Good news for US eaters

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Those who eat food can enjoy the fruits of President Obama’s recent selection for deputy agriculture secretary.  Look for more stringent laws about how food can be labeled, especially organic and antibiotic free labeled foods.

“President Obama has tapped Kathleen Merrigan, an academic and former congressional aide who helped write federal organic food-labeling rules, to be deputy agriculture secretary. The White House announced the pick yesterday, drawing cheers from food-safety advocates, who have pushed for more stringent labeling regs.”

- from Scientific American, 60-second science blog

Wall-Mart will sell local produce, locally

…I read the good news on my favorite foodie blog, Eating Alabama. This is really exciting, not because I shop at the Wart, or because it validates my previous post, but because it will put nearly half a billion dollars into local farms this year.

Wall-Mart is famous for supply chain management, so it is nice to see they finally realized the benefits of buying farmer John’s tomatoes rather than shipping them from a hot-house 3,000 miles away.
Is this caused by high gas prices? Will they sell local food in season, then switch to oil-soaked food in the winter? I can imagine the shock when people realize that food grown in their zipcode is fresher than imported winter crops. There may even be an uprising! In Pynchon fashion everybody will sound together in unison:

Down with Iceberg,

Don’t feed me shallots.

Throw out the t’maters,

We’re onto your plot.

Give us what’s fresh,

Or cans of what’s not.

Cuz’ we have the power

To buy or let rot.

Food packaging… new spin on same old thing.

So today’s NYT article entitled “Solution or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth” starts to address some of the questions I and others have raised. The food industry is going for more efficient containers to ship, but they have not addressed the plastic jug, cardboard palette, cellophane wrapping, etc. all that gets recycled after a single use… and the reason for the efficient containers is to improve long distance transport of milk, which in-and-of itself is dubious.

Fair warning for these seemingly good ideas, but they are still working within the conventional system. No time is spent on real alternatives like local daries with their glass jugs and short supply chains, or changing neighborhood zoning laws to allow egg laying chickens and milk cows. My great grandparents used to have both types of animals in suburban Knoxville, TN just 80 yrs ago.

Check out The Urban Chicken for animal husbandry laws in your town.

Food packaging is corporate foil

Sunday is grocery day in my house, and it is always a struggle to decide where to go. Over the last few weeks I have been a regular visitor to the Shattuck and El Cerrito farmers markets and a produce only grocery store, the Monterey Market. Today, Wendy and I were lookin’ for some non-farmers market essentials like toilet paper, soap, and mouthwash. We talked of Trader Joe’s or Safeway but I hate that everything comes prepackaged. Do I need a box inside a package inside a container? When did food packaging become so esoteric? Does it really help prevent spoilage or is it just more surface area for advertising!! This is a real turn-off. Just because I can recycle the packaging doesn’t mean I want to have to do that in the first place. I think the whole food industry is missing the boat.

Sara Fuller has a nice blog post on food packaging as part of a group locavore experience called Eating Alabama. Here is a snipett:

I realized this when my parents came for a visit and I bought “conventional” groceries. We had to throw away bags from potato chips, paper from cereal boxes, milk containers from soy milk. It adds up. Even if you think that how you are eating is ethical- the organic potato chips or the antibiotic free milk, there is still the issue of waste to consider. How we make decisions about food should not exclude this concern.

Thanks Sara for bringing up this great point. I am going to do my part and try to buy food that doesn’t come prepackaged or have advertising on it. When I get produce, grains, nuts, and dried fruit in bulk I’ll try to reuse the plastic bag. Bringing cloth bags to the store also helps. When I eat out, I have a nifty little tin for leftovers a-la Sigg, a Swiss-based company. If all this works I’ll know because the trash can will need emptying much less.

For more on food and food packaging:

• an article about what you can do from the Univ. of Florida
• an article on the differences between the EU and US
• a new book by Barbara Kingsolver :: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
• image from another good resource, Californians Against Waste