I have been watching movies & reading so many diet & health books lately – trying to get my head around the deeper ethics of diet. Beyond eating for best health – what are the other issues? For one – Food Ethics – finding a worldview that incorporates the rights of humans to choose their food with the rights of all Beings to live successfully in harmony on this finite planet. That sounds simple enough – yet, why the raging controversy? You’d think we are discussing religion or politics! Well, maybe we are…

While studying for the endocrine nutrition classes I recently taught, it became very clear that references & resources are now legion in any one camp of belief, especially with Internet resources, multiple books promoting any one theory, and very few of us capable of reading actual peer-reviewed studies. In fact – my own history of study using peer-reviews in technical journals, is that the studies themselves seem to be funded by a well-off corporation who managed to get some academics to perform the study with an intended result. Am I being cruel? Is there no way out of this entanglement of beliefs & truth?

I can only reach deep inside myself & feel my way out when this happens. The heart “knows” more than the brain when it comes to first perception. I choose from there.

Have I lost you yet?
If not – back to my topic in mind – food ethics – determining what foods humans should choose with full consideration of planetary balance & the rights of all living beings. (Let’s say all of those still alive & those who have died due to our lack of eco-ethics)

Let’s say also that… we need to BE healthy instead of BELIEVE healthy.

What food choices really work for YOU? Can you know now what to eat – in advance of the probably years it will take to see the results… once your health is compromised – or worse – wrecked?

Simple thoughts:
Whenever I can – I choose to eat locally & organically, a variety of foods produced with minimal impact on water use, soil degradation & while also recycling maximum nutrient back into an almost closed loop system. Can we artfully achieve this noble goal in our daily life – replete as it is with the temptations & delights – indeed – the wondrous tastes of foreign foods- rich roasted coffee drinks, creamy chocolate desserts, bananas, blueberries in winter, fish from foreign shores, the entire range at Trader Joes for Gods sake! In order to eat ethically you have to stay home & garden, or shop quickly with a list & get out before your eyes linger on the specialties waiting to grab your attention at checkout. The demons of imported foods are all around us.

Oh, now where was I? (as she eats cute small tangerine & handful of almonds -where were they grown? – during mini-break) I was hoping to at least give you a list of ethical discussions now in print…recommended by me in my own slanted style of current favorites…reader warning – they don’t all agree!
Viola! Finally you come to it….(forget cultural bias, availability, health theory or practice when considering this aspect of food choice)

(a partial list of “Ethical Eating” resources)

BOOKS:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, Mary G. Enig PhD (A full-spectrum nutritional cookbook with a startling message–animal fats and cholesterol are vital factors in the human diet, necessary for reproduction and normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. Includes information on how to prepare grains, health benefits of bone broths and enzyme-rich lacto-fermented foods.)

The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability - Lierre Keith (discusses alternatives to industrial farming, reveals the risks of a vegan diet, and explains why animals belong on ecologically sound farms.)

Full Moon Feast – Jessica Prentice (Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised, nutrient-rich foods and traditional cooking methods as she recounts her relationships with local farmers alongside ancient harvest legends and methods of food preparation from indigenous cultures around the world.)

Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating by Jane Goodall (Goodall focuses more on the product of “factory farming” techniques: mountains of waste, nutritionally depleted soil, polluted water, displaced organic farmers, and severely compromised food.)

The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters (the Waters mantra: eat locally and sustainably; eat seasonally; shop at farmers markets)

Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe (eating lower on the food chain -i.e. more grains and vegetables- is crucial the key to ending worldwide hunger, author’s theory is that non-meat proteins are much more efficient and sustainable to produce)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan (In a journey that takes us from an “organic” California chicken farm to Vermont, Pollan asks basic questions about the moral and ecological consequences of our food)

How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons (Jeavons lays out a comprehensive guide to growing the most food you can on the least amount of land in the most sustainable way – on an ongoing basis into perpetuity, most healthy both for your family, your land, and the wider world.)

