One of the interesting aspects of Julia Child’s memoirs is precisely her disregard for the then new industrialization of food production in America. She doesn’t measure words when describing her disdain for pressure cookers (“the stinking, nasty, bloody pressure cooker… [i]t made everything taste nasty!), margarine (which she called “the other spread”) or even the quality of produce and meats. When researching poultry for her cooking book, she came to the conclusion that the “American poultry industry had made it possible to grow fine-looking fryer in record time and sell it at a reasonable price, but no one mentioned that the result usually tasted like the stuffing inside of a teddy bear.”

After books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, or films like Food Inc., we now know that the process made more than simply make food taste bad. In the video below, Bill Maher interviews Michael Pollan on the subject:

Also interesting is this article on the NYT in which Pollan talks about how “American cooking became an spectator sport” in which we have become completely fascinated with cooking shows and celebrity chefs while fewer of us actually cook. Most people assume cooking is complicated, time-consuming, and not worth the effort since it is so much cheaper to simply buy ready-to-eat food. That’s very sad. As Michael Pollan points out in the video above, “what happens on your plate represents your most important engagement with the natural world.” It is also our clearest engagement with ourselves and mental and physical well-being.
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While Pollan is great and I’m a big fan, he’s not always right, of course. For some interesting critiques of Pollan’s latest article, take a look at this and this.

Michael Ruhlman offers another interesting comment on Pollan’s article and the influence of Julia Child. Take a look here.

But the one part of his comment that stuck to my mind was when he referred to the impact on the poor of the world. I confess I know next to nothing to what extent North American food production impacts the rest of the world beyond the nefarious health effect of the growing popularity of western fast food in many parts of the world. I’ve since learned of two examples of the devastating effect that North American agribusiness have had on the developing world. The first one was in India. In the 1970s and 1980s biotech companies convinced Indian cotton farmers that their patented seeds would result in higher yields and more profits. Entire regions switched to these genetically-modified cotton seeds only to witness year after year their yields plumetting and their costs soaring as they were obligated by contract to buy the seeds and pesticides from companies like Monsanto. Over 1,500 farmers committed suicide in that country because of the trap they found themselves in. There’s lots written about it, and campaigns have spread to get rid of Monsanto in India. Cases related to it have reached the Supreme Court in India.

Now a similar thing is happening in Iraq. Following the US invasion of Iraq, American policies there have compelled Iraqi farmers to abandon 10,000 years of agricultural practice to use Monsanto’s seed and plant products if they wanted to do business with the US. This has generated all kinds of concerns and fear that what happened in India will repeat itself in Iraq. This seems entirely the wrong way to get the Iraqi people to understand the Americans are on their side.

If you are interested in these issues, I highly recommend this recent article on Vitality magazine by Helke Ferrie. A physical anthropologist and a medical science writer, Ferrie draws attention to Prince Charles’ campaign against GMOs for its negative impact on the world:

Prince Charles, ignoring the pressure to shut up exerted by Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, called for an end to biotech farming, quoting Mahatma Gandhi’s warning against “commerce without morality” and “science without humanity.” He was referring to the suicides among Indian farmers, terminator technology, and recent research conducted by Syngenta which used children for GM food trials – sponsored by Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Prince also called attention to the lie that biotechnology is necessary to feed the world. In fact, according to organizations studying hunger and food shortages, the world produces annually about twice as much food as required – through non-biotech farming. Organic methods consistently outperform conventional and biotech, methods: Brazil and Ethiopia increased their yields by 250% when they switched to organic methods.

For years, the Prince was made fun of for his views on the environment. His concerns have been proven justified time and time again. The problem is that most people assume that technology, anything that is “modern”, is better than traditional of common-sensical approaches. If it doesn’t involve technology and some form of fancy gadget, it is somehow old-fashioned and in need of “modernizing”. Let’s hope we shed this assumption and make more careful choices. The implications are vast.

On monday I tried another of her recipes: Fried Rice with Scallions, Edamame & Tofu. It was very good! It also looked amazing.

The movie opened the last edition of Toronto’s International Film Festival and was released in threatres across the US last Friday to much media attention, leading to some interesting discussions. The screening we attended this past Monday was followed by a Q&A session with local activists as well as Gary Hirshberg, founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farm and one of the people interviewed in the film. There were no surprises for me in the movie. It felt like a film version of the Omnivore’s Dilemma and dealt with the dark side of the American food industry (whose model is exported all over the world, so don’t think you are off the hook for living in Canada or other countries), and deals with everything from the rise of food-born illnesses, the development of deadly strands of e-coli or salmonella, factory farm workers, the powerlessness of farmers who refuse to play the game according to the big industry’s rules, and the presumed powerlessness of consumers. It’s dark and it leaves you stuck between disgust, anger, and frustration.

The basic message sent by Gary and all the others is that although we have known that there are serious problems with the food industry for years, nothing will be done until we are able to make it a mainstream issue rather than a concern of activists only. And to get there, people need to know where their food come from and what is hidden in it. It’s all about transparency and education really. You can’t just pretend it doesn’t affect you. That people are over-reacting. I mean, we are all under the illusion we know what we eat. But that can often be an illusion. Take hamburguers, for example, the quintessential North American food. We all know that eating too many burguers is not really good for us but we assume that’s because too much meat is bad and that’s what burguers are, right? Ground beef. With perhaps a bit of preservative. But do you know that the entire meat industry in the US is controlled by four companies? And that 80% of the hamburguer meat available in the market is washed with ammonia? And that it is washed with ammonia because that meat originally had a much higher content of e-coli bacteria than meat ever had before. You know why? Because cows are fed corn, which their bodies have not evolved to be able to digest. So either you eat hamburguer laced with ammonia or you may share Kevin’s fate.

I have writtenbefore on this blog about the importance of knowing what you eat. Some people tell me it is too difficult to eat healthy, that they don’t have the time or the knowledge, or that organic food is too expensive. That’s not necessarily true. Good food can be deceavingly simple. If you are not sure where to start in the kitchen, I highly recommend any of Mark Bittman’s books (or even his site) since they are very didactic and based on principles of cooking rather than holding on to steadfast recipes. As for organic food being more expensive than “conventional” food, yes, that’s true, but only if you don’t consider the hidden societal, health, and environmental costs of this so-called conventional food or the real reason fast food is so cheap. The real reason is that since the entire American food industry is controlled by four or five companies, these multibillion-dollar players have enough power and influence to bend food safety rules and guarantee massive subsidies, allowing them to sell food at well below the cost of production (incidentally, conditions in these factories are so dire that these business have to rely on hiring the powerless – such as illegal immigrants – to work in them) . If sustainable farms could get half of the same subsidies, you wouldn’t have to choose based on price. Also, if there was more demand for organic products, more organic products would be produced. We see that beginning to happen. During the Q&A Gary Hirshberg mentioned how his company’s decision to go for organic sugar made a huge impact on its price and availability. When they made their first orders, organic sugar cost nearly five times the price or regular sugar. With the higher demand, more farmers turned to organic farming methods (which achieve the same yields as “conventional” methods) and began to produce more sugar. Now Stonyfield is able to buy sugar for the same price, if not cheaper, than regular sugar.

There is certainly a segment of the population than cannot afford a 50-cent difference on a particular produce. That is a shame and I’m glad there are organizations dedicated to making organic food more accessible. But many of us can afford to pay a little more to ensure not only optimal health but also encourage the organic food industry. It’s all a matter of priorities. And my health has priority over any other luxury in my life because without it, let’s face it, nothing else really matters.

So do yourself and the planet a favour. Learn about the issues. Watch the movie.

If you have trouble playing the video above, watch it on the official site.

See the discussion on my original blog.

Read the review in the NYT.

Having said all of that, I have to say the week didn’t start all that well since I wasn’t all that inspired when I went to the market on saturday and ended up not buying much. That has meant a few trips to the local stores and a lot of creativity with leftovers.

For today I made a meal out of the quinoa tabouleh I made on the weekend by adding some lima beans to it. I was going to add some tuna but forgot to buy them… For dinner I’m having a bit of the leftovers, some hummus, and some kefir for dessert.

For tomorrow, I’m thinking of using some of the radish salsa I made on the weekend as the basic seasoning for a rice and chickpea salad. I’m cooking some brown short grain rice and I’ll mix it with a can or chickpeas and the radish salsa (I have nearly 2 cups of it left). That should take care of lunch tomorrow and the next day at the least.

I’ll update this post as the week progresses in case anyone is interested.

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Day 3 – I felt a bit more inspired today, and tried Syrian rice, homemade Babaganoush, and a spinach & chickpea stew. The red/orange bits in the middle is some left over tofu with tomato sauce. It was so good that I’m seriously ready to explode any minute…

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Day 5 – success! We went from Monday to Friday without eating out once. It wasn’t difficult and I didn’t cook every day. Most of the dishes I made had at least four servings and would last more than a day. The above dish, for example, lasted quite a while as the spinach dish and the Syrian rice were quite large. So on Thursday I made a fried rice with the rice and spinach by adding an egg and eating it with some kimchi.

1. Eat fewer animal products than average
2. Eat all the plants you can manage
3. Make legumes part of your life
4. Whole grains beat refined carbs
5. Snack on nuts or olives
6. When it comes to fats, embrace olive oil
7. Everything else is a treat, and you can have treats daily

Numbers 1 & 2 are the hardest for those in a strict meat-and-potatoes kind of diet. But you can cut down gradually, making dishes that combine meat and grains to reduce the proportion of meat. Number 7 will depend on how you feel. If you are feeling fine, losing weight and your doctor is happy, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t indulge on your daily dessert but if you are not getting the results you want, it might be better to reduce the treats.

His plan is not really a diet in a faddish sense. He doesn’t preach we must eat all organic although he admits that eating what is produced locally and in season would be best not only for us but for the environment. And this is where all this eating sanely leads to – better health for us and for the earth we live in. Bittman started becoming more conscious of his eating habits after he read a scientific report that showed that the meat industry was responsible for producing one-fifth of greenhouse gases, much more than the transportation industry. At the same time his doctor raised the red flag telling him his cholesterol and blood sugars were out of wack. By switching the proportions of animal and vegetable products, cutting junk food and prossessed food (anything with more than 5 ingredients or with ingredients with more than five syllables), he lost 15 pounds in the first month, his lab work turned out normal in the second month, and within four months he slept better than ever before, lost 35 pounds (his weight eventually stabilized) and he felt confortable and well with his new eating style.Without counting calories, nutrients, feeling hungry, or rebounding.

Makes a lot of sense to me and I do try to follow many of these tips in my daily life.

Worth a read if you feel your health is below optimal and/or you are concerned about the environment.

Check the Globe and Mail review of the book.

I lived in the US when I was 6 years old and fell under the spell of Ronald McDonald and his friends. The year after we returned to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro had its first McDonald’s and my brothers and I were in heaven. We loved it, as many children do. In Brazil, North-American fast food franchises is not really the cheap food of the masses – there’s plenty of cheaper, healthier alternatives around – but rather, it is considered a treat to go to McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. My brothers still consider it a big treat, take their children to it, and speak of McDonald’s lovingly whenever they happen to live in a city without a franchise. I slowly weaned out, becoming more suspicious of the kind of food served in fast food restaurants here in Canada. I would spend over a year without going to McDonald’s and then when I did, my stomach always hurt afterward. And after watching the video mentioned above, my suspicions only get solidified.

I have nothing against eating hamburgers, french fries, muffins, etc, but I’d rather make those at home or eat them in places where you know that french fries are simply potatoes that have been cut that day and fried. Not some freak of nature that has conquered aging and looks unspoiled after three years.

Click here for an interview with Michael Pollan