Food, Inc.

So over the weekend a friend lent me a copy of "Food, Inc." to watch as part of my individual project. Heckuva time to be watching it right? Thanksgiving weekend? Fortunately I was smart enough to wait until AFTER Thanksgiving to watch it. I've also been reading the companion book, and have some thoughts on both.

In case you've never heard of "Food, Inc.," you can check out the website here. It is a documentary that hits on a number of different topics regarding our food system: its effect on the environment, cruelty towards animals, treatment of workers, health issues, and a great many more. It "stars" a number of people from different walks of life and different roles in our food system (including some who requested anonymity). I don't recall a single person from "Big Food" (outside of some Wal-Mart executives who were visiting an organic food producer) being interviewed, but the film noted several times that it reached out to some of the big food producers for an interview and were denied.

Like I said, the movie (and book) are pretty broad, but the one message that struck me the most is probably the biggest point the makers were trying to get across: Food is a business. It's products are just that. They're not nourishment. They're not made to be healthy or flavorful or unique. Your bag of Doritos or piece of chicken is made to be and taste the same whether you're eating it in Bloomington, Indiana; Bloomington, Illinois; or East Nowhere, New Mexico. (COMPLETELY UNRELATED SIDENOTE: I was driving through eastern New Mexico late one night a few years ago when I came to the realization that whoever coined the term "middle of nowhere" was probably driving through eastern New Mexico at the time.) Tasty and nutritious isn't the point. Cheap is. The companies have a bottom line that must be met, and just like Ford or Nike or Apple or any other big company, they're going to produce their product as cheaply as possible.

This focus on the bottom line manifests itself in many ways. To wit:

* The entire industry is basically mechanized. By its very nature, this means that everything is basically made the same and tastes the same. Heterogeneity is not allowed. It would screw up the machines and the entire process of food-making, which would probably lead to the complete downfall of society (said with tongue only halfway in cheek). The film shows how this situation is the result of McDonald's decision fifty years ago to basically turn their business into an assembly line because it was cheaper that way. So because of that we get cheap food that doesn't taste all that good and is not really healthy for you, made by people who aren't paid much money.

* Companies are so invested in the food system we've got that if something starts to go wrong, they look for new high-tech ways to fix it instead of taking a hard look at the system in general to see if maybe the system is what's broken. Case in point: Did you know that much of your meat is doused in ammonia to ensure E. coli and other bacteria are not present? Not real appetizing, is it? This is necessary because cows, pigs, etc., are allowed to root around in their own filth their whole lives. Instead of perhaps NOT letting animals sleep in their own poop, we get meat that's been blasted with ammonia. Go figure.

* Corn is used as feed in replacement of grass and other forage because it fattens animals up quickly and it's cheap (more on that below). This despite the fact that letting cows eat grass for a few days would obviate the need for antibiotics as the grass would just clean out the bad bacteria in their stomachs. Corn has been related to E. coli outbreaks in meat, but it's still used because it's --SURVEY SAYS! -- cheap.

* The "bad" calories that we take in -- in snack foods and other processed products -- are cheaper than "good" calories because of the subsidies given to farmers to produce these crops. Corn is the primary subsidy recipient, but soybeans and wheat are also high up there. The more we grow, the more subsidies farmers receive. That's a pretty powerful reason to stick with the current system.

* The people making our food are not compensated for it. Companies use a lot of illegal immigrants as laborers. They must know the workers are illegal, because, according to the film, they essentially throw local law enforcement a bone by allowing the police to take away a few laborers a week, and in return, the plants don't get raided, which would result in mass deportations and probably a lot of fines. Additionally, people raising animals (cows and chickens, for instance) in factory farms are under immense pressure to meet increasingly stringent standards, and go heavily into to debt in order to do it. In return, they are paid approximately $18,000/year, with which they must service debt in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nice.

That's just the way that companies keep our food cheap. In the process, they treat the animals they raise terribly. Now, I've never been a PETA-loving animal rights activist. But I gotta admit, seeing how animals are artificially fattened to sickening proportions is kind of revolting. Chickens in particular are made so fat so quickly that they can't even walk or spread their wings. That seems pretty cruel, even for animals that are brought into this world specifically to be killed and eaten. Each day, chicken farmers have to go through their huge chicken coops and pick up the carcasses of birds that never made it to our dinner plates. Fun.

Health is another victim in the quest for cheap food. I've already mentioned the ammonia issue. Consider the fact that animals are also fed huge amounts of antibiotics to keep them from getting sick. This contributes to our growing resistance to these antibiotics, which could potentially have pretty severe ramifications for us. Processed foods are also loaded with unhealthy sweeteners that offer little more than empty calories and diabetes. Good to know.

There are people trying to do something about this. The film prominently features an organic farmer who doesn't use pesticides on his crops and lets his animals eat grass (which they then fertilize to keep the soil productive). The book features the CEO of Stonyfield, an organic yogurt producer, discussing the ways in which better food practices could actually be profitable. At this point, it doesn't seem like enough people have embraced this idea, but the growth in organic food sales seems to suggest there's progress.

Check out an interview Michael Pollan did with Bill Maher. Also, you can check out the website here, which has plenty of other good links to explore.

U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement

So I don't know if I've really rambled about this much, but one of the things I care about is climate change. For a variety of reasons, our federal government is not particularly responsive to the climate change issue. So it's been left up to cities to do what they can to fix this problem.

This is a problem I've been thinking about lately. I'm considering going into some kind of local planning or development work once life at SPEA is over. Cities seem like they have a lot of potential to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and energy use. So, even though I would still prefer to try and establish a national response to climate change, I see the writing on the wall, and it says the federal government ain't gonna do much for this problem any time soon, so maybe the best way for me to make a difference would be to work at the city level where a difference really seems like it could be made.

The Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement is a group of mayors that signed an agreement to meet or beat the United States' commitment agreed to in the Kyoto Protocol (which we never ratified) to reduce our GHG emissions by 7% by 2012. Since its start in 2005, over one thousand mayors in charge of cities big and small have signed onto the agreement. (See the map below to view the cities signing on to the Agreement.) Here you can find some "best practices" from exemplary cities, ranging from a comprehensive mass transit program in Denver, to a program linking high school students with "green" professionals in Chapel Hill, N.C., to a walkable community initiative in Carmel, IN.

This week's reading emphasizes the role of local governments in creating sustainable communities. This seems pretty axiomatic: "local government" and "community" are practically synonymous. But there are plenty of communities out there that are not following environmentally friendly practices. The Mayor's Agreement is a great example of how local governments can be leaders on climate change.

Still, I think more will need to be done to truly tackle climate change. Ideally this will include a national initiative. Is it possible that the cities that have signed the Mayor's Climate Agreement could give the federal government that extra oomph needed to push it to take action? Is it possible some of these cities could coordinate their efforts, thereby creating networks of people working together and going beyond their localities? It could happen. States and localities are often seen as "policy workshops" where initiatives have their kinks worked out before being deployed nationally. Indeed, at that state level, governments are beginning to band together to address climate change, through such mechanisms as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Inititative's carbon trading scheme. In the absence of a national program, it's good to see local and state officials taking the lead to address one of the most pressing problems of our time.

Personal Project Update

So the reason I originally decided upon this project was to learn to make more things myself. While it's since changed to more of an exploration of my current eating habits and their environmental and economic ramifications (not to mention their effect on my health), I've still been working at making a few more things myself. Here are a few examples:

Green beans for lunch: Okay, so it's nothing spectacular. But, for me, it is different. See, during the week at least, my lunches are pretty bland: I make a sandwich with ham, turkey, salami, or roast beef, and add some yogurt and/or fruit to go with it. This is largely because I am always looking for something quick and easy to take to SPEA with me (so that I don't have to always buy my lunch at the SPEA Cafe). I've found a bowl of green beans to be surprisingly easy and good. I was a little concerned that I'd still be hungry, but when I add a piece of fruit, I'm usually good for a while. On top of that, the beans are from the farmer's market, so not only am I avoiding unhealthy lunch meat, but I'm also helping the local economy as well.

Spaghetti with organic sauce and mixed greens: Once again, nothing special or new to me (I eat pasta all the time), but the ingredients are slightly different. I've never used organic spaghetti sauce before, but I actually found the stuff I bought at Kroger (sorry) to be pretty good. On top of that, the salad contains greens from the farmer's market, which tastes better than the salad mix you buy at the store.

Homemade jambalaya: I actually make this dish fairly often, but this time, instead of a chicken breast from a big frozen bag purchased at the grocery store, I used a big chicken breast bought from Schacht Farm, a local Bloomington farm that sells at the farmer's market. The chicken there is free-range and fed only locally-grown grains as a supplement. The result was very positive, even if the rest of the ingredients were all store-bought (because that's what I had on hand at the time).

Homemade pizza: Here's the one I really liked. I make pizza a lot, but I generally buy a Boboli crust for, like, $4.50 to do so. This time I tried making my own crust and varying the toppings a bit. The crust is made from whole grain oat flour and yeast bought at Bloomingfoods, while the onion and green pepper are both organic (one bought from the farmer's market, the other from Bloomingfoods). The pepperoni, sauce, and cheese are all from Kroger, as they were all leftover from when I had made pizza previously. There were actually supposed to be some organic mushrooms on there, too, but by the time I got around to making the pizza, they'd been sitting out for several days and were too dried out to use. The result was a mixed bag. I've never made my own crust before, and it needs some work. I did enjoy mixing up the toppings with some fresh, organic products.

I guess these were the types of things I was hoping to accomplish with this project. It's not necessarily a drastic diet overhaul, but by making some things myself that I used to buy packaged from the grocery store, and by using more environmentally-friend ingredients, I'm hoping I'm making a bit of a difference.

Happy belated Thanksgiving.

Personal Project Update

One of the reasons I chose the personal project that I did was to try and cut down on my food impact on the environment. The food system we have in place now is tough on the environment in general, and particular on greenhouse gas emissions. So one of the goals I set out for myself was to try and reduce my GHG emissions that come from the food I eat. Not having a good way to accurately measure my GHGs, it's hard to put a quantifiable number to this goal, but I'm doing what I can.

There are three things I wanted to try and do to accomplish this goal: significantly reduce my red meat consumption (substituting more fish and chicken as sources of protein), buy more organic food, and buying more local food. Today I'll take a bit of a look at all three of these things.

Let's start with the red meat part. There are a few good reasons to reduce (or completely give up) eating dead cows. One is for health reasons. Red meat has lots of fat and cholesterol. For people who already have a good deal of these things, adding more would be a problem. I generally don't have such issues, but that doesn't mean I don't wanna try and stay lean and mean. Having said that, I probably still used to eat meat once to twice a week before starting this little project. Since then, I can only come up with one instance, and that's when I cooked up a pot of chili using grass-fed beef that I picked up at the farmer's market (which, coincidentally hits on all three of my main GHG-reducing activities). Otherwise, I think I've been dead-cow free for pretty much the whole semester. I don't even think I've had a burger at a restaurant, which is unusual. No, instead I've been using more chicken to make things that I used to make with beef, and have even tried my hand at fish tacos with mixed results.

Buying more local and organic food has been a mixed bag. I've definitely been shopping much more at Bloomingfoods and the farmer's market than I did before, and the vast majority of my produce these days is organic. To try and quantify this, I'm keeping close track of my food purchases over the next few weeks and will report on what percentage of my food is either organic or bought from local sources (or both). More to come on that soon.

But back to the "meat" of the issue. What kind of impact has my (almost) no red meat diet had? One of the studies that I read discussed both food miles and meat consumption and how they impact greenhouse gas emissions in our food supply (see citation below). It does this via a life-cycle analysis of the food production process from beginning to end. It finds that food production is responsible for approximately 5/6 of a typical household's food-related GHG emissions. On the other hand, transportation as a whole makes up only 11% of emissions, with delivery from producer to retail comprising only 4% of the grand total. This actually suggests that buying local is not very effective as a way of cutting down greenhouse gases. When looking at red meat in particular, though, the study finds that it (along with dairy) is generally 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Shifting a small amount of food consumption from meat to chicken, fish or a vegetarian diet can actually have as big an impact on GHGs than switching to an all-local diet.

