Mo' GMOs, mo' problems

The Supreme Court has overturned an injunction against planting genetically modified alfalfa seeds made by “food” conglomerate Monsanto, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The 2007 injunction barred farmers from planting the company's Roundup Ready alfalfa seed until a government study on whether using the seed would affect organic and conventional alfalfa crops was concluded, according to The New York Times.

The study hasn't been completed, but in a 7-1 decision, the court basically said: “Meh, nevermind, just a little planting is OK,” and then told the U.S. Department of Agriculture they can allow some planting of the seed before the study is finished.

However, under the ruling, genetic contamination – part of which includes the idea that “gene flow,” which means that GMO material can get into conventional and organic plants through cross-pollination – can also now be considered part of “environmental harm,” because it can cause reduced yield or loss of market value.

Alfalfa is used primarily to feed dairy cows, and is usually harvested as hay. It is also fed to beef cattle, sheep, goats and horses. Humans eat alfalfa sprouts in sandwiches and salads, and obviously eat alfalfa-fed animal products.

David F. Snively (yes, Snively), general counsel for Monsanto, was quoted by the NYT as saying: “Monsanto and farmers in the United States are thrilled with this decision, which is far-reaching in its look at the regulatory framework that should govern biotech crops.”

According to Agriculture Online, 5,500 U.S. farmers currently grow Roundup Ready alfalfa across 220,000 acres. When all the regulatory hurdles are cleared, Monsanto expects “a massive jump in this number,” Snively said. “Alfalfa in the U.S. is the fourth largest crop market, and just 1 to 2% of this is penetrated by this seed technology. So, there is tremendous upside potential.”

Alfalfa is the fourth-largest crop grown in the United States, behind corn, soybeans and wheat. Twenty-three million acres are grown every year in 48 states, the Southeast Farm Press notes. Alfalfa is a $9 billion a year business, with annual seed sales valued at $63 million, according to Business Week.

Monsanto is increasingly owning every aspect of its own marketplace. As I've discussed previously in this blog, Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds are planted on more than 80 percent of all corn acres in the United States, and on more than 90 percent of U.S. soybean acres. The company's seeds have caused seed prices to skyrocket, which hurts farmers. And because of its anti-competition clauses, it ends up controlling the seeds farmers have access to, which means they're forced to buy the more expensive seeds. The frankenseed-maker also terrorizes farmers.

In short, the ruling could:

1. Impact a similar case involving Roundup Ready sugar beets and have a future impact on the commercialization of new biotech crop varieties.
2. Sway environmental law in general.

Another important implication of the growing prevalence of GMOs – in this case, alfalfa – is that genetically engineered foods are extremely difficult to test for allergenicity because of the creation of new proteins, Robyn O'Brien, founder of AllergyKids Foundation, pointed out. These new proteins are being “considered innocent until proven guilty” by the FDA, despite the fact that it's so hard to test for allergenicity, and despite the 265 percent increase in the rate of food allergic hospitalizations, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control.

This was the first agricultural biotechnology-related case to make it to the high court, and the ruling “reinforces the USDA's role in regulating biotech crops,” a Pioneer spokesman told the Des Moines Register. Justice John Paul Stevens was the lone dissenter.

“It was reasonable for the court to conclude that planting could not go forward until more complete study ... showed that the known problem of gene flow could in reality be prevented,” Stevens said, according to Canadian Business.

So far this year, the most difficult part of my project has been avoiding GMOs. It's easy to weed out animal products that aren't free-range. It's nearly impossible to find out if food you're eating is GMO-free, because the USDA thinks that instead of knowing what you're eating, it would be best if you didn't know and would have to guess, or better yet, just not think about it at all. This is because if they had to tell you each time a food contains GMOs, you might get scared or nervous, which might make you think twice about buying that product. So, full disclosure is only appropriate for things like cars, houses, mattresses, and pretty much anything but the most important, intimate thing we consume – food.

It's not a stretch to conclude that Monsanto, which spent $2 million lobbying in just the first quarter of last year, helped them make that decision for you.

How do we deal with animal abuse?

The fact that I even have to write this makes me sick. Yesterday, a man named Billy Joe Gregg, of Delaware County, Ohio, was held overnight in jail, charged with 12 misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty for violently abusing and torturing calves at his workplace of Conklin Dairy Farm. An undercover investigator had secretly filmed him beating calves, many unable to stand, and cows by slamming them to the ground, throwing them by the ears, stabbing them in the face, legs and stomach with pitchforks, stomping on their heads, breaking their tails and more. I couldn't handle watching the whole video (it's below), so I'm getting some of these facts from the Zanesville Times Recorder.

Gregg has been fired, and more workers may be fired as well, as investigations are still underway. But the problem is that the farm's owner, Gary Conklin, a fourth generation dairy farmer, is also captured on the video abusing a cow. In fact, Conklin regularly beat the animals and encouraged workers to do the same – in some cases workers and Conklin would beat them to death.

So who will fire Conklin? The farm has been in his family for four generations.

In Ohio, state legislators are working on toughening animal cruelty laws today. House Bill 55, co-sponsored by state Rep. Courtney Combs, “would make cruelty to farm animals a first-degree misdemeanor on the second criminal offense – punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.”

If you can handle watching the video, or even just a part of it, tell me if you think that is enough punishment (although it's a harsher penalty than the one that's currently in place, of up to 90 days in jail and $750 in fines).

Meanwhile, since 1995, Conklin Dairy Farms has received almost $36,000 in federal farm subsidies, according to a database of farm subsidies from the Environmental Working Group. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave Conklin Farms almost $12,000, the Huffington Post noted. They're abusing animals and we're paying for it.

After hearing stories like this, the first reaction most of us have is to say that someone should do to these criminals what they've done to the innocent, defenseless animals. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'd like a shot at them. (And we all know that animal abuse is a sign of other violent behavior – if someone is capable of such extensive abuse of an animal, then it wouldn't be shocking to find out they beat their wives, girlfriends, children, or worse). For others, the response is to become a vegan, so their dollars don't end up supporting this type of thing.

But eventually, our anger cools and we realize that going after these criminals with a meat hook won't help the cows any more than a few people switching to non-dairy for awhile, until they break and have a gelato this summer.

So what can we do? As humans, we're the stewards of the earth and its inhabitants. We can do everything, friends. As Harriet Beecher Stowe said: “It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.”

Videos and reports of animal abuse happen around the world, and although Conklin's dairy is not huge when compared to others across the country, most abuse happens in factory farms (remember the 2008 video of Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company's abuse of downer cows that led to one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history? That shocked everyone, but no one talks about it anymore). When animals are no longer viewed as animals, and instead only as commodities to their owners, they lose their value as living beings that feel pain and fear.

I don't think you have to give up meat or dairy or eggs. You don't have to beat up animal abusers. You just have to be responsible for what you and your family eat, and if called upon, stand up for the weak, whether it means supporting legislation against abuse or boycotting and writing a letter to people who abuse their power as a steward of the earth, whether it's a faceless factory farm or Gary Conklin.

Here are two very easy ways to do the right thing:

- Know where your food comes from. Buy from a local co-op, farmers market, or if possible, a local farm. If you find out the farmer is engaging in behavior that you find indefensible, like that of Conklin Dairy, buy from another farmer. By supporting good farmers, we're supporting good practices and good people.

- Buy animal products that were not given antibiotics or hormones, and were pasture raised, free range, grass fed, etc. Not only is it better for the animals, it's better for the environment and it's better for you. When farmers care about having high quality products, they tend to care more about their animals too.

Here is the link to the video. It is very violent and very disturbing. Please don't let your children watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYTkM1OHFQg&feature=player_embedded


Read the open letter Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest wrote to Gary Conklin here.

Check out the Dairy Godess's Blog here – proof that many farmers love their animals – and read the response to the abuse from Texas Agriculture Talks. Also, see the outrage in the farming community on the Twitter #agchat community.

Yay France! Yay bees! Boo dairy lobbyists!

In Paris, the Jeunes Agriculteurs (Young Farmers) union transformed more than a half-mile of the Champs-Elysees into a giant stretch of farmland over the weekend.

The union, which represents about 55,000 farmers under age 35, installed the mini-fields to show off what they do – from growing lavender to raising livestock, the Telegraph reported. The farmers are worried about declining farm revenues, and wanted to showcase their goods in order to get some positive support behind what they do: feed people.


In bee news, the Bee Landing in Missouri is super cool! Apparently commercial beekeepers aren't helping the bee population, because they don't allow the bees to eat honey – the bees' main winter food source. Instead, they feed them sugar or high fructose corn syrup, which makes them weak and has caused a huge dip in the honey bee population.

Commercial producers also expose the bees to pesticides (which eventually kills the entire colony), force them to build larger brood cells (unnatural and also leads to bee death; and, I think, rude), and create an unhealthy environment for them by designing hives for the ease of beekeepers, not the health of the bees. For example, to beekeeper has to “break the brood cluster in half when checking on the hive. This creates havoc in the hive, increasing the beekeeper’s chance of getting stung.”

The Bee Landing's James Zitting designs hives so that bees can live naturally and beekeepers can access the colony for honey without disturbing the bees (and they don't need to use smoke on the bees to do so).

And in case you didn't already know, honey is good for you. It even helps ease seasonal allergy symptoms, as long as you're eating honey that's from your region. That's because “the tiny amounts of pollen found in locally-grown raw honey work over time to desensitize the body to a particular allergen – not unlike the way traditional allergy shots work,” Associated Content explains.


And in dairy news, lobbyists in Wisconsin exerted their power on the governor, causing him to kill a bill that would've allowed the sale of raw, unpasteurized milk under new regulations. Why did the lobbyists want to kill it? Because it would've given them competition.

Lawmakers had come together in a bipartisan effort to pass the bill, but Governor Jim Doyle, who had been expected to sign the bill into law, vetoed it instead.

“The dairy industry, from lobbyists representing Kraft and Dean Foods on down, circled the wagons and killed this bill,” Mark Kastle of the Cornucopia Institute, a small farm and organic advocacy group, told the Lacrosse Tribune. “Their smokescreen about health concerns and harming the industry represented a diversion from an obvious agenda to crush a rapidly growing competitive threat.”

In fact, Wisconsin state law already allows “incidental” sales of raw milk, and the bill would have simply been a step to create a regulatory structure and provide help to cash-strapped farmers wanting to sell directly to consumers, State Rep. Chris Danou, a co-sponsor of the bill, explained to the Tribune.

“Doyle said in April he was leaning toward signing the bill, saying he thought it balanced the concerns of those worried about unpasteurized milk and advocates who argued it tastes better and has health benefits. But he was heavily lobbied in recent weeks by Wisconsin's dairy and cheese industries, the Wisconsin Medical Society, and farm and health groups,” the Tribune article explained.

Champs-Elysees photo: AP
Bee photo: AnyMotion's flickr photostream
Cow photo: bluemist57's flickr photostream

Why is 'Lunchables' a dirty word?

In the season finale of Food Revolution on ABC (which I finally finished watching tonight!) there's a scene in which Jamie Oliver looks at the food kids have brought in their lunch boxes. The camera pans the table, and Oliver picks up different products, talking about how unhealthy they are – filled with sugar, sodium, and processed foods. It's clear that he's showing Lunchables, Lays potato chips, Jello cups and more, but the packages are blurred out.

He clearly says the word “Lunchables” a few times, and each time he says it, it's bleeped out, as if he was swearing. He could say “ass,” but he couldn't say “Lunchables.”

When it comes to food, why can't we voice our opinions?

Apparently if you want to avoid a lawsuit, you'll bleep out your opinions about food. We all remember what happened when Oprah said she would think twice about eating beef in the '90s.

And, as Slash Food points out, the blurs and bleeps were also there “due to ABC's coveted advertising relationships, which begged the question: How much of a revolution can you start when the companies footing the bill for it are to blame?”

I went to journalism school. I can recite the First Amendment on command. When I think of freedom of speech, I get excited. In my opinion, it's the best, most wonderful thing about the United States.

But I admit, I just don't understand how food libel laws (often called veggie libel laws) even exist in the United States. They basically allow food manufacturers/processors/conglomerates to sue a person or group of people who make disparaging comments (in other words, state their opinions) about their food products. In some states, there are even different standards of proof than are used in typical U.S. libel lawsuits, such as placing the burden of proof on the party being sued. (Check out this list to see if your state has so-called Food Disparagement Laws).

They are in direct conflict with the Bill of Rights.

According to the First Amendment Center: “Agriculture businesses first began lobbying for special libel protection after a federal district court in 1990 dismissed a libel lawsuit brought by a group of Washington apple growers against CBS for comments made on 60 Minutes about the harmful effects of the pesticide Alar... No court has yet ruled on the constitutionality of a food-disparagement law.”

These laws stifle dissent, The New York Times pointed out in 1999. How can we have good, safe food if we aren't allowed to openly discuss it?

"Farmers are tired of being victimized," said Steven L. Kopperud, senior vice president at the American Feed Industry Association, which first had the idea for the special laws to protect food producers, according to The Times.

"The laws don't inhibit anyone from stating their opinion," Kopperud told The Times, "as long as, if they are challenged, they can prove it."

But not everyone has Oprah's millions, and so they censor themselves instead of running the risk of being sued by the very wealthy, powerful food companies. Even Oprah won't talk about beef anymore.

These laws not only allow food producers to be bullies, they enable them. What if these laws were put in place about all products? Would we be unable to do anything about children's toys containing lead? Or faulty parts in cars?

Other than writing to your congressmen and women telling them to get rid of these unconstitutional laws, I don't know what you can do. If you have any answers or ideas, please share!

Study: Common pesticides linked to ADHD

Children exposed to above-average levels of a certain type of pesticide used for commercially grown fruits and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure, a study by researchers at Harvard University has found.

Researchers measured the level of pesticide byproducts in urine collected from 1,139 children between ages eight and 15 across the United States. Kids with above-average levels of one common byproduct had about twice the chance of having ADHD. The pesticides, called organophosphates, have been “linked to behavioral and cognitive problems in children in the past, but previous studies have focused on communities of farm workers and other high-risk populations. This study is the first to examine the effects of exposure in the population at large,” CNN reported.

Of the 1,139 kids, 119 met the diagnostic criteria for ADHD, according to the research team, led by Maryse F. Bouchard, of the University of Montreal.

According to the study, titled “Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate”:

“Children with higher urinary dialkyl phosphate concentrations, especially dimethyl alkylphosphate (DMAP) concentrations, were more likely to be diagnosed as having ADHD. A 10-fold increase in DMAP concentration was associated with an odds ratio of 1.55 (95% confidence interval: 1.14–2.10), with adjustment for gender, age, race/ethnicity, poverty/income ratio, fasting duration, and urinary creatinine concentration. For the most-commonly detected DMAP metabolite, dimethyl thiophosphate, children with levels higher than the median of detectable concentrations had twice the odds of ADHD (adjusted odds ratio: 1.93 [95% confidence interval: 1.23–3.02]), compared with children with undetectable levels.”

Symptoms and signs of ADHD “range from lack of focus to forgetfulness and restlessness, according to KidsHealth.org.

So how can you prevent your kids from ingesting high levels of this pesticide?

1. Buy organic. Yes, it's probably more expensive, but if you join a co-op, plant your own garden, choose seasonal produce, buy at a farmer's market or buy frozen, it's cheaper – in some cases, cheaper than non-organic. Check out this list for how to choose between organic and non-organic (for example, potatoes soak up pesticides, so always buy organic. Oranges, meanwhile, have thicker skins and don't soak it up as much). And if you buy from a farmer's market, you can ask the person who grew the produce how much, if any, pesticides were used. A little bit used once or twice is a lot different than commercially grown produce, most of which is sprayed with many types of pesticides, multiple times a day.

2. Find out what your school's pest control policy is, advises U.S. News & World Report. “Many school districts have moved to Integrated Pest Management, which emphasizes less toxic alternatives. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is a good source for information on how to implement IPM in schools, the kind of thing you could wave at a PTA meeting.”

3. Don't use pesticides on your lawn. If dandelions bother you that much, look for non-toxic alternatives, and check out tips listed here. If you have a lawn care service, find out what they're using. Ask them to switch if it's bad for you, your kids or your pets. If you have old gardening and lawn stuff in your garage or shed, see if it contains organophosphate diazinon, which was outlawed for residential use in 2004. Don't dump it in water or down the drain – it's really toxic, especially to fish.

In related pesticides-make-you-sick news, workers in Nicaragua brought a case against Dole Foods Co. saying pesticides made them sterile.

Do you have kids who eat food AND go to school?

If so, watch Food Revolution! You can watch all the episodes on Hulu. Click here for the first one.

Also, check out his Web site for recipes and more information on school food, as well as his petition to improve school food.

Join a co-op! Save money! Eat better!

I've listed reasons to eat local many times: support local farmers, grow the market for local organics, eat food that isn't polluting to the environment or forcing animals to live in inhumane conditions, eat food that is more flavorful and richer in vitamins and minerals, etc.

Everyone always agrees with me on those points, but when it comes to paying more for better food, they start shying away. I agree; buying organics at a grocery store can get expensive, but who says supermarkets are the only places we can get food?

To the left is the recent receipt for food I bought through my co-op, Irv and Shelly's Fresh Picks. All the food is from within a 250 mile radius; all the produce is organic; all the meat is grass fed, free range and hormone and antibiotic-free; the eggs are free range and free of hormone and antibiotics; and the cheese and butter are from grass-fed, free range cows that aren't given hormones or antibiotics. The BBQ sauce, made by a small family corporation, is made from of ingredients from local farms, contains no corn syrup, artificial coloring or preservatives; the honey is minimally processed in small batches and contain no additives; the bread is made from local, organic ingredients by a local baker.

Sure, if I bought the cheapest version of each of these at the supermarket, it could be cheaper than $58, but I would also be eating pesticides, preservatives, meat from factory farms grown with heavy doses of antibiotics and hormones, and many other unhealthy things. I would also be supporting practices I abhor and products that are so heavily subsidized through government funding that in the grand scheme of things, I'm basically paying for them twice or more. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Buying locally, such as from farmer's markets and co-ops, doesn't have to be where you get all, or even most of your food. But consider it. Try it out. You'll like it, I promise.

Do you hate yourself? If so, try KFC's new Double Down!

KFC unveiled it's latest food-we-thought-was-an-April-fools-joke earlier this month, and so far I don't know anyone who has tried it. I'm certainly not going to. But before I say mean things about it, I'd like to preface it with the following embarrassing/awesome story about myself:

In 2006, I went to the Iowa State Fair (if you've never been, go! It's wonderful). If you've been, you know the food is amazing. As a fan of all things fried, grilled and baked, I went a little overboard, eating a foot long corn dog, real kettle corn, fried cheese, fried candy of some sort, pie, fresh lemonade, a fried tenderloin, a kabob, and more. I also did a wine tasting somewhere between the first corn dog and the fried cheese. Classy.

Anyway, as you can imagine, all that food on a really hot summer day made me throw up. After doing so in a bathroom near one of the agriculture buildings, I walked out of the stall and women gave me disgusted looks. Some pulled their children away. I realized they thought I was extremely drunk, hence the sounds that had come out of my stall. If I had pointed out that I wasn't publicly intoxicated, and was instead guilty of one of the seven deadly sins, I doubt that would've helped.

My point? I have walked to the edge of fried meat overload, friends, and I know what's on the other side. If I say something is repulsive, and that you should be horrified and insulted that something so demeaning of your intelligence and health is being marketed to you, then you can trust me.

Take a look at it. That's what KFC made just for us. They looked at their consumers, and saw a place for it in the market. That's what they thought we wanted. What does that say about us?


(A couple brave souls at the Los Angeles Times tried it, and reported: “The Double Down weighs in at 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and – hold on – 1,380 milligrams of sodium. KFC offers a grilled version that mysteriously is just as bad and has more sodium: 460 calories, 23 grams of fat and 1,430 milligrams of sodium ... the Double Down did go all the way down, though not an easy task, but it required lots of water. Sadly, within 10 minutes the sandwich caused some physical distress – what more would you expect after eating two fried chicken breasts, a sauce that we still can't identify, a mix of cheeses that we're not comfortable confirming as pepper jack or Monterey Jack, and bacon that got a quick zap in the microwave?”)

Happy free-range Easter

A lot of eggs were consumed today, but when most of them were eaten, dyed or found in Easter egg hunts, where those eggs came from probably wasn't a big consideration. I've colored my fair share of Easter eggs, and probably eaten just as many, and in the past I've always looked at price when picking up a dozen eggs, and nothing more. Being separated from where our food comes from and how it gets to us will do that.

This year I didn't dye eggs, and managed to make the worst deviled eggs in history, but I did so with humanely raised eggs. I bought Vital Farms organic, pasture-raised, free-range eggs at the grocery store, and they cost just over $3 for six. You might be shaking your head - "50 cents for an egg?! Stupid food snob!" - you're thinking. Yes, it seems like quite a bit, but really, how much is an egg worth? How much did that can of soda cost that you drank the other day? What nutrients did it contain?

Compared to some of the food we eat without thinking, 50 cents for an egg isn't bad at all - it's even less than a candy bar these days. Since starting this project in January, I've eaten better than I ever have before and I've spent a lot less money doing so. The produce, meat, dairy and whole grains that I'm eating cost more than the "food" I was buying before, but I've replaced all that "food" with food, and real food goes farther and does much more.

So what's the difference between the cheap, white eggs you get at the grocery store and free-range, humanely raised? There's the whole quality vs. quantity argument, the animal welfare argument and more, but what it really comes down to is your priorities. For me, I started this project because I believe raising healthy, happy animals is better for the environment and better for us. I'd rather pay a little more for something that isn't cheap because the cost was reduced by animal suffering and/or poor worker conditions and/or harm to the environment.

When factoring in all the costs, 50 cents an egg is a bargain.

Health care bill requires restaurants to tell you just how unhealthy their food is

... but they still don't have to tell you where it's from or how it's made.

Basically, the bill requires all chain restaurants with 20 or more locations and vending machines to post nutritional and calorie data for their crappy food. Transparency is good, and because these places sell “food,” giving us basic information on what we're putting into our bodies should be a requirement, just like it's a requirement when we buy something in a grocery store.

But if you're already in the drive-thru at McDonald's, with a Big Mac on the brain, is seeing the calorie count (it's 540, by the way, 260 of which are from fat) on the menu board really going to stop you?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a statement that the menu labeling provision is a “huge victory for consumers.” The National Restaurant Association also announced its support, with its President and CEO Dawn Sweeney stating it “will replace a growing patchwork of varying state and local regulations with one consistent national standard that helps consumers make choices that are best for themselves and their families.” Fast food companies, not surprisingly, aren't so happy.

Remember when we found out most hamburger sold in this country contains filler that was cleansed with ammonia? Restaurants still don't have to tell you if your burger includes that filler. They also don't have to tell you where any of your food came from or how it was grown.

So, to review, the calorie and nutrition facts we once had to look up on restaurants' Web sites but never did will now be listed on the menu itself. Information telling us where our food is from – country, state, company – will still not be required.

Meanwhile, Kevin's Law, which would require the USDA to identify pathogens that threaten human health, require the USDA to establish performance standards to reduce the presence of these pathogens in meat and poultry, and confirms the USDA's authority to enforce its own standards by shutting down plants that continually breach basic health standards, has not been passed by the House or the Senate. It was introduced in 2005.

Who cares how many calories a burger has when you don't have the information necessary to protect the people eating it, and is it really a victory when we have to protect ourselves from food?

When it comes to food labeling, the appearance of more information without actually giving us the information we need in order to make a fully informed choice continues to be the norm. Good job, lobbyists. Shame on you, Congressmen and women.

Community supported agriculture: Your ticket out of recall-ville to food freedom

There has been a lot of food recalled lately (to see what's recalled and when, check out the FDA's site dedicated to “recalls, market withdrawals & safety alerts”). One that caught my attention was Procter & Gamble's recall of Pringles chips – Restaurant Cravers Cheeseburger potato crisps and Pringles Family Faves Taco Night crisps.

P&G recalled them “as part of an industry ingredient recall to protect consumers from potential Salmonella exposure,” the company stated in a press release, explaining that the company was “notified by one of its suppliers that a seasoning used in these two products contains hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) manufactured by Basic Food Flavors, Inc., who has voluntarily recalled several lots of this ingredient because of potential salmonella exposure. As a result, the FDA has recommended that food manufacturers recall certain types of products containing HVP manufactured by Basic Food Flavors, and P&G is complying with this guidance.”

Let's take a step back, and start by figuring out what hydrolyzed vegetable protein is: “HVP is produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat, in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide. The acid hydrolyzes, or breaks down, the protein in vegetables into their component amino acids. The resulting dark coloured liquid contains, among other amino acids, glutamic acid, which consumers are more familiar with in the form of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, or MSG. It is used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, and circumvents the necessity to add the controversial monosodium glutamate on the label.”

OK, sounds delicious so far, but how did this stuff become tainted with salmonella? I've read many articles trying to find out, and not one of them even broaches that subject. If you find out, please comment and let us know.

According to Canwest News Service, the Nevada-based Basic Food Flavors, Inc. first found out salmonella was present in its facility on Jan. 21, but continued distributing the HVP to clients. On Feb. 25, after prodding from the FDA, it announced it would recall all HVP manufactured since last September. The salmonella contamination may end up causing a recall of as many as 10,000 products, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Just in case you didn't stop and re-read that last sentence, I'm gonna say it again: 10,000 products. Ten. Thousand.

Chances are, if you eat “food,” you've probably eaten some of this stuff. It's in everything. As of Bloomberg's report, 150 items, including the Pringles, Wal-Mart brand ranch dip, chili, hot dogs, sauces, soups, honey mustard pretzels, dressings and more have been recalled, and all these products commonly contain the vegetable protein. It's also sometimes referred to as “natural flavor” on ingredient labels.

Wanna hear another big number? “The costs associated with tainted products for food companies worldwide will balloon to as much as $15 billion annually in coming years, up from about $400 million in 2004, according to Constanze Freienstein, a senior principal at A.T. Kearney’s consumer and retail practice in Chicago,” the Bloomberg article stated.

“Do we need more evidence that the FDA needs the authority to order recalls? And when is Congress going to get around to passing the food safety bill? The last I heard, they were talking about May, maybe. At best, this would be nine months after the House passed the bill last August,” Marion Nestle wrote in her food blog Food Politics. “Undoubtedly, this situation is frustrating for the FDA. But it is downright dangerous to us. It’s time to scream at Congress to act.”

My goal with this blog post isn't to scare you or even worry you, but to show that you can be inundated with all these products – and you are – and not have to worry about it at all. You can control what you eat, you can know exactly what it is you're eating, and you can know where it's from. It's possible.

I'm not saying you should stop eating your Pringles, dressings, soups, or any of the other 10,000 products – I'm just saying you don't have to rely on them.

The answer to the problem of feeling like we don't have a say in what we eat is popping up across the country in the form of community supported agriculture.

In my area, I'm joining Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks. I can sign up for weekly or bi-weekly delivery of local and organic produce, meat, dairy and eggs. I can also order online when I want specific items, or choose to get a box with whatever they have – kind of a grab bag for grown-ups. They work with local, sustainable farms, which means I get to eat food and support my local farmers, who can in turn stay in business and keep growing food in a healthy, sustainable way.

And, according to my calculations, it's actually cheaper than what I would pay for the same stuff at the grocery store.

In Missouri, my cousin and her friends and neighbors have also decided to take control, and are starting their own CSA venture – I'll write more about that as they get it up and running (but check out the photo of Daisy May, their goat, who could end up providing milk for the CSA in the future. And even if she doesn't, she's very sweet and lives a happy goat life).

To find a CSA in your area, visit Local Harvest.

Eating well in Mexico

I recently returned home from a vacation in Mexico (I visited Isla Mujeres and drove through the eastern states of Quintana Roo and Yucatán), where I ate fresh, local food everyday, for every meal. Growing food nearby is more cost effective (not to mention better for the environment, the food itself and the workers), and the thing I like about Mexico is that they seem to have this figured out, for the most part. Small, independent farms scattered everywhere also results in fresher, more flavorful food.

As with anywhere else, the best places to eat in Mexico are anywhere locals gather. And since I still have vacation brain and am short on words and long on photos, get ready to crave tacos by the time you're finished looking at this post.

Small, thatched-roof restaurant specializing in grilled chicken, run by two women in eastern Yucatán:



Fresh fish from off the coast of Isla Mujeres (La Casa del Tikinxik):


Tacos on Isla Mujeres (Taqueria Medina):

Food you're eating: Arsenic!

My sister is living without the lifeblood that is the Internet, and called me today to check up on a brand of chicken called Harvestland, which seemed to be the best Wal-Mart had to offer. On the package it boasted being antibiotic free, with no hormones or steroids, and fed an all veggie diet. But what does that really mean?

The problem with packaging is that it doesn't tell us how our food was raised. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has guidelines for what goes into nutrition facts, such as calories, fats, sodium, carbohydrates, protein, serving size, servings per container and more. There are even very specific rules to the types of font, size of font, size of lines between sections on the label, etc. But today, meat is no longer just meat – it hasn't been since mass production took over – and we need more, better information when standing at the meat case. Personally, I would like to know what the animal ate, because I'm eating that animal. You are what you eat, and if I'm eating animal byproducts, pesticides and antibiotics, I believe I have a right to know. I also think I have a right to how it lived; if it sat in its own crap in the dark every day for its entire life, I should know.

Government red tape and extra rules and regulations are no fun, but then again, neither is eating chicken that was fed arsenic (yes, conventional poultry farmers regularly give chickens Roxarsone, or 3-Nitro, which has been approved by the FDA to kill microbes and fatten birds faster). Oh but don't worry, the USDA monitors arsenic levels in animals used for food, and according to Consumer Reports, the form of arsenic contained in Roxarsone is less toxic to humans than the form linked to cancer, and the FDA has a cap on how much is allowed in a food product (2,000 parts per billion).

Interestingly enough, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also monitors arsenic levels, but they monitor it in drinking water, and they have tighter limits than the FDA. The EPA's standard for arsenic is 10 parts per billion.

Yes, that's right. Drinking arsenic is bad, but eating it is OK.

In 2007, when Consumer Reports did a test on both liver and muscle from a chicken to be used for food, the levels of arsenic found “could cause neurological problems in a child who ate 2 ounces of cooked liver per week or in an adult who ate 5.5 ounces per week,” according to the EPA's standards.

Chickens are also fed human antibiotics to make them grow faster. In fact, Americans take three million pounds of antibiotics yearly, but 28 million pounds are given to livestock.

And according to Consumer Reports, science and basic common sense, bacteria in the birds' intestines can become resistant to antibiotics, which means people who eat chicken containing that bacteria can get sick if the meat isn't handled and cooked properly, and they may also not be able to be cured by the antibiotics normally used to cure sicknesses. (And if the chickens are kept inside all the time after being given Roxarsone, where they walk around and sit in their on feces all day long, the Roxarsone and arsenic it contains is all around, because the compound in chemical form is virtually unchanged after excretion).

Back to Harvestland. I checked out their Web site, and it appears they feed chickens what they're supposed to be eating, and nothing they shouldn't – no antibiotics, arsenic, byproducts, etc.

And although they're “humanely raised,” they're not allowed outside, which to me doesn't seem humane. “Humane” means something different to everyone, and no regulatory standards means they can call it humane and just define it differently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for chicken Snuggies for when it's cold out or anything; I just think animals should be allowed outside, and also given proper shelter from the elements.

“Our poultry are free to move about with access to food and water. Our lighting and ventilation programs maximize bird comfort and minimize stress, creating an ideal environment for growing healthy birds,” the Web site states.

To me, this translates to “Our poultry hang out in their own crap all day while a big fan blows that crap around, so they breathe it too. Oh, and we turn on the lights in the day.” But there's no real way to know, because there are no rules or regulations in place to tell me what that means, or a system I can trust that gives me this basic information.

Harvestland's Web site says “We grow it the way you would.” Try again, Harvestland. You too, FDA.

Chicken photo: p2wy's flickr photostream

The expense and inconvenience of 'cheap' food

Since I started this project, one of the biggest questions I've received is whether it's possible to eat well (mostly organic, free range, etc.) without breaking the bank and without spending a lot of time searching for and preparing food. Convenience and price are a big deal, and they're two things I'm mindful of as well.

Obviously organic produce is a bit more pricey than non-organic. Free range is a bit steeper than factory farmed. Whole grains are more expensive than bleached, processed ones. There are options out there that can help reduce these costs without letting go of quality – farmers markets, choosing locally grown, joining a co-op, etc.

The higher the quality anything (food, cars, buildings, electronics, etc.) is, the higher the price point is, because of the time and effort needed to create a better product.

However, it should be noted that Americans spend less of their total income on food than anyone else who have ever lived, anywhere in the world. Today, 9.5 percent of our income goes to food, according to Michael Pollan.

But how is it that things like a hamburger at a fast food restaurant, pop (soda for those of you not from the midwest), chips and candy are all cheaper to buy than fresh produce? All because of federal agricultural policy. Our government subsidizes it. Over the past decade, we spent about $56 billion to subsidize soy, corn and wheat, but nothing to subsidize fresh produce. It is now more cost-effective to eat poorly – not because the cheaper food is actually cheaper, but because we've spent more money on it on the front-end. Try to find something without a corn-based ingredient. It's really difficult.

Before farmers even plant their crops, our government has chosen the wrong way to support them, and every time we fill our shopping carts with this “cheaper” food, we're casting our vote for it. Cheap food really isn't cheaper than higher quality food – it's actually more expensive. (To quote G.O.B.: “It's an illusion, Michael!”)

Our government and the very powerful lobbyists who perpetuate this cycle are not going to change it. The farmers who grow these crops can't afford to. It's up to us to support farmers and encourage them to grow real food. This doesn't mean giving up fast food or candy or anything. If we eat with consciousness for one meal a day, we can change the food system.

Tying into price and convenience is what “cheap” food does to us. It makes us sick. It makes us fat. If all food had the cost of future medical bills factored into its price, and next to nutritional facts displayed a graph showing how much we might be inconvenienced by it in the future due to heart attacks, weight gain, daily blood sugar testing, and the like, we would buy much, much less of it.

The way we eat was changed about 100 years ago, and in that time obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease has skyrocketed. It's not about fat; it's not about carbs. It's about whether what we're eating is real, whole food. The less processed something is, the better it is for us.

If your great grandparents (or, depending on how old you are, great-great grandparents) wouldn't recognize it, don't eat it. I imagine my great grandparents, George and Nettie Kazmer (the ones on the left), walking into a grocery store. What would they put in their cart? What would confuse them? What would scare the crap out of them?

When deciding what to eat, just think of your own version of Grandpa George, bowler hat in hand, scratching his head while trying to work a can of spray cheese.

Beef. Potatoes. Butter. Garlic. Happiness.

Nothing says “I don't care it's Monday” like grass fed steak, organic fried garlic potatoes and wine. And the steak: cooked in butter. I love you, Leah. I love you too, Leah.

Rawwwr!

On Sunday, I did something I thought I'd never do. I ate a raw, vegan meal, appetizer to dessert. I actually left my home, got on the train, met my friend at a restaurant, and paid to eat vegetables chopped up and arranged in towers and drizzled with non-dairy, non-sugar drizzly things.

This might seem like a move in the opposite direction of my last blogged about meal: bone marrow and pig's tails, but it's really just another facet of an effort to eat consciously, and one worth examining. Everyone does it differently, and there's no wrong way to try to treat yourself better by eating more wholesome food.

I've always thought vegan food doesn't seem very food-like; it's always masquerading as something else – cheese made from nuts, meat made from plants. It seems fake. Kinda creepy. Not delicious. But after losing track of all the “food” I've had to cut out of my life because they're nutrient-free and chemically rich, a little nut cheese doesn't seem so crazy anymore.

We ate at Karyn's Raw Cafe, and some of it was surprisingly good, while other things might have tasted better if they had been made with actual vegans. I'm not interested in becoming a vegan or a vegetarian or eating only raw foods anytime soon (I live in Chicago + it's below freezing out everyday = I need hot food), but it was interesting to see what sour cream made from nuts and chorizo made from vegetable protein tastes like. Looking back, I think the fact that everything was cold was more of a turn off than not having any meat or dairy. I'd like to try it again in the summer, when it's 90 degrees out.

The nachos (actually very tasty, with lots of flavor from the fresh veggies and even some spice):

Empanadas (OK, would've been better if they had been fried. And stuffed with meat):

Pasta primavera (I don't think that was pasta. Not for a beginner raw-vegan-person):
Dessert 1, caramel fig crepe (surprisingly good)
Dessert 2, tiramisu cheesecake (pretty good, but neither tiramisu nor cheesecake. Would've been delicious with kit kat ladyfinger layers):

Try it, you'll like it!

My first memory of eating meat happened in my high chair. One day, after happily eating a chicken drumstick, one of my favorite foods, my mom asked me if I wanted more chicken.

Chicken.

Suddenly, one of my toys came to mind. Pull the lever, and an arrow in the middle spun, landing on a picture of a farm animal. When it landed on the chicken, it said “What does the chicken say?” and then made a chicken noise. It hit me. I was eating chicken. A chicken is on my toy. A chicken is a farm animal. I'm eating an animal.

I looked down at the greasy drumstick that I was still grasping, and then looked up at my mom. Hoping I was wrong, I asked her if the chicken I was eating was an animal.

My mom paused. It was one of those moments. “Yes, it is...” she answered cautiously.

I put down my drumstick, stared at it, and told my mom no, I did not want another.

I've gotta be honest. I've never really enjoyed meat as much as I did before I found out it actually comes from animals. I love animals. I also think meat is delicious. Herein lies a problem. Since that day in my high chair, I've mostly preferred meat without the bones. It's less animal-like that way. It's just meat. It's not an animal. It's chicken strips. A shredded steak taco. Breakfast bacon.

In the meat section of the grocery store, it seems there are less bones than there used to be, doesn't it? People prefer white meat, boneless, skinless. We've been lying to ourselves. We feel better when we don't think about the animals we're eating, and if we're not thinking about that, then we're not paying attention to where they come from, how they're treated, what they're fed or what their owners do to the land they raise them on. It takes people getting sick, polluted drinking water and having to throw away E. coli-tainted bagged salad and peanut butter to get our attention. But as soon as that one particular issue fades from the news, it fades from our consciousness, and we go back to buying cheap steaks and picking up dinner at the drive-thru on a busy night. It's just a steak to grill tomorrow, and it was on sale. It's just a burger and fries. It's not connected to us, and we're not connected to it, and herein lies the real problem with the way we eat.

Like everyone, I've been lying to myself, and it's time to stop. If I want to eat meat, then I have to eat meat – there is no middle ground.

The meat I eat is now coming from animals raised the way God intended – free to roam outside under the sun, eating the food nature meant for them to eat (and preferably with an owner who gives them names and hugs them, although that's not a requirement). Finding out where my meat comes from, and not picking only certain parts of the animal to eat is a step away from keeping my head in the sand, which, by the way, is how to not eat with integrity.

The more we have, the more we throw away, and Americans have been throwing away a lot of the animal over the past generation or so. In not being connected to what we eat, we've also been missing out on great ways to cook things, and great food to eat. But it seems we're waking up from our stupor.

Last night I went to dinner with friends and for the first time tried bone marrow and pigs tails. And I really, genuinely liked them. I reported this to my friends, who began telling me foods they've tried, and liked – tongues, ears, marrow, tails, organs and more.

The bone marrow was buttery, and melted into the toast it was served with. The pig tail was just meat, and good meat at that. These things aren't really strange – they've been here all along. We just forgot for awhile.

Beyond nibblers and bites

I went to a friend's birthday party over the weekend, and everyone asked me what part of this project has been most difficult so far. Some told me they were surprised that I, of all people, was doing this, but they were proud of me. Eating wholesomely grown food might not sound that difficult, and I've only been doing this for a week. But it occurred to me that unlike my friends, not everyone has had an up-close look at my past eating habits, so I thought it might be best to take a step back and give you a little background.

I'm 28, but have the palate of an 8-year-old. My friends and family have all told me more than once that they're baffled as to why I'm not severely obese, and I never really thought much of it until I looked at myself from their point of view.

In college, I had very little time and even less money, so I mostly ate takeout, fast food and the cheapest food student loan dollars could buy in the grocery store. In grad school my poor cooking skills, unreliable student housing stove and lack of funds to buy decent food led to the creation of nibblers and bites. Brownies would burn on the edges and not come out of the pan, and brownie bites were born. Corn dogs would come out burnt on the outside and frozen on the inside, and had to be cut up to cook properly. Hence, corn dog nibblers. Stick a toothpick in 'em and you have a party. You get the idea.

After I graduated, my mom sat me down and told me she thought I should cut down on the bacon, because she was concerned about my high nitrate level intake. Some kids get the drugs or sex talk, but I got the bacon talk. At age 24.

I still love corn dogs, brownies and bacon. I also love fried cheese, candy bars, buffalo wings, steak, cheesecake, taffy with sprinkles, frosting, chicken strips, movie theater popcorn with extra butter-flavored chemical sludge, Coke and anything with the words “molten,” “flaming” or “shooters” in the name. A few months ago, my husband was gone for about five days and without even thinking about it, I reverted back to my old ways, eating nothing but corn dogs, mozzarella sticks and Chinese takeout.

I was always the kid who sat at the kitchen table for hours after everyone had left, refusing to eat the scoop of “winter mix” vegetable blend (the worst frozen vegetable blend of all, because it includes both peas and lima beans); or, if my parents decided to go on a walk after dinner, they would put my younger sister in charge of me to ensure I cleaned my plate. When they returned, they would usually check the garbage, yard and sometimes the dog to make sure I actually ate them. Luckily my sister was easily bribed and they never thought to check her; however, she got healthier by eating all my vegetables as my birthday money slowly migrated to her kitty cat bank.

I've never liked tofu, peas or black beans, and this year probably won't change that. But why the complete turnaround?

As I wrote in my first entry, I want to take myself out of the abusive relationship multinational companies that control a majority of the food supply in the United States have with their products, their consumers and the environment.

Monsanto

I'll talk more about these large companies as the year progresses, but today I'll give Monsanto Co. as an example:

Monsanto's genetically engineered seeds are planted on more than 80 percent of all corn acres in the United States, and on more than 90 percent of U.S. soybean acres.

These genetically engineered seeds have caused a “rapid increase in seed prices, largely because firms have implemented a novel pricing structure through 'technology fees' charged on top of basic seed costs,” according to a report released last month by the Farmer to Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering, a network of 34 farm organizations across the country. “Prices farmers pay for seed have increased 146 percent since 1999, and 64 percent of that increase occurred in just the last three years. Prices of hybrid corn seed were more than 30 percent higher, and soybean seed about 25 percent higher, over 2008 prices."

Monsanto and other large seed companies have anti-competition clauses within agreements with seed distributors, which basically means they control the seeds farmers get, and can make less expensive seeds harder to get, the Iowa Independent reported.

