Soapbox on Cincinnati's Local Foods Movement

There's an article on Soapbox today about local eating in the area.

Dayton Daily News article on Raw Milk and Herdshares

The Dayton Daily News had a great article yesterday on the increased demand for raw milk. 

thefoodpeople: Local Still Big for 2009

thefoodpeople (a UK-based food trends research firm) predicts the Big Food trends for 2009 in the UK. Most of their predictions (transferred here with their original British spellings) probably also apply to the US or can be interpreted for the US:

1. Comfort food - Incorporating retro, nostalgia, feel good foods of the past, treats;
2. Scratch cooking and home baking - More cooking from raw ingredients, cheaper cuts, also more cakes, tray bakes, sponges not just because it saves money but also it makes you feel great;
3. British - British will continue to be big – British regions, traditions, ingredients, breeds and species; [editor: translate this to the US as "Local will continue to be big."]
4. Less protein - Less protein on plates, it is expensive and also there are so many possibilities with vegetable accompaniments;
5. Head to tail - Eating more of our fish, meat and vegetables and throwing less away, using new and forgotten recipes to utilise more of the animal, a principle that can be applied to anything;
6. Sustainable meat and fish - More about new varieties and those that we should be eating more of – rock fish, gurnard, flounder, mahi mahi;
7. Changing drinking habits - Drinking at home rather than out in pubs and restaurants, also big in drink is beer, cider and cocktails;
8. Thirst for food skills and knowledge - More entry level cookery schools teaching the basics and how to get the best out of what you have;
9. Restaurant and farm alliances - Savvy restaurateurs teaming up with farms to bring the consumers food that they know and trust;
10. More miniaturisation - More things getting smaller – greater choice, less cost, more variety, more cute factor;
11. More customisation - More brands and businesses offering consumers the opportunity to customise or tailor their goods, products or services;
12. Health - Instant nutrition, ultra low calorie, health through natural choices.

Emerging Food trends for 2009:

1. Beauty foods - Foods that enhance your inner or outer beauty;
2. Raw food - Foods that are raw and retain all of their natural goodness, raw food diets;
3. Free food - Incorporating foraging, freeganism, growing your own, fishing;
4. Bistronomics - Avant garde cuisine at bistro prices by using what’s in season, not throwing anything away and using modern cooking techniques;
5. Next generation desserts - With less sugar, more flavour from the ingredients and a blur with savoury;
6. More food by mail - More foods delivered to you, personalised as you need / want them by post;
7. Sous vide - Use of sous vide to deliver convenience, consistency and quality as well as colour, flavour, texture to chefs and industry;
8. Community food projects - Power to the people, groups of people sharing land, skills and knowledge to share food within communities;
9. Modernised and interpreted cuisines - Look out for Greek, African, Mexican, Indian and Scandinavian influences in 2009;
10. Anti (this and that) foods - Foods that fight certain conditions and aliments;
11. Fun - Introduction of more fun, personality and informality into brands and the dining room;
12. Multi sensory emotional food experiences - Use of alternative techniques to cook, serve, present food to deliver a more all encompassing food experience that is multi sensory.

Here's hoping the trends toward eating local, scratch cooking, eating more sustainably, developing cooking skills, and restaurant/farm alliances turn out to be more than just trends.

Cincinnati Magazine names Cincinnati Locavore 'Best Food Blog'

Cincinnati Magazine has named Cincinnati Locavore "Best Food Blog" in their Best of the City issue, on newsstands now.

From the article:

Cincinnati Locavore is the go-to source for foodies who care where their vegetables come from. Get info on hometown producers, recipes, and links to local-eating resources. Seeds of change? Yup.

Thanks, Cincinnati Magazine!

President Bush: Eat Local Foods

In yesterday's press conference, George W. Bush recommended Americans and the world eat more locally:

One thing I think that would be -- I know would be very creative policy is if we -- is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It's a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn't responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do.

Wow! I agree with the President. That's a new experience for me.

Albany Times-Union: local eating movement isn't elitist

Jennifer Wilkins, Sr Extension Associate at Cornell University, writing last week in the Albany Times-Union, defends the local eating movement against charges of elitism. Not only is the local foods movement not elitist, she says, but the opposite is true.

It's about transforming and democratizing the food system. It's about increasing access to high-quality, nutrient-rich food and making it available and affordable to all people.

It's about establishing whole food markets in poor inner-city neighborhoods plagued by "food deserts."

It's about keeping more farmers on the land by paying them the real cost of production and about consumers having a stake in the stewardship of productive land. It's about sustainability.

When farmers sell their crops directly to consumers, schools and restaurants, none of the cost is siphoned off by processors, distributors and marketers.

In reality, elitist is a term more aptly applied to the conventional food system that provides most of America's food and concentrates economic power among an increasingly "select class" (a dictionary definition of elite) of corporations. Just four companies, for example -- Tyson, Cargill, Swift, and National Beef Packing -- control more than 80 percent of the beef market.

So stop feeling guilty about the fact not everyone has access to great local food yet. By supporting it yourself, you can help fix that.

Increasing industrial food prices could be a good thing for local, sustainable food

Must reading from today's New York Times for anyone interested in local, sustainable eating:

As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.

And if American staples like soda, fast-food hamburgers and frozen dinners don’t seem like such a bargain anymore, the American eating public might turn its attention to ingredients like local fruits and vegetables, and milk and meat from animals that eat grass. It turns out that those foods, already favorites of the critics of industrial food, have also dodged recent price increases.

Higher food costs, [locavores, small growers, activist chefs and others] say, could push pasture-raised milk and meat past its boutique status, make organic food more accessible and spark a national conversation about why inexpensive food is not really such a bargain after all.

Obviously no one would wish increasing food prices to cause true hunger in America, which economist and Pace University professor Robert Parks called a possibility last week in the Christian Science Monitor. But to spark a national debate on the true costs of cheap food? The loss of the dollar burger might be worth it.

Chain restaurants sourcing locally

The Washington Post yesterday ran an article featuring chain restaurants which are experimenting with sourcing locally, including Chipotle Mexican Grill. But for Chipotle, supplying a single franchise with a single ingredient has required nearly a year and a half of planning and a complete revisioning of distribution channels.

This month, Chipotle hopes to serve 100 percent Polyface pork in Charlottesville [VA]. But that success comes after 17 months of complex negotiations and logistics, including buying extra cooking equipment, developing new recipes, adjusting work schedules and investing in temperature-monitoring technology for Polyface's delivery van. In recent months, [Chipotle's operations director for the northeast region Phil] Petrilli has visited the Charlottesville outlet about every two weeks, four times as often as he visits other restaurants in the region.

Even if Chipotle's experiment is just a marketing ploy to provide that trendy aura of corporate green awareness and responsibility -- greenwashing -- the message is a powerful one: Going Local is Possible. So big applause for their efforts. I do have to wonder if it's really possible to translate this to the rest of their ingredients and their other 699 outlets. It seems as if doing so would inevitably destroy the economies of scale that make fast food so cheap. Can fast food survive with slow food prices?

We're Famous!

Thanks to alert reader Vudutu we learned this morning that Cincinnati Locavore has been selected by CityBeat as one of the best blogs in town. From their Best of Cincinnati 2008:

Best Source of Micro-Local Media:

Cincinnati has a wealth of blog sites devoted to incredibly local topics, and many are quite good: Cincinnati Locavore, whose theme of “eat local, live local” inspired this Best of Cincinnati issue (cincinnatilocavore.blogspot.com); Building Cincinnati, which covers local community development (www.building-cincinnati.com); CityKin, which promotes urban living (www.citykin.com); Queen City Survey, which also promotes urban living and is having a cool NCAA-type bracket tournament to determine the area’s best architecture (queencitysurvey.blogspot.com); and the readers’ choice for Best Blog, Buy Cincy, which promotes one of our favorite causes: supporting locally owned independent businesses (www.buycincy.com).

Thanks, CityBeat! We're all a-twitter! And congrats to the great blogs Building Cincinnati, CityKin, Queen City Survey and Buy Cincy, all of which are on our Google Reader here at CinciLocavore.

Pollan on making exceptions to eating local

Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food) spoke to a UC Berkely audience about eating local but not making a religion of it. From an article at InsideBayArea by San Francisco-area chef Aaron French:

While [Pollan] recommends shopping at farmers markets and growing your own food, he sees plenty of justifiable exceptions to the locavore's mantra of only eating foods produced as close to home as possible.The energy it takes to transport food can be offset by a number of other complicated factors.

"I don't think we should buy all-local anyway," says Pollan, who says he is reluctant to give up his Italian-produced pasta.

Asked how he expected economically challenged people to afford the high cost of natural foods, he admits, "It's hard to grow good food and we don't pay enough." Another attendee raised the argument of saving time; a tempting byproduct of convenience foods."We now spend an average of two hours a day on the Internet," he says, "compared with less than 1½ hours per day shopping, preparing, eating and cleaning up our three meals a day. It's simply a matter of reversing our priorities."

How many people will value good food over cheap, convenient food? This is an issue I expect to come to a head this year, as the cost of our food continues to rise. From the Boston Globe:

Many analysts expect consumers to keep paying more for food. Wholesale food prices, an indicator of where supermarket prices are headed, rose last month at the fastest rate since 2003, with egg prices jumping 60 percent from a year ago, pasta products 30 percent, and fruits and vegetables 20 percent, according to the Labor Department.

Another look at food miles

I'll never argue 'food miles' as one of my main reasons for eating locally. My main concerns are taste, freshness, sustainability, healthy eating, and supporting local farmers. However, here from the Washington Post is a calculation of fuel per conventional vs. farmers market food miles for all those naysayers who seem to think decreasing one's food miles is the only reason anyone would go to the trouble of eating locally. This won't shut them up, but at least it provides an alternative point of view. The writer is a farmer and a fellow and director of Appalachian Sustainable Development.

Of late, a number of commentators have disparaged local food economies, based on two claims: First, that shipping food long distances in fully loaded tractor-trailers is more efficient than local transactions; and, second, that consumers travel much further to buy local foods, creating more, not less carbon emissions. They're wrong.

I don't know whose calculations are correct. I hope local eating also helps lower my environmental impact, at least a little. But even if it had zero net positive effect on my carbon footprint, I'd still eat local.

Eating Local in Oak Park IL. (Or: yes, it's possible. Yes, even outside CA. Yes, even in winter.)

There's a great article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune by a blogger who has been eating locally in Oak Park, IL for three years now. He's not making a religion of it -- as he points out, he cooks with olive oil and spices, drinks coffee, salts his food.

Our basic premise is, if it is available in our area, we will get it only from our area. That's seasonal eating. That's preserving the harvest. So what does that mean for right now, as the ides of March approach? It means we are eating a lot of root vegetables. And apples -- thank god my kids never tire of apples.

He's honest about the drawbacks of eating locally:

What you give up is ease. Eating local means dealing with foods in their rawest states. I believe that the rutabaga was pushed from the kitchen because of the burden of peeling. But this is a small burden. A lot of the burdens of eating local are small, and they diminish as the longer you do it, the better you get.

And he's equally honest about his reasons for doing so:

I am an eater, a foodie. I appreciate the impact that eating local has on our climate and our economy, but eating local satisfies me most in the gullet.

Next time some reporter can't get past the carbon footprint issue, I'm sending her this article.

ACSH on locavorism

The American Council on Science and Health has an article today about locavorism. Once again the criticisms show a lack of understanding of the concept:

While eating locally may appeal to some palates -- mainly those who appreciate fresh produce -- going locavore could mean sacrificing favorite foods and important nutrients in the name of the environment...Personally, I think it's a great idea to want to help the environment and local economy. However, I don't think I could ever be a full-fledged locavore. A healthy -- and happy -- eater consumes a variety of foods, and as much as I want to help conserve fuel, I can't fathom a winter of eating just squash.

I don't know where the writer lives, but I'm guessing she has more variety available to her in winter than she thinks.

What's the goal here?

I've been reading a lot about taking some sort of 'local eating pledge.' People seem to ache to limit themselves in some way that is going to make them feel deprived. It's not good enough simply to view it as a work in progress -- it has to be all or nothing.

I disagree with the entire no-pain, no-gain concept.

I'm all for goals. By all means set a goal! But if meeting that goal is going to make you miserable, you're letting the tail wag the dog. One of the most delightful aspects of eating locally is rediscovering the joy of traditional eating. Depriving yourself of something you enjoy will inevitably turn this process into one that has an end, like Lent. After which, one might suppose, you can go back to eating all your favorite convenience chemofoods with a new sense of accomplishment. After all, you met your goal, right? If your local eating pledge has you counting the days until you can have an orange or a piece of chocolate, you've set yourself up for failure.

The goal should be to change for the better over the course of our lives in ways we can live with and to enjoy the process. Rather than planning to eat zero commercially canned fruit, plan to put up more preserves than you did last summer, or put up more varieties. Rather than asking yourself to cook every meal from scratch using local ingredients, ask yourself to add a dozen more seasonably-oriented recipes to your collection. Vow to find a source for beans closer to home than last year's source. Vow to make a visit to one of the farms that provides your food. Vow to enjoy discovering just how many locally-produced sustainably-raised traditional whole foods are available to you. But don't vow to make yourself crazy with it.

Consumer Reports: Grass-fed beef really is better for you

According to a March 2008 report from Consumer Reports, grass-fed beef really is better for you. From their website (on a page which you may be able to access only if you subscribe):

"This grass fed beef could have benefits. The limited research completed to date suggests that steak and hamburger from grass-fed cattle may contain less total fat per serving, according to a review by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. Grass-fed steak can also have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which may help reduce heart-disease risk. Grass-fed ground beef usually has more conjugated linoleic acid, which might improve the immune system and help fight cancer, atherosclerosis, and type 2 diabetes, lab and animal studies show. And raising cattle on well-managed pastures can lessen erosion and boost soil fertility, the scientists' group found."

Raw milk in the UK

This from the Telegraph on the rising demand for raw milk in the UK.

Distavores

In a very funny (but woefully ill-informed -- does Stein really think the only things that grow in Iowa are corn, soybeans, and pork?) article, Joel Stein vows to 'give the finger to locavores' by cooking a meal sourced only from things flown in from at least 3000 miles away.

The irony in his piece?

"This, it turned out, was not an easy task. Farmers in Southern California, it seems, can grow anything."

Not long ago, he would have had a hard time even knowing where most of his produce came from. Now when he wants to eat Peruvian asparagus, at least he can. Thank a locavore, Joel.

Brian Halweil on the word 'Locavore'

Brian Halweil, author of Eat Here, posted on Serious Eats about the implications of the word locavore being chosen as 2007 Word of the Year. From the article:

As food gains prominence in our nation's cultural dialogue, understanding how we eat can shine a light on all those dysfunctional aspects of our food system, from abuse of farmworkers to stubborn subsidies to chemical pollution. Which means that a series of buzzwords like locavore, seemingly trivial on their own, add up to some very different choices at the checkout counter.

He also points out that the New Oxford American Dictionary has been prophetic in the past, choosing phone number in 1927 as well as other words that survived the test of time: fridge, pizza, nonstick, and Big Mac.

NPR: Shut Up and Eat

NPR guest columnist Amy Stewart is tired of talking about food's provenance. She thinks we should just shut up and eat. Myself, I think that's how we got ourselves where we are in the first place.

The BBC on the Fife Diet

The BBC today has this article on the Fife Diet, an experiment by a group in the Scottish county of Fife to eat foods grown or produced only within the county. As one of the group comments,

"It's incredible we've come to the situation where people find it inconceivable to eat food from near where you live."