Localism

You are never going to believe this. We may finally have a Farm Bill. Slow Food USA has been tracking this piece of legislation since the beginning and here is where it is ending up…By: Richard McCarthy, Executive Director of Slow Food USA You are never going to believe this. We may finally have a Farm Bill. Slow Food USA has been tracking this piece of legislation since the beginning and here is where it is ending up…. The GOOD news: The bill contains important commitments that grow the alternative: $100 million for SNAP incentives; $20 million for the Farmers Market Promotion Program; Senior/Farmers Market Nutrition Program; SARE; value-added and risk management funds for farmers to navigate uncertainty Community Food Projects that place community at the center of our agricultural strategies The BAD news: There is much that is bad, including the House version’s $21 billion ten-year cut to SNAP. It represents half of the overall $40 billion cut. This negatively affects 2.5 million hungry people in the U.S. who depend on SNAP to feed their families. We care about the good, clean AND fair; and this is simply NOT FAIR. There is still a narrow sliver of time to make your voice heard. Contact your House Representative today. » The House has stalled progress in the past. Though imperfect, this Farm Bill is better than no Farm Bill. I would encourage House members to restore SNAP funding and to pass a Farm Bill. We applaud those of you who have rolled up your sleeves to help shape national policy. It’s no picnic. At this critical juncture, consider and share with us on Facebook... Why has this Farm Bill taken so long? Is the consensus that once shepherded Farm Bills of the past now eroding? From where are good, clean and fair food policies born? In think tanks or through creative action at the local level? Where are existing policies preventing you from growing a new world within the shell of the old? And how will you respond? Once this hurdle is crossed, let’s get back to our farms, boats, dinner tables, markets, gardens, and kitchens to create the conditions that make the Slow Food choice possible.

Daniel Marquis is the executive chef at Quay and an organic farmer. Being involved in all levels of production gives him an intimate connection to the food.

When Chef Daniel Marquis isn't cooking at Quay in Chicago, he's growing food on his family farm. Seasoned gardeners share their stories. We forage for cattails!

Kids planted herbs and rolled seed bombs with the help of several seniors at Generations Gardening Together. We collected folks' gardening and food stories.

The Smithsonian is now working on 8,000-square-foot “American Enterprise” exhibition that will explore agriculture’s connection to finance, science and retail.

The surprise appearance of Monsanto’s unapproved GE wheat in an Oregon field last month dominated the “bad GE news” cycle of the day, stoking worries among farmers, millers, bakers and eaters about the extent of the contamination.  Public outcry and demands to end open-air field testing of experimental GE crops are growing louder. And the discovery of rogue GE wheat in Oregon has driven key trading partners — like Japan and Korea — to suspend some wheat imports. All this exploded just days after millions of people around the world marched against Monsanto, denouncing its control, corruption and contamination of our food systems. GE wheat in the loose is the latest in a series of warning signals that the systems we have put in place to ensure a vibrant and healthy food system are not working. We have had nearly two dozen other majorincidents of noncompliance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s notoriously lax rules on GE crops. Contaminated food, fields & communities Several years back Bayer’s experimental GE rice contaminated our rice supply, eliciting import bans from Europe and Japan. And “Starlink corn,” a genetically engineered variety approved only for animal feed,somehow got into our tacos and corn chips. Undeterred by the ongoing genetic contamination of our food and farms, USDA continues to allow some 1,000 field trials to test new GE crops each year, covering thousands of acres in multiple states. This little known, searchable USDA database reveals just how extensive and widespread these field trials are. Genetic drift aside, these test plots are typically doused heavily with pesticides that can drift from the fields where they’re applied, threatening the health of local communities and contaminating air, soil and water. In Hawai’i — the global center of the Big 6 pesticide/GE corporations’ open air field testing operations — afierce battle is heating up, with Hawai’ian residents no longer willing to let the pesticide industry exploit their land and damage their health. Who’s in charge? It’s not just our food and fields that have been contaminated. Our public agencies — those that bear the serious responsibility of protecting the public interest, our health and well-being — have been over-run by corporate influence. The revolving door between Big 6 industry representatives and USDA offices spins without pause, and millions of corporate lobby dollars flow directly into congressional campaign funds. Recently, in a move that (on the surface) seemed to go against the grain of corporate control, USDAannounced its intention to produce a full “environmental impact statement” (EIS) regarding Dow and Monsanto’s new and highly controversial 2,4-D and dicamba-resistant GE crops. After receiving over 500,000 public comments last year — highlighting the dangers to farmers’ livelihoods and the health and well-being of rural communities — the agency acknowledged that its decision on these crops could have a significant effect on the “quality of the human environment.” Many, myself included,welcomed this news. For one thing, the EIS process is long enough that it will delay any possible commercialization of these crops into the 2015 season. More importantly, the decision suggested that USDA might be preparing to pull its head from the corporate sands and began to look around at what is happening to our farmers and our rural landscape. Maybe that’s what the agency will do with the EIS. After all, USDA says it’s all about “helping rural America thrive” and “conserving the Nation’s natural resources.” But I’m worried. Safeguard food & farming Buried in the middle of the EIS notice, are signals from USDA that it has no intention of taking its own findings seriously. The agency warns that despite whatever the EIS might conclude regarding the GE seeds’ broader impacts on rural communities, the agency has “[no] authority to address those impacts beyond what

The markets are in full swing and bundles of colorful crunchy vegetables burst from under the white market tents. Streams of dinner ideas rush through your head about fresh salads and sautes, but once you try one of these veggie bagels, you will never limit your vegetable consumption to just two meals a day again. These veggie bagels are a no cook-no fuss breakfast that packs in all the market flavors and nutrition before you even get to the office. Try layering baby greens, radishes, tomatoes and sprouts over a thin spread of hummus or cream cheese. These can even be made ahead the night before and wrapped in the fridge.

We’ve all heard the old adage “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” but is there much truth to it? And will any apple do? Not really. According to Jo Robinson, author of the new book Eating on the Wild Side: The Missing Link to Optimal Health, the most common modern apple varieties are nutritionally inferior to their wild-growing ancestors. Since the advent of agriculture some 10,000 years ago, she argues, humans have bred fruits and vegetables for mildness and sweetness, and we’ve lost thousands of healthful and more boldly flavored varieties in the process. We’ve sacrificed antioxidants, vitamins, and fiber for sugar and carbs. But all is not lost. Robinson spent the last 15 years poring over data to find fruits and vegetables that have retained the nutritional character of their wild forebears. For example, did you know that Bing cherries have four times the antioxidant content as Rainiers, and beets have 50 times more than a typical orange carrot? In her book, Robinson lists hundreds of these varieties that you can find at your local farmers’ market or grocery store, and she shares tips for choosing, preparing, and storing them to reap the most nutritional benefit. We talked with Robinson to learn more about her findings, as well as what role farmers and eaters can play in bringing these healthful, wild-side foods to our tables. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your inspiration for writing the book? My interest in food and nutrition goes back to childhood. One of my grandmothers was a food activist. She was campaigning against white bread and Coca-Cola in 1910, and she was picking on the USDA because they were saying we should eat white bread. I grew up being fed whole-wheat bread, nuts, green tea, and other foods that were so far ahead of our times. The lesson I learned was that some foods are better for you than others—and they’re not necessarily the ones that medical professionals or the USDA are telling you to eat. How has agriculture contributed to a loss of nutrition in modern plant varieties? The biggest drop in nutrients was probably 10,000 years ago, when we stopped eating  wild foods and became farmers. We picked the sweetest and oiliest varieties to breed, but we now know that many of the healing compounds in fruits and vegetables are slightly bitter. We chose the sweetest species of apple in the world around 300 BC, and from that point on we kept breeding sweeter and sweeter varieties. About 1,000 years ago we decided we didn’t want seeds in our grapes, and there was this mutant grape, the Thompson grape, that didn’t have seeds. It also did not have anthocyanins or resveratrol, which are two beneficial phytonutrients found in grapes. What exactly are phytonutrients, and why should we care about them? Phytonutrients are substances that we now think provide most of the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, even more than some familiar ones like vitamin C and beta-carotene. These molecular compounds are the reason that eating more fruits and vegetables increases health and reduces risk of disease. Some people have probably heard of lycopene in tomatoes and anthocyanins in grapes and blueberries, but there are 25,000 different phytonutrients that have been identified so far. This is brand new science. Most of what I write about has been discovered in the last 15 years, and our understanding of the health benefits is just as recent. We bred out what I call “the medicine in plants” long before we knew these phytonutrients were there or what they did for us. I want to get more of them back into our food because they are powerful fighters of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. How can we find these wild foods in our modern world? Even if wild foods were widely available in the grocery store, most of us wouldn’t eat them because we wouldn’t like the taste of them. My book helps people forage in the supermarket and farmers’ markets. Scientists have been looking at the ph

I’ve decided that my gift to my one-year-old son this Father’s Day will be to come up with ten resolutions: ten things I want to teach him about food.By: Andrew Fippinger, Slow Food USA member and volunteer Food was not particularly central to our family when I was a child. We did gather for dinner regularly, but we rarely discussed our food and, in fact, rarely cooked it ourselves. This was largely because I had two very busy working parents. It may also be because we were typical New Yorkers of that time, ordering in or microwaving many of our meals. And, now that I come to think of it, perhaps there was a gender dynamic: I had two brothers and no sisters, and I wonder if my mom would have felt an obligation to pass on some sort of kitchen smarts to a daughter. (Apologies to my Dad who did, admittedly, teach me how to light a grill and mix spices into burger meat.) And now I have a child. My wife and I both work. We live in New York City. And my child is a boy. Same setup, more or less. So I’ve decided that my gift to him this Father’s Day will be to come up with ten resolutions — ten things I want to teach my son about food. I’m going to post these on the fridge, and hopefully they’ll hang there for some time. He’s a little over one year old now, but I’ve already started talking through what it is I’m doing when he stares at me in wonderment as I brandish a knife over a cutting board full of Brussels sprouts. Oh, and these apply to any other sons or daughters I may be blessed to have. (I should mention that the lessons have already begun. We’re currently working on the concept that you don’t need to put all the food on the plate into your mouth at once. And also that when you’re done drinking your water, you don’t throw your sippy cup on the ground.) Don’t be afraid of the kitchen. It’s not as complex as most cookbooks and TV shows make it out to be. Grow something. Start simple with an herb in a window box, but dream big. Maybe you’ll have a garden someday. Make that connection from a seed to a meal. Buy yourself a skillet and keep it seasoned. (I’ll show you how.) I didn’t learn about this until I was thirty and — trust me — it really does change the game. Develop one specialty, something that’s a little different. Maybe it’s pickling or making your own beer, or making bitters and extracts from scratch. You don’t need to be an expert at cooking if you aren’t a chef, but it’s really fun to feel like you’re approaching mastery of one little niche of the culinary world. Try everything. Don’t like it? Try it again. Still don’t like it? Try it in a year. Tastes develop, and some of my favorite foods now are things I used to hate. Talk to farmers. Go to farmers markets, visit farms, hey, go work on a farm! There’s nothing more valuable when it comes to food than learning how your meal fits into the long chain from seed to plate. And every meal is different, so this can be an endlessly rewarding experience. Don’t let gender dictate your food interests. Learn how to bake pastries if that excites you. I’ll tell your sister, if you ever have one, to learn how to grill meat. These archaic gender distinctions are ridiculous. Learn some meals that you can make in large batches and reheat. When I get busy or stressed, I find it so easy to drop the ball on cooking. That’s where a giant couscous salad or frozen lasagna that you made over the weekend can save you. Buy a silly apron. Or five. Wear goofy stuff when you cook, and then you can’t take yourself or your cooking too seriously. Cooking shouldn’t have to stress you out. Have the courage of your convictions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to make some sort of food commitments (becoming vegetarian; only eating meat that I know was humanely

The Bloomberg administration is back in court three months after a state court judge barred New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to create a city-wide ban on sugary beverages over 16 ounces. Reports of the latest court proceedings say that the judges were more sympathetic to lawyers from the American Beverage Association than to those from the Department of Health. Marion Nestle agrees and writes that, “the judges were much tougher on the DOH attorney than on the one from the ABA.” Perhaps this is because the ABA has swayed public opinion so thoroughly in its opposition of the soda ban with its insidious and seemingly grassroots campaign, “New Yorkers for Beverage Choices.” This organization says it represents New Yorkers, businesses, and community organizers but is in fact a creation of the beverage industry itself. By using the language of “choice” the industry has persuaded many New Yorkers that by defending the billion-dollar beverage industry, they are in fact, standing up to elites like Bloomberg as well as protecting their civil liberties. Last July, paid canvassers hired by the beverage industry stopped New Yorkers on the street to sign petitions. So far, more than half a million people and businesses have signed on to protect New Yorker’s freedom to choose what size sugary beverage to buy. Public opinion was also swayed back in January, when the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation sided with the beverage industry and opposed Mayor Bloomberg’s ban. This move brought the issues of race, class, choice, and agency to the fore in a debate seemingly about the prevalence of sugary drinks and their connection to the rates of diet-related disease and obesity. The ensuing conversation has shed light on the vast chasms across racial and class lines when it comes to reforming our food system and regulating our food industry. The proposed soda ban highlights one crucial tenet about Americans: We do not like being told what to do. Rather, we prefer to be seduced by slick marketing and sexy ad campaigns. This way, it’s as if we have chosen one particular product based on a sense of self-identification — the ultimate goal of advertisers and corporations. The most obvious recent example of this is the marketing confluence of Beyoncé and Pepsi. Here we have the glamorous (svelte and healthy) mega pop star hawking a product that we know leads to obesity, diabetes, and a host of other health issues. Of course, Beyoncé is only one in a long list of celebrities that shill for these beverage corporations: Elton John, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Madonna, LeBron James and Sofía Vergara are among the many others. Our American obsession with fame and wealth is partially why these endorsements work so well; the other part has to do with this concept of choice; after all, Pepsi’s tag line has long been, “The choice of a new generation.” The question of choice is a sticky one in this soda ban debate since the billion dollar advertising industry has led Americans to believe they have unlimited choices when it comes to food and drink. Most Americans scoff at the idea of their “choices” actually being dictated to them by some outside force; but the reality is that we actually don’t have unlimited choices when it comes to our food. In fact, most options on grocery store shelves boil down to choosing products from roughly a handful of large corporations, often made using the same ingredients — corn and soy. Four companies make 75 percent of breakfast cereals and snacks, 60 percent of cookies, and 50 percent of all ice cream. Four companies slaughter 81 percent of all beef and control 70 percent of all milk sales. Bloomberg can certainly wield great power with the soda ban, causing critics to cry overreach and nanny-state — but what about these corporations? And the billion dollar advertising industry? The difference is in the presentation: Bloomberg is no Beyoncé. When Beyoncé tells us what to drink we listen; when Bloomberg does, there’s o