No trip to Carolina Beach would be complete without a trip (or two…or three) to the famous Britt’s Donut Shop where the same glazed donuts have been made for over 70 years. One of the top donut shops in the country, these melt in your mouth in a way that should be illegal.

My friend Philippe made his famous Shrimp Provencale with jumbo shrimp caught off a captain’s boat that morning. Yet throughout this relaxing, wonderful trip, I kept thinking about meat.

Here, you may pause. Beach, sand, shrimp…meat? What am I talking about?

Some of you may recall my ongoing dilemma about meat. While Zomppa Tsering has been supportive about my potential in becoming a vegetarian, I am still an omnivore. I have read about CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) and factory farms and have watched videos like MeetYourMeat. (warning: video is graphic).

Julia Whitty of Mother Jones reports that global meat production is expected to double over the next four decades, with negative impact on air and water pollution, diseases, and pathogens. Leslie Hatfield of EcoCentric wrote a great article comparing CAFOs with sustainable pork practices.

So in lieu of meat, I have recently been trying more soy-based products (I am allergic to some soy). But even eating some of these products make me nervous.

• Does soy have long-term negative effects? Andreas Moritz reports that soy – especially those from genetically modified plants – can increase risk of cancers and thyroid disorders among other issues.
• Are veggie burgers really better than meat? The Cornucopia Institute has reported that most non-organic veggie burgers contain hexane, an air pollutant and neurotoxin.
• Is it false advertising to suggest soy milk has the same nutrients as regular milk? The National Milk Producers Federation says no.

But I haven’t been content with only soy-based products. I still craved meat – but was it OK for me to eat it? A couple weeks ago, I finished the book, Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, which reminded me that while I eat animals, I had never watched an animal being slaughtered for my consumption. So on the Friday before I went to the beach, I visited the Homestead Harvest Farm in Wake Forest, NC. Owned and operated by the extraordinary Jan Campbell, her Animal Welfare-approved farm is a place where her chickens, ducks, and turkeys roam freely, behaving as animals do, and maturing naturally as animals should. When it came time for the processing, I observed how Jan gently stroked each chicken and talked to it through the entire process to keep it calm. The process is quick and thoughtful, and done with extreme care. She honors each life.

It was with this experience that I found myself sitting on the beach, contemplating my dilemma. Folks like Jan Campbell and farms like Homestead are as far away from CAFOs as you can get. If more people treated animals the way Jan Campbell does, our meat would be more humanely raised, healthy, and delicious.

Why do factory farms exist then? So many questions, not enough answers.

As I debated with myself about my consumption of animals one early morning on the beach, I saw a rather unusual sight.

A crab eating a jellyfish. The cycle of life and death continues.

A cycle we should honor.

]]> http://www.zomppa.com/2010/07/28/contemplating-meat-on-a-nc-beach/feed/ 5 http://www.zomppa.com/2010/06/25/faith-in-rescuing-food/ http://www.zomppa.com/2010/06/25/faith-in-rescuing-food/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:41:25 +0000 Belinda http://www.zomppa.com/?p=5972 Do you ever wonder how food banks get their food?

Do you ever wonder how people without enough get their food?

Do you ever wonder if food banks run out of food?

Food banks rely on the goodness and kindness of businesses, volunteers, and supporters. It isn’t easy, but it requires hard work, dedication, and a whole lot of faith that in the end, people will not let their fellow brother/sister go hungry.

On a hot, steamy Wednesday morning, I went to follow one of these incredible volunteers, Ms. Victoria, a retiree who devotes her time driving a 10-food truck, lifting 40-lb. boxes in the NC sun, and making a whole lot of people happy. Ms. Victoria volunteers for one of the largest – and certainly most unique – rescue food missions in North Carolina. The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, started by two incredible women (with a whole lot of faith themselves) who saw a lot of food waste and decided to do something about, is more than a food bank. It’s got programs for kids – stuffing backpacks full of snacks, culinary training programs, and farming/gardening programs.

But without food, there would no programs. Without donor businesses and individuals, there would be no food. Without volunteers, there would be no one to pick up the food or prepare the food. This simple line of logic is a reminder that indeed, like it or not, we are all connected.

So we started loading a truck at 7:30 in the morning, filling it with everything from breads to meats to milk – which is a hard-to-come-by-much-desired commodity.

Then it was off to pick up food from local partners who kindly donate pounds and pounds of food each day. The first stop was Edible Art, a local bakery in Raleigh, NC. In the early morning hours before it opened, the bakery smelled like heaven…and they kept on a table all the delightful cakes and pastries leftover from the day before ready wrapped to go.

Other businesses, including Trader Joe’s, Costco, BJ’s, and a local vending company also generously donated food. The Food Shuttle never knows what kind of food they’ll get – sometimes it’s lots of produce, other times, dry goods. Sometimes, they’ll get several hundred pounds; other times, they get just a bit. On this day, we happened to be blessed with much bread and pastries. Even flowers.

One issue that arises is that oftentimes, businesses fear getting sued if someone gets sick from produce (even though there is a law protecting them from this) so they end up giving a lot more cakes and muffins. While sweet and delicious, there is the issue of giving non-nutritious food. Is it better to give any kind of food or is it a disservice giving the less fortunate sugar-packed, nutrient-less foodstuffs?

In any case, what I’m blown away is how the chefs at the sites that receive this food can whip up a meal for hundreds without knowing the ingredients until the morning of. These are true culinary geniuses. In between food pickups, Ms. Victoria and I drop food off at various sites, including the Shepherd’s Table Soup Kitchen, which serves over 300 people daily, the Salvation Army, and a men’s homeless shelter at a local church. We unloaded produce, bananas, frozen crabmeat, vegetables, breads with the help of, who else, volunteers at these sites.

Ms. Victoria and I return to the Shuttle, our truck almost empty, the rest going to someone else later that day. We have weighed how much food we received in donations and distributed – over 1,100 pounds.

Not bad for a morning of some muscle, heart, and a bit of faith that hunger can be eradicated.

A gift from dear foodie blogger friend Mardi of eattravelwrite. If you haven’t signed Jamie Oliver’s petition to revolutionize school food, you can do so here.

While there is debate out there (i.e. T. Colin Campbell’s The China Study – good read if you haven’t yet) about cow’s milk and its benefits and dangers, a lot of us drink milk or at least give it to our children. But do you know where your milk comes from? If you said, cows, you are right. But do you know where those cows come from and how they are raised?

Many of you are familiar with CAFOs and “drugstore cows” and many of you are not. CAFOs are Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, where animals are pretty much confined in small places where they eat, urinate, defecate, and often die all in the same place with little or no grass or vegetation. There are many resources out there (look them up!) and these factory farms are perfect breeding grounds for bacterial growth and who knows what else. According to the CDC, over 75 million Americans get sick from the food they eat.

Note: these pigs are NOT from a CAFO – they are being humanely raised by a local farmer.

Drugstore cows are cows raised with unnatural diets and pumped with hormones and antibiotics to speed up their growth, which also speed up the possibility of illness (I actually had an argument recently with a woman who swore that a cow’s natural diet is corn and that the “media” was trying to lie to us that cows ate grass…did she think cows shucked corn with their hooves?). Most Americans are directly and indirectly affected by these hormones and drugs that have longer-term consequences than just a bad stomachache.

According to The Ecologist, the chemical pollutants passed from mother to child through the placenta or breastmilk can last decades…or even a lifetime. The EWG (Environmental Working Group) noted that it takes this long for a child to get rid of 99% of inherited pollution (note: that is not 100%):

• Phthalata platicisers (flexible plastics, etc.): 1 day
• Mercury: 1 year
• Flame retardant and stain-proofing chemicals: 12 – 60 years
• Lead: 166 years

This means generations of your children good be affected, causing permanent genetic changes. Does this mean simply not eating meat or drinking milk? But vegetables are not immune to bacteria and toxins. Recall outbreaks of E.coli in bagged spinach or the recent studies linking pesticides and ADHD. Check out this blog, Are You Sure You Want to Eat That?, for more information. Or what about the scandal of corporate greed and bribes and the sale of tainted foods?

So who is responsible for ensuring the safety of what we eat, meat or vegetable? In 2007, the FDA turned to states to step up their food safety programs. There is an ongoing debate whether federal or state control is more effective at ensuring the food safety of large national and multinational food companies.

Rather than getting caught up in this debate and risk harming ourselves and our families, it’s time that we recognize we are responsible for our food safety…as much as possible.

Buy local. Know where you food comes from. Better yet, know the person who grows or raises your food. If your food is not factory-produced or overly processed, the chances of these contaminants become lower. We cannot rely on some federal or state government regulation to do this for us. We have to take charge of our own lives.

Let’s start with our milk since many of our children drink it daily. where is my milk from? is a great website where you can source most of your dairy products.

Source: where is my milk from?

PS June is Dairy Month! For more and an insightful video, check this out.

A drug-free glass of milk and one of ZomppaPatty’s Whoopie Pies. Now that’s something I can get behind.

Despite this, however, a growing percentage of Californians do not have easy access to fresh and affordable produce. While the rest of us are joining the “localvore” movement and demanding that our food come from the neighbor’s farm, many low-income communities are seeing their only supermarket close down, forcing them to rely on 7/11 and the local fast food chains for their nutrition.

Even within the school system the disparity is painfully evident. While the upper and middle income parents are often able to pack a nutritious lunch for their students, the lower-income students have to rely on the Free and Reduced Lunch Program for their breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner. Those of you that watched the terrific Jamie Oliver show “Food Revolution” know that school districts are strapped for cash and so they are providing the lowest cost food to the students, sacrificing nutrition for processed food that simply fills empty bellies.

Recently, I was able to listen to a lecture by the very dynamic Chef Ann. For those of you that haven’t heard of her, she is the “Renegade Lunchlady” who has made it her mission to improve school lunches. What I love about her is that she’s not satisfied with transforming a school district or two (though she’s performed miracles in Boulder and Berkley) she’s going straight to the top and working with lawmakers in Washington to give just $1 per student for the school lunch program.

Thankfully, she’s not the only one concerned

NPR had a piece a few weeks ago that talked about this very issue. Ex-military leaders testified on Capitol Hill that “more than a quarter of young adults are unable to meet physical requirements to join the military, creating a potential threat to national security”. Seriously?! The kids are too fat to be sent to war?! If that doesn’t get Washington’s attention I’m not sure what will.

The good thing is that more and more people are getting involved in the food justice crisis that is going on right here in the US. Please help the cause - go to http://www.lunchboxadvocates.org and send a letter to your elected official (they provide a handy template, all you have to do is enter in your contact information and they’ll send the note to your Senators and Congressperson).

Check out more here:

“What’s In Your Lunchbox” PSA-School Lunch Act from Creative Intelligence on Vimeo.

Zomppa is all about connecting people with things that matter in their own communities and I hope that we can be a strong voice in the fight for food equality!

According to Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger, “Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin…Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.”

According to nationwide statistics, 18.5% of Americans were food insecure at some point in the last year – that means there was a time when people did not have the money to buy the food their families needed. In fact, 62% of teachers report buying food for their classes at some point using their own money because their students don’t have the money to buy food.

Think child hunger has no impact on a child’s ability to learn? Take a look at this two minute video:

You can download the full report of the study conducted by Share Our Strength. When learning or behavioral problems arise, teachers and parents often overlook the fact that sometimes, it’s because the child is HUNGRY.

To make matters worse, the food that makes you fat and unhealthy also tends to be cheaper and more affordable. You may have seen Nonna Joann of BabyBites post about her 1- year old Happy Meal. If her food didn’t change after ONE YEAR, would you want to feed this to your child? But it is a lot of food for not a lot of money.

Source: BabyBites

So what can we do?

Well, did you know that April is Child Nutrition Month? In its second year, the Global Child Nutrition Foundation and School Nutrition Association to raise awareness and funds to fight child hunger…and child malnutrition. Supported by Congress, it is also working to advocate for the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization. The Senate just passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 that calls for an increase of $4.5 billion over 10 years to address childhood hunger AND childhood obesity because they are connected. For example, programs will include new nutritional standards in schools. This bill is a step, though is not the $1 billion per year President Obama had requested.

What can you do? Write to your representative and senators. For more information on how to take action, check out Food Research and Action (FRAC).There is no excuse for children to get to school hungry or have access to only unhealthy, cheap food that leads to obesity and other preventable diseases. Preventable.

Sound the alert.

It’s no surprise anymore to hear about the horrific statistics on childhood obesity (i.e. obesity rates have tripled, $150 billion spent on obesity-related illnesses).

The good news is that there is a tremendous movement occurring to reverse and prevent these trends, from removing junk food from vending machines to establishing school gardens. I am sure by now you have heard of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Campaign to mobilize the nation to advocate for healthier food and physical activity for our schoolchildren.

A broader movement is Four Years Go, a global campaign to achieve a “just, thriving, and sustainable world” by 2014.

4YG is not focused in one particular area, but engages EVERYONE from all sectors, so please take a look! We at Zomppa are supporting this movement with the focus on, what else?, access to and awareness of healthy food!

But how to raise awareness? Access? I’m not convinced that it can be done simply with changing the vending machines from soda to water or adding a class on the food pyramid (though they ARE wonderful and important initiatives).

It requires a change in our culture: how we relate to and understand food. One thing we are working on at Zomppa is to do this by engaging young people to be both healthier and more mindful eaters and impassioned appreciators of food…through play!

Which brings me to what I was doing one day at the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, NC.

I was so excited to come because I am a big advocate of learning through play and exploration. For me, as well as for countless kids, I learn best when I can touch things, pretend, and play.

At Marbles, I was blown away by all the fun and interactive activities, from the human-sized chess boards to half of a transit bus you can climb. Of course, I focused on the food-related play areas – including a pizzeria and an entire area where kids can learn about running a lemonade stand. What better way to learn about food economy than to count change with nickels bigger than your head?

Even adults seemed to like it – as there was not only a wedding photo shoot there, but a wedding party held there that night!

For those of you parents who are familiar with Montessori and Waldorf pedagogical philosophies, you probably understand the value of play in a child’s understanding. Play and creativity is an often underutilized component of learning that is critical to a child’s development.

Children (like me) often learn better when they don’t realize they’re learning. If we can give children more opportunity to learn through play – pretending to cook in the kitchen, colorful displays of fruits and vegetables, easy-to-follow physical activity- imagine the longer-term benefits.

Constructive and educative play is a necessary means to change the way our children relate to food, so they can love and appreciate it, as well as love and appreciate their own bodies and health.

So whether you have children or nieces or neighbors or yourself are trying to eat better, don’t see it as a boring, snooze-fest of statistics and calorie counting or exams. Have fun with it!

Some easy, simple ideas:

• Cook with kids: Devise easy to assemble meals that allow children to get involved – like grilled cheese sandwiches with apples or lettuce roll-ups – they will jump at the chance to eat their greens when they get to make them.
• Make food shopping fun: Make it a scavenger hunt for the kale on sale or who can first find the quinoa – and spell it correctly
• Pretend restaurant: make pretend one dinner a week that you are a restaurant and assign “roles” for everyone. You might surprised how quickly their plates are finished.

A more just and sustainable world…a more playful and optimistic culture…a more delicious appreciation for food – what a lovely outlook.

This includes equal rights to food. According to the World Food Programme, a child dies of hunger every six seconds? That’s SECONDS. Please take a moment to show your solidarity against hunger in support of all the mothers out there trying to feed their children.

Please take 1.09 minutes of your day to take a look:

I had the fortune to visit and eat my way through Vancouver last year, and truly, it is an eating destination for all the athletes, families and visitors from around the world.

Location: The Water Street Cafe, Vancouver, BC

From the “Snow Leopard,” Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, the first skier from Ghana to Samir Azzimani, the lone athlete from Morocco, the Winter Olympics is the time when athletes from all over get to showcase and represent their respective nations. The Olympics allows the world come together and see how similar we are: who didn’t want to hug Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette after her bronze-winning performance after her mother’s sudden death or feel for the Dutch speedskater Sven Kramer who was on his way to the gold only to be mistakenly sidetracked by his coach?

Yet despite sugar-coated messages about an increasingly shrinking and equal global society, regional inequities seem to be deepening further. From falling water tables to rising temperatures, we’re in deep, deep trouble, particularly as food demand increases. However, while the troublemakers are global, the consequences seem to fall heavier in certain regions. For example, while China is reducing malnutrition (although urbanizing to a degree that hurts grain reserves and the environment), the percentage of malnourished children in India is astonishingly high. I have written a bit on inequity in India and the issue of hunger and malnutrition.

So is there a solution? GMOs?

Pankaj Mishra pointed out the hypocrisy of a ‘modern’ India heading on the path towards Modernity, while children and farmers live in increasing debt and dependence on a growing bureaucratic food system. India’s “successful” Green Revolution in the 1970s when staple food production increased as a result of “aid” and “advanced” crop techniques are now seeing more dire consequences, including farmer debt, food insecurity, widening urban-rural gap, and rural income inequality, not to mention malnutrition, dependence on foreign oil. Between 1993 and 2003, 100,000 farmers committed suicide in rural areas, clear signs of desperation.

Food aid?

Development aid seems to be determined by the invisible hand of foreign policy and domestic agribusiness, rather than by goodwill, at least in the U.S. For example, according to journalist Celia Duggar who focuses on food aid, the U.S. requires all donated food to be grown in the U.S., driving up cost and delaying delivery of needed food. What does this mean? That middlemen, including Archer Daniels Midlandand Cargill, made over $700 million in 2004 by selling food commodities through USAID.

Meanwhile, those in Haiti coming out the devastating earthquake has to keep waiting for food while counterfeiters create fake food coupons. Take a look at this chart from 2007 that follows food aid.

Source: New York Times

In whose interest do these policies lie?

CARE turned down $45 million in federal food aid, citing that some of these policies hurt the people they are supposed to help. Instead of donating tons to middlemen, then, how about finding and supporting the indigenous programs that work directly with those in need, such as a revolutionary community kitchen scheme in India to combat malnutrition? Or giving cash donations to support the World Food Programme, which has gotten 75% more food for countries such as Kenya, Uganda, and Zambia by buying corn grown IN those countries rather than shipping them from the U.S. (novel idea?). After all, it doesn’t seem fair that only SOME of us get to eat food like this.

Location: Kirin, Vancouver, BC

For those of us working in the do-gooding world of development and relief aid: it’s time to stop patting ourselves on the back about our wonderful intentions and seriously take a look at our results. When it comes to food security, there shouldn’t be a Gold medalist or Silver medalist.

We should all be standing on the podium together.

Happy Mardi Gras! Its origins have something to do with squeezing in as much revelry and indulgence as possible before Lent or Ash Wednesday or something…eh, look it up on Wikipedia.

Of course, the place (in the US) to be on this holiday is N’awlins, home to the new Super Bowl champions (Who dat!), hopping live music…

…and unique neighborhoods and sights, like the supermarket-cum-Mardi Gras warehouse that we frequented or the stalls of clothes, art, and stuffed alligators in the French Market. We saw roving bands, street poets, and CVS stores that sell liquor. Charm and randomness rolled into one fantastic package.

Did I mention the knee-meltingly good food? I had a list of classic New Orleans food that I set out to try during my week there. They were all such great meals that I don’t know which was my favorite – we stuffed ourselves with hush puppies, beignets, red beans and rice, gumbo, chargrilled oysters, and jambalaya. Rabbit jambalaya with sausage and seafood and 500 other things that made for a huge portion of classic New Orleans cuisine that lasted me 3 meals (and I can really eat!).

Even the chain restaurants were amazing. I was introduced to a rave-worthy place called J. Gumbo’s, where you can choose anything on the menu and a drink for $6, regardless of the item. And my, were they tasty. I don’t normally think chicken is very exciting, but I was converted when I tried their Voodoo Chicken and Drunken Chicken – that’s right, I went there twice. It was that good.

It was great to see New Orleans on the mend. It was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, which left thousands homeless. Entire parishes (the New Orleans term for district) were upended, with floodwaters of up to 20 feet inundating many of the low-income areas of the city.  A lot of attention was paid immediately after the disaster, but it is critical to remember that rebuilding a city is a long-term effort.

There are still people living in trailers, renting apartments while paying mortgage on their uninhabitable homes, or living out of state. The St. Bernard Project is working in the St. Bernard parish, which was decimated by Katrina. Funded mainly through donations and primarily staffed by volunteers, the Project is doing fantastic work to restore families to their houses, each one taking about 12 weeks to rebuild, and also offers mental health services to the community.

So on this Fat Tuesday, please consider supporting the efforts to help a family feel the joy of coming back home.

And eat something delicious!