Private and semi-private workshops are also available

“Hi kids, when you see “Ad Break” it means you are viewing a commercial message designed to sell you something. Remember, if you are under 18 years old, you should get a parent’s permission before you submit any information about yourself or try to buy anything online.”

This on a page who’s sole purpose is clearly to sell cookies. What? Do they truly expected 12-year-old kid in the middle of surfing the web to stop and say “Mommy! Mommy! This website is trying to sell me something! Please, help me! What do I do?” Seriously, they even have a little logo which is supposed to pop up and warn people (especially kids) that they are being sold something. Everything about the website screams marketing, it says, no screams “BUY MORE COOKIES! EAT MORE COOKIES!”

Either this is something that the legal department from Nabisco cooked up after having eaten a few too many special cookies, or the marketing department really thinks that we won’t be able to tell that the whole website is designed to sell more cookies. I’ve never seen this type of announcement at the bottom of a billboard. Who are they fooling?

Dr Freedhoff’s post got me thinking. I believe that each of us should spend some time and examine what constitutes “the good life” for us. Greek philosophers spent years investigating this question in their quest to live well, yet we are happy to let marketers tell us what it should mean to live well. Hallmarks of the marketing ideal of the “good-life” are spending more money (because they are always selling you something), eating more and doing less. Following this trajectory will bring us closer to the nightmarish vision of the future portrayed in the Pixar’s animated feature film WALL-E, were monstrous blobs of flesh are hauled around on personalized floating lounge-sofas so they never have to leave the mind-numbing “gavage” of marketing messages and junk food fed to them by the sofa’s integrated screens and accessories.

If slowly poisoning ourselves is the “good life”, we will not feel good for long. Let’s get back in touch with a lifestyle that truly makes us feel better – not what industry makes us believe is the fat-cat luxury life we supposedly “deserve”. If we swallow that clap-trap we will truly get what we deserve in the end – all we will be able to do is eat, drink and watch TV because we will be too out of shape to do anything else.

Mrs Bruso, who writes a nutrition blog called BabyBites on children’s food issues, left a McDonald’s Happy Meal on a shelf in her office to observe and blog about as it aged. As she cites in her blog, her husband “worried that when the food began to decompose, there would be a terrible odour in our home. He also worried the food would attract ants and mice.” In fact, the meal did not even attract fungus! It remained on the shelf (as Mrs Bruso admits – the Colorado air is very dry) and just… well it just sat there. It seems that no one wanted it; not the mice (assuming she had mice in her house), not the insects, not even the microfauna; and we feed this to our children?

Economists sometimes use the level of competition for acquiring a given item as a good sign of the value of an item. The more people are willing to compete to get something (demand), the higher the price becomes – and the winner in the competition is usually the individual (or group) willing to exchange or sacrifice the most for it. The same principle applies with most foods. The more intrinsic nutritional value a food has, the greater the competition is to gobble it up before someone else gets to it. We see this in action with fresh fruits, veggies and meats if they are left unprotected. It is not long before insects, microfauna and microflora (fungi and bacteria) and animals munch it down.

Mrs Bruso as well as the host of media that have followed and re-transmitted her story have suggested that the stability of the McHappy Meal’s ingredients after a year of shelf life (at least on first visual appraisal) are signs of their poor nutritional quality. While true in such cases as the fresh fruits, vegetables and meats, in this case, this is an oversimplification of a complex system. If a food’s inhospitableness to bacteria or fungi are indications of its lack of nutritional value, then such stable foods such as cheeses, dried fruit, nuts and honey which are generally unattractive to fungi and bacteria due to their relatively low levels of moisture (and subsequent high concentrations of fats and sugars) should be considered altogether unhealthy. Often, as in this case, the low levels of water present in some foods make them an environment which does not support the growth of fungi, bacteria or or the micro-organisms. The fries in the happy meal are so well cooked that they attain a level of moisture low enough to preserve the potato starch and oil for years. Even the meat in a McHappy Meal, which is cooked to USDA well-done standards of 70ºC at the centre (otherwise known as boot leather), has such low levels of moisture that nothing will live in it. This is the reason for condiments (very high concentrations of sugars and oils) – otherwise the burgers and fries are practically inedible.

If the attractiveness of the food to other animals is an accurate indication of its value, then what is to be said of the millions of rats, racoons, seagulls and bears who gorge themselves regularly on McHappy Meals, Whoppers and french fries in containers behind fast food joints across the world? The fact that Mrs Bruso’s McHappy Meal survived in such excellent condition is more a tribute to her housekeeping skills (no rodents and not enough bugs) and the dry air in Denver than to any thing to do with the nutritional value of the “meal”.

If we seek to argue against these foods, we must rely on solid, logical and thorough arguments that cannot be so easily countermanded as I have just done. Fast food has been sometimes cited as a good value-for-money offering that should be praised (The Gospel of Food by Barry Glassner) for providing disadvantaged and stressed families with food options. We must educate those that we love in the true value of food – a value that cannot simply be calculated on a volume or calorie per dollar basis. Food’s true value combines the life-energy it embodies with the labour of love that it carries from those who grow and prepare it for us. When we reduce its value to a calorie per dollar equation, we devalue all of these important factors. By providing more attractive choices to those we love we will reduce demand, value and economic power of such low-value fast food.

If we want people that we love to resist foods such as the McHappy Meal, we must consistently produce foods that compete favourably with such enhanced and tweaked products. I believe that in order to reduce the power of such food industrials, we must work to make our food better choices truly better. It is our responsibility to provide our families with choices that they will prefer to these engineered experiences. Our reasons for choosing these healthier foods must convince logically, morally and emotionally.

Ingredients

1 medium onion
3 green onions
4 small tomatoes
beef or chicken broth
175 mL peanut butter
500mL cooked millet
1 dried chili pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
3 stalks fresh coriander
1/2 tablespoon coconut oil

Instructions

In the frying pan sauté the dry spices until they become aromatic.
Grind the spices in a mortar or coffee grinder.
Roughly chop the onions, green onions and the stalks from the fresh coriander.
In a frying pan over medium heat, add the coconut oil, onions, green onions, coriander stalks and spices.
Sauté over medium heat until the onions are softened.
Add the millet and cook until the millet has absorbed some of the juices from the onions.
Cut the four small tomatoes into cubes.
Add tomatoes and cook over medium heat until the tomatoes are completely softened.
Add the peanut butter and stir in chicken broth until desired consistency is achieved.
Serve with chopped coriander, some spicy oil and freshly ground pepper leaves as a topping.

Though I might believe that we can combine the process of creating our meals with family leisure time and that these small projects can become common ground for communication, a better understanding and an exchange of love – it does take a certain degree of organization. 12-step Gourmet recipes may sell many cookbooks and cooking shows, but when cooking daily for a family, the work-results tradeoff just is not there.

Read Sierra Filucci’s story carefully as well as the comments posted by readers on the Sacramento News and Review’s site as well as here on the Utne Reader (who also reported the story). What do you think? Do you find that the pressures of modern life limit your capacity to invest the time or effort in your family’s nourishment? Do you believe that it’s simply a lack of organization or is it a waste of effort?

As sushi has become even more mainstream and popular, CBC World News reports that the U.N. proposes a ban on the fishing of the now nearly extinct bluefin tuna. The world organization proposes to put the large fish on the most-endangered species list. On the flipside, the New York Times this week covered the political pressure in Japan (consumers of over 80% of the bluefin catch) that would have them refuse to comply with such a ban. In fact as recently as early January, a large bluefin tuna fetched $177,000 at an auction in Tokyo.
On the positive side, Radio-Canada’s talk show “L’après-midi porte conseil” blogged about how many of the endangered fish species are disappearing from supermarket fish counters under public pressure. In fact, in an early February report, the non-profit organisation Fish-Wise explains how the large retailer Safeway has agreed to partner with Fish-Wise to provide its clients with more sustainable seafood.

As the consumers of these fish, we are each responsible for the overfishing that plagues the world’s fish populations as well as fresh and salt water ecosystems. Inform yourself, chose selectively and make your preferences known to our restaurateurs, grocers and fishmongers – together we will have a direct economic impact on fishing industry practices. Canadian readers can find information (as well as printable pocket references or iPhone apps which are very handy when doing groceries) on sustainable and low-toxicity fish choices at www.seachoice.org, while Amercian consumers can find similar references at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s site (for the West Coast) and the Environmental Defence Fund’s page. If you are a pet owner who feeds your pets commercial (even high end) pet food – take the time to write or email the pet food manufacturers to make your preferences known. Those who take fish oil supplements or give them to their kids should do the same – inform yourself about what fisheries the oils come from and put pressure on manufacturers to use fish products from sustainable sources. The phrase “together we can make a difference” is overused in such collective action – but in cases such as this we are the difference! The same market forces which brought us this problem can be used to correct it. Vote with your pocketbook, credit or debit cards and the market will follow.

Stats (standard chicken on the left / organic chicken on the right):
Fat after cooking: 18mm / 3mm;
Raw Weight: 1.7kg / 2.7kg;
Price: about 8$/19$

His conclusion: “At the end of cooking, there was almost twice as much meat from the organic chicken and SIX times more fat from the “regular” chicken with a lot more water content. As for the price, I would like to redo the experiement and weigh the chickens before and after the cooking (without the bones) to get a real price per KG of meat.”
Thanks Dan![/lang-en]

Proponents of organic agriculture often cite the less intensive use of chemicals in organic production as a warrant of its safety and while it’s true that organic methods generally use less chemicals that industrial agriculture – that fact does not by itself guarantee that these “natural” chemical inputs are safer. Often our obsession to avoid synthetic chemicals overlooks the fact that most of the toxic chemicals to which we are exposed are completely natural. There are practically no differences in health outcomes between exposure to natural or synthetic toxins. According to an article in the prestigious journal Science researchers have shown that, according to toxicity studies in rodents, a glass of wine, a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee have a higher “potency index” than synthetic pesticides lindane and captan. Hervé This, physical chemist at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique in Paris and well known teacher and author on the subject of Molecular Gastronomy believes that many people do not behave rationally when it comes to diet. While people get up in arms about pesticides and rare contamination of food by toxins, Hervé This notes that no one makes a fuss about consuming considerable quantities of grilled meats which contain proven carcinogenic molecules such as benzopyrenes which are deposited by the smoke. He also observes that though consumers and chefs alike are concerned about toxins in food they nonchalantly add such elements as tarragon, bay leaf and nutmeg to recipes, unaware that these contain extremely toxic molecules (the toxins in one nutmeg berry ground to a powder can kill an adult). Hervé This cites the Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist and astrologer Paracelsus on this matter when he says :

“Alle Ding’ sind Gift, und nichts ohn’ Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.”
“All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.”

Organic agriculture has now become BIG business, with sales in the billions of dollars in North America alone. It has built its very marketable reputation on a commonly held belief that organic farming does not use pesticides. However, as James E McWilliams makes reference to in his chapter on the Organic Panic, since pests often consume over 40 percent of crops grown in the United States, farmers – organic or not – have no choice but to rely on chemicals as a matter of course to control these pests. Even if the substances used are labelled as “botanical extracts” or “biorationals” – this does not make these toxins less dangerous. Even if many of these “natural” products have been used for decades and in some cases hundred of years in traditional, small scale agriculture; the scaling up of commercialized organic agriculture could quickly bring about serious health and environmental problems similar to those seen with synthetic crop aids if these natural toxins are used irresponsibly or on too large a scale. For a balanced and detailed examination of the issues facing organic and convential food production, read McWilliams’ excellent book Just Food.

What strategies can we use to maximise the benefits of our diet while reducing the risks? A few simple tactics are available to us. Firstly, by increasing the variety of food species that we include in our diets we can accomplish two things – we can reduce the pressure applied commercial agriculture to increase monoculture, an agricultural method that often leads to increased reliance on chemical inputs; we can also reduce the doses of any single toxic chemical in our diet, whether from the fertilizers pesticides, fungicide or herbicides or from the toxins in the foods themselves. Secondly we can push our food producers to take a more pro-active and responsible approach to food production by becoming more active participants in the food cycle; by buying more food in-season from small local producers who accept to account for their chemical use; by buying more organic produce from responsible small-scale producers who respect the philosophy of responsible agriculture; and by shortening the chain of food production between the primary producer and the plate. For those who cannot afford to switch to 100% organic and responsible food production – you can switch where it makes the most difference for your family and the environment, by avoiding crops that are the most heavily chemical-laden and contaminated. Use references like the Environmental Working Group’s Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides to find out which non-organic crops are OK. Vote for a healthier environement and safer food with your debit card and your fork.