Whatever's available

I've had pasta sauce on my mind for a couple of days now, so decided to make some. I was determined not to go to the grocery, but to make the sauce with what I had. I was delighted to find that I had put away a whole bag of onions (crucial to pasta sauce for me) and of course I had plenty of tomatoes that I'd canned. So I dived into making what is a true comfort food for me. The aroma of pasta sauce simmering on the back burner for hours is delightful on a cold, snowy day. And the fact that I made it with what I had (substitution is a fine art that should be embraced) was even better.

Growing up pasta sauce was made a very specific way with ground beef and while I still like that version, if you don't have ground beef, you can still make the sauce. I know my mother wouldn't think so, but you can. It won't taste the same, but if it tastes good, isn't that ok? Not that traditional tastes should be left behind, they shouldn't! But we can be creative and economical and make tasty food without having to go to the grocery for special ingredients all the time. Eating from the pantry and the freezer makes so much sense to me. It's an enjoyable challenge to see what results and if it makes sense to document the recipe or continue tinkering.

Today's effort is on the recipe page.

A year of "yes"

A conscious choice....

It's not something that I can take credit for thinking up. And I'm not sure where I even ran across it as an idea. But it feels right and I'm ready!

Ta-da!

Next, year - 2013 - is going to be my year of "yes." What is that, you ask? It is saying yes, when I would have said no. Taking chances that I would have avoided. Experiencing things that I've been so sure I don't like, don't want to do. It is the opposite of the life of "no" that has been part of me for so long. The "can't" the "shouldn't" the "won't work" and the "I don't." All the sureness that I had about what just wasn't who I was is gone. Pitched out the window and replaced with an openness to possibilities (even those ones that seem questionable) that could lead to who knows what?

It's not about anything more than living life to the fullest by embracing the real me. A me that somehow got lost a long time ago and who is finding her way back to the surface.

So what are some things I've recently said "yes" to in my warm up to my year of "yes"?

• Sticking with a class (as a student) that would have been easier for me to drop. 
• Dropping a class that would have been financially safer for me (as an instructor) to continue.
• Agreeing to travel to a work meeting that would have been easy for me to avoid.
• Agreeing to take on responsibilities that cause me to step waayyy outside my comfort zone.

Yet, all these things feel good. Right. Like growing into more competence and peace and away from anxiousness and doubt. I can't wait to see what other yes opportunities lie ahead. If it works, then the year of yes may become my way of being and not just another New Year's resolution. 

Another year...

It's almost time to turn the calendar page to yet another new year. Have slipped over the top of the mountain quietly and as I tread down its far side, I find it remarkable that this journey, this life, has been what it has. In so many ways nothing at all like I think my parents would have expected for me - or maybe even hoped and wished for me. But they couldn't have seen what the world has become. Its interconnectedness and complexity. Yet the things they could envision are things I want. I want a simple life, good food, good friends and roof over my head. But the way in which I have managed to acquire and hold on to these things, that is where I think my parents' dream for me and my dream of my own life parted ways.

They were traditionalists and expected me to marry, settle down, raise a family and live my life. I was non-traditional from their perspective (no matter that I probably fit well in my own time) in that I pursued a career, stayed single, traveled around and, based on feedback I've received, was considered successful. But funny thing, aside from that "raise a family" hope they held, the life I live now is probably exactly what they would have expected me to do from the start. But I couldn't. Wouldn't. Didn't.

Maybe what I wanted changed. Maybe I only wanted something totally different from my parents' life simply because that life didn't seem exciting. Whatever happened, I find myself discovering with every turn of the calendar page to a new year that I see more value in the way they lived than I could see before, and am consciously choosing it. And will most likely continue to do that until I'm fully down off the mountain.

Cleaning out files

Its something I have put off for a very, very, very long time. Cleaning out the files that contain things that relate to the work I used to do. In some bizaarly unexplainable way, having those things in files and moving them around over the years comforted me. Those mounds of paper showed I was who I was, that I did what I did. That I had positions that people looked up to. Ho-hum. So what. I'm not that person now.

The idea of cleaning out files, ridding my home of who knows what to create space, downsize, and prepare for my next move has made sense for years. I don't need all this paper. Keeping things that you don't know you have, or if you know you have them can't find them, is, politely put, NUTS! Yet I did it. Now I'm trying to undo it.

The process requires focus, and determination. Focus as in, don't find something more pleasant to do only 15 minutes into what is clearly a multi-hour job. Determination as in, don't look at every piece of paper in every file, reliving the time that paper came from, reminiscing about the people, the experiences, the....whatever. