The Mango and the Snow: A Tale of Moderation

It is really cold here now, and we finally have snow. I think we haven't been out of the teens for several days now, pretty cold for December, but at least now it is wrapped in the peaceful white blanket of winter. Better than cold and just brown ground, which we had a few days ago.

I purchased a couple of hard mangoes several days ago. Each day I have been checking them to see if they are ready to eat. Today one was ready. It is not a local mango. They do not grow them here in Michigan, even in hoop houses! I guess it is a good thing that I was born after technology had gone far enough to bring mangoes to my Ypsilanti door, and any other citrusy fruit that saves us from scurvy!!! in the middle of winter.

I say this because I am, of course, known for my support of local food. And I do support the movement. I just made the first winter veggie roast the other day. It is so satisfying to have the heft of the root vegetables in a balsamic glaze when the weather is frigid. I even added some sweetness with maple syrup this time. All the veggies were local, either from the Ypsi Food Co-op or the AA farmer's market. I even make an effort to buy it from the farmer who IS growing it in hoop houses in Riga, Michigan.

But citrus, or mangoes are not on his or any other farmer's list.

So am I being bad?

I suppose to some die hards I am. That is okay. No one is perfect, and few if any are totally sustainable. I am okay with that. Here is the reason why.

Back in the day when i lived in LA I remember that everyone had their own "correct" and "healthy" diet, and few were tolerant of any one elses definition of healthy.

"What? you are serving meat?" I don't think anyone I knew when I left was still eating meat. when the average American eats nearly 200 pounds of meat annually, the vegetarian stance can be pretty radical to the rest of America.
"OMG how can you have dairy items that have rennet?"
"Tell me please that you aren't serving fruits mixed with your vegetables?"
"What no Soy milk for my coffee?"

It was getting so that I was afraid to cook anything. I was going to offend someone. Give me a break! (but of course they didn't). So I decided that this high than thou attitude had to end. I was going to serve what I was going to serve. nothing wrong with some moderation.(Can't we all get along?) If you don't like it, then don't come. Fortunately I had help.

My dissertation topic was hog CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). Hard to be writing on that when you were a vegetarian. And the Oklahoma farmers where i was doing my research were very aware when I came to call. A woman from LA? Working on CAFOs? They (rightly) feared I was a member of PETA, and would slice through their world with a cleaver that is very specific to their milieu. But I was coming from that place I mentioned earlier in this missive. I believe in moderation in all things. i had to see the world through their eyes. their world was just a little bit different than the soy milk world of LA. And it was a good thing had had that attitude because the farmers were no fools.

The first thing they would do when we started to know one another is invite me to lunch. while I appreciated sharing the meal, what they really wanted to know was: DID I EAT MEAT?

I was newly recovered from a bout of vegetarianism. One had a hard time not being vegetarian as some point in their life while living in LA, but i was never hard core. Even in the depths of one of my bouts, if I found myself near some BBQ ribs, I was in trouble. Moderation.

So when I moved to Michigan to teach at EMU, I came as a moderate in my food concerns. I am even now pretty radical for Michigan, (the other day I was trying to find some barley to make a barley soup and the grocery clerks at the market didn't even know what barley was. "Is is a fruit?" It turned out this big box market had NO barley. What is this world coming to? I should have purchased it at the coop) but I am sure that unless LA has changed radically itself (I don't think so) I am a moderate.

Good. I should be moderate in some ways. It is not a bad thing. And it allows me to eat mangoes in the snow.

Sometimes it is okay to be a moderate.

Sustainable shopping

Almost every year I visit my brother in Berlin. I have, over the years, become enamored with the style of life in this city. I have written before about how bikes are the norm in transportation, but now I am expanding my repertoire by going out there myself (while my brother is working) and discovering what life is like here.

My brother is in his 40s and has lived in Berlin for 17 years without owning a car. We go on biking holidays on the weekends (along with many others) and with a few exceptions on terrible weather days, he rides the bike everywhere. Everyone else does too. Very few wear helmets, because they don’t have to. This is not Michigan where it is the duty of every driver to seemingly aim for that bicyclist on the street. Like one Ypsilanti man who yelled at me the other day, “Why don’t you get an SUV?!” because I had the nerve to get exercise and put less CO2 into the air. The nerve of some people to not drive a car in Motown. But I digress….

Today I rode my bike to go shopping for dinner. Eating in Europe, I have discovered over the years, is not the same as in the states. First of all, unless you are wealthy, you don’t have the space in your apartment (or a large refrigerator) to store all the food that Americans typically have. So shopping is an almost daily routine, but not the onerous drive to the off ramp on the outskirts to shop in a store the size of a warehouse (all to “save” a few pennies on way too many of whatever it is you want to buy. Oh and to spend $ in gas to do it).

