I need some new glasses

Systemic glasses. Like 3-D, only better. Something to help me "see the forest for the trees". If I only knew how to invent them, I'd patent them and call them Pandora Glasses, after the planet in Avatar. They would be soooo cool, because for the first time ever, we'd be able to see the connections between things, like the Na'vi do. They could be a handy way to reveal how our individual actions and small projects impact the gargantuan engine at the heart of a system, say for example, the "the food system".

Being a generous person, I'd give the first pair to our president. He could be a beta tester. I'm thinkin' he could really, really use these gizmos. It's clear that he's having a very hard time with the forest-seeing thing. I have to believe that his eyesight is the problem, or I'd have to impute some really ugly qualities to him, and I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, operating on the assumption that his vision is poor, maybe my glasses will help.

I'll stop beating around the bush, or in this case, the field. Let's begin with a post I wrote right after the election (the site referenced is dead -- which says something ). This post was part of a national grass-roots effort to get the Obama's to install an organic garden on the White House lawn. Check. Done. Most of us who care about food, were also hoping the USDA would get deep reform. A highly credible Kathleen Merrigan, a veteran of the sustainable agriculture movement, was named deputy secretary. She oversees the National Organic Program at the USDA among other initiatives, and under her guidance the agency is beginning to flex its muscles. Check. Another victory. There are more gains to catalogue, but let's take a moment to put on those sexy new glasses I just invented (mine are purple, in case you're wondering).

Hey, look at that! The Big Picture! The connections, if you will, that are well-laid out in the cover story of the latest issue of The American Prospect -- Slowed Food Revolution. You can read it online here (but you'll need to take off your new glasses). With the help of Heather Rogers, who must have her own cool glasses, you'll see a USDA that is a revolving door for Big Ag, much as Goldman Sachs is for the government's economic advisors and the Interior Department has been for the gas, oil and mining industries. Big surprise, though we voted for "Change We Can Believe In", U.S. ag policy, the engine that drives what food we get and what it costs, is still being deeply influenced by industrial agriculture interests, especially Monsanto. Obama has done almost nothing to change that. If fact, the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, epitomizes the Big Ag man. So we find him proselytizing for biotech and biofuels. He encourages greater subsidies for commodity crops headed for export while neglecting the needs of small American farmers, who are continuing to go broke. Our policies still encourage farmers to plow land for biofuel crops that earn them less in the long run and yield a fuel that is more polluting. So not only is food/ag policy impacting what we eat, but it's distorting our energy policy too.

Yes, there are a few trees here and there that are growing and looking good. But that sickly forest is going to soak up all the resources, leaving nothing of value in the end. If you can't see that forest -- the connections between the policy, the greed, and the absence of resources for real farmers and eaters -- you will continue to congratulate our government for doing too little, too late. Putting on those glasses will at least force you to see what is and not just what you hope for.

As for me, I'm switching from rose-colored glasses to Pandora glasses ...and I'm going to stop accepting cosmetic change as if it matters. What about you?

Pigs and MRSA

Nicholas Kristof has a column today on the spread of MRSA (a potentially lethal, drug resistant bacterial infection) among people who live or work around factory-farmed pigs. This is yet another example of how our food chain has run amok. As Kristof notes, we've done a good job in the U.S. of providing cheap food. But the pricetag is far bigger than the one presented at the checkout. Increasingly, we're uncovering "farming" practices that put our health at risk -- animal waste that permeates and contaminates aquifers, overuse of antibiotics which manifests as drug resistance in humans, "meat" that has an entirely different nutritional profile than the meat eaten by our grandparents and great-grandparents -- the list of evolving hazards is long, and growing longer.

Most people I talk to about these issues are in deep denial about the quality of their food. If it's cheap and shrink-wrapped, then it's fine by them. As a group, Americans seem hell-bent on defending to the death their need to eat food that kills them and despoils the planet.

Hopefully, information like the kind in Kristof's article, information that has only recently been published in the mainstream press, will begin to challenge people's assumptions about the desirability of the foods they eat. We need to wake up and break the back of the factory farming industry in this country if we're going to significantly improve the environment and our personal health. A real test of our resolve to bring change, is soon to come: the Obama administration's new budget is attempting to reduce or eliminate subsidies for large agribusiness. This move is absolutely essential to fostering the resurgence of family farming; illuminating the true cost of the mass-produced food, especially meat, that we eat; managing our federal deficit, and addressing climate change. But be prepared. If you want a healthier food supply, you're going to have to fight for it ...and pay dearly.

Dig It!

OK, I know ...it's been forever since I posted. Life has gotten away from me. The election, holidays, work ...you know how it is. But I'm home sick so it seemed like a good time to post something that I discovered on Facebook today. Yup, Facebook. I was badgered into getting a page there by one of my sons.

So, I'm checking out "Causes". The younger generation seems to have invented a way to proselytize one another about favorite charitable causes and other activist attention-grabbers. I found one that resonated and signed a petition, which I'd like you all to consider as well. This particular initiative is one that has been pushed by Michael Pollan and Alice Waters, two people I respect immensely.

Here it is: Eat The View!




The goal is to get President Obama to dedicate a portion of the White House grounds to growing an organic garden. It would feed the White House and any leftover produce would go to food pantries in the Washington, D.C. area. Seems that Eleanor Roosevelt insisted on a Victory Garden during WWII ...which became a model for all Americans. Given the current economy, people could certainly save money by growing some of their own food ...and they would likely be healthier as well.

So if you have the time and inclination, please sign the petition and push for this great idea. Spring is nearly here. Let's push for full employment for gardeners!

Clear-Cutting With a Knife and Fork

Worried about climate change? The vanishing rainforest? Are you unwittingly part of the problem?

Consider this: 2700 square miles of rainforest were lost between August and December of 2007, the months when rain usually prohibits clear-cutting. The Brazilian government is so concerned, they declared a state of emergency.

Activists have pulled out their pens and keyboards trying to mobilize citizens to care. Maybe they need to take away everyone's steak knives instead. Why? Because the cleared land in Brazil is used almost exclusively to grow soybeans and graze cattle. Brazil, second only to the U.S. in soybean exports, is a major source of soy used to fatten cattle for consumption by the wealthier among us (and in America, with its beef addiction, that's most of us, regardless of income). By exporting our eating habits, we've contributed to more than just worldwide obesity.

In an article in the New York Times, Mark Bittman, the cookbook author, lays out the cost of our fixation on meat -- beef, chicken, pork -- as the center of the American diet. Bittman recently published a huge tome on vegetarian cooking. Not a vegetarian himself, he has come to realize that if he continues his large consumption of meat protein, he will accelerate global warming more than through almost any other single individual act. As Bittman notes:

"Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation."

So, before you rush out to buy that hybrid car, maybe you should make an effort to reduce your consumption of meat. I didn't say 'eliminate'. Americans aren't going to stop eating meat protein any time soon. But today we each eat 50 pounds more meat each year -- 200 pounds -- than people ate 100 years ago. Currently the 'average' person eats about 3 oz of animal protein a day, excluding eggs and dairy. Personally, everyone I know, who can afford to eat meat, is eating much, much more than that. If we each made a commitment to cut our daily consumption of animal protein in half we'd make significant inroads in improving personal health, the environment and, not insignificantly, in reducing the fossil fuel demands that keep the cycle going.

This isn't easy. I'm retooling my own dietary habits aiming for a goal of eating meat only a couple of days a week. Once you start this, the first thing you notice is that you've been eating a hell of a lot more meat than you thought you were. Once you examine what's on your plate, you realize how much animal protein is central to a meal. If you don't have any, you think you are deprived, or that you haven't had a ''full meal". Next, it hits you that you are clueless about how to meal plan and cook differently. Everything changes: your pantry, the contents of your freezer, your shopping habits. This is a really hard shift, no question about it. But the argument for changing my lifestyle has become too compelling to ignore.

I'm slogging along, doing my best to embrace a new way of eating, increasingly conscious of how my food choices impact the planet and my grandchildren's future. Check out the evidence yourself. That $25,000 hybrid may be too much for your budget today, but you can change the way you eat right now. Think about it.