Why Michael Pollan Swears by Cooking From Scratch

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Author: Randy Hayes

In Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Michael Pollan describes his personal journey of stepping away from processed and packaged foods toward cooking from scratch, and highlights the grievous consequences of industrial modernity in the daily arena of eating and drinking. Specialization, Pollan argues, “breeds helplessness, dependence, and ignorance and, eventually… undermines any sense of responsibility.” Cooked persuasively illuminates how the industrial mindset fosters the domination of nature and distorts public governance, and offers, instead, justification and guidance for a healthier way of eating and a richer life.

But is this a significant book for those dedicated to getting humanity in sync with nature’s ways? Speaking of the allure and benefit of cooking, Pollan explains, “Perhaps what most commends cooking to me is that it offers a powerful corrective to this way of being in the world—a corrective that is still available to all of us.” Is cooking then a vital ingredient for a socially just and ecologically sound society?

Pollan, a journalism professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has been a prolific and effective messenger for food and sustainable agriculture issues, with such popular books as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. People with such a wide platform have a vital role to play in broadening a movement beyond the choir. In this sense, Pollan has been an eloquent ally in the great transition to a better world.

Calls for meaningful action for social change too often become reduced to requesting yet another donation or letter to unresponsive politicians. Herein lies a role for cooking, “a magic that remains accessible to all of us, at home.” Cooking your own food builds self-reliance and community. It is an available tool for personal transformation and, by promoting an affiliation with nature, progressive environmental change. Ever stumble when trying to tell friends or colleagues what they can do to help save the day? By combining more local food and more time in the kitchen, one can wrest a modicum of societal control away from corporate executives to regular folks. This is at least part of the solution to confronting the contemporary social and ecological crisis.

KEEP READING ON ALTERNET

Reconciliation, Reparations, and Regeneration: The thing about white people is…

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Author: Orion Kriegman

I am white, and yet I have never self-identified as “white.” When asked about my identity, I have often used the shorthand term Pizza-Bagel – that oddly appealing mixture of the Jewish bagel with the Italian tomato sauce and cheese. Yet the tomato, originally a “New World” crop, was appropriated by the Italians, while the bagel originated from Polish gastronomy and was adopted by the Jews. Indeed, I never thought much about my Scottish ancestry, until I married a Celtic lass who pointed out that I am in point of fact a deep-fried pizza bagel.  All of this highlighting a basic fact of cultural hybridity, that culture is living and always fluid and evolving, and that human societies have continuously traded ideas, cuisine, music, etc., while absorbing, blending, and innovating.

Still, in our highly unequal and stratified society, I was born at a time when an American Mutt like myself can without fear or effort pass as white with all the privileges that entails (it was not so easy for my ancestors). I was also taught that how we behaved at home was “too ethnic” to be tolerated in mainstream settings – my mom told me that Grandpa Joe decided to ditch his Italian language and extended family to become as Waspy as folks on TV.  As a swarthy Mediterranean white person, I grew up thinking the American Dream was for me because my immigrant grandparents were refugees while my parents were now professionals.

I suspect that one reason many white Americans have a hard time reconciling with their privileges is that they don’t identify their own family history with that of  “white America” – even when society defines them that way. The language we use to discuss race makes it hard to reconcile with history. Without reconciliation with our history, we will not expand our solidarity and be able to come together to fight for justice. Facing into our histories requires blowing up constructed categories of black and white. In doing this we do not cast aside the first part of the discussion on the peculiar institution of race in America: we must still acknowledge America’s unique historical context and the pervasive inequality as manifested in the Racial Wealth Gap, and the many other ways of measuring and demonstrating that black and white America still exist such that we are in no way a post-racial society.

I bring this all up to help explain why I believe that transforming our identities is at the core of the work needed to transform our industrial food system to a sustainable one rooted in racial justice. The New England Food Vision suggests a dietary shift that for many of us raised in fast food nation would be radical. A serious commitment to creating a sustainable regional food system that is equitable requires the “3 Rs”: Reconciliation with our history of injustice, collectively facing the truth; Reparations that address how the past hasn’t gone anywhere, but remains with us now; and, Regeneration to heal ourselves, our communities, and the land.

KEEP READING ON FOOD SOLUTIONS NEW ENGLAND

Vegetables Likely To Take More Of Your Plate In 2016

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Author: Bonny Wolf

About a decade ago, food writer Michael Pollan issued a call to action: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. As 2016 opens, it looks like many American cooks and diners are heeding that call.

Vegetables have moved from the side to the center of the plate. And as another year begins, it appears that plants are the new meat.

Bon Appetit magazine named AL’s Place in San Francisco the best new restaurant of 2015. Meats at AL’s Place are listed under “sides.” The rest of the menu features vegetable-centric dishes sometimes featuring animal protein as an ingredient — pear curry, black lime yellowtail, persimmon, blistered squash. The hanger steak (with smoked salmon butter), however, is a side dish.

This and other restaurants are also using the whole vegetable. What used to go in the compost heap is now fermented, roasted or smoked and used in other dishes. The stem-to-leaf approach follows the example of nose-to-tail eating.

WastED is a project that brings together chefs, farmers, fishermen and food purveyors to “reconceive waste” in the food chain, according to the group’s website.

…

Eaters in 2016 also are likely to see more dried beans, peas and lentils on their plates. The United Nations has declared this the International Year of Pulses to raise consumer awareness of the nutritional and environmental benefits of the edible dry seeds. Chickpeas seems to be the rising star of the pulse world. They’re not just for hummus anymore.

KEEP READING ON NPR

“Open Sesame” Shows the Importance of Seed Saving

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The seed saving movement is growing. Communities are banding together to save and share heirloom and open pollination seeds that are in danger of disappearing off the face of the Earth as a result of industrialized agriculture and multinational corporations that control the majority of our seed supply.

The documentary “Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds” by M. Sean Kaminsky seeks to inspire people about the importance of seed saving—and its urgency.

When you save seeds, you’re joining a chain of farmers, gardeners, and seed enthusiasts that dates back to the Stone Age—our civilization literally arose due to seed saving.

Early humans selected the best wild plants with which to feed themselves, and passed those varieties along to others by saving and sharing seeds.

Seeds are the foundation of life, from fruits and vegetables to grain and livestock feed—without them, we have no food. It’s estimated that upwards of 90 percent of our caloric intake directly or indirectly comes from seeds.

Age-old heirloom varieties are disappearing at an alarming rate—90 percent of the crop varieties grown 100 years ago are already gone. The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species are in danger of extinction.

Why Seed Saving Is So Important

Four of the most important reasons to save seeds are the following:

  1. Seed Security: By saving your seeds, you control your seed and therefore your food supply—you aren’t depending on seed stores or catalogs for difficult to find seed. Hundreds of excellent plant varieties have been discontinued as big corporations have consolidated the seed industry and focused on more profitable varieties. Half of the vegetables grown today have no commercial sources—you have to get them through seed trades.4
  2. Regional Adaptation: Most commercially available seed has been selected because it performs fairly well across the entire country if given synthetic fertilizers. But when you save seed from your own best performing plants, on your land and in your own ecosystem, you gradually develop varieties better adapted to your own soil, climate, and growing conditions.
KEEP READING ON MERCOLA

Together, we can cool the planet!

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[ English | Español ]

For many years, La Vía Campesina and GRAIN have been telling the world about how the agroindustrial food system causes half of all greenhouse gas emissions. But the world’s governments are refusing to face these problems head on, and the Paris Summit in December is approaching without any effective commitment to doing so on their part.

This new video by La Vía Campesina and GRAIN gives you the information you need to understand how the agroindustrial food system is impacting our climate, and at the same time what we can do to change course and start cooling the planet. And every single one of us is part of the solution!

In the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa, for many years, we have been criticizing false solutions to climate change like GMOs, the “green” economy, and “climate-smart” agriculture. No two ways about it: the solution to the climate crisis is in the hands of small farmers, along with consumers who choose agroecological products from local markets. This is the message we’re taking to the Paris Climate Change Conference this December. Join the campaign! Share this video!

MORE INFORMATION AT:

tv.viacampesina.org
viacampesina.org
grain.org

The Power of… Corn

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[ English | Español ]

Translation by: Eleanor D. Stevens

  • The nixtamalization of corn dough increases its calcium content and the bioavailability of Vitamin B3 and certain proteins.
  • Combining corn with legumes such as beans increases the quality of their proteins.
  •  Blue corn contains anthocyanins, powerful antioxidants that protect our cells.

What is corn?

Corn (zea mays) is a member of the Gramineae family, along with wheat, rice, barley, rye, and oats. However, unlike these other grains, corn is not known to have any direct relatives among wild plants. It is thought that it was developed by domesticating teosintle, another Graminea similar to corn that grows naturally in Mexico and parts of Central America.

Corn is central to all Mesoamerican cultures. The Popul Vuh tell how “Quetzalcóatl went down to Mictlán, the land of the dead, and there he gathered bones from a man and a woman and took them to the goddess Coatlicue. She ground the bones with corn, and from this paste humans were made.”

In industrialized countries, corn is used primarily as feed for animals, raw material for processed foods and, recently, for the production of ethanol. On the other hand, in several Latin American countries and, increasingly, in African countries as well, a high percentage of the corn grown or imported is destined for human consumption.

Currently, corn is cultivated in Mexico in a wide range of climates, altitudes, humidity levels, and soils, using many different technologies. Corn is Mexico’s principal crop, occupying around one third of cultivated land. Every state in the country produces corn, although 64.5% of production is concentrated in Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacán, Mexico State, Chiapas, Guerrero, and Veracruz.

What nutrients does corn provide?

Corn, as a cereal, consists primarily of starches. When its hull is not removed, it is also an important source of fiber in our diet.

Its nutritional properties vary depending on its degree of maturity. For this reason, we will first discuss the nutrients in fresh corn and then those in corn dough.

Fresh corn

Fresh corn is considered a vegetable because of its higher water content in comparison to the dry kernel, which is ground into corn dough.

Fresh corn is rich in potassium and folic acid, and yellow corn in particular contains vitamin A.

Corn dough

Corn dough is typically prepared from dried corn kernels soaked in lime water and then ground. This process, known as nixtamalización, or nixtamalization (from the Náhuatl nixtli, ashes, and tamalli, dough) is indispensable for making tortillas and other dough-based products.

Nixtamalization softens the dough and simultaneously improves its nutritional value, adding calcium and facilitating digestion of essential amino acids which make up the corn’s protein. Tortillas are, therefore, a good source of calcium, in addition to the calcium we get from dairy products and some vegetables.

Blue corn has a particular advantage in nutritional terms because it contains anthocyanins, flavonoid compounds with antioxidant properties which protect our cells from oxidation and DNA mutations.

Many people associate tortillas with weight gain. However, it’s important to remember that tortillas only contribute to weight gain if they are consumed in excess.

A typical tortilla from a tortillería (neighborhood tortilla shop) weighs around 30 grams and provides some 65 kilocalories. If we eat two tortillas during a meal, along with a main dish and a side of vegetables, we will probably maintain energetic equilibrium. However, if we consume up to ten tortillas, equivalent to 650 kilocalories, we will probably exceed our daily calorie requirement, since this is a third of the recommended daily calorie intake for a young adult male.

Unlike flour tortillas, corn tortillas contain very little fat, unless they are fried.

How much does corn cost?

According to the Sistema Nacional de Información e Integración de Mercados (National Market Information and Integration System), one kilo of tortillas from a tortillería costs between 10 and 18 pesos, depending on the state in which it is purchased.

As a general rule, corn dough costs slightly less than tortillas.

What’s the best way to eat corn?

In Mexico there exist at least 600 ways to prepare corn for consumption, including: tortillas, tamales, corundas, sopes, huaraches, memelas, peneques, picadas, salbutes, panuchos, molotes, quesadillas, tostadas, tacos, tlacoyos, and other snacks.

Traditional pozole, whether green, red, or white is prepared from cacahuazintle corn kernels. Corn dough can also be made into small balls, which are added to soups, beans, and a variety of sauces such as mole de olla and Oaxacan yellow mole. Corn kernels are boiled and then ground to make drinks such as pozol, tejate, and atole. To prepare pinole, the kernels are first baked and then ground. And, when fermented, they are used to make alcoholic drinks like tesgüino.

Currently, many of the dishes made from corn dough are fried. However, Mesoamerican societies never used this culinary technique. We recommend frying as little as possible in order to enjoy the benefits of corn without adding high quantities of fat.

Because of the nutritional advantages it provides, we recommend eating blue corn rather than white or yellow corn whenever possible.

Why shouldn’t we grow genetically modified corn?

Clearly, in Mexico corn is precious.

The campaign “Sin Maíz no hay Paíz” (No Corn, no Country) summarizes briefly why we should not allow the cultivation of genetically modified corn in Mexico:

“Distributed throughout its national territory, Mexico has 59 corn species and thousands of sub-species which will be contaminated if genetically modified corn is sown in Mexico. Corn is Mexico’s inheritance, our sustenance, and the basis of our diet and our economy, and it is recognized as the heart of indigenous and campesino cultures. It is a fundamental staple of agriculture in the face of climate change and socioeconomic instability. It is our right and our obligation to keep corn a common good, free of genetic modifications.”

For her part, Cristina Barros, a specialist in Mexican cuisine, reminds us: “There are only two varieties [of genetically modified corn], one resistant to a plague that is almost nonexistent in Mexico, and the other resistant to herbicides, when in our milpas many of the “weeds” are quelites, squash, beans, chile, and other plants that are staples of our diet.”

Did you know?

Corn is present in the form of tortillas in the great majority of Mexican homes. On average, a family will consume 20 kg of white or yellow corn tortillas each month. It is present in homes of all social classes, although at the lowest socioeconomic level this food may constitute half of all calories consumed and a third of all protein.

_____________________________________

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT CORN:

Sin Maiz No Hay Pais
Biodiversidad
Greenpeace Mexico

VIEW THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE ON EL PODER DEL CONSUMIDOR

Food at COP21: Three new initiatives spotlight food insecurity, soils, waste

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Author: Emma Bryce

It’s become a catch-22 of our times: the global food system is both a villain and a victim of climate change. Agriculture accounts for almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, and yet floods, drought, and the planet’s increasing climatic variability play with the fate of our food. Continuing on the current climate trajectory will mean a future of profound food insecurity, especially for developing nations.

This week, these concerns have been prominent on the agenda at the COP21 climate talks in Paris. For the first time at a COP conference, agriculture had its own dedicated focus-day, held on Tuesday by the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), a partnership established between France and Peru to showcase and strengthen on-the-ground climate action in 2015 and beyond. “For years, agriculture, food systems, including oceans, including forests, have been knocking hard at the door—and now there’s movement starting,” said David Nabarro, former special representative of food security and nutrition for the United Nations, at the LPAA agriculture press briefing on Tuesday afternoon.

That door should have been yanked open a long time ago, considering that our food systems are due to bear so much of the brunt of climate change. But there are strong signs of progress. The world needs creative solutions if we are to reduce agricultural impact and feed everyone on the planet (an estimated nine billion by 2050)—and some of the best have recently been aired at the talks.

Here are three that caught my eye: each places our global food system squarely on the climate table.

[…]

Keeping soil carbon on lockdown

The planet’s soils naturally hold vast quantities of carbon—two to three times more carbon than the air. Releasing it through unsuitable, soil-degrading agricultural techniques will contribute to climate change and also reduce soil health—but, if we keep more carbon locked in the soil, it has the power to both mitigate climate change and increase agricultural productivity.

On Tuesday as part of the Lima-Paris Action Agenda, hundreds of partners joined to launch ‘4/1000’, an initiative designed to increase the storage of carbon in the earth: “If we were to increase the amount of carbon in the soil by just 0.4% then we would compensate entirely for the increase of carbon in the atmosphere—just to show how huge the potential is,” says Frank Rijsberman, CEO of the CGIAR Consortium of International Agricultural Centers, one of the partners contributing to the initiative. As part of 4/1000 the CGIAR itself is proposing a $225 million project that aims to increase carbon storage by promoting better farming techniques in developing world agriculture. Methods like agroforestry and reduced soil tillage could keep carbon enclosed in the soil, leading to a 20 percent boost in yields, and in theory offsetting greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent. The benefits will be three-pronged, says Rijsberman: “We will mitigate greenhouse gas emissions; adapt agriculture to climate change and thus improve food security; and improve ecosystem functioning.”

Keep Reading in the Guardian

Epic Drought and Food Crisis Prompts South Africa to Ease Restrictions on GMOs

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Author: Lorraine Chow

In the face of a food crisis and a devastating drought, South Africa is planning to relax its rigid laws over genetically modified (GMO) crops and boost imports of its staple food, maize, from the U.S. and Mexico, government officials told Reuters.

Government officials said that South Africa needs to import about 1.2m tonnes of white maize and 2.6m tonnes of yellow maize from the U.S. and Mexico.

Despite being the world’s eighth largest producer of GMO crops, South Africa has very strict regulations over GMOs. The nation requires that GMO food carry a label, strains entering the country must be government-approved and imported GMO crops are not allowed to be stored. Instead, the crops must be transported immediately from ports to mills.

Makenosi Maroo, spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture, told Reuters that the country is planning to allow importers to temporarily store consignments of GMO maize at pre-designated facilities, to allow much bigger import volumes.

“In anticipation of the volumes expected to be imported into South Africa, the (GMO) Executive Council has approved the adjustment of a permit condition which relates to the handling requirement,” Maroo told the news agency. “There is therefore no intention to relax safety assessment or risk management procedures prescribed.”

Keep Reading on Ecowatch

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN

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[ English | Français | Español ]

La Via Campesina, ETC and GRAIN media release | 15 February 2016

Corporate vision of the future of food promoted at the UN: More than 100 civil society organizations raise alarm about FAO biotechnology meeting

(Rome, Monday 15 February, 2016) Just when the biotech companies that make transgenic seeds are merging, the corporate vision of biotechnology is showing up at FAO. At today’s opening of the three-day international symposium on agricultural biotechnologies convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, more than 100 social movement and civil society organisations (CSOs) from four continents have issued a statement denouncing both the substance and structure of the meeting, which appears to be another attempt by multinational agribusiness to redirect the policies of the UN agency toward support for genetically-engineered crops and livestock.

Here you can download the statement and list of signatories.

The global peasant and family farm movement, La Via Campesina, invited CSOs to sign the letter when the symposium’s agenda became public. Two of the FAO keynote speakers are known proponents of GMOs, and the agenda and side events over the three days include speakers from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (a biotech trade group in the USA), Crop Life International (the global agrochemical trade association), DuPont (one of the world’s largest biotech seed companies) and CEVA (a major veterinary medicine corporation), among others. FAO has only invited one speaker or panelist openly critical of GMOs. Worse, one of the two speakers at the opening session is a former assistant director general of FAO who has pushed for so-called Terminator seeds (GMO seeds programmed to die at harvest time forcing farmers to purchase new seeds every growing season), in opposition to FAO’s own public statements. The second keynoter’s speech is titled, “Toward ending the misplaced global debate on biotechnology”, suggesting that the FAO symposium should be the moment for shutting down biotech criticism.

In convening the biased symposium, FAO is bowing to industry pressure that intensified following international meetings on agroecology hosted by FAO in 2014 and 2015. The agroecology meetings were a model of openness to all viewpoints, from peasants to industry. But the biotech industry apparently prefers now to have a meeting they can control. This is not the first time FAO has been drawn into this game. In 2010, FAO convened a biotechnology conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, that blocked farmers from its organising committee, and then tried to prevent their attendance at the conference itself.

“We are alarmed that FAO is once again fronting for the same corporations, just when these companies are talking about further mergers amongst themselves, which would concentrate the commercial seeds sector in even fewer hands,” the CSO statement denounces.

Keep Reading on GRAIN

 

Beyond Vegetarian: One Man’s Journey from Tofu to Tallow in Search of the Moral Meal [Interview]

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Author: Dustin

I met Daniel Zetah this past summer, while interning on a small-scale vegetable farm in northern Minnesota. He arrived one Thursday in a white, well-worn isuzu pickup, together with his fiancée, Stephanie. They brought with them two coolers full of meat (which they raised and butchered themselves), a few baskets of vegetables, a live turkey and her poults, two dogs, some camping equipment, and an old friend from their eco-village days who they had fortuitously seen hitchhiking along the side of the road. Daniel had interned on the farm years ago, and he was now returning to be married.

I learned over the course of their visit that Daniel had spent years living in Tasmania, where he had been a “freegan” (someone that scavenges for free food to reduce their consumption of resources), and full-time environmental activist, then a permaculture student, and then a natural builder. I learned Daniel had spent nine months on The Sea Shepherd—an anti-whaling ship vessel that uses direct-action tactics to confront illegal whaling ships—and played a very active role in Occupy Wallstreet.

I learned, too, that after ten years of vegetarianism, Daniel had become a big-time carnivore. As I had recently given up meat in an effort to mitigate my environmental impact, this choice struck me as incongruous. We ended up having a conversation about ethical and environmental eating, which challenged, angered, intrigued, and enlightened me. Daniel and his wife returned to their once-farm in central Minnesota, to finish packing and preparing to move to Tasmania. I called him at home to get the whole story, and record it for this article.

Would you describe yourself as a long-time farmer and environmental activist?

Not at all. I used to be a redneck. I used to race cars and motorcycles and snowmobiles… I was a motorhead. I don’t want people to think I was always like this, because then they’re like “oh, they were just brought up that way by parents that…” it’s like no, no: I was raised by wolves.

Until I was in my early 20s I ate nothing but crap. Like, garbage, American, supermarket food. When I would go shopping, I was literally after the cheapest calories I could possibly find at the supermarket.

When did that start to change?

Well, I met a girl that I ended up getting married to and she was vegetarian, and so I started eating a vegetarian diet. Which is still completely disconnected and completely clueless as to what your eating and where it’s from, it’s just you’re not eating meat. I ate tons of grain, lots of dairy and cheese, even eggs, but just no meat… And that’s where I was at for probably a good eight years, until my early 30s.

Keep Reading on Dustin’s View