But, the thing is it doesn’t matter that everybody thinks that farm subsidies are not an economically sound policy. Besides economists working for the big farm lobbyists, scholars agree that they do not promote the general welfare of the economy.  Even politicians, the very ones who amend and add those farm subsidies to the farm bill every five years agree that farm subsidies are bad idea.  However, every five years the farm subsidies continue to exist.  Why?  Because, as they explain,  ” it was politically necessary for me to vote [for the farm bill's subsidies]“.

The farm subsidies are so dear to the constituents of politicians, and therefore the politicians themselves (because, hey, wouldn’t you like to get re-elected?), that they would rather pay millions upon millions of dollars to Brazil to staunch the global outcry over *our* government-propped agriculture system.

Specifically, the Brazilian controversy is about cotton, but it’s a good representative of the top subsidized agricultural crops in the US (the others being corn, wheat, rice, and soy).

That’s right, Brazil’s government threatened to levy huge tarrifs on America’s major exports if we did not abolish our cotton subsidies. Needless to say, our major exporting companies had a thing or two to say about that.  Because our government can’t just change the farm bill (it’s up for renewal every 5 years and the next one is in 2012), they proposed a compromise.  AKA they will bribe the Brazilian farmers. The government will get $147 million to hand out to cotton farmers, if they do not go through with the import tariffs on American goods.  So, yes, we are now subsidizing both American and Brazilian cotton farmers so that American growers can continue to thrive/exist.

So, do I think that the government, our elected politicians will see the madness in the subsidies?  Will they see that paying off two country’s worth of cotton farmers with billions of American tax dollars is not in any way economically sound, especially given our current budgetary deficit?  Well, yes, they will and do see the insanity of it.  But no, they will not change anything, because it’s “politically necessary” to keep them on the books.

I want to see those politicians and their constituents put their agricultural subsidy money where their mouths are and get them to admit that stopping ‘big government’ spending should start at home, or rather on the homestead.

Just kidding. You don’t have to call, simply read on:

I don’t mean to proselytize, but a new study just demonstrated one of the powerful effects of changing to a vegetarian diet: significantly reduced bodily levels of harmful environmental compounds.  Published in the journal Environmental Research this year, the study analyzed participant levels of antibiotics and phthalate metabolites (compounds that are formed once they react with the body) before and after a 5-day “temple stay”.   While at the Guemsan Temple in Korea, the participants practiced a vegetarian diet and followed the daily routines of Buddhist monks.  They gave to the researchers a urine sample right before entering into the program and then once more shortly before the temple stay’s termination.  They also provided the researchers with accounts of the typical eating habits and the amount of tap water they drank (again, before and after).

All targeted compounds were found to be significantly lower after their five-day vegetarian diet.  Since no participants had a recent medication history and water inatke did not correlate with levels of contaminants, the authors conclude that the dietary change was responsible for the reduction.   The linear trends in animal product consumption and urinary levels of phthalates/antibiotics before the participants did the temple stay also suggest that diet is a substantial contributor to “inadvertent exposure”–The more animal products are eaten, the higher the exposure to these kinds of environmental contaminants.

It is important to note that while there was a significant reduction in the amount of antibiotic and phthalate compounds due to the vegetarian diets, the levels of antibiotics and phthalates never exceeded  “acceptable” or “tolerable” levels beforehand.  Of course, what you find to be acceptable for your body may be different from what the government has declared to be safe (with plenty of input from the relevant industries, I’m sure).

Anyhow, what this study shows superbly is that even short-term changes in your diet can really improve your bodys’ well-being.  It gives a whole new meaning to healthy eating, doesn’t it?

To get back in the swing of blogging, I thought I’d start off with something easy and fun.  To ring in the New Year, this group of people combined their two passions (which I happen to share): cupcakes and games.  They made individual cupcakes honoring 100 different games that ran the gamut from board games to video games, with quite a few others to boot.  Challenge yourself to see how many you can name.

And here is a link to various other “crazy cupcakes” and where I learned about the gamer cupcakes.  Thanks, Mental_Floss!

Recent research from the Consumer Reports Magazine found that those bagged salad mixes, most claiming to be pre-washed and ready to eat, aren’t as clean as you’d like them to be.  Thankfully, what they found wasn’t e coli, salmonella or anything as dreadful as that.  Instead, in their sample of 208 bags (representing 16 brands) they found bacteria like coliform or enterococcus that could only get there one way – fecal contamination.

Several industry experts [that Consumer Reports] consulted suggested that for leafy greens, an unacceptable level of total coliforms or enterococcus is 10,000 or more colony forming units per gram (CFU/g) or a comparable estimate. In our tests, 39 percent of samples exceeded that level for total coliforms and 23 percent for enterococcus.

Tasty.

Anyway…The bagged salad varied widely in amount of contamination, but the ones farthest from their sell-by date were often better.  As such, Consumer Reports suggest that you buy packages as far from their use-by date as you can find.  And, of course, wash your greens.  They say it won’t get rid of all the bacteria, but it will help to remove residual soil.

Happy salad eating, everyone!

In all, she’s pushed health and nutrition to the forefront of our nation’s conscious since she stepped into the Oval Office. Uh-hem, since her husband stepped in the Oval Office.  In any case, she’s certainly creating hope that the rise in childhood obesity will not continue and making tangible change to that effect on her own.

Let’s Move has an ambitious goal, but also an equally impressive amount of support from governmental bodies, businesses, and local  non-profits all across the nation:

The Let’s Move campaign will combat the epidemic of childhood obesity through a comprehensive approach that builds on effective strategies, and mobilizes public and private sector resources. Let’s Move will engage every sector impacting the health of children to achieve the national goal, and will provide schools, families and communities simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy.

To support Let’s Move and facilitate and coordinate partnerships with States, communities, and the non-profit and for-profit private sectors, the nation’s leading children’s health foundations have come together to create a new independent foundation – the Partnership for a Healthier America – which will accelerate existing efforts addressing childhood obesity and facilitate new commitments towards the national goal of solving childhood obesity within a generation.

This task force is combating childhood obesity in four key areas simultaneously: helping parents make healthy family decisions,  improving the nutritiousness of food available in schools (where children routinely consume half of their calories), promoting physical activity, and ensuring access to healthy and affordable foods.  This blog has detailed how difficult it is for some poorer families in poorer neighborhoods to access fresh fruits and vegetables.

I’d say this task force has a lot on its plate. But, Let’s Move has a powerhouse of leaders who support and believe in the importance of its mission.  In a world that seems to be at a standstill when it comes to any progressive policy, we could certainly use some superheros.  Could these be the  new Fantastic 4?

"First lady Michelle Obama walks through the White House east colonnade with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, left, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, second from right, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, as they meet regarding the childhood obesity initiative." By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY

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The strange and disturbing result of last year’s crisis with  salmonella tainted peanut butter is that there hasn’t been much change at all.  In fact, the criminal investigations into the now bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America (and its top executives) resulted in no charges whatsoever.  The outbreak was linked to 700 sicknesses and 9 deaths across the US.  It seemed like every product that had peanut butter in it was pulled off the shelves.

Major changes in food inspections methodology were called for nationwide.  Yet, food-born illnesses continue to grab headlines.

Under the scrutiny of media outlets everywhere, Georgia, home state of Peanut Corp. of America, got its act together super-fast.  It now requires regular food testing by manufacturers and that they report any contamination with 24 hours.  “Plants must open internal records to inspectors and detail methods to ensure that any contamination is destroyed before a product is shipped” (link).  However, an amendment to that bill lets companies bypass self-testing by submitting a “food safety plan” to the state.  It’s a step in the right direction, I guess.

Needless to say, Congress has been slower to react.  Well, more precisely, the Senate’s bill has stalled…like it has on health care, cap and trade, etc.:

On the federal level, a coalition of 18 groups including grocery and food industries and consumer safety organizations wrote a letter this month to Senate leaders imploring them to vote soon on the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. The House has passed its version of the bill, which would require food companies to develop food safety plans, require regular inspections of food plants and give the FDA more power.

Thanks, Senate!

***

A depressing question that comes to mind is Should we be thankful for the peanut butter crisis?  Many foodies and health experts have been clamoring for increased food safety for years.  And, some of those advocates say that without the salmonella outbreak we wouldn’t have this chance at really good reform.  Well, not to be ungrateful (and sarcastic), but I’m sure the families of the victims of the countless food-borne illnesses in the US are comforted by that.

My thoughts on this are similar to what I want done with health care reform; We need lots more focus on preventative action.  Why suffer through the flu when you can get a flu shot? Why suffer food poisoning when manufactures could keep the rats and bacteria out of the food in the first place?

How about it, Senate?

This follows on the heels of a controversy over Al Gore eating meat despite it’s well-documented damage to the environment.  Some environmental activists have called him a hypocrite for continuing to eat meat while campaigning for climate change measures.

I say, if Al Gore is eating grass-fed, non-factory farmed meat, it’s not as terrible as all that.  He’s showing that you can keep eating meat (something a lot of people fear giving up) and still help the environment.  It’s true that cutting meat out of your diet would help reduce your carbon footprint a lot more than even switching to a Prius.  But, we all know that as sad and as bad as it is for the environment and the animals (especially when factory-farmed) some people are just never going to stop eating meat.  For those people, I say eating sustainably raised products is the best and least they can do.

Happy (free-range, organic, vegetarian, antibiotic-free) Turkey Day!

A quick word about the annual Presidential turkey pardon.  This year, the turkey is named Courage:

The Turkey Pardon tradition was officially established in 1989, by President George H.W. Bush, and has gone on each year since. There are actually two turkeys each year; an “alternate” is always chosen, just in case the first bird is unable to “perform its duties.”

It’s safe to say that the staff in the press office at the White House is getting very creative. Check this pre-event video out:

In an email to Erik Marcus of vegan.com, Jonathan Safran Foer described his more recent adventure with the professional craft-maker and (television) host, Martha Stewart:

I was on Martha Stewart today, along with the director of Food, Inc., a veg chef, and a family farmer. I couldn’t possibly have been more impressed by how Martha handled things. Firstly, to devote an entire show to the horrors of the meat industry without feeling a need to offer the industry a voice. Secondly, she came right out and said the meat industry is bad. She didn’t mince her words. She wasn’t cagey or indirect. She spoke plainly and openly about the secrecy, about how they went after Oprah, about how they torture animals (her words), about how she’s going to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving. She told her audience, “You’ll probably agree with just about all of the conclusions in Jonathan’s book.” Frankly, she came off as further down the spectrum than I did.

Jonathan Safran Foer

You know it’s a really great book when it infuriates some and inspires a whole lot more to change.

I think I know what’s on my shopping list this holiday season.

Just what is a chestnut? Was roasting chestnuts really so common? Here’s the low-down on the nuts more often sung about than eaten:

American Chestnut

On the tree, the chestnut is surrounded by a thick coat of burrs. When the nut is big enough to harvest, their burr lining cracks and the nuts fall to the ground with a plop. They still have a hard shell at that point, and, as far as anecdotes go, they are mean suckers to peel. “They make fava beans look like convenience food.”

Death of the chestnut:

Chestnut trees were the East Coast’s sequoia, dwarfing surrounding trees and often outnumbering them as well for they accounted for about 1/3 of the trees running from Maine to Mississippi (Link ). It was even one of the most numerous tree on the North American continent. A fungus carried over on an imported chestnut tree from either China or Japan in the early 1900’s quickly decimated the very susceptible American population. The people of Appalachia who depended on the tree for its wood and nut exports were economically devastated the most (Link). Between 3 billion and 4 billion trees died, leaving only a few isolated trees on the entire continent by the 1950’s.

American Chestnut Habitat

The root system of the American chestnut can still survive against the blight, but the shoots do not grow very far before they are attacked by the blight. The full-grown chestnut trees in America are now mainly either of European or Asian descent. But, a whole throng of American chestnut trees were found along a hiking trail not far from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Little White House at Warm Springs, Georgia (Link).

A born-again chestnut:

Two blight-resistant American chestnuts have been bred in California and are slowly taking up root across America, helping to reintroduce the memory of roasting chestnuts on an open fire to the next generation of carollers (Link ). You can even pre-order some from next season.

More holiday cheer: Wassailing

“Now we go a wassailing” meant in the Middle Ages let’s go get drunk and sing to our apple orchard so that the next year’s harvest will be good. Wassail is from the Anglo-Saxon Wes hal (other spellings include Waes hael), which means “Be in good health” (read).

Photo by Kate Hopkins at AccidentalHedonist.com

4 large McIntosh apples

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/4 cup apple juice or cider

3 12-ounce bottles of ale

1 cup sherry

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

zest of 1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.

2. Slit the skins of the apples horizontally about halfway down. Place in a greased baking dish and sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and the apple juice. Bake, basting frequently for about 40 minutes until all the apples are soft. Remove from oven.

3. Pour the ale and sherry into a saucepan. Add the 2 tablespoons brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and lemon zest. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the baked apples and their juice, stir thoroughly, and serve hot. Here’s another version of wassail.

Enjoy!

And I didn’t think about my argument much beyond the fact that usually got the Pro-Migra people to think twice before demanding blanket immigration policies. However, that was until I went looking for evidence to help prove my point. In the age of refrigerated trucks, the free market, and a little help from NAFTA, ejecting migrant workers from the United States would not mean the end of our cheap food supply. Instead, it would be the American farmers that rely on the cheap labor to hand pick fragile fruits and veggies that would become barren. We mass consumers would still enjoy our strawberries and avocados from Mexico, our cucumbers from Canada, and bananas from Costa Rica. We mostly rely on them for our off-season needs now, but swift upward trends do not forecast bounty in our farmers futures.

American producers have been cheating in the price wars. Importing cheap labor and keeping transportation distances low, our farmers have been able to undercut the competition from migrant workers’ own homelands. Plus “Made in America” sells. However, “for the last several years, crackdowns on illegal immigrants and the lack of comprehensive immigration reform have increased anxiety among [New York State] farmers, many of whom rely on a migrant labor force from Latin America to work their fields.” Many farmers have already scaled back harvest sizes or switched to less labor-intensive products. (Link.)

American Gothic (1930), oil on beaverboard, 74.3 x 62.4 cm. All rights reserved by The Art Institute of Chicago and VAGA, New York, NY.

So, the next time someone says they want to expel the migrant population from the US, I won’t tell them how doing so will destroy their pocketbooks, but rather something closer to the heart–the idyllic dream of the American farmer.