Slow Food or Flying Pickles?

Seems like we in the U.S.are not the only ones with a confused, global food supply.

http://www.theworld.org/node/24582

This short story from PRI's The World tells the tale of cornichons imported from India, and French cucumber farmers caving in to the new arrangement and losing a long standing tradition.

One of the dilemmas posed here seem particularly telling: If you are what you eat, but you don't know what you are eating, what happens to your identity?

Americans can do anything

There are stacks of little notes to self on my desk and my desktop - things to post or write about that have been delayed. Travel in early February with iffy internet access followed by a doozy of a headcold and then the catching up with work and life have not been conducive to reflection.

Now it's Lent and I'm air travel free for almost two months. I'll be devoting some time to thinking and writing.

But let's start with the latest thing to catch my imagination:
Baconnaise.

Jon Stewart's response to Bobby Jindal's response to the President's Tuesday address focused on Jindal's account of a childhood trip to a Louisiana super market with his India-born father. There Jindal pere opined that American's can do anything.

Indeed they can, as this recently introduced product, from a company whose slogan is Everything Should Taste Like Bacon, proves.

Baconnaise is more than a sandwich spread. It's a dip for potato chips and french fries. Thinking about this would trigger my gag reflex even if I hadn't seen Stewart's shennanigans last evening.

But wait - there's more - that good old American can-do - Baconnaise comes in lite - with 1/3 fewer calories.

And - hold on - there's still more - Baconnaise doesn't actually contain any bacon - no CAFOs were involved in the production of this product. It is certified Kosher and vegetarian!

A quick internet search revealed all this - but not a detailed list of ingredients, or what is meant by "bacon flavoring". I guess I will have to go shopping just to read the label.

the peanut saga continues

I discovered that I had a potentially contaminated product in my cupboard - a Larabar, peanut butter cookie flavor. I've been using this brand of snack bars for travel because they seem to include only ingredients I would use in cooking - but maybe not?

Larabar is now a subsidiary of General Mills, and the informative operator, when I called for my refund, thought I would be cheered to know that Muir Glen and Cascadian Farms are also expressions of Betty Crocker goes natural.

I wish I had the time today to go through the list of brands at the market which we think of as alternative to centralized, industrialized, globally sourced and produced brands - and find out who they really are.

Meanwhile, the New York Times ran this article on irradiation - why it might have worked but maybe not on dirty peanut butter -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/02irradiate.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
What the article lacks is a description of how irradiation really works.
And the comments are worth reading if you want to know how fear and illogic on one side (anti-irradiators) and smugness on the other (pooh-poohing scientists) don't lead to meaningful conversation.

Probably my favorite line was in the comments, discussing food safety generally. "Why should they [food processors] profit from our risk?"

Local produce and honesty

I haven't been going to my local farm stand much. I've been in and out of town a lot, picking up produce specials at Oliver's and even Raley's once in a while, and eating greens from my garden. But when I went there Sunday for seasonal roots I saw a new feature. EVERYHING is labeled as to origin. In the past I have always found out where things are from by asking - and if the folks don't know they will find out. Everything grown there has been labeled "Imwalle's". But now there's no need to ask where the other stuff is from. Why can't every market do this?

Okay, I lied...

A few weeks ago I told a correspondent that the thought of meat did not nauseate me. I was wrong, at least in some instances. Apparently this bacon and sausage bomb
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/01/28/dining/0128-BACON_index.html
has been making the rounds of the internet. Wonder why no one sent it to me? Well, here's the truth - if I am going to consume 5000 calories, it is not going to be in the form of bacon and pork sausage. It's called the Bacon Explosion. Think about it.

WOW

This morning, as I was trying to drag myself out of bed, I listened to the founder of Worth Our Weight helping out with a KRCB fundraiser.

http://worthourweight.com/

Evelyn Cheatham noted that the first thing she does with the underserved young people who participate in the culinary apprentice program is sit down around the table and eat a decent meal with them. For some this is a first. The drive-up window is often their primary meal source, and some even question the need to sit and eat. But after a few weeks of this, most begin to question fast food without her saying anything critical about it.

So who wants to go there for lunch with me some Friday or Saturday soon?

Things begin to come to light

I was surprised the other morning on my way to Berkeley to hear our local CBS radio affiliate feature a story, with good background info, on the recent findings of Pepsico about the environmental cost of their Tropicana Orange Juice.

Apparently Pepsico's British affiliate assessed the footprint of one of their products, and when the manager who spearheaded this moved to the U.S. he led a plan to have an outside agency do the math on several key Pepsico products.

One half-gallon of Tropicana o.j. is responsible for 3.75 lbs of CO2.

But then there's the interesting part. 60% of that is a result of growing the oranges and making the juice. 58% of that 60% - more than one third of the total CO2- is due to what Pepsico in their press release calls "grove management" - a lovely euphemism for making and spreading the huge amounts of synthetic high nitrogen (from natural gas) fertilizer required for high yield orange mono-cropping.

Whatever Pepsico calls it, the cost of industrial agriculture is beginning to be revealed.

I wonder if the results of this will encourage or discourage other food manufacturers from risking a little transparency?

Back to the KCBS story - they had a UC Davis ag chemistry prof comment on the story. She talked about organic; but she also talked about the wonderful things we can grow in California without big synthetic fertilizer N inputs. Let's hear it for TOMATOES!