Retrovores

As Michael Pollan recommends in his newest book In Defense of Food, "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." Which brings us to a newly-coined word for those who eat the way Grandma used to: Retrovore

It's a great concept, carrying implications of beyond-organic, beyond-sustainable, beyond-unrefined, beyond chemical-free. It implies eating mostly local seasonal foods and a developing a habit of home preserving. And unlike the term 'locavore' it doesn't reject the inclusion of trade-goods, such as tea, coffee, chocolate, spices, olive oil, citrus. And it's intuitive, with little inherent controversy over nitpicky questions such as 'how local is local?' to ease the way for those who fret over whether or not they can still drink coffee. I don't know whether it will be any more palatable to those who scoff at the idea of locavorism, but I like it.

Indiana dairy labelling

Monsanto is at it again. Their rBGH product, Posilac, which artificially increases milk production in dairy cows, has seen declining sales. They think the solution is to prevent consumers from knowing how their milk was produced, and to that end they've been systematically influencing legislators in dairying states to prevent farmers who don't use the hormone from saying so on their labels. Pennsylvania and Ohio are dealing with this issue right now, and this week Indiana joined the fray.

Indiana HB 1300 would ban the use of labeling that "contains compositional claims that cannot be confirmed through laboratory analysis or can only be supported by sworn statements, affidavits, or testimonials." Monsanto's argument is that milk produced using their growth hormone can't be distinguished in a laboratory from milk produced without the hormone, and therefore labelling milk 'hormone-free' is misleading to consumers because it implies there's a difference.

If you are in Indiana want your representatives working for you instead of for Monsanto, contact your representative.

Raw milk in the UK

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

Maple syrup production at the Cincinnati Nature Center

The Cincinnati Nature Center will be tapping maples for maple syrup in a few weeks. This is great local-eating family activity. Attendees can help collect buckets from the trees and bring them to the boiling pot to be turned into maple syrup, then afterwards purchase this year's maple syrup. Syrup making demonstrations Wednesday February 16th (great for homeschoolers) and Saturdays February 23rd and March 1st, with a pancake breakfast Saturday March 8th. Free with daily admission or CNC membership. No registration required, just show up.

Victory in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has rescinded the ban on 'anti-rBGH' labelling. This is great news for small dairy farmers in Pennsylvania and represents a significant win for consumers' right to know. However, a similar fight is still going on in Ohio. If you are in Ohio and want to know whether your milk is produced using rBGH, an email or phone call to Governor Ted Strickland and/or Ohio Agriculture Director Boggs would be timely and helpful. It doesn't have to be long or take a lot of time -- just a couple of lines telling Strickland/Boggs that you prefer to know how your milk is produced and don't want Ohio banning rGBH labelling.

To contact Governor Ted Strickland:
Phone: the Governor's Office at (614) 466-3555
FAX: a letter to the Governor at: (614) 466-9354
Email: click here to be taken to the contact form to send an email to the Governor.

To contact Director Boggs:
Phone: (614) 466-2732
Email: Send an email to Director Boggs

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.

And why is local eating so popular these days?

We've been hearing a lot over the past few months about the FDA deciding whether or not to approve cloning of food animals, and according to the Washington Post they've decided to approve it. Whether or not they'll require labelling of such animals is not yet decided, but is unlikely as the FDA only requires food labelling when the use of a new biotechnology introduces an allergen.

Which leaves us with a further question: will farmers who choose not to use cloned animals be allowed to label their products as uncloned? It seems a silly question -- shouldn't it be a farmer's right to point this out? Shouldn't it be a consumer's right to know? But in light of Monsanto's campaign to get lawmakers to make such labels illegal (and lawmakers' inability to resist such campaigns), obviously it's not silly at all. The USDA has said it agrees with the FDA that cloned animals pose no safety concerns and that they'll be

"...working closely with stakeholders to ensure a smooth and seamless transition into the marketplace for these products."

For 'stakeholders' read Big Ag. And when it comes to making decisions about our food, money talks and Big Ag generally wins. Your best bet? Buy your meat from a small farmer who is raising his cows the old-fashioned way. If he is using artificial insemination (and even many small farmers do, because keeping a bull is no easy task) ask him whether the semen is from cloned animals.

The downside of success

Now that local eating has become trendy, it's attracting a lot of folks who don't really understand that a farmers' market is as much about forming relationships with the person who produces your food (read: having conversations with them, not simply trading money for food) as it is about actually procuring the edibles. These folks expect the farmers' market to be like the supermarket. They get bent out of shape when the farmer runs out of an item or when a certain item on their shopping list is unavailable. They get impatient when customers and farmers trade recipes or tips. They turn up their noses at funny-shaped carrots or small potatoes or blemished apples. They can't understand why a dozen eggs costs $3 when they're $1.29 down at Wal-Mart. They complain that pastured beef doesn't taste like grain-finished. I guess eventually they'll either learn or they'll move on when the next food trend hits.

I love that so many folks are trying. I hope they won't move on when the next food trend hits -- I hope they'll stay and keep supporting my farmers. But I suspect that means a real shift in stance for some folks, so I think I'm ready to push them a little. Next time someone huffs impatiently behind me while I'm asking one of my farmers how to prepare chive blossoms or telling him how my squash blossom soup turned out, I am going to turn around and clock her explain: Buying food more slowly is not just an annoying but unavoidable side effect of the farmers' market. It's actually one of the reasons we're there.

Putting Food By: Meatloaf

This week I took my last two meatloaves to friends who are laid up, so today I made up another batch. I made one for dinner tonight, took another to a friend as a gift, and put the other four into the freezer.

I generally make five meatloaves from a quadruple recipe, but as I was measuring them out tonight I discovered that I could get almost exactly six 32-ounce loaves from the quadruple recipe, so I decided to try dividing it that way to see whether the smaller loaves were a good size to feed my family. I've been reading Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating, and one of the issues he points out is that American cooks tend to cook for a crowd, planning for seconds and leftovers. He argues this encourages overeating.

USDA steals "Certified Naturally Grown" from small farmers

Walter Jeffries in his excellent blog Sugar Mountain Farm reports that his new label design has been rejected by the USDA for using the term Certified Naturally Grown. Trouble is, that's what his last label design used, also, and that design was approved by the USDA less than one year ago -- which as Walter points out, represents a policy change. And all this despite the fact that the term Certified Naturally Grown was developed by small farmers in reaction to the USDA stealing the term 'organic' -- which had also been developed by small farmers -- and selling it to Big Ag.

There's really no getting around it. The USDA is bought and paid for by Big Ag. Everything they do, they do with the interests of Monsanto, Cargill, ADM, and other major industrial agriculture corporations firmly in mind.