Politics of Food on The Huffington Post

One Reason Frozen Fish Is Better Than Fresh

2009-12-03T11:25:13Z

Guest Post by Dan Shapley of The Daily Green

When it comes to buying fish, the choices have rarely been easy for a shopper trying to make a sustainable choice. There are different stocks of fish (some healthy, some depleted, some clean and some polluted) caught in different ways (some sustainable, some destructive) and then there are farmed fish (some farmed sustainably, some highly polluting, or even polluted). It's confusing enough that there are several guides to buying sustainable seafood published to make the decision-making easier.

But for salmon, one of America's most popular fishes, the choice has been relatively straightforward: wild Alaskan salmon may be more expensive, but it's more sustainable. It's caught from a healthy wild stock with sustainable methods, is free of contaminants, and avoids the problems with farmed salmon, which can not only pollute local waters near the farm but also be polluted themselves because of the fish meal they're fed.

That's true ... but. There's always a "but." Of course it's just not that simple -- not according to a new report by Ecotrust, an environmental think tank of sorts based in Portland, Ore., which worked with the Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology and Canada's Dalhousie University on what they call the "world's first comprehensive global-scale look at a major food commodity from a full life cycle perspective."

In other words, the researchers wanted to get to the bottom line when it comes to the environmental impact of a single food. They chose salmon -- a food that they acknowledged has a low impact relative to other foods, but which is nonetheless a popular food with a measurable impact on the global environment, when you take into account climate change, ozone depletion, loss of critical habitat and ocean acidification. (Importantly, the researchers were concerned primarily with global-scale environmental problems, and not local pollution, local stocks of fish nor the human health impacts of nutrients or contaminants in fish.)

The result: The traditional fish market questions -- farmed of wild, organic or conventional -- don't matter as much as we all thought. What does, or does not matter:

Frozen or Fresh

"Air-freighting salmon, and any food, results in substantial increases in environmental impacts. If more frozen food were consumed, more container ships would be used to ship food. Container ships are by far the most efficient and carbon-friendly way to transport food. Globally, the majority of salmon fillets are currently consumed fresh and never frozen. In fish-loving Japan, which gets much of its fish by air, switching to 75 percent frozen salmon would have more benefit than all of Europe eating locally farmed salmon."

Wild or Farmed

"Contrary to what is widely perceived, the vast majority of broad-scale resource use and environmental impacts (energy inputs, GHG emissions, etc) from conventional salmon farming result from the feeds used to produce them. What happens at or around a farm site may be important for local ecological reasons but contributes very little to global scale concerns such as global warming.... Reducing the amount of animal-derived inputs to feeds (e.g. fish meals and oils along with livestock derived meals) in favor of plant-based feed inputs can markedly reduce environmental impacts.

"In general, salmon fisheries result in relatively low global-scale environmental impacts. However, substantial differences exist between how salmon are caught. Catching salmon in large nets as they school together has one tenth the impact of catching them in small numbers using baited hooks and lures."

Organic or Conventional

"Growing organic salmon using fish meals and oils from very resource intensive fisheries results in impacts very similar to conventional farmed salmon production."

Clear as mud? If you haven't entirely given up on making the right choice, here are 8 delicious salmon recipes, or these recipes for eco-friendly fish. Good luck at the fish market.

More Green Food Tips

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The Dirty Dozen: 12 Foods to Eat Organic

Surprising Superfoods ... And How To Cook Them

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9 Facts About Ocean Conservation

Elyssa Pachico: Should Mexico Welcome the Invasion of 'Frankencorn?'

2009-12-03T02:19:42Z

Mexico's decision to start growing genetically modified (GM) corn is sowing nothing but trouble.

After the government lifted a nation-wide ban against transgenic maize last March, peasants in northern Chihuahua have threatened to burn plots of Monsanto and DuPont patented crops if necessary. On October 18, the Mexican chapter of Greenpeace draped black banners reading "Transgenics: End of Independence" over a monument in the nation's capitol. And a group of 700 scientists and intellectuals have signed an open letter to President Calderon, demanding that the administration take drastic measures to protect Mexico's 60-odd native varieties from crossing with transgenic breeds.

"It's a lie," biologist Elena Alvarez-Bullya told me bluntly, when I asked her whether the government's plan to begin experimenting with GM corn might give farmers a badly needed boost in production levels.

"Using non-transgenics and hybrid seeds would be enough to produce double of what Mexico needs," she added. "We don't need transgenics to be self-sufficient."

The problem is Mexico is anything but self-sufficient right now. The country imported 9.5 million tons of corn last year, most of it intended for animal feed. According to one pro-biotechnology group, the government's decision to lift a ten-year ban on GM crops could mean an additional 5 million tons of corn each year, if the experimental plots are approved for commercial cultivation by 2012.

However, as environmentalist Silvia Ribeiro pointed out to me, if Mexico now imports 89 percent of the corn it needs for animal feed (almost all of it from the U.S.) demand is coming from a burgeoning transnational pork and chicken industry, not from Mexican consumers.

"It's not Mexico that needs more maize," Ribeiro scoffed. "It's Tyson's chickens."

But you can't blame Mexico for being nervous, especially after a corn deficit in 2007 made prices for tortilla flour shoot up by 400 percent. Thousands of furious protesters rioted in the streets of the capitol, waving corn cobs in their hands. With more food shortages expected in the near future thanks to a hodgepodge of reasons, including competition with biofuels as well as rising temperatures, Calderon's government has decided it's more practical to see GM crops as a possible Superman rather than a Frankenstein monster.

Still, it's unclear whether "Frankencorn" can deliver on its promises. Critics point to a recent study by the Union for Concerned Scientists which found that genetic engineering just plain doesn't mean more crops. While the U.S. has boosted soy and corn production in the past 13 years, the study maintains, that has more to do with better breeding techniques and other conventional methods rather than biotechnology.

If genetic engineering failed to boost crop yields in the U.S., both Ribiero and Alvarez-Buylla asked me, what kind of magically different outcome could be expected in Mexico?

On one hand, the GM genie is already out of the bottle. Traces of transgenes were discovered in Mexican corn fields back in 2001, even though the nation's ban against GMO imports was still in place. Scientists like Alvarez-Buylla (who has studied the issue closely) agree the contamination probably happened as a result of the U.S. dumping the market with cheap corn, which farmers may have unknowingly planted.

And, as corn pollen is known to travel as far as six miles by wind, Mexico's one-of-a-kind varieties are seen as highly vulnerable to even more genetic mixing. The agriculture ministry has promised that the 120,000 square meters set aside for GM experiments will be isolated from other farms, and are located in states where corn is scarce.

Such promises have done little to soothe worries that genetic engineering is out of control.

"Let's say they conduct these experiments in highly controlled conditions - they do whatever necessary to make sure no insects go in and no pollen goes out," Ribeiro said to me. "How's that supposed to be replicated in the field? You can experiment all you want in confined conditions, but as soon as you take these transgenics into the countryside, no way are farmers going to use the same techniques."

Observers are also uneasy that the government has only offered vague explanations about how it will protect Mexico's native breeds. So far, nobody knows where exactly the GM corn will be cultivated, leading Greenpeace organizer Aleira Lara to observe, "watching the Mexican government trying to confront these issues is like watching a giant snowball--it keeps piling on one irregularity after another."

Personally, I feel like I'm not watching snow as much as I'm watching Mexico play with fire.

"This technology has failed," Lara told me. "The Mexican government has taken a totally irresponsible decision that puts the country's environment and biodiversity in danger. We're putting one of the world's most basic grains at risk. And that has implications for the whole world."

Jared Braiterman: Biodiversity Remakes Tokyo

2009-12-02T12:17:51Z

The Copenhagen UN Climate Change Conference addresses unparalleled environmental crisis and the need to transform our relationship with nature. Many people assume that nature has no place in the city. On the contrary, cities are central sites for a sustainable, post-industrial era that supports population growth and a high quality of life. Biodiversity and urban forests can thrive with concrete and people.

Ordinary gardeners and environmental visionaries in Tokyo, the world's largest metropolis, are improving urban life for human and environmental benefit. While mainstream environmentalists work to save distant forests, urban innovators are creating new shared places that connect city residents to the environment and each other. Successful strategies include maximizing limited resources, engaging urban dwellers, and sharing daily life with plants and wildlife.

Tokyo's size, density, lack of open space, and past policy failures paradoxically make it a model for rebuilding mature cities and designing hundreds of new cities. Along with climate change, the world faces unprecedented urbanization, reaching 60% of the world population or 5 billion people by 2030. African and Asian urban populations will double between 2000 and 2030.

To make cities sustainable and attractive, limited resources must be used for maximum benefit. Tokyo already offers vibrant and safe street life with relatively small private spaces. Because of usage fees and public investment, more daily trips are made by transit, walking and bicycling than automobile. And large numbers of often elderly residents tend gardens spilling out from homes into streets. With minimal horizontal area between homes, Tokyo residents are experts in blurring public and private spaces, and growing vertical gardens in even the narrowest openings.

Japan's love for miniaturization is aligned well with dense urban living. Kobayashi Kenji revitalizes bonsai by appealing to young city people's desire to connect with nature. Traditional bonsai trees that are over one hundred years old are a pastime of corporations and wealthy elderly men. Kobayashi employs more humble plant material and invites city dwellers to treat plants as members of the family, like pets. Daily care for plants connects city dwellers with nature, seasonal change, and growth.

A rice paddy in the middle of Ginza captivated Tokyo residents this year by bringing a cherished cultural activity into the heart of the city. On a vacant lot between demolition and construction, Iimura Kazuki's Ginza Farm created an open community place frequented by shop clerks, construction workers, office staff, children, and neighbors. Two ducks weeded the field, contributed fertilizer, and educated the public about natural farming. Adapting rice farming to Tokyo's ambient light and warmer nights required installing a tall black curtain to "help the rice sleep."

The Ginza Bee Project also creates space in the city for another stressed rural practice. Colony collapse disorder worldwide is linked to agricultural pesticides. Strangely, cities now provide a healthier habitat for bees than the countryside. Ginza's bees increase Japan's honey production and raise awareness about the relationships between bees and food, people and the environment. These 300,000 honeybees inspired companies and individuals to become urban beekeepers.

"I am not interested in greening," Yamada Yoriyuki, an environmental leader at Japanese construction giant Kajima, surprised me. Instead of applying green to existing projects, Yamada emphasizes the value of biodiversity and culture for new urbanism, with special attention to bees, falcons and the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker. Kajima and a new corporate alliance, the Japanese Business Initiative for Biodiversity, explore new ways to connect development with habitat creation.

Another urban visionary is Professor Suzuki Makoto at the Tokyo University of Agriculture who is building a firefly habitat at a middle school with students, teachers and the local community. Fireflies have a magical appeal to children and adults, and are a natural gauge of the healthiness of urban environments. Fireflies require clean running water, near total darkness at night, and plants that feed and shelter them.

All of these urban ecology projects evoke the Japanese idea of satoyama, a balance between people and nature forged over two thousand years of rice farming. Unlike wilderness untouched by human activity, satoyama is a cultural landscape resulting from concentric rings of village, rice fields and surrounding forests. As Japanese increasingly abandon the countryside, bringing the average age of farmers to 60, reforestation has become a 21st century threat to the nation's biodiversity. Meadows and sunlight recede in rural areas, while the ideal of a balance between people and nature migrates to the city.

Creating an urban forest in Tokyo faces many challenges, including uncovering Edo-era rivers and canals buried in concrete and freeway overpasses. Dramatically reducing surface pavement will revive the soil, exponentially increase plant mass and urban wildlife, and reduce stormwater flooding and Tokyo Bay pollution. Even the most overbuilt city contains underused spaces, including roofs, walls and streets. All that is missing is for governments and corporations to connect with residents' passions and potential for action.

Urban ecology intertwines the health of soil, plants, animals and people. Biodiversity provides a natural connection between immediately improving our quality of life and addressing grave public policy issues such as climate change, energy independence, national security, food safety, crime reduction, air quality, and public health. Tokyo's lessons for sustainable cities range from the importance of culture in creating meaningful public places, to the role of biodiversity to remake even the densest metropolis.

Kathy Freston: Top 10 (Recent) Developments On Factory Farming And Vegetarianism

2009-12-01T08:11:57Z

On Thanksgiving, I spent some
time taking stock of my life and the world around me and, as we're
supposed to do over the holiday, giving thanks for all the joys -- little
and big -- in my life. One of the larger joys for which I am giving thanks
is all of the recent attention that has been lavished on a topic that
is near and dear to my heart -- the cruelty and environmental harm involved
in raising animals for food.

I struggled to cohesively construct
an article about some of the many recent and important developments
on this topic, but there is just too much. Instead, I decided on a top
10 list (a tip of the hat to David Letterman) -- the 10 most interesting
articles on the farmed animal welfare front.

So without further ado:

World Bank scientists
conclude that eating meat causes more than half of global warming (conservatively).

World Bank agricultural scientists
Robert Goodland, who spent 23 years as the Bank's lead environmental
advisor, and Jeff Anhang, a research officer and environmental specialist
for the Bank, argue
convincingly that more than half of all greenhouse gas emissions are
attributable to our desire to eat chicken, pigs, and other farmed animals. That's right: Add up all the causes
of climate change, and you find that eating meat causes more than everything
else combined.

Honestly, this was the biggest
point for me: How can I possibly take the environment seriously if I'm
still participating in what is -- by far -- the biggest contributor to
warming?

Which might explain:

Prominent Stanford
biochemist pledges to focus all his energy on promoting veganism.

Most of us have heard of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Dr. RK Pachauri from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, and his
lectures all over the world
promoting vegetarianism. Now along comes Dr. Patrick O. Brown who, as reported in (of
all places) Forbes,
will spend the next 18 months focused on "put[ting] an end to animal
farming." Explains Dr. Brown, "There's absolutely no possibility
that 50 years from now this system will be operating as it does now...
I want to approach this as a solvable problem. Solution: 'Eliminate
animal farming on planet Earth.'"

Al Gore is taking
notice.

Although Gore's Global
Warming Survival Handbook noted that "refusing
meat" is the "single most effective thing you can do to reduce your
carbon footprint"
(emphasis in original), Gore had not spoken publically about the issue.
Now he has -- repeatedly. For example, on Larry King recently, Gore explained
that "the impact of meat-intensive diet is a significant factor"
in warming the planet, that "the growing meat intensity of diets around
the world is bad for the planet," and that "the more meals I've
substituted with more fruits and vegetables, the better I feel about
it..." The truth is becoming less inconvenient, thankfully.

Celebrated author
of Everything is Illuminated

and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close publishes Eating Animals
a riveting book based on a three-year investigation of factory farming.

Jonathan Safran Foer has been
widely hailed as one of the greatest novelists of his generation, was
one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year," and Esquire's "Best
and Brightest" -- and after just two extraordinary works. As Nobel
Prize-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee puts it about Foer's latest
work, "The everyday
horrors of factory farming are evoked so vividly, and the case against
the people who run the system presented so convincingly, that anyone
who, after reading Foer's book, continues to consume the industry's
products must be without a heart, or impervious to reason, or both."

In his interview with Mother
Jones Magazine
(the entire interview is worth reading), Foer points out that Americans
"now eat 150 times as much chicken as we did 80 years ago," and
that it "takes between 6 and 26 calories to make one calorie of meat.
It is an incredibly inefficient protein because we are cycling through
all of these other grains that humans could eat."

Actor Alicia Silverstone
and Chef Tal Ronnen on the New York Times
bestseller list.

For some weeks now, Chef Tal
Ronnen's Conscious Cook
and actress Alicia
Silverstone's Kind Diet
have joined Foer and former model agent Rory
Freedman (whose
book convinced home run slugger Prince
Fielder to adopt a vegan diet)
on the list with books that make the case for vegetarian eating. You
may recall Ronnen from his
appearances on Oprah,
which caused Oprah to exclaim, "Wow, wow, wow! I never imagined meatless
meals could be so satisfying."

Martha Stewart promotes
a vegetarian Thanksgiving.

As my
friends at Ecorazzi put it,
"Martha Stewart has proved once again why she's a pioneer in the
kitchen. Having someone with as much sway as the famous host show people
that the big feast doesn't have to include meat to be successful is
huge. Even better, she took the opportunity to educate her audience
on factory farming industry -- with help from author Jonathan Safran
Foer (of Eating Animals) and filmmaker Robert Kenner (Food,
INC.)."

Egyptian mummy heart
disease in
LA Times

I'm not sure it belongs in
my top 10 list, but I found it extremely interesting that "CT scans
of Egyptian mummies, some as much as 3,500 years old, show evidence
of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which is normally
thought of as a disease caused by modern lifestyles..." What
on earth could have caused it? I think I know: "The high-status Egyptians
ate a diet high in meat from cattle, ducks and geese, all fatty."
If only the ancient Egyptians had the wisdom of Dr. Caldwell
Esselstyn!

Honesty at the Turkey
Pardoning

First Obama talks about factory farming and animal
rights as a candidate.
Then he puts in a garden at the White House. Now he's adding some
honesty to the annual turkey pardoning -- talking about the fate of other
birds, the fact that it's a fairly new ceremony, etc.

Might he have celebrated a
vegetarian Thanksgiving? The
White House isn't saying,
according to Gail Collins of the New York Times

in her delightful Thanksgiving Day contemplation of the turkey pardoning.
Okay, I'm kidding a bit (could he really get away with having a veggie
Thanksgiving, given the power of Agribusiness -- as documented in this sad piece on
FoodConsumer.org),
as was Collins of course, but the honesty at the event is refreshing,
and we do have the first president who understands the harms of factory
farming and who is taking global warming seriously.

Cargill launches
dairy-free cheese!

The largest privately held
company in the United States (six times the size of McDonald's) has just launched "a 100 percent non-dairy cheese
analogue for pizza and other prepared food applications" that "replicates
the functionality of dairy protein and replaces it fully at an outstanding
cost advantage for the manufacturer." According to Cargill, "its
appearance, taste and texture perfectly match those of processed cheese"
and it "also offers health advantages as it contains reduced calories
(less fat and no saturated fats) and... a unique opportunity for vegans
to enjoy a product that has the characteristics and taste of cheese
but without any animal-derived ingredients." It's also Halal and
Kosher.

Yet another study
is exposing the horrid treatment of workers by the all-powerful meat
industry.

A recent six-part piece in
the Lincoln
Journal-Star
documents the horrid conditions endured by slaughterhouse workers. Sadly,
nothing has changed since Human Rights Watch released their report on
the industry, "Blood,
Sweat, and Fear,"
six years ago. Then and now, researchers have documented "systematic
human rights violations embedded in meat and poultry industry employment."
It's becoming all too obvious that if we care about worker rights,
it makes sense to go vegan.

For information on making the
switch to vegetarianism, please check out my previous post, "A Beginner's Guide
to Conscious Eating."

Anne Mai Bertelsen: Hunger in America: More Than Money is Needed

2009-11-30T12:09:36Z

This week, Michelle Obama, in conjunction with the Corporation for National and Community Service, launched Feed A Neighbor to combat hunger in America. While
laudable, we need to do so much more to reduce hunger in America. We need to revisit our food policy, which provides financial and in-kind food subsidies but does little to help Americans produce or stretch their food dollars. Stretching a dollar is something my parents knew how to do well. This helped them feed a family of nine on $125 a week during the 1960s and 70s.

My parents were able to do this, in part, because my mother learned how to plan, shop and cook for a family in her high school home economics class. She learned how
to stretch a gallon of whole milk by mixing it with a gallon of water and instant milk powder. Or using fillers -- like bulgur wheat -- with ground beef to make eight instead of four hamburgers from a pound of meat. In a night adult course, through the local college extension program, she learned how to incorporate inexpensive vegetarian dishes like black bean chili and pinto bean casserole into our diet. Granted, there were many meals us kids hated -- the pinto bean casserole was a particularly wretched experience. But, we never went hungry. And my mom stayed on her budget.

My dad helped in the summer with his version of the Victory Garden: tomatoes, lettuce, beans; staples that could be planted in a small, four by four plot. Occasionally, there was a surfeit of tomatoes or beans, which my mom would can or freeze for later use.

I have been thinking about both my mother’s home economics
classes and my father’s Victory Garden since the release of the USDA’s report on hunger in America. According to the report, there are now over 49 million Americans who are food insecure -- in other words, unable financially to feed their family -- a 36 percent increase from the previous year. It is the single largest increase in one year since the agency began keeping records in 1995 and an embarrassment in the richest of nations.

Since the 1960s, our food policy has treated hunger as a temporary condition. But those who work with the food insecure know that hunger is a stubbornly persistent
problem; that many who are food insecure have been so for years and even,
generations; and that families who are food insecure also have the greatest
incidence of obesity because the cheapest food is the least healthy. They know, in short, that more is needed. That food insecurity can only be temporary if we give Americans the tools to prevent hunger; to better connect them to the production and preparation of their food. The tools my parents had.

There are a number of efforts to do just that including the Good Food Gardens, a
joint venture of the Food Network, Share Our Strength and Teich Garden Systems.
Initiated in 2008, there are now 13 community gardens across the country and
more are planned. In each of these gardens, Good Food Gardens partners with community organizations to teach children and their families how to grow and prepare fruits and vegetables.

In San Francisco, a partnership between the city and Garden for the Environment created Victory Gardens, which kicked off with a garden on the grounds of City Hall and then moved
into individual resident’s backyards, teaching them how to install and care for
their own gardens. Outside of Boston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created a rooftop community garden which donated a portion of the harvest to a local food bank.

But these efforts are too small on their own to reduce hunger in America. We need the full support of the Obama Administration to push for widespread gardening and
economical food preparation education. It can start by raising awareness of a little known or utilized Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit: SNAP monies can be used to purchase seeds and plants to grow food. Just as there are notices in grocery stores and farmer’s markets that SNAP funds can be used to purchase certain food items, so too should there be notices at home gardening stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s that fruit and vegetable seeds and plants can be purchased with SNAP
funds. While there, participants can learn how to plant and care for their vegetable gardens at the free gardening clinics these types of stores routinely offer. The Administration can also leverage the expertise and resources of the USDA to educate Americans on how to preserve the food they produce. And, it can learn from Franklin Roosevelt, who called on Americans during World War II to plant Victory Gardens and preserve their produce. The response? Over 20 million Victory Gardens were planted in 1943, producing one-third of all the vegetables consumed in that year. They purchased some 315,000 pressure cookers that year to can their produce.

The Administration can go even further by pushing for the inclusion of economical,
nutritious food planning and preparation at schools that receive funds through
the National School Lunch Program. While my mother learned how to stretch her
food dollars in home economics, my own school district, which has a significant
food insecure population, eliminated home economics classes in a cost-cutting move a few years ago.

I am sure there are even better ideas to significantly reduce the number of hungry in America. But, we need to move beyond just aid and handouts. We need to give Americans the tools to ward off hunger; to help the hungry feed themselves and their families with low cost, healthy food.

W. Hunter Roberts: A Family Values Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T11:23:44Z

I was a little out of sorts this Thanksgiving. It was just over a year ago that my beloved died suddenly and tragically. I was far away from family and from my many friends in Northern California. So on Wednesday morning, I packed my car with cranberries from a farm stand in Maine, got a Vermont farm-raised, free-range turkey, and fresh andouille from a rural smokehouse in Western Mass, and drove to Manhattan. After making one last stop for molasses and crème fraiche at Fairway Market on 125th St., I pulled into a miraculously open parking space on upper Riverside Drive. My old friend, Russ, came downstairs with his shopping cart, and we loaded everything up to his top floor apartment to begin the preparations.

Russ and Carol have a gift for hospitality; their large apartment is often filled with guests from somewhere. Carol also has a special gift for maintaining friendships. It's not unusual to find a classmate from junior high, or a grown child of one of her life-long friends, among them. I am one of their fortunate recipients. They even let me cook.

(with homage to Diane DiPrima's "What I Ate Where"; Photo by Zandy Mangold)

Meal planning and cooking is a sort of religious zealotry with me. I believe passionately in the magic of real food, lovingly prepared and consumed slowly, with interesting conversation. Everything should go together so one course leads gracefully to the next. The wine should be chosen to complement each dish. I think more than four side dishes muddy the palate; potlucks are my nemesis.

The people who love me best indulge this obsession and even revel in it. Russ is one of my best partners in crime. We can really go to town in the kitchen, and often do. This year's theme was Southern cooking. We began with that dangerous New Orleans cocktail, the Sazerac, for which Russ found a recipe on the Internet, including rinsing the glass in Absinthe. Then we happily began cutting the butter with knives into our wheat-free piecrusts (yes, it can be done, and still be flaky). While waiting to roll it out, Russ rubbed the turkey with Cajun spices. I grated a tangy relish of fresh cranberries, ginger, oranges, and apples. We dressed it with Russ's homemade mayonnaise mixed with crème fraiche and garnished with lavender salt (it turned out to be the hit of the meal).

After combining Russ's homemade corn bread with chopped onions, celery, New England apples, big golden Turkish raisins, and a pound of andouille for the stuffing, we rolled out the crusts. The recipe on Norah Ephron's Blog for Caribbean Sweet Potato Pudding sounded just about perfect, so we set about making the pudding to fill them. By bedtime, camped out on mattresses with the other houseguests, I drifted off on the smells of warm spices and fall filling the apartment.

In the morning after the Macy's parade, Carol and Jill (another house guest, from Berkeley, and director of Camp It Up! inclusive family camp) set up bridge tables and put out plates and linens for thirteen, while we listened to Broadway show tunes and animatedly sang along.

By the time the rest of the guests arrived for dinner, the pies were cooling on the window sill, the stuffed turkey was roasting and being basted regularly with bourbon and juices, giblets were boiling in a pot for gravy, the Beaujolais Nouveau was chilling, the mashed cauliflower soufflé was baking, and the green beans were slowly cooking, Southern style, with a ham hock and bay leaves. I was caramelizing onions in olive oil with a balsamic glaze, to pour over the spinach and radicchio salad garnished with goat cheese and dried cranberries.

In came Carol's brother, and his wife, with their two smart sons, eleven and fifteen, carrying bags of heavenly cookies available only at the Lakota bakery, outside Boston. Then Aunt Ulla, dynamic and fascinating at eighty-four, arrived with her famous homemade pâté and a hand crafted ceramic olive dish. Zandy, someone's thirty-something distant cousin who stuck, recently returned from photographing a marathon in the Sahara, arrived with homemade killer chocolate cookies, and his camera. There was the tall, beautiful and savvy web designer, June, who made menus on the spot and put them at all our places. Arriving last was the poetry slammer son of an old friend of Carol's, and his college roommate from Santa Cruz. And then we were all sitting around the table, Black, White, and Asian; eleven to eighty-four; gay, straight, and bisexual; Jewish, Christian and agnostic. I took out my grandfather's carving set, while Russ offered a toast. "Every morning we wake up and look in the mirror, and we know all our flaws, all the ways we wish we were better, all the ways we are not worthy of love, and yet we find ourselves at a table like this, where we are loved."

We are. I am. That's what family is. After dinner, Carol pulled out a keyboard and kitchen instruments of graters and wooden spoons. Jill played and we all sang. I cried for my beloved, who would have loved every minute. But also I cried because this is how life can be, and every once in a while, actually is.

Family values at their best prevailed as this diverse bunch assembled and celebrated our good fortune in the ancient manner of feasting. They are the kind of family values Jesus was speaking of when he asked his disciples. "Who are my mother and my brothers?" and answered his own question, looking at the many kinds of people seated in a circle around him "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother." (Mark 3:31-35). Or, in the words of the Native Americans, "All my relations." We are not all the same, but we are all part of life's richness.

I am well aware that not all people are so fortunate. We toasted them, too, wishing an end to war and policies that cause poverty and pain. But we also feasted, as people have always done, rich or poor, here and everywhere.

It may be this very custom of sharing food that makes us human. People worldwide have traditions of killing the fatted calf, preparing the Sabbath meal, pouring three cups of tea, or breaking bread in communion. We sit down at a table together. We take time. We laugh and tell stories. We serve each other. Call me superstitious, but I don't believe this kind of magic can come from turkey purchased pre-cooked at Safeway, or even at Whole Foods, and gulped down in front of the television.

In the breaking of bread, in the love and attention that go into preparing and sharing food in community, we become related. We truly see one another----in our wholeness and our brokenness. We extend our love beyond just blood ties, and embrace the many ways of being human. We are all family. Maybe that's the real meaning of family values.

New GMO Cottonseed Is Edible: Scientists Claim It Could Feed Millions

2009-11-30T08:34:09Z

LUBBOCK, Texas — "The Fabric of Our Lives" may soon feed millions.

A Texas researcher has found a way to reduce toxin in cottonseed that until now could only be eaten by cattle. The bovines' multiple stomachs gradually digested the poisonous substance called gossypol.

Student Designs Biodegradable Packaging For McDonald's

2009-11-28T09:29:06Z

Fast food packaging takes up a hefty chunk of our landfill space while effectively clear-cutting our forests. Seeking to counter this consumptive cycle, University of the Arts grad student, Andrew Millar, designed biodegradable packaging for McDonald's from grass paper, which has naturally grease-resistant properties.

'Ghost' Lobster Traps: A New Hazard?

2009-11-27T10:36:33Z

PORTLAND, Maine — Beneath the cold ocean waters off the coast of Maine, the nation's lobster breadbasket, lie hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of old wire lobster "ghost traps." Lost over the years to storms, boats – even the knives of fishermen who've cut them from their buoys to settle scores – many of the traps continue catching lobsters.

Marine biologists say lost and abandoned lobster, crab and other fish traps plague coastal waters around the globe, putting pressure on a number of already-stressed fish populations. In U.S. waters alone, millions of dollars' worth of marketable seafood is lost each year.

Obama Turkey Pardon: Thanksgiving At The White House (UPDATED, VIDEO)

2009-11-24T16:13:46Z

"You know, there are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office," President Obama declared while standing outside the White House on Wednesday morning. "And then there are moments like this -- where I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland."

At this year's official Turkey Pardon, President Obama mixed jokes in with a serious message about giving thanks for our blessings. With Sasha and Malia at his side, he noted how delicious the turkey looked (at 40-plus pounds, the North Carolina-raised bird named Courage did look pretty juicy). Obama claimed he wanted to eat the turkey, but Sasha and Malia prevailed upon him to pardon it, sparing it "a terrible and delicious fate." Courage will now head to Disneyland for their Thanksgiving Day parade.

Watch to the end of the video when Malia says the turkey looks like a big chicken, and Obama makes a little food policy joke when he asks if the turkey received performance enhancing drugs.

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To watch a hilarious spoof video about the White House Turkey Pardoning, click here.

Obama's full remarks:

Now, the National Turkey Federation has been bringing its finest turkeys to the White House for more than 50 years. I'm told Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson actually ate their turkeys. You can't fault them for that; that's a good-looking bird. (Laughter.) President Kennedy was even given a turkey with a sign around its neck that said, "Good Eatin', Mr. President." But he showed mercy and he said, "Let's keep him going." And 20 years ago this Thanksgiving, the first President Bush issued the first official presidential pardon for a turkey.

Today, I am pleased to announce that thanks to the interventions of Malia and Sasha -- because I was planning to eat this sucker -- (laughter) -- "Courage" will also be spared this terrible and delicious fate. Later today, he'll head to Disneyland, where he'll be grand marshal of tomorrow's parade. And just in case "Courage" can't fulfill his responsibilities, Walter brought along another turkey, "Carolina," as an alternate, the stand-in.

Now, later this afternoon, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I will take two of their less fortunate brethren to Martha's Table, an organization that does extraordinary work to help folks here in D.C. who need it the most. And I want to thank Jaindl's Turkey Farm in Orefield, Pennsylvania, for donating those dressed birds for dinner. So today, all told, I believe it's fair to say that we have saved or created four turkeys. (Laughter.)

You know, there are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office. And then there are moments like this -- (laughter) -- where I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland. (Laughter.) But every single day, I am thankful for the extraordinary responsibility that the American people have placed in me. I am humbled by the privilege that it is to serve them, and the tremendous honor it is to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the finest military in the world -- and I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to every service member at home or in harm's way. We're proud of you and we are thinking of you and we're praying for you.

When my family and I sit around the table tomorrow, just like millions of other families across America, we'll take time to give our thanks for many blessings. But we'll also remember this is a time when so many members of our American family are hurting. There's no question this has been a tough year for America. We're at war. Our economy is emerging from an extraordinary recession into recovery. But there's a long way to go and a lot of work to do.

In more tranquil times, it's easy to notice our many blessings. It's even easier to take them for granted. But in times like these, they resonate a bit more powerfully. When President Lincoln set aside the National Day of Thanksgiving for the first time -- to celebrate America's "fruitful fields," "healthful skies," and the "strength and vigor" of the American people -- it was in the midst of the Civil War, just when the future of our very union was most in doubt. So think about that. When times were darkest, President Lincoln understood that our American blessings shined brighter than ever.

This is an era of new perils and new hardships. But we are, as ever, a people of endless compassion, boundless ingenuity, limitless strength. We're the heirs to a hard-earned history and stewards of a land of God-given beauty. We are Americans. And for all this, we give our humble thanks -- to our predecessors, to one another, and to God.

So on this quintessentially American holiday, as we give thanks for what we've got, let's also give back to those who are less fortunate. As we give thanks for our loved ones, let us remember those who can't be with us. And as we give thanks for our security, let's in turn thank those who've sacrificed to make it possible, wherever they may be.

Now, before this turkey gets too nervous that Bo will escape and screw up this pardon -- (laughter) -- or before I change my mind, I hereby pardon "Courage" so that he can live out the rest of his days in peace and tranquility in Disneyland.

And to every American, I want to wish you, on behalf of myself, Malia, Sasha, and Michelle, the happiest of Thanksgivings. Thank you very much, everybody. (Applause.)

-----

The year, The president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk has written in a blog for HuffPost:

On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I am writing to ask three things: 1) that you please send this year's pardoned turkeys to a credible sanctuary; 2) that in your speech at the pardoning ceremony, you acknowledge the millions of compassionate Americans who personally pardon turkeys every year by choosing a vegetarian Thanksgiving meal; and 3) that you invite PETA's chef to present a delicious cruelty-free Thanksgiving meal for you and your family, including Tofurky with all the trimmings, from corn bread to cranberries, and an all-American vegan apple pie with vanilla soy ice cream on top. The vegan meal would provide some balance to all the free publicity given to the turkey industry on this occasion.

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PETA's Thanksgiving Turkey Ad NBC Won't Air (VIDEO)

2009-11-24T08:44:42Z

The animals rights group PETA is known for its shock tactics and pushing the envelope with its ads. Past ads that networks refused to air include the "veggie sex" ad slated to run during the Superbowl, and Pamela Anderson's stripping airport cop video. This ad, however, doesn't use sex or naked people to make people squirm.

According to PETA's blog:

When we first submitted our newest commercial to NBC in the hopes of running it during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the station asked us to give more information about the cruelty behind turkey slaughter to back up the statements made in the ad. But even after we sent the network this New York Times article chronicling the grisly facts about turkey factory farming, it nixed the ad, claiming that "this commercial does not meet NBC Universal standards."

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'Grace': PETA's Thanksgiving ad

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China Executes 2 People Over Tainted Milk Scandal

2009-11-24T02:49:12Z

BEIJING — China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman Tuesday for their roles in the sale of contaminated baby formula – severe punishments that Beijing hopes will assuage public anger, reassure importers and put to rest one of the country's worst food safety crises.

The men were the only people put to death in a scheme to boost profits by lacing milk powder with the industrial chemical melamine; 19 other people were convicted and received lesser sentences. At least six children died after drinking the adulterated formula, and more than 300,000 were sickened.

McDonald's Logo To Go "Green" In Europe

2009-11-23T16:17:41Z

BERLIN — McDonald's is going green – swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green – to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe.

About 100 German McDonald's restaurants will make the change by the end of 2009, the company said in a statement Monday. Some franchises in Great Britain and France have already started using the new color scheme behind their Golden Arches.

Thanksgiving Turkeys: How They Get From The Farm To Your Dinner Table

2009-11-23T13:13:44Z

It's turkey time.

Millions of Americans will dive into the big bird next Thursday, smothering it with gravy or cranberry sauce or both.

Many will also face the scornful stare of their vegetarian cousin, silently asking, "do you know how that turkey got here?"

We can assure you: You don't want to know.

Laurie David: Eating Animals : Caring Is Not A Zero-Sum Game

2009-11-23T09:36:00Z

Friday I read the strangest, most infuriating book review (on the front page of the New York Times Arts Section) I have ever seen. Minutes later, while I was still shaking my head, Larry called to rant about the "smug" review of Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, a book we had both recently read. "What's wrong with that reviewer?" he yelled in my ear. "Doesn't she care about fecal soup?!" See for yourself, read the concluding paragraph of Michiko Kakutani's review and tell me if it isn't completely insane:

It's arguments like this that undermine the many more valid observations in this book, and make readers wonder how the author can expend so much energy and caring on the fate of pigs and chickens, when, say, malaria kills nearly a million people a year (most of them children), and conflict and disease in Congo since the mid-1990s have left an estimated five million dead and hundreds of thousands of women and girls raped and have driven more than a million people from their homes.

Since Kakutani believes that caring is a zero-sum game, and that most of us are too pea -brained to care about more than one thing at a time, she felt it was important to put Foer in his place for raising a voice against factory farming -- an industry that, let's face it, is merely really, really, really horrible.

Since reading her review, we've found it difficult to remember why we ever cared about what kind of car we drive, or whether to pay or shoplift, or who to punch and when. She's right: in the bright light of malaria, everything else is invisible. So no more money to the NRDC, no more hand wringing about health care, and no more helping old ladies across the street. Screw you, injured person lying against the curb, there are hungry kids somewhere else! Better still, here's a kick!

One of the many problems with Kakutani's lame and flamboyantly irrational review is that it suggests her own irrelevancy. If one shouldn't spend time and energy worrying about 50 billion factory-farmed animals (and the attendant environmental and human health effects, which comprise the other half of Foer's book, and are curiously ignored in the review), then one most definitely shouldn't spend time reviewing books. How many kids did Kakutani's recent columns of text on Sarah Palin--"...she does a lively job of conveying the frontier feel of the 49th state..." -- save?

Except that we need book reviewers, not in spite of the good they might be doing in the world, but -- in the case of good reviewers -- because of the good they are doing. The function of a reviewer is not to impress her personality at any expense, but to connect readers to books, ideally to those they wouldn't likely find (or want to find) on their own.

We found Foer's book that way. We didn't know Foer, and Eating Animals hadn't crossed our radar yet. Someone said, "Check this out. You're gonna care about this." That was the understatement of the century. What should we care about more than what we are putting into our bodies and feeding our children every day, three times a day? Foer's book raises critical ethical questions we all need to face. I agree with Foer -- who doesn't? -- we shouldn't raise hens in cramped and stacked cages, or pregnant hogs in crates too small to allow for movement. We shouldn't modify animals' bodies in ways that destine them for suffering and steady diets of drugs. We shouldn't remove their appendages without anesthetic. We shouldn't pretend they aren't alive and we shouldn't be eating animals riddled with sickness and disease. We shouldn't be polluting the planet to satisfy our appetites.

Such care is not, as Kakutani implies, excessive. It is basic human decency. And decency never takes away from humans -- not even when it's directed toward animals. It's frankly hard to imagine the person who would argue that it's no big deal to systematically harm animals, while at the same time be a champion of human causes.

What a shame this book didn't have a more thoughtful review.

Thanksgiving Turkey Substitutes: The Least Appetizing Choices (PHOTOS)

2009-11-23T08:00:11Z

Here at HuffPost Green, we appreciate the positive effect that vegetarians are having on the environment, especially come Thanksgiving time when millions of factory farmed turkeys are slaughtered for the feast.

However, our appreciation for turkey-abstainers does not necessarily mean all turkey substitutes look particularly appetizing. We mostly get behind the philosophy that vegetarian food is better when it's not trying to pretend that it's meat. We thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the more wacky vegetarian and vegan turkey alternatives.

From Tofurky to nutloaf, check out this slideshow of the most bizarre foods to be consumed this Thanksgiving. Vote for what you think is the weirdest!

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Andrew Kimbrell: New Report: GMOs Causing Massive Pesticide Pollution

2009-11-21T17:50:28Z

There is one fact about genetically engineered foods that there is no debate about: no one wakes up in the morning eager to buy gene-altered food. There's good reason for this. Genetically modified foods do nothing for the "eating public". They provide no extra nutrition, flavor, safety or any other trait that people actually want. Instead, these food products only offer risks, which include potential toxicity, allergenecity, and lower nutritional value.

This presents a tough problem for the Monsantos of the world, who are pushing these GM foods. How can you sell something to the public that offers no benefits to them? And, because of their lobbying power, the biotech companies have ensured that their products are not labeled. So Monsanto's real request of the public is "be unknowing guinea pigs for foods that make us a lot of money and offer you nothing but risk."

Obviously this message is a PR nightmare, so Monsanto has come up with a spin that is old as public relations itself: "accept and buy our products because they will help the world." More particularly, their ads displayed in mass transit systems around the country and regularly on NPR claim that GM foods "will feed a hungry world" and "reduce the load of pesticides" used in agriculture.

Not surprisingly, both these claims turn out to be self-serving myths. Earlier this year the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a detailed report entitled "Failure to Yield". The report's findings were straightforward and incontrovertible. After 21 years of research, billions of dollars of investments in public and private funds, and more than 13 years of commercialization, GM crops have done nothing to significantly increase yield: so much for the "feeding the world's hungry" spin.

Now, a new report from The Organic Center, "Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years", exposes the "less pesticide" myth. The report, which was released on Tuesday, was authored by Dr. Charles Benbrook, a leading agricultural scientist. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also mention that Center for Food Safety helped fund the report.

It turns out that far from reducing pesticides, GM crops are a major reason for the massive expansion of pesticide use in recent years. This should not be a surprise. The majority of GE crops are "Roundup Ready," designed to survive heavy and repeated spraying with Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller. Roundup Ready crops have dramatically increased Roundup use, and spawned a growing epidemic of Roundup-resistant weeds, which now infest millions of acres of American cropland. Killing resistant weeds requires more herbicides. How much more? Dr. Benbrook's study - based on official USDA data - shows that GE crops have increased the overall use of weedkillers in the U.S. by a massive 383 million pounds since 1996.

Sometimes even more chemicals won't do the trick. In the South, cotton farmers are reverting to the pre-industrial practice of "chopping cotton," or manual hoeing, to rid their fields of Roundup-resistant pigweed.

Never fear, the biotech industry has "killer" solutions to the Roundup-resistant weed epidemic - you guessed it, new crops resistant to different and multiple herbicides. Dr. Benbrook describes these "next-generation" GE crops, which are the true pesticide-promoting future of agricultural biotechnology.

For instance, Dow Agrosciences will soon bring us GE corn, resistant to 2,4-D, one of the weedkillers in Agent Orange - the dioxin-laced defoliant used during the Vietnam War. 2,4-D-resistant corn will undoubtedly increase use of this dangerous weedkiller, which has been banned in Sweden, Norway and Denmark due to its links to cancer and reproductive disorders. Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer and Syngenta all have their own new "herbicide-tolerant" crops in the works, some resistant to two and even three herbicides each. The inevitable result will be continuing increases in the use of toxic chemicals to kill "next-generation" weeds resistant to multiple weedkillers.

In the face of all this, many farmers are becoming disillusioned with GE crops. In many states, demand for conventional seed, especially soybeans, is outstripping supply. Among the reasons given by farmers for this historic switch are dramatic price hikes for biotech seeds, increased pesticide costs due to resistant weeds, premiums for non-GM supplies, and importantly, the ability to save and replant conventional seeds, which is illegal with Monsanto's patented GE seeds.

Thanks then to the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Organic Center for debunking the myths about GM crops and foods. In terms of timing, the two reports released this year couldn't have come at a more crucial moment. Through careful scientific analysis they expose the false advertising that biotechnology companies are using in print and on our public radio airways.

We should all know what Monsanto and other companies are selling, and its not a solution to world hunger or a cleanser for the environment. What they are really selling is what they make best: chemicals. The biotech giants - Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow - are, without exception, major pesticide manufacturers. They have each bought up sizeable chunks of the world's seed supply, and are using biotechnology to make those seeds sell their pesticides for them.

It may be good for their bottom line, but its bad for us, the safety of our food, and the health of our environment.

The Yes Men Take On Coca Cola And Dasani Water (VIDEO)

2009-11-19T08:23:29Z

The Enviro-Pranksters The Yes Men were at it again with a recent trip to Boston, where, posing as Coca Cola representatives, they unveiled a new name and label for Dasani water, called "Deception." The Yes Men, working with the Think Outside The Bottle Campaign of Corporate Accountability International are drawing attention to how bottled water is marketed as healthier, but its actually less regulated than city water and comes with serious environmental costs. Kristin Urquiza from the Think Outside The Bottle campaign discusses in the video that 40% of bottled water actually comes from the same sources as tap water.

Watch as The Yes Men unveil the new product, ask consumers if they would buy it, and be sure to watch to the end when they get confronted by a Coca Cola employee.

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Paula Crossfield: The Fair Food Project Tells Farmworkers' Stories (VIDEO)

2009-11-17T14:13:19Z

If you eat, you rely on farmers, but you also rely on the labor of 2.5 million farm workers in the United States who earn wages below the poverty limit ($10,000 per year) while risking their lives in the harshest conditions in order to bring us most of the food we eat on a day to day basis.

Photographer and writer Rick Nahmias and the California Institute for Rural Studies have created a multimedia project called "Fair Food: Field to Table," allowing farm workers to tell their own stories, and featuring the voices of farm worker advocates and producers who are pursuing solutions to creating socially just conditions on the farm and in food businesses.

Part one takes a look behind the scenes of the food system, to the places where most farm workers live (because farm workers are often transient, they can get stuck sharing very small spaces with people they don't even know while get submitted to poor drinking water and other demeaning conditions), and to the fields, where the conditions can sometimes look indistinguishable from slavery.

Part two focuses on the solutions growers have found to dignify the work of farm workers -- having a dialog with them, providing health insurance, helping them buy their own home in the community or providing them with separate living spaces with air conditioning. Amy Hepworth from Hepworth Farms in Milton, New York says in the film, "Its so simple when it comes down to labor: happy worker turns into a productive farm."

Part three focuses on what you can do to change conditions for farm workers, and features the voices of organizations, students, chefs and others changing the system.

Watch part one of the project below, and then go here to watch part two and three.

Diane Dimond: Terrorism That Hits the Bread Basket

2009-11-17T13:27:19Z

My husband says I worry too much. Naturally, I don't agree. But there I was at the grocery store the other day and my mind began to work overtime.

Given the nature of the work I do -- writing about crime and justice -- I admit my brain doesn't necessarily think like other people's brains.

As I went about spending $271.52, which took a while, I noticed an unattended child in the cookie aisle. Fast as a cat he opened a bag, snatched a cookie and shoved it in his mouth. He then expertly sealed up the package again lickedy-split. No one was the wiser except for me.

In retrospect I think I should have stopped the boy, demanded he take me to his mother, been part of the 'village' that it takes to raise our children correctly. Honestly, there just wasn't time, he was that fast.

The kid's actions left me with the feeling that terrorist attacks on our food supply could also happen that fast.

At the milk display I thought about how easy it would be for someone who hates America to take a syringe full of poison and inject a few lethal drops into the top fold of several cartons. Who would ever notice a tiny needle hole?

Fresh, unwrapped merchandise like fruits, vegetables and baked goods could easily be sprinkled with something awful -- I don't want to elaborate lest I give criminals any ideas.

Being the daughter of a butcher I know that all it would take for someone bent on doing damage is to get a job in a store's back room where food is prepared. A little of this in the hamburger as it's being ground, a handful of that in a vat of potato salad and multiple mysterious illnesses and deaths could result.

Can you imagine the panic a pattern of poisonings would cause if they all happened on the same day in, say, New York, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles? Just half a dozen terrorist sickos acting in concert would cause the media to make it a 24/7 story ("Is your food safe from the Food Terrorists? Tonight at 11!") and all that coverage would most certainly embolden other extremists. It could be the beginning of an awful cycle.

Our government leaders don't talk publicly about things like this. That's because they don't want to cause undue alarm. But make no mistake -- terrorism of our food supply continues to be a big concern among Homeland Security types.

There's a whole bunch of government agencies tasked with monitoring our nation's food chain beginning in the fields where our produce and cattle come from. Since the September 11th attacks there have been several presidential directives to refine the roles each of these agencies play in protecting us. But the introduction of deadly diseases to our far-flung, unpatrolled produce fields and livestock herds still seems like easy pickings.

The Congressional Research Service reported a while back that, "some types of agro-terrorism could be relatively easily achieved and have significant economic impacts." The report used scary buzz words and phrases like: bioterrorism, major economic disruptions, a national security threat and a word I'd never heard, "Zoonotic."

The CRS report warned, humans could be at risk in terms of food safety and public health if terrorists chose to taint our food supply with a zoonotic, a "disease that is transmissible to humans." And apparently because our country has done so well in keeping out foreign animal and plant diseases, which flourish in many other countries, our veterinarians often lack experience in how to spot or treat animals with these illnesses.

Swell. Our success in the past comes back to haunt us!

It's true that not since 9/11 has there been a successful terrorist attack on American soil. But our power grids in major cities have been compromised, so have some major government computer systems and enemies from foreign lands can still cross our borders to pursue all manner of diabolical plans against us. It doesn't take a genius to figure out there's no closer-to-home place to strike a population than its food supply.

Let me ask you -- when was the last time you saw a security guard in your grocery store? Are you confident that your market thoroughly screens the backgrounds of its employees? Yeah, not so much, right?

I can't help it. As I stroll through the aisles of my local supermarket I see lots of opportunities for terrible people to do terrible things. I've vowed to check the packaging on everything I buy a lot more closely from now on.

Maybe my husband is right and I worry too much. Or maybe the possibility of agro-terrorism is something we should all worry more about.

Diane Dimond can be reached through her web site: www.DianeDimond.com

Eating A Deep Fried Fish That's Still Alive (VIDEO)

2009-11-17T11:57:39Z

Eating "rare" delicacies just got to a new level. In China, chefs have figured out a way to keep a fish alive as it gets deep fried and then waits to be eaten.

Below is the shocking video of a deep-fried fish that's still living and moving on a plate. Warning, this may be too graphic for some readers.

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California's 'Happy Cow' Ads Will Be Filmed In New Zealand

2009-11-16T12:18:42Z

The New Zealand cows, soon, will have a say in the matter because the CMAB is bringing its production crews to Auckland, New Zealand, to shoot a new series of 10 commercials claiming that California cows are happier.

Makenna Goodman: You Can Be an Urban Farmer!

2009-11-16T12:05:20Z

Do you dream of an organic garden, but don't have a yard? A flock of chicks, perhaps, but don't have a yard? Home-grown food, and lower grocery bills (but, alas, no yard!)? Dream no more, because you can have it, and without quitting your job, trading your bus pass for a pickup, or moving to the rural north.

A new wave of farming is happening in a city near you. While true, Old MacDonald had a farm (ee-i-ee-i-o), his offspring have some urban fish to fry. They're working off loans, and can't necessarily afford a parcel of land. They're young parents who want to save money on cherry tomatoes. They're newlyweds paying off healthcare debt, and growing taters in their trashcan. They're students avoiding crappy dining plans. They're urban farmers. Plain and simple.

In Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting, author R. J. Ruppenthal turns a seemingly anti-urban idea -- that farming has to be done outside, with a red barn and rolling fields of wheat -- on its head. Because urbanites, too, can grow their own food indoors, in cramped spaces, and without access to land! For real.

So without further ado, I give you Ruppenthal's comprehensive "how-to" info for growing fresh food in the absence of open land; it's here for the taking. Nom nom.

Q. Without the luxury of land or space, is it really possible for someone to grow and produce their own food?

A. You do not need much space to grow some of your own food. If you live in an apartment, condo, or townhouse, you might not think that you have enough space to grow anything, but my goal is to change your mind on that. You can grow nutritious sprouts on a counter top, salad greens on a windowsill, dwarf fruit trees on a patio, tomatoes on a balcony, and much more. Most vegetables, and even fruit trees and berry bushes, can thrive when grown in containers. Indoors, try mushrooms, sprouts, and fermented cultures such as yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, and kimchi.

Q. What are the top five things a city resident needs to know about urban gardening?

A. First, you need to know that you can grow a lot of different food crops in limited spaces, even in apartments, condos, townhouses, and other small homes. I described some of the possibilities above, and there are more in my book. Hopefully, you will try some of these and also come up with new ideas on your own, as many of my readers have done. Second, start with something that is relatively trouble-free (such as salad greens, peas, or even tomatoes) and work up from there. You will learn a lot from your successes and your failures. If you try some simple crops and do everything you can (such as provide good soil and water) to ensure their success, then you will experience some success. Third, do not be afraid to fail. All of us have our hits and misses. Sometimes you forget to water or you planted the wrong variety for your climate, or for whatever reason, a particular plant simply was not happy. A lot of people would quit after an initial failure, but I hope you will stick with it. The only difference between a "black thumb" gardener and a "green thumb" gardener is that green thumbs learn from their mistakes, try again, and keep trying until they get it right. Then they replicate, and build upon, their successes. A black thumb gardener would quit after the first failure or two, not understanding that there is a learning curve associated with gardening, just as there is with anything else. Stick with it and you will succeed.

Fourth, people do not realize that they can build a garden bed directly on top of concrete, stone, or rocky soil. Almost anything can grow well in containers, but even a patio, driveway, or walkway can be converted to a productive garden bed by building the soil up (as opposed to digging down, which you would not be able to do without a jackhammer). I built two beds on top of my patio, and today, I cannot tell the difference between what is growing on them and what is growing in my soil-based beds. Twelve inches of soil is deep enough to grow almost anything. I've had two kale plants that each grew nearly six feet tall on those patio beds, plus peas, chard, beets, lettuce, and a few potatoes. I believe that this really increases the available growing space in cities; so much of our good space is paved over, but it is not longer off-limits to creative gardeners!

Fifth, try to reuse your resources in the garden. I wash my produce in a bowl or basin, and then dump that water back into the garden. It conserves water and saves a small amount of good soil from going down the drain. Then compost your food scraps along with any coffee grounds, newspapers, cardboard, and old plant material. Start a compost pile or buy a tumbler, bin, or worm composter. Check and see whether your city or county provides discounts or free bins for people to compost. Each year you will need to continually add organic matter to your garden soil, and compost is a wonderful source of both organic matter and soil nutrients. For plant fertilizer, though, do not rely on your own compost: you will need to add some organic fertilizer as well, which is available from your local nursery. Most kinds have a base of manure or seed meal for nitrogen, plus natural sources of phosphorus and potassium, which are all key plant nutrients. Kelp extract makes a great supplemental source for both trace minerals and natural growth boosters.

Q. If one family could grow one type of food in their small space -- in order to save money -- what would be the most viable option?

A. I would recommend trying something that is both simple and productive. For a survivalist crop, nothing beats potatoes (and homegrown potatoes taste great!). You would need fields of grain to feed the family, but you can grow a meaningful amount of potatoes in a pretty small space. Spuds pack more calories per square foot of soil than any other crop. They can grow in most climates and in most soils (even poor soils). You can store them for months at a time. You absolutely do not need ground soil to grow potatoes, and even though I have some ground space available, I now grow all my potatoes in containers. So far, all of my container-grown spuds have been completely pest-free and disease-free, so I am able to use the smaller potatoes as seed potatoes for the next crop. Some people grow spuds in garbage cans, stacked tires, wire fencing rolls, and in other unique structures. They are quite prolific and hard to kill, so be creative. Even if you do not treat the plants well (forgetting to water or fertilize as often as you should), you are likely to harvest at least a few pounds per square foot. You can improve your harvest greatly by mixing some compost into the soil, keeping the pH pretty low (by adding a few scoops of peat or pine needles), watering regularly to keep the soil barely moist, AND fertilizing regularly with an organic fertilizer that includes healthy amounts of both phosphorus (P) and potassium/potash (K). Do not use a high nitrogen fertilizer, as this will make the plant grow too vigorously at the expense of the roots and tubers (the edible part). Look for an organic fertilizer with an "N-P-K" number where the "N" is no higher than the "P" or "K". Most fertilizers for acid plants (azaleas, rhododendrons, etc.) and bulb fertilizers (if the nitrogen is not too high) will work very well for potatoes. Fish emulsion + kelp extract is a nice combination too.

Most first-time gardeners want to grow tomatoes. This is another good choice for a first-time crop. Like their spud relatives, tomatoes are amazingly productive in the home garden and they taste far better than anything you can buy in the store. If you are buying store-bought tomatoes, you can save a lot of money by growing them at home instead. With just 2-3 plants, you may well have enough tomatoes for the whole family and even some left over for drying, canning, giving away, or selling. Tomatoes will grow well in certain containers, provided that these are large enough to accommodate their root system (at least 12-15 gallons of soil capacity). Where light is limited or in cool summer areas, try the smaller-fruited tomatoes such as cherry, plum, and even Roma tomatoes. You are much more likely to ripen a crop with these than with the giant-fruited varieties. If diseases are a problem, choose disease-resistant varieties, and do not feel bad if this includes hybrid varieties rather than heirlooms. Growing hybrids is not a crime against nature; it just means that you cannot save your own seeds for the next generation. Seed catalogs and nurseries feature hundreds of varieties from which to choose.

Q. What are some of the urban gardening techniques you've found most effective?

A. Urban gardeners can face some key limitations. The most obvious one is lack of space, but another limitation is lack of light. The only available space for your garden may be shaded by a building next door or a tree overhead. So you may not get the 6-8 hours of full-blast direct sunlight that most gardening books recommend. But the good news is that those other gardening books are wrong here; they were written by people who garden on acres rather than feet or inches. Small-space urban gardeners know that many food plants can grow well in partial sunlight, dappled sunlight, reflected sunlight, or with just a few hours per day of direct sunlight. Leafy greens, legumes, and most root crops can handle limited light and will produce just fine even if the harvest is a little smaller than in full sunlight.

Vertical gardening can help you address both space and light limitations. Even if you do not have much horizontal space, you may have vertical air space or wall space available to grow some crops. Tall plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, and some squash can be trained upwards or even downwards, growing large and productive even if they have a small horizontal footprint. In some urban spaces, there may well be more light higher up (or lower down) that vertical plants can grow into. If your light comes in at an angle, you can grow shorter plants in front of these taller ones. Dwarf fruit trees and some berry plants can be espaliered against walls or fences, growing from a small patch of soil next to a walkway or wall. The branches are trained two-dimensionally so that they spread in height and width against the wall, but do not spread outwards. Pears, apples, stone fruit, persimmons, and hardy kiwis or grapes (with wire or trellis support), and are all candidates for espalier or 2-D training.

Q. I'm planning on starting some seeds indoors this weekend. What type of planter would you suggest, and can I build it myself?

A. You can start seeds in any small container that has adequate root space and drainage. 2-4 inch peat/coir/cow pots, reused plastic pots from the nursery, egg cartons, and the bottoms of milk cartons all make suitable planters for seed starting. A sunny window makes a good spot or else you can use some indoor light to get the little plants going. Fluorescent or Compact Fluorescent light bulbs work well, but you will need to keep the plant seedlings within a foot or two of the bulbs to get enough light energy, and you will need to run the light for at least eight hours per day.

Depending on the variety of seed, you may need to "pot up" (transfer it to a larger pot) after the plant gets its first true leaves and starts to outgrow its old home. You should put your seedling pots on a tray that catches water runoff and it is important not to over-water seedlings (which is tempting to do). Over-watering will increase the likelihood of disease, so keep the soil just barely moist between waterings. As the plants grow, you need to harden them off by gradually exposing them to the outside sunlight, wind, and temperature changes. Pick a nice, mild day and put them outside for half an hour in bright shade, then an hour the next day, and then some more time in the sun, and you get the picture. Then they will be ready to succeed in the garden.

For the entire article, check it out on Grist, here.

Check out the book, Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting.
Learn more about R. J. Ruppenthal.