Instead, dinner is around almost every corner. Yeah, sure a lot of it is little cafes with tables on the street (this isn’t bad either), but there is a wealth of little bakeries, vegetable stands and smaller markets where one can bike to and then carry home on the back of the bike their ingredients for the next few meals. I know there are some big box stores as in America, but it is not the ordinary choice when you don’t own or drive a car, which is what living in European cities is all about. Many people do not own cars. Everything they need is close by and there are many choices. Every block has another small set of shops offering unique goods, bakeries, and clothes. Entrepreneurs abound in this city. It is really fun. And there are jobs galore for everyone who is selling what they believe in, not what they have been assigned that day in a company they have no ownership in.

Out with the Walmarts, and in with the small owners. Yes, it may cost a little more in the shop, but is it better to pay for unemployment and depression medicine for those displaced from their business, or to frequent a local shop where they know you and are willing to please? When was the last time you had that in America?

I look at Ypsi and I see the shops closing. The art shop is no longer, some of the few restaurants we have, a market, a local clothing shop, a nursery...... Let's keep people employed in doing the things they love and have an ownership interest in, rather than keep Walmart running an unsustainable show.

Local Food or "Artificial, Plastified, Genetically Modified"

Growing your own garden annually, and freezing or canning your produce for use throughout the year is healthy in more ways than one.

I have been on a fact finding trip across the mid-Atlantic states and into the interior plateau (Kentucky and Tennessee) over the past few weeks. The reason behind the trip was to enhance my knowledge of sustainable living in the area. Over the next week the blog will reflect on what I learned, but for now, let me start with an article I found in one of the newspapers I am just now reading. My boyfriend saves his newspapers when I am gone and I go thru them catching up on local and regional news. On June 11, last Monday, the editorial page provided me with the first reflection on the trip.

The author of the piece, Kami Pothokuchi, teaches Urban Planning at Wayne State, and it seems that she is on the same track I am - we need to change how we manage our food and food dollars. We are out of balance.

"One problem with the farm bill has been its historical lack of balance. Only 39% of all U.S. farmers and ranchers received crop subsidies in 2005, very few of which were fruit and vegetable farmers. Also left out are African-American, Hispanic and Native American farmers whose mistreatment by federal programs over the years has prevented them from obtaining financial credit and conservation assistance. This has led to the loss of 97% of black-owned farms.

These extraordinary imbalances have consequences for eaters as well. Between 1985 and 2000, the real price of fruits and vegetables increased by 40%, while soft drinks and other sugary and high-fat foods declined in cost by as much as 20%."

Somehow people still don't seem to "get it," that our food is being manipulated in ways that are harming our health and our economy. The fruit and vegetable farm market in the US and Canada have taken multiple hits because of their lack of subsidies which make it hard for them to compete within the global market. Imported fruits and vegetables travel even farther to reach our tables. All this travel of our food interferes with its taste (there is no comparison of fresh fruit and the traveled varieties) and our energy consumption. Food production also burns about one-sixth (17%) of our fossil fuels, and that is not counting the amount of petroleum products used in fertilizers.

Worst of all the food that is receiving most of the subsidies (you'll have to take a class to understand our plight in the subsidies question) are the foods that we don't need more of - they provide calories, but empty calories, and nutrition is absent. They are the foods that are most used in food processing - wheat, corn, soy and, of course, sugar. I am not against any of these products, but the way we use them, and abuse them to "feed" that overweight populace that is America.

If we focused on how we eat, and favored more local foods over processed foods, many of our health issues would evaporate along with our waistlines.

Across America and Canada schools are making the choice to eat local, to buy their produce from CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture), to not have their food transported the average of 1500 miles to reach their tummies. Even food service corporations are joining in the belief for a healthy America.

Some of the schools and corporations that are beginning the switch are:

• University of Northern Iowa
• University of Pennsylvania
  
• University of Wisconsin
• Hendrix College
  
• University of California system
• Drake University
• University of Toronto
• Washington State University
• University of Kentucky
• University of Connecticut
• University of Montana
• Oberlin College
• Berea College
• University of Vermont
• University of Minnesota
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• University of Nebraska
• Denison University
• University of Virginia
• University of Kansas
• University of Illinois Extension
• University of Illinois
  
• University of Maine
  
• Sodexho
• Aramark, BAMCO, Sodexho
  

Interestingly, Michigan has not done so well in this area, though we have no reason to be so slow, especially since we are often in the top states for our overweight population.

• University of Michigan
• Michigan State University

We have plenty of problems in Michigan these days, but one way to create a healthy attitude and can do spirit is to eat right. Universities can lead the way, educating our students and faculty into the light.