Meanwhile, Monsanto is also cracking down on farmers who save seeds, a practice that is nearly extinct. Seed saving is exactly what it sounds like – for centuries farmers have saved their best seeds to plant the next year. Makes sense, right? But now Monsanto, which developed seeds (Roundup Ready ® Soybean varieties, etc.) to be unaffected by the company's Roundup herbicide, legally owns the patent on the seed, which means the company protects their product, many times through legal intimidation, and farmers are not allowed to reuse seeds, and must instead buy new ones each year.

“Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the “seed police” and use words such as “Gestapo” and “Mafia” to describe their tactics,” a 2008 Vanity Fair article reported.

And for the minority of farmers who don't use Monsanto's genetically modified seeds? If seeds are blown into their fields by the wind, or brought in by birds (and only a lab analysis can differentiate genetically modified seeds from others), the farmer can expect to get a knock on the door from Monsanto's thugs, and expect a financially-draining legal battle.

In just the first quarter of 2009, Monsanto spent $2 million on lobbying. One of its biggest legislative concerns was “strengthening already-draconian patent protection for the GMO seed industry – the one it dominates like Microsoft dominates operating system software,” according to Grist. In 2008, the company spent almost $9 million on lobbying.

In July last year, former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor - “the person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history” – was appointed senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety, Jeffrey Smith, author and founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology, pointed out.

So Monsanto controls every aspect of its own marketplace, from the lab to the field to the farmer's ledger to the Senate floor. How very un-American.

If there's anything I hate more than a lima bean, it's not having a choice as to where my lima bean comes from, and knowing that more than likely, the farmer who grew it has been bullied as he tries to do his job, and no one – especially not the government – will help him.

Images:
Corn: snake.eyes' flickr photostream
Sisters: My personal vegetable-eater (right) and me
Lima beans: IrishNYC's flickr photostream

One burger, hold the ammonia

Have you ever eaten any of your household cleaning products? Maybe cleaned your steak with some ammonia before throwing it on the grill? No? That would be ridiculous, right?

Beef Products, Inc. and the U.S. Department of Agriculture seem to think it's a fine idea. In fact, if you've eaten a hamburger in the United States at any time since 2002, chances are, you've eaten hamburger meat filler that was cleansed with ammonia to kill E. coli and salmonella. In 2008, Eldon Roth, founder and chairman of South Sioux City, Neb.-based BPI, told makers of the documentary Food, Inc. that this meat was in 70 percent of the hamburgers in the country, and he expected it to be in 100 percent within five years.

And the great part is, the USDA doesn't think you need to know about it. After all, why should you care? You're only eating it. And feeding it to your kids. And grilling it and serving it to friends and family. It's really none of your business.

The New York Times' Michael Moss reported just last week that in 2001, federal officials agreed to BPI's request that the ammonia it uses be classified as a “processing agent” instead of an ingredient listed on labels, which means there's no way for you to know if what you're eating contains ammonia-treated fillers. The Food and Drug Administration also decided using ammonia as a processing agent in foods was safe (however, since 1966, the USDA has required irradiated foods to be labeled). Here's the letter from the Philip S. Derfler, deputy administrator of the Office of Policy, Program Development and Evaluation at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, to the company's representative, Dennis R. Johnson, a top lawyer and lobbyist for the meat industry (the entire letter, as well as other documents obtained by The Times are also available online):



However, BPI's claims that the ammonia process works best have been called into question, as several E. coli and salmonella outbreaks have cropped up across the country since 2005 – E. coli has been found three times and salmonella 48 times in BPI-treated beef, according to the USDA's school lunch program. Yet when The Times asked the USDA about these findings, “top department officials said they were not aware of what their colleagues ... had been finding for years,” The Times article stated.

This beef is used in grocery store chains, school lunches, and at McDonald's, Burger King and other fast food restaurants. So how does meat that is treated with ammonia wind up on your plate, or in your fast food sandwich wrapper? I'm paraphrasing, but this is how BPI explains it:

Fatty trimmings are rounded up from slaughterhouses/meat production facilities. They are then liquefied and protein is extracted in a centrifuge to get a lean product usable in hamburger. The trim is then treated with ammonium hydroxide (which BPI calls a “pH enhancement”), and is frozen in less than 90 seconds, a process that “locks in freshness.” It is then cut into squares, put through a metal detector and packaged in 60-pound blocks. This is all done in between seven to nine minutes, and the amount of filler that ends up in ground beef varies by ground beef producer.

Oh, and by the way, if you take cows off their corn diet (which they're fed because it's cheap and makes them fatter more quickly) and feed them grass for just five days, they shed 80 percent of the E. coli in their system. That's right, we've gone so far that we're treating our food with ammonia, when all we really have to do is let cows eat the food they're naturally supposed to eat anyway.

Cheap hamburger, whether bought in the drive-thru or at the grocery store, really isn't cheap when adding in all the social and environmental costs. Letting a cow walk around and eat grass is actually pretty cheap, by comparison. Much easier, too.


So what can you do?

1. When buying beef, go to the source – try to buy directly from farmers. You can usually buy in bulk, which is cheaper; you'll also be supporting the people around you who grow food; and you can actually see where your food is coming from. Check out LocalHarvest.com's Community Supported Agriculture to find a farmer near you (thanks to my brilliant friend Kim for that tip). Also check out the Craigslist for your locale to see if farmers post their products (thanks to my other brilliant friend Jordan for that tip).

2. Talk to the manager of the meat department at your grocery store. Find out where they get their ground beef, and whether it contains this filler. I worked at a grocery store for nearly five years, and trust me, they want to sell you what you want to buy. Tell them you don't want ammonia-treated fillers in your hamburger. If necessary, ask the butcher to grind fresh hamburger for you from a roast – there's usually no extra charge.

3. If your kids eat school lunches, ask the school where they get their beef and what's in it. According to The Times, just last year, the federal school lunch program used about 5.5 million pounds of this processed beef.

4. Write to your representatives. Demand complete and accurate labeling, including what is in the meat, where it is from and how it was raised.


The documentary Food, Inc. gives an up-close look at BPI, as well as a brief interview with Roth, who describes himself as a “mechanic,” and calls his product “a marriage of science and technology.” The BPI section begins at 2:25 in this video: