More Michael Pollan Than You Could Ever Want

Here is a lengthy four part interview with Michael Pollan, author of In Defense Of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Enjoy.

Ecoist: Don Cheadle

Love the Cheadle ever since he was in Boogie Nights.  He’s a smart man and I love his Ecoist segment.  He starts by talking about our supermarkets in the States and how it’s loaded with all kinds of food no matter what season it is.  It’s something that is also addressed in the book, The Paradox of Choice.  Enjoy.

Review: King Corn Documentary

 Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis are best friends from Boston, Mass.  For some reason, they decide to see what their bodies are made of and human hair is the tape recorder.  They visit University of Virginia scientist Steve Macko who is an expert in analyzing hair.  They find that the carbon make-up of their body is predominantly corn.

Why are our bodies so filled with corn?  The meat you eat every day from beef to pork to chicken is fed with corn.  In the supermarket, everything is made with corn.  Cookies are made with corn.  Juices are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Cereal is made from corn.  Everything has a form corn in it from HFCS to the corn glutens to corn starch. 

Most cattle feedlots only feed their cattle corn.  It allows the cows to hit market weight fast - and it’s a good thing because the cows would die from disease and stomach issues from eating just corn.  Past 120 days of eating just corn, many of the cattle suffer from acid overdose or acidosis. 

Coincidentally, Ian and Curt both have great grandfathers that hail from Greene, Iowa.  A tiny midwest town - just a speck on the map.  Since they found out they are made up of corn, they decided to pack it up and and move to Iowa for a year and plant one acre of corn - trying to follow their corn from planting to harvest to the food stream.  In their grand parent’s day, 30%+ of the take home pay went to food - today it’s 10-16%. 

After securing a one acre plot in a corn field in Greene, Iowa, the boys head to learn more about corn.  Corn is a very close relative of turf grass - just on steroids.   They also learn that because of the farm bill and subsidies, they will earn $28 from their one acre of corn - without doing a thing.  Thanks to pesticides and fertilizers, one acre of corn can produce up to 200 bushels of corn (4 times what their great grandfathers were capable of harvesting).  That’s 5,000 pounds of food.  So the boys start planting.  They spread plant 31,000 kernels on their acre by machine and the field is sprayed with anhydrous ammonia.  31,000 kernels of Liberty  Lake corn is planted in 18 minutes.  Once the corn is growing, weeds become a problem.  They spread Liberty fertilizer which is specially formulated to kill everything except for the genetically modified Liberty Lake corn.  In the end, the boys harvest 180 bushels from their acre. 

More facts:

• 32% of corn goes to ethanol production
• More than half of the crop will go to feed animals
• Livestock consumes 70% of the antibiotics in the US
• An Iowa farmer can’t feed himself from his land because the corn is inedible until it’s processed
• Real vegetables for eating aren’t subsidized

Watch the movie or buy the DVD and watch the guys make HFCS in their kitchen. 

Overall, I really liked the documentary.  It was recently on PBS.  I thought it flowed pretty well.  It was more about their journey than the facts over how predominant corn is in our society.  I guess it left us to draw our own conclusions.  I really think that without so much corn everywhere, America would be a leaner society.  Michael Pollan is interviewed in the movie.  I always think of when he said in an interview,  ”don’t eat food that doesn’t rot.”  It’s so true.  So much of food isn’t real.  The western diet is that of convenience and total crap - yet most of us (and I am definitely one of them) don’t know how to prepare and eat real food.  I’m definitely infinitely guilty of eating crap.  I even know I’m not making smart food decisions.

Source: King Corn Website, PBS

Rising Food Costs - Maybe It’s A Good Thing?

Should I care that food prices are rising?  Sure, I care because it affects my pocket book, but like gasoline prices, I’m not entirely sympathetic to the masses who bitch daily about it.  I agree that ethanol is a sham and is a dirty industry that is driving up the price of corn.  Corn, corn, corn…glorious friggin corn.  (see my old post on Cornfed America - great video there) 

Here’s a thought or food for thought.  Before WWII, everyone ate organic.  You didn’t have a choice.  If it was fake, the product had the word “immitation” right on the front.  Now, corn is the substitute for everything.  Corn is everywhere, I mean everywhere.  The shiny sheen on your cereal box - yeah that’s from corn.  There are a ton of examples - just watch the King Corn documentary sometime.

Like I said before, I liken the food prices rising to the gasoline “problem.”  If you’re reading this, you probably know that we don’t pay the true cost of food anyway.  The gas problem is that maybe people will start making smart choices about the vehicles they buy if the prices stay high.  So the way I see it with the food industry is this.  If the farm bill doesn’t get corrected and these friggin subsidies keep coming and corn stays a commodity that is over inflated because of that shit fuel we call ethanol, then maybe, just maybe, industry will look at something else to use in your food rather than corn.  Can you imagine a world where the sweetner of choice isn’t corn syrup?  Maybe you sweeten with natural products like pineapple juice or even the white devil - sugar - or even better yet cane sugar.

Sorry for the rant - it just pissed me off this morning.  I’m going back to sleep now.

The Neighborhood Garden Project

Deanna Glick, a blogger for the multi-blogger blog (that I happen to read religiously) Green Daily, is starting a project with her friends called The Neighborhood Garden Project.  My wife, Kelly and I have been talking a lot about a home veggie garden and trying to plot our strategy.  Around the time we were first discussing it, I emailed our local town government and inquired about a community garden.  Nope - none exists.  I didn’t think much about it again.  This past Wednesday night, I went to Chicago Green Drinks where the topic was about farming and urban gardens.  Then this morning I was watching The Sierra Club Chronicles and it was all about community gardens.  Now I read about Deanna’s project.  It must be a sign. 

Like I said, Kelly and I have been talking about our forthcoming veggie garden for the past few months.  We have the usual perennials and shrubs now, but nothing edible.  I’ve had the itch for a long time and I think the past year of her reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and other eco-books has convinced her that it’s time to take action.  We had a CSA membership last year, but didn’t like it much.  This year, we decided in addition to our own garden, we’ll use the money we spent weekly on the CSA and combine that with what we spent at the farmer’s market to spend more at the local farmer’s market getting greens we want to eat, yet still helping out and eating locally.

I grew up on a small farm - I guess you could call it a hobby farm.  It wasn’t out livelyhood or anything, but it was a lot bigger than the 1/3 acre that I live on now.  We always had a very large garden with fresh vegetables.  I didn’t fully appreciate what I had back then.  We were locavores on the 100 yard diet.  We ate pork, beef, and a slew of vegetables all raised within 100 yards of the house (and even drank goat’s milk instead of cow’s since we had a goat to milk).  Although I moved away from that environment when I was 15yrs old, it makes me the resident farmer expert (even if I’m far from it).  To be honest, we’ll be relying on the little I know paired with projects such as The Neighborhood Garden Project and Katie & Chris over at Gardenpunks (and probably friends and family…and of course…Google).

The Neighborhood Garden Project is really intriguing.  It almost reminds me of EcoMoms that has been getting so much attention lately.  There are womens clubs, moms clubs, gourmet dinner clubs, bridge clubs and so on.  Now there is a group of women neighbors starting their own micro-garden club together.  It’s not your typical garden club where you learn about plants at a monthly meeting and have a plant sale.  It’s a hands-on social club. Deanna and her neighbors are starting a small community garden right in her own backyard - literally in on her property.  From the video, the project is in it’s infancy with the garden just starting out.  It’s going to be exciting watching her progress (and hopefully my own progress). 

In some urban cities of the country, there are eco-terrorists - or “green guerrillas” who go to a vacant lot under darkness and plant a garden. All of these ideas are very intriguing to me.  Behind my house there is a large dry retention basin.  Just beyond that is a stretch of land that has been on the city drawings to be a road since the 1970’s.   It’s still sitting there vacant.  Just weeds.  Should I contact the village and ask permission or just start growing stuff there?  What if I just scattered seeds there and see what grows naturally?  Hrmm… so much to ponder.  Good luck with your new club, Deanna.  I hope you start a trend!

The Neighborhood Garden Project

Source: Green Daily

Don’t Eat Things That Don’t Rot: Michael Pollan Interview

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. 