MOVIES:

I am happy to see more and more “good food” documentaries coming out. While I think movies like “Food, Inc.” are important to educate us on food issues, I appreciate the solution based films even more.

DIRT! The Movie, tells the amazing and little known story of the relationship between humans and living dirt. Why Dirt?

Dirt feeds us and gives us shelter. Dirt holds and cleans our water. Dirt heals us and makes us beautiful. Dirt regulates the earth’s climate. Dirt is the ultimate natural resource for all life on earth.

Edible City: A new (more grassroots) film prides itself in showing what people are doing in their own backyards in an urban environment, and with their own resources. It shows the movers and shakers in sustainable ag in the SF Bay Area.

FRESH - Ana Joanes (“FRESH brings more of the solutions and ideas for positive change to the table while Food Inc. focuses on the overwhelming power of industrial ag, its problems and challenges, leaving the viewer very troubled.”) I really enjoyed seeing the film “Fresh” recently on the shift towards sustainable food. It was great to see Will Allen’s Growing Power. He was growing sooo much food on a small urban plot, and loves his composting worms! And I loved finally meeting farmer Joel Salatin.

Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan (takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world – seen from the plants’ point of view – the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato – evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control)

Nourish: Food + Community: (With beautiful visuals and inspiring stories, Nourish traces our relationship to food from a global perspective and suggests the steps individuals can take to create a more sustainable food system and live more healthful lives.)

Want more?
Read some great thoughts…

Lia Huber about Nourish -

Further interesting discussion threads form on this vegan web page – a China Study critique. Vegan insights – yet of course – in support of my current theme of moderate eating of all healthy foods, animal or vegetable – locally grown with closed loop inputs….plus a questioning of the results of our last 10,000 years of agricultural practices & the future of food…

Invite response? Yes! I may be impatient & a poor scientist, but am an eater of food therefore deserve an opinion. Also – as avid debater in the realms of art – in which I have always thought that nutrition & food belonged – I get to enjoy my own my “taste”.

How should we eat? Damned if I truly know…yet. Can we even afford to debate this matter of ethics & choice considering the spiraling descent of food availability planetary -wide? Best to debate it while we work in the garden & rest a moment on our shovels – just in case the narrowing gap between the starving & the well-fed continues to affect more & more eaters, mainly those of us in the USA blessed with choice & variety of nutrient & taste. The debate continues even while the deserts enlarge & the waters are poisoned.

PS For those who are still concerned with the effects of diet on personal health – and I am one of them….the important discussion on health & community should remind us that it doesn’t matter how much conviction these various authorities have on their own theories, if it doesn’t work for you it’s worthless. We’ve each got to find out on our own what we should include in our own diets using the advice of others merely as a framework. Wholeness & Health? Cancer? Perfect energy? Endocrine disruption? Arthritis? Athletic prowess? It’s all around us, let’s perceive with our hearts & choose with our deepest feelings before we say grace over that next meal.

LOCAL SOURCES 2010

The 5^th Annual Little Lake Grange Harvest Dinner is one of over 400 many Slow Food & Gardening Events happening around the country this weekend!

This year we feature a gourmet multi-course meal created from locally grown food products. Our reason for producing a “LOCAL” dinner is to showcase the best of farm products available in our valley and within 100 miles of  Willits.

We want to offer  a  fine dining experience celebrating local sustainable food and farming.  The finest and freshest of foods  prepared with loving care by our extraordinary local chefs – Patty Rede & Linda Relin, and their joyful crew of talented kitchen sou-chefs & assistants.