So this seems to suggest that by not eating red meat, I'm helping to reduce food-related climate impacts. Buying local? Perhaps not as much. However, there are other benefits to buying local, which I will probably address at a later date. One big drawback, though, is that I have not given up dairy, and I'm kind of big on dairy. I drink milk practically every day, and most days I have a cup of yogurt with lunch. So that makes me wonder if I'm really having that much impact. Maybe if I can find something good to substitute for dairy, my impact would be greater.

I guess that is it for now.

CITATION: Weber, Christopher L. and H. Scott Matthews. "Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States." Environmental Science & Technology 42 (2008), 3508-3513.

Environmental Justice

This week I was struck by the article on environmental justice in the Wheeler book. As the article by Robert Bullard points out, this is one aspect of the environmental movement that is often overlooked. Environmentalism tends to be seen as a homogeneous movement dominated by well-off white people, and to a large extent, that seems to be true. But the environmental justice movement deals with the instances in which disadvantaged, disenfranchised people find their communities and local environment harmed because they are and/or minorities, and they don't have the power to stop it.

One of the things that struck me about the article was its mention of an incident in North Carolina that is recognized as the beginning of the environmental justice movement. Having lived in NC for a little over six years before moving to Bloomington, I had heard about the incident, but didn't know much about it, so tonight I went looking for information. Duke University (boo Blue Devils) has a good site here that takes a look at the beginnings of the environmental justice movement, as well as some other controversies in the Triangle area. In a nutshell, the residents of a poor, largely African American county in northeast North Carolina, Warren County, became the site in 1972 of a huge PCB dump. Eventually these toxic substances leaked into the county's water supplies. It took over thirty years, but the state finally began destroying these substances in 2003. Who knows what kind of damage was wrought in the meantime.

Similar events hit a little closer to home for me. In the years before I moved, Orange County (home of Chapel Hill, where I lived...trust me, it's nothing like the O.C. you saw on TV) was trying to figure out what to do with its trash. The local landfill was filling up fast and was scheduled to close soon. The county had decided to construct a waste transfer station that would serve as a way station for garbage before it was hauled elsewhere for final disposal. The question was, where should the transfer station be located? There was some talk of building it at the location of the current landfill, which is where the environmental justice aspect comes into play.

The location of the current landfill is on the north side of town. It's not far from where I used to live; in fact, I used to go running and biking up in this area often. Chapel Hill has a reputation for being a bit of a well-to-do town, and to some extent this is accurate. But it also has some areas that aren't so rich, and the area surrounding the landfill is one of those. The residents of the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood are predominantly African American and not well-off. To the best of my knowledge, electricity and running water are still at a premium in the neighborhood; despite promises from city and county officials, basic services have yet to reach everyone. It's surprising to find neighborhoods in a large-ish city (located in a big metro area) that still don't have such basic services, but there it is.

This site, also hosted by Duke (boo Blue Devils) has the details of the landfill's construction. The landfill was built in 1972, with the promise that it would be closed within ten years, and that the area would be turned into a community center. Instead, ten years later the landfill was expanded and is still in use today (though it's very close to capacity). In the meantime, the basic services the residents were promised have not been provided.

From what I hear, the waste transfer station issue has been put on hold; the county is shipping its garbage to Durham while the county commissioners sort out this mess. One good piece of news is that it appears the landfill site is off the table as a location for the transfer station, which is a victory for the area's residents. But this is a good illustration of one thing Bullard mentions: it's much harder to get rid of a facility after it's been built than to prevent it from being built in the first place. I think that's the battle residents of Rogers-Eubanks have been fighting for years.

If you're interested, you can find an article about the waste transfer station from the Triangle's weekly independent paper here. The article mentions the fact that benzene has been found in the groundwater near the landfill.

Finally, this week NPR is running a series of stories on the EPA and air pollution. This evening, there was a report on NPR about a town in northern Oklahoma where rural residents (including a number of Native Americans working low-paying jobs) spent thirteen years fighting a local chemical plant that was polluting the town. This is another example of an environmental injustice perpetrated against the disenfranchised. It's striking to me that the company would run a comparatively "clean" factory in Taiwan, but was not shy about spreading its toxic pollution among the farmers and small-town residents in Oklahoma. The article can be found here.

Happy reading.

P.S. Go Tar Heels.