Desertification - How to fix it!

Hello Readers,

I have been fairly busy the past couple of months, and so my posts have obviously been lacking. However, today I watched a TED Talk that blew my mind!

If you are interested in climate change, food justice, land management, livestock issues, and/or any number of other sustainability topics, this TED Talk is a must watch! Allan Savory, explains how to repair desertified regions in a manner that is counter-intuitive and frankly surprising.



For more information, you can also visit the TED website for a bio of Mr. Savory or the Savory Institute website.

Cheers,
Sean

Gardening in Towns

Hello Readers,

I thought I would follow up the Gardening in Schools TED Talk post from Monday with a TED Talk from Pam Warhurst about turning towns into edible public spaces.

Please enjoy,

Sean

Gardening in Schools

Hello Readers,

Here is a great TED Talk about combining schools with green urban agriculture.

Enjoy,

Sean

Weekday Veg TED Talk

Hello Readers,

Here is a good TED talk by Graham Hill, the founder of Treehugger.com, about reducing your consumption of meat by being a vegetarian on weekdays.

I found it interesting, because it reflects an experience that is very similar to my own attempt to be a vegetarian. At the beginning of the year, I started off by trying to dive in and become a complete vegetarian, "cold tofu" if you will. However, by about the end of February, my desire of a good cheese steak or a bacon cheese burger was gnawing on my taste buds. As a result, by April I had already 'slipped up' a couple of times. However, in the mean time I had otherwise maintained a healthy, mostly-fresh-food based vegetarian diet. Rather than feeling guilty about the few times that I really wanted some meat, I decided it would be more environmentally-friendly, healthier, and more personally sustainable to only eat meat roughly one day per month rather than giving up on trying to be a vegetarian all together.

So if you have tried to be a vegetarian or are thinking about making the jump, I strongly encourage you to watch this TED talk about Weekday Veg.

Plant-ly,

Sean

Almost Food SNL clip

Hello Readers,

For those of you interested in eating real food and concerned about overly-processed food-like food substitutes, I think you will enjoy this clip from Saturday Night Live (embedded from Hulu).



Enjoy,

Sean

Food: Low Energy Storage, Local, In Season

Hello Readers,

I recently came across an article from TreeHugger about storing produce without using plastic containers. At the bottom of the article, they included a Youtube video:



The video is from a website: http://www.savefoodfromthefridge.com/, which features several tips for storing food without using the a refrigerator (or electricity). In fact, it seems like some of the tips allow the food to keep better for even longer.

Of course, what is the point of storing food without using electricity, if it has already been shipped from a thousand miles away or more? Here are a few websites that can help you figure out what food is in season in your area:

• Epicurious' Seasonal Ingredient Map - This website has a map of the United States with some of the fruits and vegetables that are in season each month in each state. The map does not appear to be entirely complete, but each state will list up to ten in-season fruits and vegetables per state per month at a time.
• NRDC's Smarter Living "Eat Local" Page - This website seems to have a more comprehensive list of what is in-season. The map of the US can be filtered by the early and late parts of any month, and when a state is selected you are given a full list of the produce throughout the year. Also, there is a tab that allows you to find nearby farmer's markets and an option to download an iPhone app.
• Eat the Seasons UK Website - This appears to be a fairly comprehensive list of the in-season food in the UK and Ireland, including fruits, vegetables, and meat/fish. It offers an in-season 'food of the week' and denotes foods that are imported. In some cases, the foods contain links to lengthy descriptions, including history, nutrition, tips and recipes. This website has a US/Canada version, but it generalizes for the entire continent and many of the links do not seem to function.
• Local Harvest - This is perhaps the best known and most comprehensive website about local and in-season foods. Users can search for CSAs, Farmer's Markets, and even buy in-season food from the website. If you are looking for where to buy food, this is a great website; however, if you just want to know what is in-season in your state from a quick online-only search, this website may not be for you.

Good Luck,

Sean Diamond

Eat Less Chicken?

Hello Readers,

I was surprised to discover that Chick-fil-a (the fast food restaurant chain), which has an advertising campaign including the slogan "Eat Mor Chikin", is suing a small-scale t-shirt designer from Vermont.

Curiously, the t-shirt design that spurred the lawsuit simply has the words "Eat More Kale", which is spelled correctly and is displayed in a different typeface (aka font) than the scratchy Chick-fil-a advertisements. As such, it does seem like Chick-fil-a should have any case at all. However, according to the website created by the t-shirt designer, the fast food chain has apparently sued (and won and/or settled with) 30 other organizations that have used the phrase "Eat More _________".

As a result, I have to ask would it also be copyright infringement for the t-shirt designer to start making shirts that simply say "Eat Less Chicken"?  While it probably would not be, it would be unfortunate to see the t-shirt maker step into another opportunity for a lawsuit under the Food Libel Laws.

Instead, the t-shirt designer has partnered with a documentary filmmaker to bring the issue to light. You can find more information on Treehugger and on the documentary website for "A Defiant Dude".

Below, I have included an amusing Youtube video that was posted by filmmaker, and for those of you who have not heard of kale before I suggest looking for it in your local grocery store or farmer's market. It is a leafy vegetable that will be somewhere near the lettuce and spinach. If your local grocer does not carry it, ask about them to order some!

Enjoy,

Sean

Movie Review: Forks Over Knives

Hello Readers,

Yesterday, I watched the documentary Forks Over Knives written and directed by Lee Fulkerson. The trailer for the movie (embedded below) can also be found on the movie's website.



As you can gather from the trailer, the documentary focuses on the connection between dietary choices and medical conditions (including: heart disease, cancer, and diabetes). The backbone of Forks Over Knives is two extended interviews with doctors T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., which is crosscut with other food and medical experts and the personal stories of people (including the director) who have seen the benefits of a 'plant-based' diet.

Dr. Campbell's research included analyzing a broad sampling medical cases in a variety of counties in mainland China, which is published in a book that he co-authored with his son: The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. Throughout the movie, Dr. Campbell describes the correlations that he discovered between a diet of animal-based foods (e.g. meat, dairy, eggs) and medical conditions (especially different types of cancer).

Dr. Esselstyn's research involves much more depth than breadth. His study followed roughly 20 individuals with heart disease and related conditions for 20 years. He required his patients/subjects to follow dietary restrictions such as reducing their intake of animal-based foods, and he closely monitored their diet, overall health, and medical conditions. Dr. Esselstyn works at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, has published a large number of academic articles (many of which can be found through Google Scholar), and maintains a website about his recommendations: http://www.heartattackproof.com/.

In addition to the primary thrust of the documentary, Forks Over Knives sprinkles in some non-health-related benefits of and potential barriers to promoting plant-based diets in America. Among the tangential issues that the documentary mentions (in some cases advocatively) are the connection between climate change and meat production and the stereo-type that veganism is non-masculine.

Overall, this documentary has a very convincing message that a plant-based diet can improve a person's health. However, it does very little to offer potential criticisms of the findings of the interviewees. From a preliminary search, it appears that there has been little-to-no direct criticism of Dr. Esselstyn's findings or suggestions; however, it is evident that the results of Dr. Campbell's research have been met with some criticism.

For a little bit of balance, here are some criticisms that are articulate and well referenced:

• 'The Truth About the China Study' from cholestoral-and-health.com
• 'The China Study: A Formal Analysis and Response' from rawfoodsos.com

While I cannot vouch for the authors of the criticisms or their conclusions myself, the criticisms should give you a good basis to discover the counterpoints to the arguments raised by the film.

I recommend Forks Over Knives for people trying to start a conversation about healthy eating. It also offers some helpful tidbits for vegans and vegetarians attempting to explain their dietary choices to friends and family members. This is not a movie for kids as it focuses a lot on its middle-aged cast; however, it might be good for older teenagers and twenty-somethings that are interested in continuing to feel young and healthy for decades to come.

Apartment Gardening

Hello Readers (or in this case Watchers),

Please enjoy this TED talk about apartment gardening.

