison, organic pastured chicken and eggs, heritage pigs fed a varied diet, and wild fish not at risk of extinction.

Gardens for Change

A Victory Garden on the White House lawn seems a no brainer to me:

the most influential house in the nation + edible garden

= inspiration for more gardens

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to "open the doors of government" and asks us "to be involved in your own democracy again" on his change.org site. To speed this along, staffers have created an open forum to propose and vote on ideas for change. The 10 ideas with the most votes will be presented to the Obama on Jan 16th. Ideas for change range from "Free Single payer Healthcare" to "End the War in Iraq" to "Make the grid green in 10 years" to "Forgive student loans" and many ideas in between.

I cast my first vote for "Victory Gardens 2.0"- not because the other ideas aren't important, they are, but because in a time when a we are facing several major crises, simple, practical, and beautiful solutions should be considered. Gardening for change addresses health, environmental stewardship, resource conservation, hunger and economics. As a dietitian, I like to start health promotion and disease prevention from the ground up.

Voting ends on January 15th. Vote now.