This is a Grange sponsored all-volunteer community collaboration that brings us all closer together in the supply of food for our health & our future

* ALL DONATIONS listed below are marked with a * (ASTERICK)

* Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts! *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Local Organic Wines: (Organic wines from Mendocino County)

–     *Frey Winery, *Barra Winery, *Parducci Winery, Fetzer, *Vin De Tevis, *Husch Vineyard

–        Decorative Wine Grapes – *Marsha Pratt

Appetizers:

Almonds, Fresh Fruit & Grapes, (the Santa Rosa farm of Don Rosenburg)

Walnuts, *Baldo Farms  ~  Pepper Jelly, *Fairall  ~ Fig Chutney, *Stella Bonnet

Artisan Cheeses – Triple Creme Brie (*Marin French Cheese), Classic Cheddar (*Clover)

Local Goat Chevre’ (*Redwood Hill Farm), Dry Jack  (*Springhill farm)

Crackers – Wheat harvested in Mendocino, Handmade Italian crackers by our own local cooks

- Olive Oil, Local Sea Salt

Dinner & Buffet Table:

Moroccan Tagines - Ford Ranch beef and local vegetables from Brookside Farm, *Golden Rule Garden, *Senior Center Garden, *Wendy Wilmes & Chris Baldo, Covelo Organics, *Mariposa Market, *Inland Ranch Organics, *Salt Hollow farm

-         Fava beans from *John Wagenet, October beans from *Golden Rule Garden

-         Walnuts from  *Chris Baldo & Baldo Farms

-         Paprika from Richard Jeske

Moroccan Chermoula Sauce

– Parsley from *The Drell Farm, Mint from *Karina McAbee

Rice Pilaf – Rice from our own Granary stores (origin- Sacramento Valley)

Olive Oil  and Spices

Tomato Platters & Seasonal Local Vegetables with Moroccan spices – Many local farmers:

*Hue de Laroque,  *Wendy Wilmes & Chris Baldo, Brookside Farm, *Annie Waters – thanks to you all!

Pickles – from Brookside Farm & Amy Rouse

Local & Seasonal Mixed Greens – *Green Uprising Farm

Lemon vinaigrette dressing – Lemon juice from *Golden Rule Garden, Local Olive Oil – *Chris Baldo

Dessert Table:

Fruit Gallettes & Crisps  – *Sweetie Pies (fruit from Green Uprising Farm)  Thanks Allegra Foley!

Local Pears by *Green Uprising Farm with *Mendocino Queen Honey

Whipped Cream from *Clover Dairy

Pan Forte’ by Mary Senerchia

Beverages:

Local Filtered Water

Herbal Tea (Mint & Lemon Balm) – *Sara O’Brian, *Annie Waters

with Honey from Karina McAbee’s hives

Pressed Apple Cider from *Golden Rule Garden

PS to all – LOCAL NOTES:

~Locally grown grain is still in limited supply- Golden Rule is experimenting with teff, quinoa, amaranth.  Doug Mosel is growing some wheat, rye, oats & barley, but the supply is still limited.

~There are few beans or other vegan proteins easily available from local sources except Fava beans.  This limits the ability of our dinner to supply vegan food and we apologize for that.

~ Locally madeVinegar cannot be found!  It is easy to make & should be available from local apples or grapes – seems like a business opportunity for someone…

~Salt is also available from the ocean 24 miles away, but is expensive in the quantities now available.  We have used just a pinch of  local salt, with our apologies since it seems unaffordable for this large dinner.

~Spices have been traded from the Far East for thousands of years & we hope will always be available and will probably always be an “imported item” on our LOCAL menu ingredients.

What Spices can we grow here that will give us our beloved cinnamon & spice & all things nice?

updated 9-24-2010 – Ann Waters, Producer coordinator

The newest generation to begin farming is making their wave on front lawns, in backyards across America.  It is now very hip to keep chickens in town, and the movable mini-coop (Chicken tractor) that can clean up & fertilize a garden bed is a wonderful invention being built just about anywhere!

Jason Bradford – localization spark plug & recently of my hometown – Willits, CA – has moved to Corvallis, OR –  in search of a wide & fertile valley to farm organically.  His dream is to organize Organic farming for thousands of prime farmland – revolutionize the future of our basic grain crops.  As that bigger dream unfolds, he is making a cozy home with wife – Kristin Bradford – a full time MD & very good baker of scratch German Chocolate cakes, beautiful young mother of 2 extraordinary boys, a Tai Kuan Do student, ballet dancer extraordinaire, and – well – you get it – these are not your ordinary backyard gardeners….but, wait – they are extra ordinary just as are we all, each in our own way.

So find your extra-out-of-the-ordinary time & dig a patch in your front yard, your side patio, your balcony pot of soil…plant a tomato & savor the goodness of the connection to your food.  Meanwhile, you can get inspired & informed by books such as The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan.  

I have learned something new on every page!

Hey – I do hope we all “Start seeing Farmers” …around town, around our county, around our nation… small farmers that is – ones that grow “real food”!!!

There is an exciting new farmer movement – young people who realize that farming is sexy & that feeding people is where it is at – for survival into the next human phase.

SO-

Come on farmers – stand up & be counted!  WWOOFers, PERMACULTURISTS, TREE PLANTERS, Green Uprising Farmers all Farmers who go to Market or sell from a CSA…

Why do we need a farming revolution?  Yep, since the 1970’s (or earlier) we have been losing the ancient farm web – a structure that fed all of us for millennia.  In just a few decades, we became dependant on Big Ag.  Large farms are not feeding us in a healthy way, they are part of the corporate food complex, creating obesity & health concerns with the use of fields & choice of crops.   Too bad for everyone…  It is about Government Farm Subsidies as much as anything else.

A decade ago, an American woman’s waist, on average, was close to two inches smaller than it is today. Eighteen year olds are at least 15 pounds heavier than they were in the 1970s.   That is a bad start on adult life & habits.

One reason is federal subsidies for food production.
Check out these numbers:

• Meat/Dairy — 73.8 percent
• Grains — 13.2 percent
• Sugar/Oil/Starch/Alcohol — 10.7 percent
• Nuts/Legumes — 1.9 percent
• Vegetables/Fruits — 0.4 percent

That’s right – just 1.9 percent for nuts and legumes and 0.4 percent for fruits and vegetables. As a result, a salad often costs you more than a Big Mac.

Follow the money – & it should come as no surprise that federal subsidies for certain kinds of food will directly influence the production and subsequent consumption of that food.

As you can see in the list above, the US food subsidies are grossly skewed, creating a diet excessively high in factory-farmed meats, grains and sugars, with very little fresh fruits and vegetables or healthy fats from nuts and seeds.

The food crops currently subsidized are corn, soy, wheat and rice. What do you end up with?

A fast food diet!

It’s quite clear that the farm bill creates a negative feedback loop that maintains the status quo of the standard American diet, which is directly responsible for our current epidemic of diabetes & obesity.  By subsidizing the farming of corn and soy, the US government is actively supporting a diet that consists of these crops.  And, the food processing industry is using the bulk of these crops to either feed animals before slaughter or to be used as foodstuffs in their processed form – so what we are getting for all of our tax supported farm subsidies is a lot of high fructose corn syrup (GMO), soybean oil (GMO), and grain-fed cattle (GMO) – all of which are known contributors to obesity and chronic diseases.

(See my reminders that the vast majority of these two crops are also genetically modified, which in and of itself is a major health hazard that has hardly begun to play out in our lifestyle or timeline of health & genetics of future generations)

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is perhaps the most obvious example of how the farm subsidies are destroying our health, as opposed to promoting the production of food that is actually worthy of being called “food.”  I’ve done a few rants (posts) on this subject, http://anniegreenjeans.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=406

and it is all over the information field that this stuff is bad news.  I am traveling right now, and (am not in my normal zone of food selections – including homemade salad dressings, natural ice cream, carefully chosen foods – even is they are from the Grocery Outlet)…checking a few labels from my friend’s cupboards, I find that the proliferation of corn syrup is amazing!  It is truly in almost everything.  I am sure that when I was a kid – hot fudge syrup did not have corn syrup to sweeten it (of course we didn’t have it in our cupboards actually – only as an occasional treat from the dairy queen), so those recipes have been altered & I bet – are much cheaper to make without regular sugar.  Funny – to think we have come to a point where “sugar” is considered a “healthy alternative”.  Yikes!  Everyone – check those labels & refuse to buy that stuff…maybe we can get it off the shelves if we just don’t vote with our dollars.  Cheap food is not better if it kills us sooner…

Get involved with your food.  You don’t have to be an activist to make a few healthy choices at the grocery store.  Your budget can handle it.  Your kids will thank you when they don’t get diabetes.

Thanks to K Krizanovich for the fun photo that started this entire rant…

Why Planting Farms in Skyscrapers Won’t Solve Our Food Problems

By Stan Cox and David Van Tassel |

Agriculture in America has become an ecological, social and nutritional disaster of sufficiently huge scale to inspire a frenzy of book-writing, filmmaking, conference-holding and project-initiating in recent years. The critiques that emerge are often right on the money, highlighting pesticide and nitrate pollution, soil erosion, the consequences of meat production in feedlots and confinement sheds, the destruction of rural communities and the poor nutritional quality of food. But the solutions being proposed have not, for the most part, been of the same scale as the problems; most would do little more than nibble at the edges of America’s long-running agricultural fiasco.

A striking example of such ill fit between problem and proposed response can be found in the November 2009 issue of Scientific American, where Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health and environmental health sciences at Columbia University, made his case for what he calls “vertical farms,” a vision he promotes through his site verticalfarm.com.

After doing a very good job of describing the terrible toll that agriculture takes on soil, water, and biodiversity across the globe, Despommier’s article lays out a proposal to replace soil-based farming with a system of producing food crops in tall urban buildings-to, he writes, “grow crops indoors, under rigorously controlled conditions, in vertical farms. Plants grown in high-rise buildings erected on now vacant city lots and in large, multistory rooftop greenhouses could produce food year-round using significantly less water, producing little waste, with less risk of infectious diseases, and no need for fossil-fueled machinery or trans¬port from distant rural farms.”

Despommier describes how one of his scenarios-which are based on the use of hydroponic or “aeroponic” methods of growing plants without soil-might work: “Let us say that each floor of a vertical farm offers four growing seasons, double the plant density, and two layers per floor-a multiplying factor of 16 (4 _ 2 _ 2). A 30-story building covering one city block could therefore produce 2,400 acres of food (30 stories _ 5 acres _ 16) a year.” By extrapolating numbers like those and assuming extraordinary leaps in technology, as well as the repeal of Murphy’s Law, he has made such a convincing case for vertical farms that, he claims, “many developers, investors, mayors and city planners have become advocates.” Time magazine has run a generally positive story on the concept. And an Australian architect is currently planning to build the first full-scale vertical farm, in China.

The idea for vertical agriculture grows out of the realization that there are not enough exposed horizontal surfaces available in most urban areas to produce the quantities of food needed to feed urban populations. Although the concept has provided opportunities for architecture students and others to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food. Even if vertical farming were feasible on a large scale, it would not solve the most pressing agricultural problems; rather, it would push the dependence of food production on industrial inputs to even greater heights. It would ensure that dependence by depriving crops not only of soil but also of the most plentiful and ecologically benign energy source of all: sunlight.

The Promise of Biochar

“char·coal” definition: a black or dark gray form of carbon, produced by heating wood or another organic substance in an enclosed space without air.

I have been putting my final charcoal from burn piles & the wood stove into my garden beds for several years, hoping this common charcoal was Biochar… it is  created in a smothered fire & yet didn’t consume like the rest of the logs, fits the description…but, how to smash & screen it into a finer powder, that sounds important!  This year I will do it better…

Ed Burton has been talking about this for years too…& of course, biodynamic gardening has  promoted it forever…time to take it more seriously…

My friend Lee thinks that this will save us when we can no longer get outside sources of fertilizers & amendments…we do live in a forest after all…

So exciting, the little greenhouse is happening!

Now we have dug & laid the paver floor, and are framing it out

…an 8×12 multi-use building on the western edge of the garden…

We have begun to clean up some repurposed windows for the West & South sides,

I have a full set of vintage patio doors & side lights to give elegance to playhouse entrance on the East side, with its “patio for having tea”. I am gong to plant climbing roses on both sides of the doors.

…the back wall is to be a solid wooden panel for hanging tools inside & hiding the handcarts outside.

Actually, it is much more imposing than I had thought.  I am not a builder, and in fact – now realize I cannot envision structures after they have become more than a door & simple walls.  It turns out the doors need “headers”, the roof requires eves, the walls have strong corner posts, all classic construction details that have somehow never come on my radar.

I helped Joel cut some wallboard – was just holding it steady, really, but have given a hand here and there in the process.

My job is more that of the designer of the overall garden space…

How to make best use of the tiny garden we urban folks have…compost piles, beds, fruit trees, nursery or greenhouse, plus a beautiful look to it all, & having fun!!!…quite the challenge!

I love the garden as it wakes up in the spring – the rose bushes look happy, their leaves all shiny & healthy, the early bulbs nod their heads in the breeze, the longer days seem to give everything beauty & hope!

Blessings of Spring to you All,

Annie

Let’s talk 12 degree nights this early December week, and my garden is uptight & hunkering in – as are we all!  Glad to be a human with a warm house, flannel sheets & cuddly guy in my bed…

As for my garden beds…well, i crunch around on the frozen mulch, and take a look…they are all frosty until almost noon, then have a brief fling with the slight winter sun until the poor things get shaded again and start to cool down.  I took the covers off my fabulous straw bale beds at 11am & put their little faces to the sun, gave them a deep drink of water, left it all open until about 4pm…which was too late, really – I lost a bit of gathered warmth, should have been open from noon until 2:30 maybe…

Soil temperatures continue to please me, the soil in regular raised beds was 35degrees at 6 inches deep noted at 11am, but the inner straw bales read 55degrees!  I MUST get an air temp measurement inside the covered beds to see if the “greenhouse effect” is working…

Also – want to figure out an end cap, as the ends are poorly gathered up, and loss of warm air to a cold/warm exchange must be happening there…maybe heavy cardboard cut to fit the hoop shape, and clipped on…

Eating fresh tree collards & cabbage that is holding up rather well despite the weather…hoping for rain tomorrow, and warming temps…

How to survive in case of global cooling…how much greenhouse fabric can we realistically use?

Max & Maria the Permaculturists – visited the garden yesterday…and what a great inspiring download! He loves my metal roof, thinks I can get all the water I need for a whole dry season from it with t he right storage…and the west side of the house is perfect for one of those “water walls” made of 1500 gallon vertical rectangle storage tanks…this instead of creating a grey water system…so much cleaner and useable…although will require many expensive storage tanks…maybe we can do a combination of rainwater collection and greywater syatem…

Lots more opportunities for making this place into paradise…use pond liner instead of cardboard to lay down on top of the weeds in my walkways and open space areas…it will heat up to as much as 140 degrees and kill even the deeply rooted weeds in a few months, then we can go in and make a new garden area, waterways, whatever we want…

What else? Well – money was not object – we could create paradise right away…more realistically, we are going to take out some more trees that are keeping the sun out, make better shade areas in the right places…put the main garden areas into maximum cultivation by tending and soil cultivation, and more…

I have great confidence in Max and am excited that he wants to design this permaculture plan for me! I advise anyone who wants to get the maximum from their space to hire a specialist for advice and a consultation, even if you are intending to do the work yourselves.

I am putting down cardboard on every place I can to kill the weeds – and since I just moved in – there are a lot of empty boxes to use…that is a good thing.

My little apple tree which has been in a pot for over a year is freaking out – and tho it is a lousy time of year to plant it - I dug a hole today – and filled it with water . Two hours later it was still half full…looks like my soil doesn’t drain….ok, lots of issues. The good news is that Max Meyers – of MELC & a famed local Permaculturist – is coming over tomorrow to take a look and give me some consultation service….can’t wait! What can be done over time to make this a food producing paradise? I will be finding out….