"food ark" in national geographic

 

Our Dwindling Food Variety

As we've come to depend on a handful of commercial varieties of fruits and vegetables, thousands of heirloom varieties have disappeared. It's hard to know exactly how many have been lost over the past century, but a study conducted in 1983 by the Rural Advancement Foundation International gave a clue to the scope of the problem. It compared USDA listings of seed varieties sold by commercial U.S. seed houses in 1903 with those in the U.S. National Seed Storage Laboratory in 1983. The survey, which included 66 crops, found that about 93 percent of the varieties had gone extinct. More up-to-date studies are needed.

I had forgotten how much I loved National Geographic (whose tagline is "Inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888") when I was handed a copy of the July Issue...for it contained an article on a subject near and dear to my heart: food biodiversity.  The article Food Ark starts us off with this:

A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply—but we must take steps to save them.

Author Charles Siebert highlights work being done by Seed Savers Exchange: a Slow Food USA partner in the Renewing America's Food Traditions alliance and chief seed source for many of the foods on Slow Food's Ark of Taste.  He also re-tells the story of the "Green Revolution" --an effort to feed the world through industrialized agriculture, which in a tragically ironic turn of events, has turned out to put us at risk of the aforementioned food crisis. With climate change and growing pest threats, putting all of our eggs in the proverbial "one basket" of GMOs or any monocrops, leaves us at high risk.  No matter what the biotech industry would have us believe, we do not need expensive, resource intensive, patented seeds to feed the world.  Thousands of varieties of plants and animals have evolved with traits uniquely suited for their particular ecosystem niche. And people have been feeding themselves healthfully in unique ways for centuries.  By industrializing the food system, we've ended up with an industrialized, heavily processed, unsavory diet...and an epidemic of diet related diseases to boot.

As I've mentioned many times before here and when public speaking: biodiversity is a marker of a health in any system... Diversity in the food supply and in nutrition help to keep a healthier planet and population of people. For some ideas on how to protect and restore food biodiversity on your plate or in your own backyard, check out these previous posts.  Here too. 

Rec'd reading: Chasing Chiles

The book Chasing Chiles is not merely a tome dedicated to exploring climate change and it’s impacts on agriculture, though it does this well, it is a celebration of life.  By focusing in on the stories of one food, chile peppers, the three authors were able to dig deeply into the complex ways in which all food touches our lives, providing readers (well this reader at least) with enough sustenance to care deeply about the fate of chiles specifically and food, land, and culture, in general through learning about the fragility and import of biodiversity in our food system. I find myself left with not just a taste for more chile peppers, but with a sense of concern, and conversely, a hope for their future.

Written by three active figures in the good food movement—chef and Slow Food USA board member Kurt Michael Friese; author, conservationist, ethnobotanist, father of Renewing America’s Food Traditions Alliance, and local food hero Gary Paul Nabhan; and my friend and fellow Slow Food Biodiversity committee member the agroecologist Kraig Kraft—this work brings together the insights of their varied expertise to explore the vast ramifications of climate change on food.

The three gastronauts take us from Sonora and its Chiltepines, to Florida and its Datils, to the Yucatan and its Habaneros, to the Gulf Coast and its Tabascos, to New Mexico and its diverse Native Chiles, to Maryland and the history of Fish peppers, and to Wisconsin and Southern Illinois and Beaver Dams, telling the stories of peppers and the amazing people dedicated to keeping them available. They weave in language, history, music, art, politics, tragedies, and recipes along the way. 

Threats to biodiversity are in the multitude.  Loss of small farms, farmers, and farmland, environmental degradation, industrialization of agriculture and our food system, and the decreasing understanding humans have of how land, food, culture, and health are tied together have been major players in loss of biodiversity for decades, but climate change may be throwing a whole host of new threats into play.  In Chasing Chiles we learn about how temperature changes, floods, drought, storm damage, pestilence from shifting weather patterns seem to be increasing perils.  While each locale will respond differently to climate change, Friese, Nahban, and Kraft remind us that to create resilience in our food system (i.e. to ensure food remains available to make it onto our plates) we must increase biodiversity among all food crops to provide a buffer. As all locales will respond differently to shifting weather patterns, so too will each varietal respond differently to these shifts.

I would be remiss in not mentioning certain personal and professional affinities for this subject matter.  For I found it deeply gratifying to experience the synchronicity of burning my tongue on a soup flavored with Chiltepines found on a recent trip to Tucson and visit to Native Seeds as I sat down to begin reading and then to finish the book as I awaited the appearance of dozens of Beaver Dam pepper seedling I started to grow out here in the state they’ve been home to for nearly a hundred years.  And as a dietitian, I must note the clear connection between biodiversity and health: as we’ve moved away from diverse diets towards increasingly refined, industrialized, mono-crop diets our health has suffered. By restoring biodiversity to our gardens, fields, and wild places we can restore our health.  This book ends hopefully with some meaningful principles to eat and grow food to counter climate change.

Chasing Chiles is one hot, wild ride. And one worth taking.

What is on the plate for 2011?

Will Americans get ever closer to a McDonalds or have more access to fresh, local, healthy food in 2011?

The turn of the year always makes me curious for what the next 365 days will hold…. 

Nitrogen Contaminated Water 

Of course, we can expect more of the same problems to unfold: because we can suppose that Americans will continue to watch almost as much television as a full-time occupation (~35 hours each week) and will each drink over 50 gallons of sweetened beverages on average this year—we can expect that public health problems like obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes will continue to grow.  And along with many other nasty habits, because our growing population continues to choose a highly carbon intensive diet; high in industrialized meat and highly processed foods sold in highly processed packages—we will continue to raise the level of carbon in the atmosphere while it’s already at dangerous levels.  And because American farmers will apply so many pesticides and spread so much nitrogen on their fields this year, we can expect to see the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico expand even further, watch more fresh ground water become undrinkable due to nitrogen levels, and continue to put ag bees and wildlife at risk.  Another 27,000 species will likely be lost from our planet this year…with much of the loss due to agriculture.

