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Before you eat up, read up
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By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, December 6, 2007 in The Washington Post
Christmas shopping may require all the dollars, stamina and good humor you can muster, but it's nothing compared to food shopping. For that you need an advanced degree in educated consumerism. Just last week the mail brought me more lessons in food responsibility than I could possibly digest before lunchtime.
First to arrive was the Utne Reader with a report compiled by the Environmental Working Group that ranked fruits and vegetables by the amount of pesticide residue found on them by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
The "dirty dozen" we'd best avoid are, in order of risk: peaches, apples, sweet bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, imported grapes, pears, spinach and potatoes. The safest six are onions, avocados, frozen corn, pineapples, mangoes and frozen peas.
The group's FoodNews Web site gives detailed data (96.6 percent of peach samples were tainted; one bell pepper sample had 11 pesticides on it).
The solution is simple: Buy organic. But here's the tougher question: Why do they allow residue at all? That would require a larger study.
Next came a poster from the Chefs Collaborative, urging us to buy from farms that sustain the environment -- those that give livestock free range; gather mushrooms only from stable populations; preserve native riparian (streamside) plants; guard soil, air and water against pollution; and "value and protect large predators like bears and mountain lions." Most of this is unknowable unless the farm is right down the road.
And now here's Ode magazine with the top 20 organic, sustainable products for 2008. Two of them I already have: a Sun Frost low-energy fridge, which I love, and Prince Charles's Duchy Originals Oaten Biscuits. But how do the 20 stack up against the Chefs Collaborative's admirably complex chart?
I happen to think Prince Charles, long a champion of organic farming, is one of the world's most underestimated public figures, and his biscuits are top drawer. But I can only assume he protects his riparian flora. Do the guys who grow Honest Tea value bears? Who knows?
The only lesson I ever seem to learn from all of this information boils down to a few words: Grow your own, cook your own and check out the farmer down the road. There are a few levels of complexity I could add to that, but you already have so much to read.
Article copyright of Barbara Damrosch. Reprinted with permission.
Photo credit: D'Arcy Norman
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| 3. |
Make Yourself a Rain Garden
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By Charlie Nardozzi
Summertime is thunderstorm time across the country. All that water rushing
off roofs, driveways and walkways is loaded with...
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Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe
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Do you think you'll die if you see another zucchini? Well then here's a recipe to die for. The photographer made hers in a Bundt pan, but the recipe below suggest a 13 x 9 baking pan. Either way, you're going to love this cake. Before you know it, you'll be out in the garden pulling back leaves looking for one or two zucchini for another batch.
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)
1 6-ounce package (about 1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
Procedure:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and flour 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini. Pour batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and nuts over.
Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Cool cake completely in pan.
Serves 12.
Recipe source: Bon Appétit, November 1995
Photo credit: Tania Ho
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Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
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by Ian Sample, printed in the Guardian, August 31 2007
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.
To keep up with the growth in human population, more food will have to be produced worldwide over the next 50 years than has been during the past 10,000 years combined, the experts said.
But in many countries a combination of poor farming practices and deforestation will be exacerbated by climate change to steadily degrade soil fertility, leaving vast areas unsuitable for crops or grazing.
Competition over sparse resources may lead to conflicts and environmental destruction, the scientists fear.
The warnings came as researchers from around the world convened at a UN-backed forum in Iceland on sustainable development to address the organisation's millennium development goals to halve hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.
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