A Labor of Love: From What’s Fresh. I couldn’t express better myself the philosophy and motivation behind growing and selling local food. Be sure to check out the double chocolate zucchini cake recipe, too.

Jumping on the Healthy Food Bandwagon: from Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Food companies (i.e. Kraft, General Mills, Sara Lee) are answering consumer demands for “Less” everything and the perception of healthier product. Along with this is usually a higher price tag. Is this a good thing?

Ecogeek’s Guide to Saying Thanks to Dad: A green giving guide for Father’s Day. This entry begs the question: Can one buy one’s way to environmental responsibility?

Cloned Meat: A logical next step: From Word of Mouth. An unusually non-emotional discourse on the place of cloning in our selective breeding practices. Here is someone who gets that this is more of a non-issue than one worth “media hand-wringing and deep moral debate about Frankenstein Friesians”.

Food Safety During an Emergency: From Momify. Loss of power during an emergency can endanger the food in your refrigerator or freezer. The USDA has published a Guide that includes tips on what to do in floods, power outages and removing odors from freezers and refrigerators. I wish I had seen that last bit last Thanksgiving, when I forgot to turn my frig back on after cleaning it out and then left for a week out at the ranch!

Safe vs. Organic Personal Care Products:  from BlogHer’s Green and Ecoconscious section.  We touched on this in last week’s Earthlinks.  The author (who also blogs on greenLAgirl) points out there is safety and eco-friendly on both sides of the organic fence in this excellent review.

Celebrating Extinction: From Ethicurean. This is a spoof on bluefin tuna extinction so well written that I took it seriously. After my recent mistaking of the “Obesity Causes Global Warming” for a spoof, I’m convinced that it is hard to tell in today’s world what is outrageous and real and what is outrageous and fictional.

My boys love raw tomatoes or “menos” as they were first dubbed by a toddler that would position himself in front of the cherry tomato section of a salad bar and eat until chased down by one of his humiliated parents.

So should they or shouldn’t they (and we) be eating tomatoes these days? Since mid-April, 167 people in 17 states have been infected with a rare strain of bacteria known as Salmonella Saintpaul, which has been linked to several kinds of raw tomatoes. Most of the cases have been in Texas and New Mexico, and 23 of them have required hospitalization.

McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Burger King, Outback Steakhouse and Taco Bell have even voluntarily pulled tomatoes from their offerings.

Perhaps most scary — the FDA has even warned consumers to stop eating raw tomatoes – traditional, round, Roma or plum. Although the FDA website says there haven’t been problems with 19 states and 4 countries, it does say if you don’t know where the tomato came from, you shouldn’t eat it.

Of course, the North American tomato industry is absolutely gut-punched and the Florida tomato growers say the entire system is on the verge of collapse. Number one tomato producer Florida says $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot in the next few days unless the U.S. FDA traces the source of the outbreak and clears the produce.

Pretty scary stuff. My feelings? There will be no more toddler “meno” salad bar attacks in the near future. But, made of rough stuff as I am, I did actually eat all the tomatoes in my salad today. No tummy rumblings yet. I’ll let you know if I make it.

And — minor screed — some people (we like) are bashing the FDA, but I really think Congress is the problem. Since the early 1990s there’s been a strategy afoot to cash starve the agency to limit its ability to “meddle”. First put into place when Kessler started to take on the tobacco companies in the 1990s, this unfortunate but successful strategy is working.

Don’t blame the agency. FULLY AND APPROPRIATELY FUND THE U.S. FDA so they can quickly handle these sorts of matters. My bet is that these tomatoes are coming from abroad, but the poor FDA inspection service is so poorly staffed and funded, how would we know? Yet domestic agriculture is taking the hit.

Other tomato conversations:

Shakesville, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

I guess this places bruschetta and BLT’s on the endangered species list for the time being until the safe tomato population gets its act together.

Alana Kellogg, food editor on BlogHer, It’s Summer Tomato Time — Or Is It?