Milwaukee Farmer's Market

But we can also anticipate more of the positives that make up the burgeoning food movement—farmers markets and the organic sector will continue to expand, as markets grew in number by 16% last year and the organic sector has grown by ~20% in each of the past several.  The increases in small scale, sustainable ag support will allow more farmers to grow more produce and to raise animals on pasture and so we’ll have access to healthier foods.  More young people will learn about food traditions and how to cook, garden, farm (this last one we’ll have to cross our fingers that more people will someday get into farming than are getting out of it) through the increasing number of programs like school gardens, college curricula, and farm internships.  Work will continue to ensure that endangered foods; like the Narragansett Turkey, Milwaukee Apple, Lake Michigan Whitefish, and Beaver Dam Pepper remain.

Will Zebra Mussels taste
anything like these
Sicilian beauties?

And we’ll likely see more innovative solutions come out of the woodwork and into the mainstream—like the invasive species diet .  Maybe this idea can be simply defined as eating invasive species so that the pressure of their invasion is reduced.  Here in Wisconsin friends and I have enjoyed delicious concoctions like invasive garlic mustard pestos, but what I really wonder about is zebra mussels—will someone find a way to harvest & eat those mollusks that are taking over Lake Michigan?  A Spanish marine biologist I met at the Salone del Gusto is successfully marketing invasive yet deliciously edible seaweed along his coast.  And a big question for the world of eco-minded nutrition professionals—will the soon to be released, USDA's 2010 Dietary Guidelines for American’s finally address sustainability???

No matter what else happens this year, the more agroecology, nutritional ecology, food biodiversity, traditional foodways, and just plain old kitchen wisdom we invest in, the more we will improve our environmental and collective health…what we put on or plates will help to shape the things to come.

smaller = < climate change

"Can we imagine smaller?"  Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy, The End of Nature, and now Eaarth, asked in talk last Friday night at the Urban Ecology Center.

Smaller, as opposed to business as usual, is what it will take to mitigate the very worst effects of global warming.  Smaller seems revolutionary, but as we are already running into the limits of growth, what is really radical is not doing anything.  Smaller is necessary to slow down the heartbreaking losses related to climate change that are already occurring: the arctic melting, island nations disappearing, glacial water supplies being lost faster than they can be replaced, extinction of species, increased flooding & stronger storms.  "We are not allowed to bet on this," said Bill.  We are not allowed to gamble away the things we collectively need and love as humans.

Bill explained how we have already "built a new" planet in the past 200 years of burning fossil fuels, releasing carbon into the atmosphere that took millions of years to lay down.  The result: the earth's temperature has been raised by one full degree, there is 5% more moisture in the atmosphere, and 30% increase in oceanic acidity.  Each of these changes has led to myriad of problems, as mentioned, but the things that make it seem real to us are the stories with which we can identify.  In the face of all the dramatic stories, I was surprised how deeply I was saddened when Bill shared, very matter of factly while he was really talking about something else, that his home state of Vermont (once my home state) is losing their maple trees.  Just imagine; no sugar on snow.

Many people, especially leaders of large nations such as ours (as evidenced by the outcome of Copenhagen,) are in a state of denial, but the science is clear: it's real, we've caused it, and we need to take some drastic actions now.  The safe level of carbon in the atmosphere is 350 parts per million (ppm), as found by leading climate scientist Jim Hansen and his team (tipped off when the arctic started melting in 2007.)  We're now at 387ppm.

Enter the 350 campaign.  Bill Mckibben and a few grad students have started a global campaign to draw attention to climate change.  350.org is home to a global network of citizens of the earth concerned about the present and the future.  October 24, 2009, the international day of action on Climate Change,  was reported by CNN the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history.  Go to 350.org to see thousands of pictures of people from every continent taking action.  Maybe you'll see the photo of the Bangladeshi orphans who apparently sent a not along with their photo that said something like, "even though no one cares for us, we care about the earth."  The environmental movement is often seen as elitest, but Bill made the (too often missed) point that those with the least resources suffer the worst from environmental disasters; climate change is no different.

The 350 campaign has announced 10/10/10 as a Global Work Day.   From the website:

2010 is the year we
Get To Work.

With ideas and input from thousands of organizers from around the world, we've formed a climate action plan for 2010.
We'll get to work to start changing our communities, and get to work to make our leaders realize that they actually need to lead. It's a plan that may well break the logjam and get us moving. But only, of course, if we work together to make it happen.

What will you do in your community?

One final point that resonated with me and I think is important for us all to think about.  When asked about personal lifestyles, Bill responded by talking about how our choices do matter, but that we should be, "saving some of the energy we use to perfect our own lives" to get political.  Global warming is a global problem.  The 350 campaign is a way to move world leaders to the end result of putting a price on carbon to reduce emissions significantly everywhere.


Sustainable Nutrition Bottom-line:  The food system accounts for an estimated 20% of carbon emissions.  See past blog posts Changing Climate Change, Industrial Nutrition, and 50% Less Meat, and for ideas on low-carbon diets.  Changing our food system to one that emits less doesn't have to be all drudgery either.  One study found that people, on average have ten times more conversations while shopping at a farmer's market than while at the supermarket.  I'd love to see a study exploring how much more famer's market shoppers enjoy their local, fresh food too:)

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.

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.

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.