Books On My Desk part 1

These are just books that have accumulated on my desk and haven't made it to the bookshelves yet--from modern deconstructions of the food system to older books about food security. One in the latter category is:

The Home Vegetable Garden (Small holdings series-No. 2) produced by the Canadian Legion Educational Services, and published in 1945.

This book was apparently the second in a series of courses designed to train people in how to maintain a small holding. It starts out with stating that a quarter to a third of an acre should suffice to produce sufficient vegetables for fresh table use, canning, drying, and storing.

"Though a home garden, in most cases, will not provide the grower with a cash income and is not intended to, it will prevent the necessity of a very considerable cash outlay, it contributes to self-sufficiency, and of course 'a dollar saved is a dollar earned'."

It's a terrific little volume of about 175 pages, with chapters on general planning, bulb crops, perennial vegetable crops, potatoes, etc, with a short quiz at the end of each chapter. There's also information on storage of fresh and canned veg and disease control, and the whole is intended as a course at the end of which you've submitted an exam to be marked, and then you continue into the next course in the series.

Some of the info, like the recommendation to burn all plant trash at the end of the season (to help manage pests and disease) may have been superseded by the recommendation to compost everything (with the note that a good compost pile will heat up enough to sterilize weed seeds and kill pests), but things like how to build a temporary hotbed or coldframe are still quite valid. (A hotframe is a sprouting bed build over composting horse manure, which provides a warm environment to promote seedling growth. A coldframe is a small space that relies on passive solar to harden off early crop seedlings). Most interesting are the descriptions of various heritage seeds and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Some of these varieties are still available from places like Jim Ternier's Prairie Garden Seeds or West Coast Seeds in Canada. Overall, an excellent self-educator.

image via Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan's Food Rules: an eater's manifesto was the follow-up to In Defense of Food and is a collection of short epigrams to help the modern eater manage to supermarket jungle. "Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients" is a perfect example; most processed, highly- or over-processed foods will contain more than five preservatives. This helps you remember to follow another epigram: "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle." Because the outside is where you find food--vegetables, meats, eggs, dairy. The aisles are where you find the over-processed near foods. The book is divided into sections that reference the summation of In Defense of Food: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Which is still darned good advice.

Image copyright Random House

The Hundred Mile Diet: a year of local eating by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon is very close to my heart. This book is as local as the diet they tried to stick to for a year. Packed with history, local colour, and the terribly engaging story of their decision to attempt to eat within an arbitrary perimeter for a year. That seemingly simple decision caused shock-waves around the world. It is partly because of this book that British supermarkets began tagging their goods with "food miles" stickers. The "grow local, buy local" movement got an enormous jump-start from this accessible and amusing read. In Canada, it lead the authors to the "Hundred Mile Challenge" television show and a remarkably down-home celebrity. Great writing+great concept+excellent timing=maximum impact.

The Story of Sushi: an unlikely saga of raw fish and rice by Trevor Corson (previously titled The Zen Of Fish, a fact I have to remember when I'm in the bookstore) is more than just a great bit of journalism. It's also where I see the non-fiction book evolving to--the after material contains extensive source notes, bibliography, index, and two brief bios of the author, a behind-the-scenes essay with a number of candid photos of the people we met in the books pages, an essay on the book tour on the books first release, and links to both the book and author's online presence (which is quite an extensive website and should serve as a template for any serious author in the digital age).
So that's pretty much a random grab. 

Books!

I read what seems to be a lot of books. I don't really think it is--I read around 80-100 books a year, mostly non-fiction, and mostly about food issues. When compared to my Significant Other, the writer Paula Johanson (author of, among others, Fake Foods: Fried, Fast and Processed and Fish: From the Catch to Your Table and the codifier of Johanson's Law: "When a system achieves the same outcome regardless of stated goals and altered tactics, then the outcome is the goal"), I really don't read all that much--she probably averages 200 books a year. Even among my peer group, I don't read all that much--but my peers aren't exactly a statistical snapshot of "average" Canadians.
I mention this only because I've had a pretty good run, recently, of interesting reading. Michael Moss' Sugar, Salt Fat started the run.

 I really enjoyed the read--Moss looks in depth at the way in which each of the three titular ingredients affects the "food" we eat. Along the way, we get a history of the industrialization of food and an excellent example of how Johanson's Law can be applied: for all that the food companies claim to want to serve us safe, nutritious food, we still get food that is addictive, damaging to the environment and the public, and very very profitable. Thus, the stated goal is the smokescreen, the desired outcome is the one we are dealing with. After all, why would food companies want us to eat a nutritious and balanced diet? There's no real money in it. Maximizing profits, that's the real goal.

Friday Food Link-straveganza

via Wikipedia

Science Daily is reporting on a new, better quality climate model that should help with crop predictions in a changing climate:

In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change, members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models. AgMIP's effort has produced new knowledge that better predicts global wheat yields while reducing political and socio-economic influences that can skew data and planning efforts, said Bruno Basso, Michigan State University ecosystem scientist and AgMIP member.
"Quantifying uncertainties is an important step to build confidence in future yield forecasts produced by crop models," said Basso, with MSU's geological sciences department and Kellogg Biological Station. "By using an ensemble of crop and climate models, we can understand how increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, along with temperature increases and precipitation changes, will affect wheat yield globally."
The improved crop models can help guide the world's developed and developing countries as they adapt to changing climate and create policies to improve food security and feed more people, he added.

via Wikipedia

 The Mail has published an (adapted) excerpt of Michael Pollen's new book Cooked:

For more than a century we have been engaged in a war on bacteria. We deploy an arsenal of antibiotics, hand sanitisers, pasteurisation and food regulations to tackle the moulds and bacteria and so, we hope, hold off disease and death.I grew up on that field of battle. My mother instilled in our family a deep fear of botulism, and countless other unnamed germs possibly lurking in our food.
A touch of white on a wedge of cheese was enough to condemn it.
The slightest dent in a can of food consigned it to the rubbish, no matter that the dent came from being dropped on the floor. You never know, could be botulism; better safe than sorry.
In the decades since Louis Pasteur discovered bacteria, medical research has focused mainly on their role in causing disease.
The bacteria that reside in and on our bodies were generally regarded as either harmless freeloaders, or pathogens to be defended against.
But then in the early 2000s, researchers discovered hundreds of new species of bacteria in the human gut doing all sorts of unexpected things.
To their surprise, microbiologists discovered that we are made up of 90 per cent bacteria. Nine out of every ten cells in our bodies are not human but belong to these microbial species (most of them residents of our gut).
As one scientist put it to me, we 'stand on the verge of a paradigm shift in our understanding of health as well as our relationship to other species'.

via Wikipedia

The Portland Press Herald is reporting on Maine's passage of a GMO labelling bill. With enough state's passing bills like this, it won't be necessary to pass federal legislation:

Maine is on track to join several other states attempting to require food producers to label food containing genetically modified ingredients, following a landslide vote in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The 141-4 vote on L.D. 718, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lance Harvell, R-Farmington, sets the stage for a legal entanglement between the state and agribusiness and biotech industry giant Monsanto, which has already threatened to sue states that pass similar labeling laws. The political battle between industry interests and the well-organized supporters of L.D. 718 has raged behind the scenes for several months at the State House, as the biotech industry fights to blunt a popular movement that has taken the GMO fight to at least 18 other state legislatures following failed attempts to pass labeling legislation in Congress.

via Wikipedia

 With the rise of the urban chicken, this article from Chickens on Camera is particularly apt:

ERROR #2: Not Giving Your Chickens Proper Ventilation.
Building a chicken coop is to protect your flock. The purpose of your coop is to protect your chickens from the element and outside predators, but you also need to give them proper ventilation. Free movement of air inside the coop is very important, but you do not want to freeze your chickens with a draft. Chickens, are like humans, they can only perform at their optimum levels if all of their basic needs are met first, in this case protection and oxygen. A Chicken coop without free air movement and therefore more oxygen will have high carbon monoxide levels and humidity levels. This is not good because uncomfortable chickens do not produce as many eggs. It is also very dangerous because it makes mold growth within the walls very easy.

And the BC Food Security Gateway has a link to the University of British Columbia Sustainable Campus Food Guide.  It's so great to see all the work being done in my home province on changing the food system.  And BCSFG is a significant part of that.

And now I'm off to cook lunch  for a hundred or so of my fellow citizens at the Victoria Rainbow Kitchen. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Friday Food Link-straveganza

Image sourced from Wikipedia

Well, we know bees are having a difficult time of it. And now its looking like neonicotinoid pesticides have a lot to do with it. Canada and Britain are both resisting the call to ban the neonicotinoids. The UK  Parliament’s  report on neonicotinoid pesticides and their effect on bees can be accessed here. The BBC commentary is here.

Source: Wikipedia

Over at Localfoodplus.ca, there's some comment on the new Ontario Medical Association report that looks at the link between antibiotic-resistant microbes and intensive livestock production. From localfoodplus:

According to the OMA’s report, “antibiotics are not as effective as they once were because bacteria are adapting to them … these resistant bacteria are germs that cause infections like pneumonia, urinary tract infections, and skin infections.”

“Patients are at risk of becoming sicker, taking longer to recover, and in some cases dying from previously treatable diseases,” said OMA president Doug Weir in the report’s press release.

This alarming medical regression poses a rising threat over both patients’ health and the healthcare system. Pointing to already visible Health Care expenses, the OMA cites the increasing costs of MRSA (which Mother Jones defines as “an often-deadly, antibiotic-resistant staph infection”)  at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

In 2001, the presence of MRSA across Canada was estimated to cost $50 million; in 2010, the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID) estimated that the costs would reach between $104-$187 million annually due to escalating  antibiotic resistance – more than double in approximately 10 years.

While the report lays some culpability upon individuals to use antibiotics more “responsibly” and doctors to “keep better track of [their] patients’ antibiotic histories,” the OMA points a looming finger in the direction on Ontario’s agri-business complex.

Currently, it’s standard practice in Ontario’s agricultural industry to administer antibiotics to healthy animals for the purpose of ‘disease prevention’ and ‘growth acceleration’ – a practice that the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) defines as “intensive, non-therapeutic” antibiotic use.

Algeria famine 1869. Source: Wikipedia

The BBC has been reporting that the only thing we learn from the history of famnine is that we learn nothing from the history of famine--as detailed by the new report from UK think-tank Chatham House:

Famine early warning systems have a good track record of predicting food shortages but are poor at triggering early action, a report has concluded.

The study said the opportunity for early action was being missed by governments and humanitarian agencies.
It said the "disconnect" was starkly apparent in Somalia where no action was taken despite 11 months of warnings.
Up to two million people are estimated to have died in drought-related emergencies since 1970.
The report by UK think-tank Chatham House, Managing Famine Risk: Linking Early Warning to Early Action, looked at the issue of drought-related emergencies on a global scale but focused on the Horn of Africa and the Sahel regions.
"The regions are quite unique in a way because you have these droughts, where there are normally successive failed rains; then you have a process whereby you have subsequent harvest failures then people adopt coping strategies," explained report author Rob Bailey.

Hand of Fatima, Mali. source: Wikipedia

 At Foodfirst, Camille Vignerot and Tiffany Tsang  wrote a piece about the current food crisis in Mali.

Food crises have plagued Mali in recent years due to drought and recurring political conflicts.
The January 2012 massacre of Malian soldiers by armed Tuareg fighters in the far north precipitated the Malian coup in March of 2012 by the National Committee for Recovering Democracy and Restoring the State (NCRDRS). That and the subsequent struggle in the north of Mali involving two groups of Tuareg (Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), both followed a severe drought in the 2011-2012 season.
In 2011, Mali received only one month of rain, compared to the usual three. As a result, only 11% of Mali’s farmers were able to save seed for the following year’s planting season. This cut the country’s 2012 seed supply by half, severely affecting the rice-growing area in the Mopti region. The drought forced pastoralists to move their animals north six months earlier than usual that year because of a lack of floodplain pasture along the Niger River. This led to overgrazing in northern pastures as usual staggered migrations were disrupted. Those pastoralists who did stay in the southern region were trapped between the sparse floodplains and the violent north. The increased grazing pressure on the land led to conflicts with farmers, especially in the Mopti region.

Leaving famine behind for the land of MOAR!, Michael Pollen is interviewed for the Center for Consumer Freedom.

Saltspring Island via Wikipedia

 Mussels are sustainably raised near here on Saltspring Island by Saltspring Island Mussels. (warning! site contains recipes!)
Also local are the ICC:

The Island Chefs Collaborative (icc) are a liked-minded community of chefs and food and beverage professionals with a common interest in regional food security, the preservation of farmland and the development of local food systems.

And of course if you haven't seen it yet, Bill Gates cracks me up with his Food is Ripe for Innovation essay over at Mashable.com:

I’ve gotten to learn about several new food companies that are creating plant-based alternatives to meat through some monetary investments I’ve made with Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Their products are at least as healthy as meat and are produced more sustainably.
But what makes them really interesting is their taste. Food scientists are now creating meat alternatives that truly taste like — and have the same “mouth feel” — as their nature-made counterparts (see two recipes below, for example).

Flavor and texture have been the biggest hurdles for most people in adopting meat alternatives. But companies like Beyond Meat, Hampton Creek Foods and Lyrical are doing some amazing things. Their actual recipes are secret, but the science is straightforward. By using pressure and precisely heating and cooling oils and plant proteins (like powdered soybeans and vegetable fiber), you can achieve the perfect flavor and texture of meat or eggs.
I tasted Beyond Meat’s chicken alternative, for example, and honestly couldn’t tell it from real chicken. Beyond Eggs, an egg alternative from Hampton Creek Foods, does away with the high cholesterol content of real eggs. Lyrical has drastically reduced fat in its non-dairy cheeses. Even things like salt are getting a makeover: Nu-Tek has found a way to make potassium chloride taste like salt (and nothing but salt) with only a fraction of the sodium.
All this innovation could be great news for people concerned about health problems related to overconsumption of fat, salt and cholesterol. It’s important too in light of the environmental impacts of large-scale meat and dairy production, with livestock estimated to produce nearly 51% of the world’s greenhouse gases.

The man should be doing stand-up....

More From Michael

Michael Pollan made his way back to Williams College, just up the road from where he studied, to talk to a room full of people about his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. The talk covers two of the major themes from the book, corn and hope. It is long, but can run behind whatever else you're doing. Pollan is an excellent speaker, personable and interesting, making this time just flow by.
He talks, at the end in answer to a student's question, about the price difference between organic food and industrial food, and how we mis-perceive industrial food being cheaper. As he points out, industrial food has a lower proce per calorie in the store, but only after enormous subsidies along the way. All in all, a fascinating talk from a knowledgeable and interesting speaker.

Michael Pollan interviewed

Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now!, interviews Michael Pollan on the release of the paperback edition of In Defense of Food (the book written from the essay Unhappy Meals  that appeared in the New York Times Magazine). Michael takes on HFCS, five ingredient Haagen Das, and the marketing of foodsince he first released In Defense of Food.



Pollan lays out the two basic rules for buying food: don't buy any food you've seen advertised, and don't buy any food that makes a health claim.



A fascinating interview.