Are you thinking it’s much ado about nothing, that hey, life is risky and what’s a little tomato compared to stuff like global warming, skyrocketing food prices, $4 a gallon gasoline, healthcare and education issues, childhood obesity, earthquakes in China, floods in the Midwest, who the Bachelorette’s going to knock off this week?

Wine Before Dinner, The Salmonella Tomato Scare

If American establishments would buy tomatoes grown in America, this Salmonella Scare would have never happened. This is nothing against Mexico, it’s hard working people, and their farmers. I just think that produce being shipped from that far away has to go through many hands, trucks, crates, etc. The farther these things travel the better chance they have of becoming contaminated.

Wall Street Fighter, The 2008 Tomato Scare

If some film studio decided to make a major motion picture about ‘Tomato Scare ‘08″, I bet there will be a dramatic scene in there where someone runs into the Tomato factory and screams at the top of their lungs, “Stop the picking and packing machines!” Then he’ll probably slam on some bright red emergency stop button, which should be in the shape of a large cartoon tomato.

Sara’s post on labels and farm workers reminded me of a recent article in The New York Times.  Titled, With Migrant Workers in Short Supply, A Farmer Looks to Machines, the reporter tells the story of Jim Bittner, a farmer in upstate New York who cut down 25 acres of cherry trees because he was concerned he wouldn’t have enough workers to harvest the fruit. This caught my attention for two reasons — first, since I live  just outside Washington, DC, I have a special affinity for cherry trees.  Yes, I know that the trees surrounding the tidal basin that spill forth blossoms in frothy splendor each spring aren’t the same kind of tree that Mr. Bittner grows (or should I say grew), but they’re truly gorgeous.  And second, there’s nothing better than fresh-picked cherries eaten straight out of hand.  Yum! 

But Mr. Bittner’s 25 acres of sweet cherry trees (some 30 years old) are now piles of sticks along with 20 acres of peach trees.  No, it’s not a blight of any sort, and he’s not getting out of farming.  He now plans to grow crops such as blueberries and tart cherries (the kind used in pies) for the simple reason that these crops “could be harvested by machine and did not require migrant workers.”  You see, like farmers around the country, the New York region’s growers rely heavily on migrant workers from Latin America to work the fields and pick the crops.  Unfortunately, with government crackdowns on illegal immigrants, and a lack of reformed immigration policies, these folks are in short supply.

You may think, OK, a fruit is a fruit, no big deal.   And maybe you prefer blueberries to cherries or peaches.  But here’s the point — U.S. immigration policies are causing farmers and food producers to rethink what they’re planting and sourcing.  It’s incongruous that at a time when locavores and foodies want to buy foods within 100 miles of home, they may find a shrinking diversity of foods available.  As the Times’ article notes, “the shift from labor-intensive crops would accelerate if the uncertainy over migrant labor and immigration policies remain unresolved.” 

This is an issue that not only affects the northeast, but is one of the top ag issues in states like California, as well.  Yet another NYTimes story, (I admit it, this is one of my favorite news sources) from 2006 reported tons of pears that rotted on the ground because there were no workers to pick them.  This was a $10 million loss for growers in California.  And pear growers don’t receive those “government subsidies” we’ve been hearing so much talk of lately.

These stories have caused my little brain to spin in too many directions.  First, our TVs and newspapers are filled with stories about rising food prices and food shortages.  Yet in these examples we have food rotting, going to waste, or not being grown at all.

Second, we’re fostering a nation of obese children.  The nutrition and medical communities tell us we can address the problem by feeding them more fruits and vegetables.  But oops, our immigration polices make it difficult for farmers to hire the necessary workers to plant, grow, tend and harvest these healthy, unprocessed foods.  Fresh cherries would be a great after school snack, but because they can’t be picked mechanically, Mr. Bittner is switching to growing tart cherries for pies and baking.  Mmm, I love my cherry pie (especially a la mode), but I suspect the more nutritious choice would be the fresh sweet cherries.

And finally, farmers have enough factors outside their control (weather, insects, fluctuating market prices) that the last thing they need to worry about is planting a crop they’ll later see rot in the field.  Isn’t it time our government leaders come up with a coherent immigration policy that faces the reality that whatever system we have is not working?  I’ll put on my Pollyanna bonnet once again and say that it seems simple to me: There are groups of people who want to come to this country, work very hard, pay taxes, send their kids to school, and work in our fields to produce healthy and nutritous foods.  What’s wrong with that?  If we can’t find a solution, we may face a shortage of homegrown veggies and fruits. 

Our recent discussion on “What should we eat and how should it be produced raised the very good point that as we talk about sustainability and food safety, we need to think about the safety of those working on the farm.

I found this through the Eat.Drink.Better blog: Olivia Tamayo made history last week when she became the first female migrant worker to successfully bring a sexual harassment suit against her employer to a federal jury. Last week, a federal court upheld a decision that Harris Farms was guilty of sexual harassment and discrimination, finding that Harris Farms inappropriately responded after Ms. Tamayo was raped three times by her direct supervisor. [rape is sexual harassment?]

An Op-ed piece in the LA Times reports that this is the first case. Hers is the only suit brought by a female farmworker to reach a federal jury. They raise the valid question of how many more cases have not been prosecuted.

In fairness to our nation’s farmers and ranchers, the workers at farms and ranches I know and have visited are treated as well as they would be in any other jobs. Often, immigrant workers have employment for several members of their extended family. Many have good long-term relationships with their employers.

How sad it is that we often give more thought about how our food choices affect the welfare of the environment or the welfare of animals, than the safety or welfare of those who participated in the production. When people have issues about how our food is produced, it is seems most often directed against animal production or corn and other grains. Our food system for fresh produce is built on the backs of migrant workers. Their plight gets relatively little attention in the mainstream media.

We have animal welfare labeling program for our meat, egg and milk products to help us choose food from companies that have pledged to abide by certain standards. We have “Fair Trade” labels for imported goods. How many of you have heard of, or seek out the United Farm Workers label?

Ethical Eating, part 2: Looking for Answers from What Would Jesus Eat?: Our tendency to look for magic bullets and instant answers only substitutes one problem for another. Global vegetarianism won’t save the world, neither will going totally local.

Study: Healthy ‘Depots’ Discovered in Beef Brisket: from Beef Myths. the fat in beef brisket from corn-fed steers contains nearly 50 percent oleic acid, and oleic acid increases the longer cattle are fed a corn-based diet, according to research by Steve Smith at Texas A&M University.

Obesity and Climate Change? from economic sense. Something that sounds like it could have come out of the Onion; Environmentalists claim the obese are major contributors to global warming. So how does how an obese individual’s carbon footprint from sitting on the couch all day compare with that of “some skinny Barbie girl” driving to a smoothie bar after work, having an organic smoothie, then driving to a climate controlled gym to spend 2 hours utilizing their electric powered equipment before stopping by the local organic market? [Sara’s n.b. I am NOT implying that obese people all sit on the couch all day, nor that I agree with the conclusion] A pretty good summary and discussion can be found on Blogher.com

Is it possible to Eat Healthy on a Budget? Another Blogher discussion about how the least healthy foods are often the least expensive. Lots of good links here and some encouraging words.

How to teach Sustainability: from Slowfood Blog. The author of a program to teach sustainability in schools states that “Education for Sustainability” is much different from “greening.” Education for sustainability looks to integrate children with the natural world not disintegrate their relationship with it.

Are Organic Tomatoes Better? a story from NPR.org. A UC Davis study has found that organically grown tomatoes are richer in certain kinds of flavonoids than conventionally grown tomatoes. The lead scientist points out many confounding factors. The answer may be more linked to nitrogen availability (lower in organic fertilizers) than the organic process itself. An unusually balanced set of conclusions that seek not to convert the world to nor discount the value of organic growing methods.

The Onion on GM Tomatoes: As long as we’ve already mention The Onion and organic tomatoes, I thought we ought to inclue this link (found through Gristmill). Apparently Geneticists at the California Institute of Technology have developed a tomato with a 31 percent larger price tag than a typical specimen of the vine-ripened fruit through gene-splicing.

Oh yeah, like I’m going to be able to address that in a single blog post….