Sustainably yours,

Sean Diamond

zero packaging grocery store

Hello Readers,

This week I am going to focus on food subsidies. As I pull my thoughts together on this matter, I wanted to point out a "new" type of grocery store that is being created in Austin, Texas. It is a grocery store that specializes in bulk foods with no disposable packaging. Check out this article about the store called In.gredients or watch the youtube video:




This is a great idea for a grocery store. In fact, it would be great if every grocery store was like this. However, I do need to point out that this idea is not new. This is exactly what open-air food markets and farmer's markets have done for hundreds of years.

Really, the question should be why did grocery stores stop offering bulk foods as their primary way to sell food? And why is every meal sold packaged individually in two or three layers of plastic?

Peripherally, I will be answering these questions and other food related questions while trying to tackle the issue of excessive food subsidies in the United States.

Stay tuned,

Sean Diamond

Intro to USDA subsidies

Hello Readers,

In preparation for the next topic in my The Times They Are A-Changin' series, I encourage you to take a look at this Climate Progress blog post about USDA food subsidies. Here are some visuals from the Climate Progress posting:

Don't worry, the rest of the conversation about Social Security reform will continue on Wednesday and Friday this week.

Happy Tuesday,

Sean Diamond

Food Supply & Climate Change in the New York Times

Hello Readers,

I don't have time to analyze this article right now, but the significance may lie more in the fact that the article was published than in how thorough it is...

A Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself

...published in the New York Times.

Check back for more posts this week.

Good Night,
Sean

Patenting Plants

Hello Readers,

I was watching the movie The Future of Food, which describes the infamous Monsanto lawsuits against farmers whose crops have been contaminated by Monsanto's GMO crops. The Future of Food also goes into a variety of food production related topics. If you eat food, you really need to watch this movie!

I will not spoil the movie. Instead, I will point out just one of the topics that struck me: the fact that Monsanto has already (and has the ability to) patent crops and seeds that they did not develop!

According to the movie, an individual or corporation has the ability to patent the genes of any crop or seed that have not yet been patented regardless of the fact that such seeds probably occur naturally. Perhaps I am misinterpreting this straightforward quote from the movie; however, if this is true, it is a true outrage. Also, it is completely counter to 'novel' and 'non-obvious' requirement of patent law. See the quote below from the US Patent Office website:

In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined in the patent law, which provides that an invention cannot be patented if: "(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent," or "(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year prior to the application for patent in the United States . . ."

Clearly, any non-GMO seed genes must have been around and in use for more than a year before a patent was filed! Can somebody please explain how to patent something as 'new' that has been around for centuries if not millennia?

I highly recommend watching this movie. It was released in 2004, so it may seem like some of the references are out of date. Unfortunately, they are not. The issues presented are still current today!

Thanks,

Sean Diamond

Sustainable Recipes

Hello Readers,

I have been doing a lot of cooking over the past couple years, so I have decided to start posting a few of them. Here is the first one (it doesn't have a name yet, but it is delicious).

You need:

• 2-3 potatoes (the regular brown kind)
• 1/2 cup of Arborio rice (the kind for making risotto... probably in the pasta aisle)
• 1/2 cup of lentils (I used brown, but any kind will probably work)
• 12-ish white mushrooms
• 1 small zucchini (or what the local grocery store produce section insists is a 'green squash' and British people call 'courgette')
• 1 small yellow zucchini (really it should look exactly the same as a green zucchini except for the color... whatever you call it)
• A few table spoons of olive oil
• A few cups of water
• Your favorite spices (I recommend garlic, ground peppercorn, red pepper flakes, etc.)

The directions are simple...

1. Fill a medium sized pot halfway with water and start boiling the water. Add the lentils.
2. Scrub any dirt off the potatoes. Then chop them into roughly half-inch cubes. No need to peel them or worry about the exact shape. Dump the potatoes into the boiling water once you are finished chopping them.
3. Let the potatoes and lentils continue to boil for at least 15 minutes (25 if you have time). Then start with the rest of the stuff.
4. Dump the Arborio rice into an uncovered sauce pan with water (use 3-to-1 ratio of water to rice... in this case 1.5 cups of water). Leave it to boil. (The potatoes and lentils should still be boiling that this point.)
5. Dice the mushrooms, and chop the zucchinis into disks that are less than 1/4" thick. When you are finished, the water should have just about boiled off. The sauce pan should only have fluffy Arborio rice.
6. Add the mushrooms, zucchini bits, dashes of your spices, an extra quarter cup of water, and liberal amounts of olive oil to the rice. Cook these ingredients until the mushrooms and zucchinis are soft.
7. After the potatoes and lentils have been boiling for at least 30 minutes (the longer the better), strain the water off them. Then add all the ingredients to the pot, remove from the heat, and mix them together.
8. Let it cool down just a bit.

Serve with pita bread and your favorite cheese.

Let me know if you have a name for it or if you have any changes to suggest.

Thanks,
Sean

Dickinson College ORGANIC Farm

Hello Readers,

The farm run by my alma mater, Dickinson College, is now certified as USDA organic (see the original article). This certification verifies that the farm 'adheres to an approved approach of agricultural food production that involves building and enhancing the soil naturally, environmental protection and avoidance of toxic or synthetic substances such as pesticides'. The farm is run by college employees and staffed by many student volunteers and interns.

For several years the college has been growing food for the college's dining services and supporting a CSA for members of the college community including students, alumni, and employees. Additionally, the farm recently announced that the farm will now be raising cattle to be served as grass-fed beef at the college dining hall; however, official certification will not be sought for the livestock.

What is your alma mater doing to improve the sustainability of their dining services menu?

~Sean

GMO 2.0: mitigation for consumption

Hello Reader,

I realize it's been a while since I've posted anything, so I apologize if you've been waiting patiently for my next post. In any event, I was reading the New York Times online when I came across an Op-Ed piece: "End Animal Pain on Factory Farms" by Adam Shriver, a doctoral student from Washington University.

To briefly summarize some of the key points in the article:

• In the past 35 years, American red-meat consumption per capita has stayed at 100 pounds per year.
• Increased demand for meat has lead to "factory farms" (i.e. animals packed into very tiny areas and fed diets that are not healthy, but cause them to become meat more efficiently).
• The factory farms cause painful conditions and health problems in the farm animals.
• In response to this, neuroscience offers a solution: using genetic modification to farm animals that reduces their ability feel pain.
• The process is considered safe for human consumers because "animals have specific proteins removed, rather than new ones inserted, so there’s no reason to think that their meat would pose more health risks for humans than ordinary meat does."

Given the description of the author at the bottom of the article, I can only presume that this article is written from an academic perspective. As such, I am going to assume that the facts presented are more or less accurate.

Naturally, in the spirit of academic debate, I would like to question a few of these assumptions. I shall start with the last bullet point before discussing the first four in aggregate. As a note to the reader, I am beginning with what I perceive to be the area of my lesser expertise and moving toward that of my greater expertise.


GMO 2.0: the Pain-Resistant Pig

At this point, I have no reason to doubt the quoted text in the last bullet point. That is to say that the text itself does not give me pause. Instead, I am concerned by what is not said.

By drawing attention to the most direct and obvious concern of the average reader, their own health or perhaps that of their friends and family, the author has (perhaps inadvertently) drawn attention away from the other concerns raised by genetic engineering. I am not referring to wild science fiction fantasies of runaway mutations, zombie-esque plagues, or anything of that nature, so do not mistake my meaning in that way. Rather I refer to realistic concerns that have already been raised surrounding genetic engineering.

The issues that spring to my mind most immediately are that of viability and liability. The latter issue, legal liability, has been discussed at length following the Monsanto patent infringement law suits, and is the focus of an article in the Washburn Law Journal (McEowen 2004), so I will not discuss it further here. However, the former issue, viability, is something that I would like to focus on briefly. Ignoring for the moment the animal rights issues, I want to consider the practical issue of a species viability once a pain-resistant strain of DNA has been introduced.

In one paragraph of the article it is stated that the mice, which have been used to test the genetic engineering, "do not avoid situations where they experience such pain". However, the following paragraph states that, using the same methods, in cows and pigs "the sensory dimension of the animals’ pain would be preserved, [so] they would still be able to recognize and avoid, when possible, situations where they might be bruised or otherwise injured."

To me this seems contradictory, so I may be missing some crucial information. However, it begs the question, will the pain-resistant farm animals avoid being injured or not? Also, despite the similarities in neural structures, would a translation from mice to pigs produce the same behavioral results? And in the end would engineered pigs, and their offspring that may or may not be interbred with non-engineered pigs, be able to survive in current condition?.

Or just as importantly, would they be able to survive in conditions outside of factory farms where the issue may not be crowding but predators or other dangers? These sorts of issues would become paramount if the US ever decided (or was forced) to shift away from factory farms. They would also become an issue if despite any regulations or obstacles these farm animals would find their way onto farms in undeveloped countries. While I must concede that pain-resistant farm animals may be more robust than my imagination leads me to believe, it seems like a legitimate concern to me.

Mitigation for Consumption

I want to make it clear that my intention is not pick on all of those people who are simply doing they're jobs. I am also not saying that they aren't complicate. Instead I would like to question what the "choices" are. To do this, I am going to focus a little bit more attention on my first four bullet points above.

In the article the increase in meat consumption was offered as an unavoidable situation. Therefore it follows that since the meat consumption (and therefore the factory farm scenario) cannot be avoided, it is logical to try to mitigate the pain of the animals while they are alive and, as alluded to in the article, the unnecessary, premature loss of animals (meat) and the subsequent loss of revenue to the factory farms. If all of these stipulations are assumed conditions (and GMO concerns are more or less irrelevant as indicated by the last bullet point), then I would likely come to the same conclusion as the author.

To summarize this line of thoughts into one, pain-resistant farm animals are an ethical and financial means of mitigation for the current levels of meat consumption in the US (and will be/are for all other countries whose consumption patterns are emulating those of the US).

Thus, I must put it to the reader as to whether this is ethically or financially appropriate. To help with the decision, I'll offer some further clarifications.

Assuming the statistics in the article are true (i.e. red-meat consumption in the US has stayed at about 100 pounds (about 45 kg) per capita per year) and the population has grown from just over 200 million to just over 300 million in the US, the US consumes about 100 billion pounds more red-meat per year than it did in 1975! If these sorts of figures were extrapolated to the rest of the world or even just population growth in the rest of the world, such a figure would be astronomically larger.

Of course, 100 billion pounds is just a really big number, so let us bring this figure into focus. This is not just saying that the average American is eating 100 pounds of red-meat per year (translation: 400 quarter pound burgers per year... or more than one quarter pound burger per day!). The word "average" in the previous sentence means that even considering that many Americans (vegetarians and infants and many others) are not eating multiple portions of red-meat per day in addition to all of the other meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and sweets, Americans on aggregate are eating a lot of red-meat. However, I suspect few of them would even think twice about a day where they had red-meat as part of breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Based on the description in the article, it would seem that meeting increased consumption with factory farms is an ugly business, and pain-resistant engineering is an acceptable (or even morally superior) cosmetic fix. Perhaps the author even recognizes this poetic justice in the opening paragraph wherein he refers to a reduction in cosmetics testing on animals over the past 35 years.

I find the implications of this poetic justice particularly intriguing in that it implies that US society takes more issue with mistreating animals by applying cosmetics than it does with altering animal DNA. And even more intriguing in that it is perceived to be more socially acceptable to do this than ask people to question, change, and/or make them aware of their choices in food consumption.

In conclusion, I would like to ask the reader whether it is better to attempt to mitigate the side effects of such consumption patterns or instead alter the perceived need such patterns of consumption. Personally, moderating red-meat consumption does not seem like too much to ask, but then again I am not everybody else.

I hope you have enjoyed my analysis and musings. I look forward to reading yours in the comments below.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond