My Foodprint

The New York Times posited a readers’ poll today, on a similar subject to one of my previous postings. The topic is endangered foods. The statement for comment: “Saving plants and animals that were once fairly commonplace in America and are now threatened or endangered often involves urging people to eat them. What endangered foods do you think should be saved?”

This is one of the oddest statements I have ever read. It is true to some extent, sure if the demand for a food product rises, then the supply does its best to meet that demand. The statement’s oddity however lies in the its reliance on the fact that we as humans must eat everything, and that is the best way to bring a plant or animal back from endangerment. This idea that an animal or plant will survive extinction if humans create a demand for it only applies to plants or animals under some kind of regulation or monitoring. This does not apply to wild game and that should be noted. One cannot just willy nilly eat wild game and vegetables (such as forest mushrooms) and expect the species to be abundant. In fact the opposite happens, as we have seen in throughout history. Eating more salmon isn’t going to bring them back until we clean up the ocean, or establish safe, environmentally sound fish farming techniques.

But another concern: Do we really need to eat these animals in order to bring them back in thriving numbers? Can’t we just stop killing/harvesting them for our own gustatory enjoyment? I am as big a fan as the next person of eating a variety of items, and even exotic items, but why are our mouths the arbiters of what survives and what doesn’t? Can’t we use our brains to decide we need a variety of food items on the planet for biodiversity, not just for stuffing ourselves with?

What about endangered plants? A few examples are Elephant Heart Plums and Bronx Grapes (no, that is not a typo, only two vines still exist according to Ark of Taste). Now if the demand for Bronx Grapes goes through the roof, how does this assure a bright future for the grape? The small group of growers who could supply the grape would be overwhelmed by the demand. Where would more growers come from? Other farmers would start to grow the grape on larger cuts of land. The grape would then inevitably be engineered for long travel and high production yields, and before you know it, the Bronx Grape is the next Florida orange. I understand this is an exaggeration, but it is merely to point out that often foods that exist in the margins will require a lot of work to produce on a large scale, if the demand existed. A retooling of the entire system would have to take place to do it correctly. Look at soy beans, a product that has taken over U.S farms but is also one of the most bio-engineered legumes out there. Americans in particular have a trend of irresponsibility when it comes to demand. We want something until it is either no more, or until we can create a new version that often doesn’t resemble the original. Look at the tomato.

I think the most important thing to do for endangered plants and animals, the heirloom and heritage species, that we enjoy as food is to support them with government subsidies, and landsharing deals. Get involved in a local farm or take part in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). But don’t think just because we eat it, a food is guaranteed a rosy future.

–Nick

Thank you Jeffrey Sachs. The man who took a beating in Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine has penned a short piece in Time Magazine this week which confirms some suspicions I had about our current food crisis. We did see this coming.

“Despite countless warnings in recent years about the need to address looming hunger crisis in poor countries and a looming energy crisis worldwide, world leaders failed to think ahead,” says Sachs.

Sachs points out the four major reasons why we are experiencing the world food crisis, which CNN talking heads deny rabidly. Thankfully, to contradict, Steven Colbert’s genius show provides a wonderfully manipulated montage to put it all in perspective. But according to Sachs, the four reasons are (How many horsemen of the Apocalypse are there again? Oh, right, four.):

1. The underwhelming support of farmers in the poorest countries, leaving them unequipped to buy seeds, fertilizers, and manage irrigation practices.

2. The diversion of food crop resources to encourage the use of biofuels.

3. Climate change

4. A growing population, and accelerated income growth in China, India, and other developing countries.

Sachs offers solutions to these endemic problems as well. He suggests funding for countries in need, so that, like the success story of Malawi, farmers can begin to grow their own food and support not only themselves, but the rest of the world. Sachs urges the United States (which has diverted a disproportionate amount of land to crops for biofuel) and the European Union (which hasn’t as much) to stop putting “the world’s dinner into the gas tank.” Third, he argues we need a programs that ensure irrigation and weatherproofing of crops, so that when a drought hits, like it has in Australia for the past four years, a country’s stability isn’t as compromised.

The first problem Sachs outlines is valid and we should, as a world that is now “globalized” as they say, work to better the poorest areas so they can succeed. Because in the wealthiest countries we are doing more than surviving, many are doing quite well. The second point is much trickier. We do need to stop our diversion of food crops for biofuels, but I am not convinced that his idea of the electric car would be such an easy fix. People are deeply in love with cars that burn oil. The United States is embroiled in complex relationships with oil rich countries, such as Iraq, and while switching to electric would be great for the environment, what happens to those relationships? How does one country kindly tell another we will no longer be needing your services without experiencing some serious backlash. What kind of a recession would we be in if the world oil market, while not good for anyone except those selling it, collapsed in on itself?

If the food crisis has done anything thus far it has brought to the forefront the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the world in which we live. Complex because we have built a system comprised of endless circuitry that is in many ways broken and now must be fixed. Simple because in this day in age, globalization has connected everything. So when we look to fix one part, we know it will affect another. This, as it happens, is exactly how we could have prevented the food crisis.

–Nick

Doing its part to educate about the concerns in our world food supply, The New York Times has picked up its reporting on issues such as rice supplies, food costs, fuel costs, and other issues that are increasingly becoming tied to one another. In Saturday’s paper, an article about the price and procedures of shipping our food year-round is a small window into a much larger debate. Curiously, the article circles many of the topics covered in Sarah Murray’s Moveable Feasts published in November 2007 without any mention of the book. Murray’s book is a wonderful history of the various methods to ship food that have developed over the last century or so. Murray writes of the revolutionary refrigerated shipping container, also known as the reefer, which today allows huge cargo loads of fruits like bananas to be delivered to The United States. She also writes about the man who invented what is known as intermodalism. Intermodalism, which has come to dominate the food shipping industry, is the concept that all containers are interchangeable from boat to truck, to warehouse. This method reduces the energy spent and time wasted unpacking cargo containers.

The Times article chooses kiwi’s as their fruit of the sea, so to speak. Kiwi’s are shipped all across the globe to be available year-round. But unknown to many kiwi fans, they have to be transported by boat many thousands of miles before reaching the supermarket shelves. Australia and New Zealand were once the only countries known to grow huge export quantities of kiwis. Italy now grows them as well, but they still must be shipped. In a day and age when we must draw our attention to the effect of our movement around the globe in various carbon emitting contraptions, this idea of having any food anytime takes on new meaning. The article hypothetically compares the carbon footprint (or foodprint) of two wines, one from the Napa Valley, Ca., and one from The Loire Valley in France. In the end, for a New York City resident, the French wine proves to be more eco-friendly, as it is shipped by boat instead of trucked across the country. (Boats emit less carbon dioxide emissions than trucks.)

Tesco., the U.K. grocer starting to label the carbon footprint of its foods sold, is mentioned in the article, as well as the debate which argues it is less carbon damaging to ship foods than to grow them in climates that do not support such agriculture. England is the prime example. Because of a short growing season, England imports 95 percent of its fruits and vegetables. And many have tried to prove that the energy funneled into greenhouses and refrigeration of foods in England’s climate is more injurious to the environment than having it shipped in by boat.

Along the same lines, paired with the Times article is a piece on making our shipping vessels greener at sea. Of course, Sweden is at the forefront.

–Nick

Sushi is a delectable, invigorating, highly unique experience. I enjoy it more than most should. My favorite is a tender and fatty salmon belly, a mountain of ikura, or a snow-white slice of white tuna. But behind the sheer enjoyment of sushi is a curious story, which brings back recollections of the 1970’s and 1980’s , of a particular religious cult, and the leader of that cult who has built up a deservedly criticized infamy.

That’s right, I speak of none other than Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Unification Church. For those unfamiliar with the Unification Church and its beliefs, see his extensive Wikipedia page . To sketch the details, the church is founded on the principles most liberal egalitarian, free thinking persons would find objectionable. Reverend Moon sees himself alongside God as a perfect being, and claims he is the second coming of Christ. Along with this comes baggage such as his offensive remarks toward homosexuals, and a belief the Holocaust was some type of reparation the Jews had to submit to for not following Catholicism and God.

Reverend Moon happens to be immensely rich, and has been involved in American politics as a Nixon supporter, Reagan supporter, and friend of the Bushes. But more disturbing than all of this is his hold on the sushi industry. Way back in the 1980’s before sushi became the trendy food item it is today, Reverend Moon invested in seafood. He built and retained the ships to transport sushi, he bought the processign plants, he bought the distribution chains, He has effectively vertically integrated an entire industry with a little foresight and a lot of money. It is believed that his seafood company, True World Group, which is owned by the Unification Church, supplies seafood to most of the sushi restaurants in the United States. And just as Reverend Moon has had his troubles with the law (he served a prison sentence in 1982 for tax evasion), True World Foods was fined $150,000 in 2001 for accepting a load of fish at one of its processing plants after it was found to have exceeded the legal parameters.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this entire schematic that Moon has lorded over for two decades is the series of quotes from a speech he gave in 1980. The speech was titled “The Way of Tuna”, and in it he outlined his plans to become, in his words, “the King of the Ocean.”

Here’s a sampling thanks to another blogger, Jennifer Huang:

“There is a limited amount of land, and it gets poorer over the years, but the ocean is unlimited,” said Moon. To his credit, this speech was given in 1980, and the outlook on overfishing today is a lot grimmer now.

“I am the founder of this gigantic spiritual movement, but I am also laying the foundation to solve future physical problems of the world. Christian ministers are very interested in their honor and future, but I am crazy about salvation of the world, about how I can feed the world population. How I can help this nation. This is what I am thinking about day in and day out.”

To read more about Reverend Moon’s seafood kingdom, check out this Chicago Tribune article:

–Nick

Sam’s Club and Costco., America’s finest purveyors of bulk toilet paper rolls, announced today they will be limiting sales of Jasmine, Basmati, and long grain white rice “due to recent supply and demand trends,” as Sam’s Club stated. Customers who once wandered the aisles pushing an over-sized shopping cart and loading it with over-sized goods will now be allowed only four bags of rice. Of course each bag of rice weighs in at 20 pounds, so limit of eighty pounds of rice doesn’t seem like much of a pinch. “Recent supply and demand trends” is an arrogant and priceless line of corporate jargon meant to assuage any fears that we are actually having a worldwide food crisis when the happy American family asks why they can’t buy five bags of rice, or one hundred pounds of rice. It really does pacify the severity of the situation, “trend” being a particularly flippant term in this case. But by limiting its customer’s buying power, these two companies have been the first major retailers to pull back the curtain on the food crisis. Without knowing it, and hewing to a strict supply/demand system, the company has revealed to America in its own veiled corporate way, that the food crisis is even going to affect us here in the golden United States.

–Nick

I have to give The Economist credit for coining a term which assigns the most accurate horror to the current food crisis. In the article, the quote is actually attributed to a worker at the World Food Programme, but the Economist is not shy titling the article the same. “Silent Tsunami” does certainly employ a certain doomsday effect and conjures plenty of images of slow building waves, increasing terror, and then a final and ultimate washing away of existing circumstances. But the metaphor has too many holes to be convincing.

First of all, a tsunami is caused by a rupture in the earth’s crust deep in the ocean–an unexpected earthquake causes a tsunami. The food crisis however could have been foreseen, and I am certain in very hushed rooms with very thick doors, it was expressed that if nations begin to throw more energy into growing wheat, sugar and corn for fuel, then there will be some problems with feeding everyone. This had to happen. The leaders of our world are smart people who know the game, and any amount of shock due to the food crisis cannot be totally sincere. (Perhaps they did not foresee countries like China deciding to stockpile their food to feed the domestic population?) Unfortunately, the food crisis reeks of ego and ignorance, and the fact that wealthy countries don’t give a damn about what will happen when they begin to divert their crop sources.

The second problem with this “silent tsunami” metaphor is the fact that a tsunami wipes away everything that once existed. It is in nature’s catalog of catastophes, one of the most pervasive destroyers of land, houses, and cultures. The food crisis was not unheard of in the palces where it is hitting hardest right now. It did not cause a revolutionary change in life for the people of Haiti; it only made what was a very difficult life nearly impossible. It seized upon poor countries and made them hungrier. Nothing was wiped away by the tsunami. Rather, the people who need food most have been hung out to dry.

–Nick

There is an article in the New York Times about the revision of the tea trading system in India toward a digital platform. Tea traders have gone to the auction house in person since 1861 but now the bidding will be opened to electronic trading. The Tea Board of India is banking that the decision will open the market to higher bidding, allowing more people from remote locations to bid on tea, aiding what have been record low tea prices for tea growers for almost a decade. The opposition to the plan comes from the smaller tea buyers who fear that the large farms will dominate the market, and that the companies they buy on behalf of will now be able to buy direct from the farm through the new method.

The middle men are the ones who fear what could be called a pinch from both sides. As the Internet allows growers and buyers to become closer, there is little room for the person who facilitated the deal. This is nothing new, of course. Computers have been replacing humans for a long time now. But the question is what is so bad about this relationship emerging more in our daily transactions, particularly with crop gorwers who have been underpaid for centuries? Coffee producers who run certain farms take part in competitions like the Cup of Excellence which organizes large bidding auctions for certain lots of coffee. Often the coffee sells for record prices and the farm benefits from the direct sale to a coffee roaster. Why would this be so bad for tea? For this to happen the system needs to be established, and people with buying power would need to care as much about tea as they do about coffee. Tea has been gaining in popularity, so who knows?

Needless to say I think it is important to stress that tea is a product which varies immensely based on where it is grown, the terroir, the atmosphere, how it is processed, shipped and stored. It is much like wine in its delicate nature. So whether one starts buying tea directly from farmers over the Internet or not, the important way to help the industry is to visit these places and meet the people who grow it. Just as vineyard touring has become one of the habits of oenophiles, tea estate visits should be on every tea drinker’s list of things to do.

–Nick

When I worked in the coffee and tea industry there were several books regarded as sacred texts. Among them were Espresso Coffee: The Chemistry of Quality, worshipped by baristi as the seminal work on the intricacies of espresso coffee. The books of Kenneth Davids were looked up to as well. But scanning the bookshelf at my old job, there was one book which had something the others did not, and this was Corby Kummer’s The Joy of Coffee. The Joy of Coffee, while an in-depth study of coffee like the others, had the clear advantage. It was written, not documented. It was scribed with a sense of style and artfulness in mind. While the others approached coffee from a coffee lovers point of view, Kummer is a writer and a food lover.

Kummer’s book was inspired by a series he did for The Atlantic, where he is a senior editor. His work at The Atlantic ranges far beyond coffee, however. A most recent article about apples reads like an adventure log into the orchards of Maine where one man, John Bunker, is working to salvage varieties of endangered apples. His prize, and Maine’s prize, is the Black Oxford. As Kummer describes it, the apple is “colored a lustrous dark cordovan, purple-black with firm, cream-colored flesh. The flavor was refreshing, smooth, and all apple…” Adding to his dynamism, Kummer has also taken up with the Slow Food-ists and endorsed the movement with his latest book, The Pleasures of Slow Food. For those unaware, Slow Food is an ideology dedicated to eating local ingredients, and preserving the cultural value of food. It began in Italy in 1986 and has now spread worldwide.

Kummer’s writing and belief system, an involvement with food as a cultural necessity and a credible field of study, is one of the many reasons this blog exists. We need more people who look beneath the veneer, those who examine taste and origin, fact and humanity, all with the larger picture in mind.

–Nick

Crimson flowered broad bean. Champion of England pea. Bath cos lettuce. Rowsham park hero onion. These are all vegetables reported as extinct in a 2007 article in the Telegraph U.K.

The odd sounding names are largely due to a British system of categorization that for centuries has been affixing humorous labels to everything on U.K. soil, but behind those names is an alarming point. Over the last century, the article states, we have lost over 98 percent of the vegetable biodiversity on this planet. And today, 95 percent of vegetable consumed come from 20 species of plants.

These figures illustrate how production farming for specific breeds of fruits and vegetables has narrowed not only the availability of certain fruits and vegetables, but has constricted our ideas of these fruits and vegetables. We think of a carrot as bright orange and snappy. But what about the Afghan Purple Carrot? They didn’t make the cut. What have risen to the top of the heap as the most ubiquitous foods have been deemed the most profitable in terms of growing season, toughness for shipping, and adaptability for cross breeding with other species.

In response to the conscious narrowing of breeds Slow Food USA has created the Ark of Taste. Just as the Department of Fish and Wildlife Services has its Endangered Species list, the Ark of Taste is a list of the most endangered foods. On the list are the Blenheim Apricot grown in the Santa Clara Valley in California. In the early 1900’s the Blenheim Apricot was commonplace but as other varieties proved to be more durable travelers and ripened earlier, the Blenheim became less popular and less profitable. Also on the list are several varieties of peach: the Oldmixon peach, the Rio Oso Gem peach, the Silver Logan peach, and the Sun Crest peach. The Ark of Taste also provides information on the farms who still grow these products. The hope is that by informing eaters who want to venture beyond what is provided at supermarkets, an expansion, or perhaps reversal of our manipulated food system can occur.

Without sounding too pessimistic, one of the most important things to remember in this modern age of cooking and eating is that the supermarket, often thought of as a cornucopia of variety, is truly a calculated system. The apples and pears and lettuce in the vegetable aisle have been chosen by companies for characteristics most relevant to capitalism, not taste. Beyond, sometimes way beyond, the factory farm and supermarket exist varieties of foods never seen or tasted. It is our job to find them.

–Nick

As the New York Times reported yesterday, rice is fast becoming a staple food in short supply. Australia’s once thriving rice plantations are 98 percent incapacitated due to a drought that has plagued the continent for six years. This is yet another cause of rice prices shooting through the roof. Add rising oil costs and one has one their hands a food crisis affecting those nations most reliant on rice as a food staple.

According to the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute and the USDA, rice production and consumption has spiked in the last three decades, jumping 40 percent. But now, due to severe storms and floods, as well as droughts, rice production is slowing and producing countries are controlling the release to the world market. Compared to wheat and corn (number 2 and number 3), rice is actually the most produced crop in the world, but but it is also mostly consumed in the countries that grow it. Only 7 percent of grown rice is exported beyond the borders of its originating country. So the countries that have always supplied their own citizens and exported only a marginal percentage of their crop are now withholding from the global market. This is due to fears they won’t be able to feed their own people in considering a global shrinking of supply (yet the demand remains).

So Haiti riots. The U.S. ups its production for export, since we do not consume most of our rice at home. But China, Cambodia, India, Vietnam, and Thailand have all decided to hold on to the rice they have for the time being.

–Nick