When you get down to it, what we eat and how it is produced is the Meta-issue of this blog. Our questions about food safety, technology, health, environment, food prices and availability, environmental impact, etc. all end up being answered by the choices we make as consumers (what we buy), and as producers (how we grow it).

So much of what I read is narrowly focused on a single problem or single solution. In a larger context there is an entire web of cause and effect around each of these single issues. We have a food system that cannot be separated from our economic, environmental, political and ethical/religious systems.

If we were to design a food system from scratch, what would it look like? Let’s start by creating a wish list. Please give us your opinions about what should be on our list, and in what order of importance.

• Safe: By most accounts we have the safest food supply in the world, in terms of food-borne illnesses. How do changes in how our food is produced affect safety (i.e. locally produced without USDA oversight, non-pastuerized milk, intensive/monoculture vs. extensive/mixed systems).
• Affordable: Americans spend less of their disposable income on food than almost any other country. Can we/should we be willing to pay higher prices in order to achieve some of our other food goals? What about the impact on those with lower incomes?
• Nutritious: The basic purpose of food is to nourish us. In reality, flavor, convenience and price probably play a larger role in our choices.
• Sustainable: We need to produce our food in a way that doesn’t rob Peter to pay Paul. Can we be truly sustainable without decreasing our food supply and having devastating effects on some of the other issues here?
• Environmentally responsible: Notice the avoidance of the term “friendly” here. If we really were going to be environmentally friendly, we’d choose not to perpetuate our species. Given that we choose to exists, how can we care for the earth and still meet our food needs?
• Practical: It’s common knowledge that fresh is best, but let’s face it, most of us ‘give’ on other issues for convenience. I bet most people wouldn’t put “easy” high on the list of food priorities, but voting with their dollars shows otherwise.
• Ethical: Food issues are tied at a gut level to our belief system. Don’t try to talk an ethically-motivated vegan out of their position through scientific arguments. What is “ethical” in food production? Do we hold our food production system to a higher ethical standard than we do our other consumer goods (sweat shops in India for textiles, environmental impact of steel/plastic/transportation)?
• Feasible: I”m a big local food supporter, but realize that a totally local food system is not currently feasible in many areas of the country. Many of the production methods I use myself on my own ranch are difficult (impossible?) to implement on a national scale.

What did I miss? How do these rank in importance relative to each other?

I love Wired magazine — love, love, love it — because it’s forward thinking, filled with new ideas, geeky-hip (like I hope I am) and, most of all, is not afraid to break taboos to get us looking at things in new, arguably more rational ways.

Case in point is this month’s cover story, “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green,” which tells us that “winning the war on global warming requires slaughtering some of environmentalism’s sacred cows.” The article then goes on to suggest 10 “Green Heresies” we may all need to embrace if we are committed to slowing down/reversing the carbon emissions choking our planet.

Two of those heresies directly relate to our interests here at Down to Earth:

Heresy No. 3: Organics Are Not the Answer. Wired explains how conventional agriculture can be easier on the Planet.

Heresy No. 6: Accept Genetic Engineering. Feeding the more than six billion people exacts a heavy environmental toll. The only way to make it easier on Mother Earth is to use science to create super-efficient foodstuffs, which could put a real dent in global emissions.

After years of helping run an organic restaurant, no one was more surprised than I was to find out that the organic label was a marketing designation not supported by science.  The locovores (like Sara) have it right when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint.

Men are from Science, Women are from Fashion and Style: Blogher (cyber-central for women bloggers) chews through the NYT’s placement in the Style section of an article about how women are behind in science. Made me wonder about science education (or lack thereof) and how it affects our ability to think critically and intelligently about some of the food issues we discuss here.

Farm Bill Passes, Vetoed, Veto (sort of) overridden: From American Farmland Trust. Although a seemingly dry topic, the 2008 Farm Bill has some important provisions for nutrition programs, farmland preservation, healthy and local foods and conservation progams.

Who Eats Rice, Anyway? From Chow. A discussion of how agricultural research budgets across the world have declined dramatically in the last few decades—bottoming out in time for this year’s food crisis. The US is in the midst of slashing support for research that focuses on improving crops vital to agriculture in poor countries.

Which Pots and Pans are Safest - Unearthing My Mother’s Cookware: From The Not Quite Crunchy Parent. Turns out Mom might have known best, after all.

Déjà chew: The food price crisis in context : A guest post on Ethicurean that shows the solution to the world’s food crisis is not a simple matter of people food vs. animal feed nor crops for food vs. crops for fuel.

Toilet Paper Rolls? Yes, Toilet Paper Rolls From Green Mom Finds. 101 things to do with a toilet paper roll before you recycle it (102 if you count the original intended use).

I’ve had a couple of e-mails from people in the beef and pork industries in the last couple weeks. The gist of their gripe is that the local, pasture-raised beef and pork I sell is causing damage to animal ag industries. They have some legitimate points: “Negative campaigning” against traditional agriculture is an oft-used marketing method for foods bearing labels of alternative production methods. All too often at the Farmer’s Markets, I hear that food from the grocery store is not safe, is loaded with chemicals and hormones or is causing everything from global warming to early puberty to worldwide hunger. I hear all sorts of exaggerations of reported ill-effects, many of which fall into the realm of urban myths.

It is these very issues that are part of the reason I blog. We’ve barely scratched the surface here with posts on early puberty, organic honey and free-range chickens, cloning, food labels and a variety of other topics. There is never a shortage of material; just a shortage of time to do the background research to provide a balanced and accurate review of the issue at hand.

So, by promoting our locally raised meats, am I contributing to the downfall of American Animal Agriculture? I maintain that I am promoting it. Here’s why:

• There is no better spokesperson for agriculture than a producer. Consumers and producers are usually separated by multiple companies. When I sell local, I reconnect the consumer to agriculture. I remind them that ultimately all our food is produced by PEOPLE, not corporate conglomerates.
• When I hear wildly exaggerated claims and misconceptions, I can correct them. The same quirk of human nature that causes people to believe their neighbor before they’ll believe a corporate expert works in reverse too.
• I have customers eating meat that wouldn’t otherwise. For their own reasons (whether I agree with them or not), many of my customers are willing to buy meat from me, when they buy much less or none otherwise. How can this be hurting the industry?
• The products I sell DO taste better than run-of-the-mill grocery store items. They also cost more ($2-$4/lb more). Most people agree that homegrown tomatoes taste better than (even organic) grocery store tomatoes. Why does it seem so surprising that homegrown, individually managed, top genetics beef tastes better? If this creates a demand for higher quality products, isn’t that a good thing?

There is a knee-jerk dislike of movements like local, grass-fed, or organic among many of my more traditional Animal Industry colleagues, and a similar distrust of corporate agriculture among many of my customers. I hope, in my small way, I am building some bridges.

West Michigan’s small-scale alternative food systems - and the future of such endeavors, from Ethicurean.

Who’ll Cure Our Kids, Big Pharma Or Small Farmers? from Eating Liberally. Makes some interesting points about how food marketing prepares us for pharma marketing.

Dan Barber on Food–Meet Adam Smith, from the Faceless Bureaucrat, who throws some amusing cold water on a professional chef’s rose-tinted view of small farms.

Dog meat on the menu in Korea (illegally), from Food Law Prof Blog. Because dog meat has been linked to salmonella and staph infections, there are now calls to classify dogs as livestock in order to bring dog meat under food safety regulations. Our comment: You probably shouldn’t invest in Korea’s pet product market.

Lawmakers Find $21 a Week Doesn’t Buy a Lot of Groceries, from the Washington Post. Only four members of Congress take on “Food Stamp Challenge” issued by the House Hunger Caucus. Is that close to the number of congressman with actual military experience?

What Do You Do When Your Child Lies? From Scribbit. Good suggestions and discussion on an issue all parents face sooner or later. We would add: Begin creating a trust state of mind. Take you and your friends to the mall this weekend? Sure. See that PG-13 movie that might be too racy? Sure. Because we trust you and your common sense. But one hairline crack in that trust…

From Izzy Mom, Best. Newspaper. Clipping. Ever.