Here are a few of the exerpts that I particularly found interesting:

• Don’t eat foods that don’t rot.
• Shop the periphery of the grocery store.  The healthiest foods are at the outer edge.
• Eat locally when you can and support your local farmers
•  Grains were refined so much that all the nutrients were ground out of them thus producing a longer shelf life and thus the rats were no longer interested in them.
• Many cuisines are very healthy - Japanese, South American, Mediterranean.  The one that seems to be the most unhealthy is the Western diet. 

It’s really a great interview that has a lot of information.  Listen to his take on farming, subsidies, and many facts on food that when you really think about them are frustrating.  The more we refine and put more junk in food, the cheaper it gets whereas whole foods - foods that are good for us - are more expensive and just can’t compete.    Sugar or fruit juice can’t compete with high fructose corn syrup.  Why?  Corn is a subsidy and we’re not paying the true cost of the grain - we are, however, paying with our health and the health of our children. 

You may also like to read the transcript in it’s entirety or watch the RealAudio stream from the DemocracyNow! website.

Listen to the Michael Pollan Interview from Democracy Now!  (around 23:00)

Source: DemocracyNow!

Organic Banana Project

“Are you down with O.B.P.?  Yeah - you know me.  Who’s down with O.B.P.”  Ahh - what a classic song that brings me back to the early 90’s.  Its time to talk bananas (no, I’m not just happy to see you - get your mind out of the gutter!).  Lets start off the OBP - or Dole’s organic bananas, to be more specific.  If you’ve never bought them, they have this sticker on them where you can lookup where they’re farmed.  You go to DoleOrganic.com and find your farm number from the sticker (mine is 060 today).  Then you can learn different facts about the farm, who certified it organic, and see pictures (although - would I really know if they’re really pictures of the actual farm?  I’m taking their word this time).  The farm my specific banana came from is called “Esmeralda.”  It’s in Hondoras and has been certified organic since 1996.  Needless to say, I’m not on a locavore diet by eating bananas.  My worms do love the pesticide-free peels, though

If you’re not aware, the standard banana in the grocery store is choc-full-o-pesticides.  The pesticides are sprayed via crop dusters.  The workers harvesting the bananas often aren’t even told that the planes are coming and they have to duck-and-cover to avoid what they can.  The pesticides then wash into the soil and into rivers, etc.  It’s a lovely industry.  But wait - that’s not all - call now and you get…. “New pesticides are applied to the bunches after they are placed on a conveyer belt. The new pesticides, either thiabendazole or imazalil, are applied to prevent “crown rot,” a fungus that attacks the extremities of the banana bunch. ” 

Organic bananas aren’t that much more expensive and they’re worth it with all of those pesticides.  “But I don’t eat the peel?” you say.  Do you really think that porous peel keeps all of the toxins out of the fruit you’re eating?  Think again.  Sure they’re better than peaches or strawberries or apples, but vote with your dollars and buy organic when you can…and local…but there aren’t many banana trees in Chicago for me to choose from.

Source: Mindfully.org, my banana peel

New Organic Vegetable Testing

Spanish scientists have found a way to determine if veggies are truely organic (i.e. not a GMO or grown with synthetic fertilizer or pesticides).  The short of it is that they can test the vegetable with nitrogen isotopic discrimination - or rather they examine the nitrogen in the produce.  They performed the test on sweet peppers and were able to identify which peppers were grown with and without synthetic processes.  Organic fertilizers are generally derived from maneur which is a different type of nitrogen than a synthetic.  You can read the entire article from the Journal of Environmental Quality to see if you can fully understand what the heck they are saying.  From what I gather, the process is expensive and wouldn’t be used for large-scale.  It would be used for suspected fraud.  It also doesn’t take into account any of the farm processes that USDA Organic checks on. 

 The Daily Green also has a nice blurb about it.  I think that it sounds very interesting, but I can’t seem to articulate very well this morning.

Source: Journal of Environmental Quality

Green Drinks Virgin No More

I can proudly proclaim that I am no longer a Green Drinks virgin.  I’ve officially attended my first outing.  Maybe I should explain what Green Drinks is in the first place?  Well - since you asked…  Green Drinks was founded in the UK in 1989 by a green designer. It was originally founded as an informal gathering where people with interest in the environment and all things green can get together and share ideas and drinks. There are currently events regularly in 312 cities worldwide.  So check your local listings…or Google…or just start your own.

Green Drinks in Chicago began in February 2003.  Yes - for five long years, green drinks has been going strong here in the Windy City.  The events average around 75+ people and are now semi-monthly.  One meeting per month is a general focus while the other is aimed towards green business. 

Once I decided to finally bite the bullet and go - with the encouragement of my wife - I had to decide what mode of transportation I was going to take (although I knew immediately what I really had to do).  I live about 40 miles from the city of Chicago, yet I work downtown.  Luckily I had a couple things going for me.  One was that I already have a train pass paid for since I do go to the city via train every weekday.  The second is that the Green Drinks event is only about a 10-15min walk from the train.  The downside is that the train only runs hourly after a certain time and it makes every single stop.  I could easily drive to work and park.  Then driving home would potentially be very quick since it was way after rush hour.  Finally, I opted for the train for a couple reasons.  One is that  I’m cheap and the train is already paid for.  The second is that it seems a little hypocritical of me to drive to Green Drinks when I can easily take mass transit.  The third is that this is Green Drinks for crying out loud - maybe I could get a nice buzz on and learn about the environment and sober up on the train. 

So - I know what you’re thinking now - you want me to set the scene of me losing my Green Drinks virginity.  Break it down, yo.  First off, it begins at 5:30pm and your asked to donate $5 to the cause.  Not a problem.  5:30-6:45pm is for networking and getting your initial buzz going - which gives you the liquid courage to talk to even more strangers.  At 6:45pm the festivities begin.  There is usually a speaker on one or two topics.  Tonight was a little different.  The allotted time was one hour and there were 7 speakers to get through.  Each were given 7min to speak.  That left a little time for introductions and the initial MC by Peter who runs Foresight Design and Green Drinks Chicago.  During the speakers you can order some eats and drinks and sit back and relax…or take notes like me.  Then when the speakers are done, you can continue networking until 8:30pm or whenever everyone decides to leave.  Pretty simple.  There is also a table full of all kinds of good materials brought by the participants.  So you can find green businesses and all kinds of different initiatives going on in the area.  I have a nice stack of things…and no doubt I’ll be writing about them in a blog post soon.

Tonight’s episode of Green Drinks focused on the State of Sustainable Chicago with seven different organizations presenting.  The organizations involved this time were: Illinois League of Conservation Voters, U.S. Green Building Council - Chicago Chapter, Illinois Environmental Council, Openlands, Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, Access Living and Jobs With Justice.

I look forward to attending more meetings (I sound like I’m in a 12-step program) and seeing one that isn’t so schizophrenic.  Don’t get me wrong, I did have a good time and it was totally worth it.  It always feels good to go to those things and they’re not just filled with a stereotypical hippie treehugger, but people from all walks of life.  It makes you feel normal - like you’re not the odd-man-out.

Whole Foods Ditches Plastic Bags

Whole Foods is phasing out plastic bags in all of their stores - US, Canada and the UK.  It’s not just a quick phase-out, either.  They want to be plastic bag-free by Earth Day, April 22 (hey - isn’t it Earth Day everyday?).  This comes on the heels of decisions like China’s “free” plastic bag ban and last years San Francisco citywide ban.  Ikea also started charging $0.05 per plastic bag last year as well.  New York City recently announced that they are forcing stores to take back their plastic bags for recycling - and the store has to figure out how to get them recycled.

Its great that a “major” chain grocery store is taking this initiative and it only makes sense that it’s Whole Foods.  Although, I can’t say that Trader Joe’s ever had plastic bags that I can remember.  Whole Foods will still offer paper bags for free - but they are made from 100% recycled paper.  Kudos to WF.  They did do some consumer testing by eliminating plastic bags in several markets and saw positive customer response.  They also give you $0.10 off for each reusable bag you use.

Now - if only Wal-Mart would either ban or start charging for plastic bags.  Baby steps.  They recently had each employee sign a Personal Sustainability Promise.  I guess that they’re starting with educating their employees first.  I’ll accept that.  A company like Wal-Mart who’s demographic certainly is not always thinking green, can make a huge impact.  If they charged for plastic bags and sold reusable bags, people would still shop there for their deep discounts.  While I don’t really like Wal-Mart, they are trying.

Source: CNN Money via tip from Steve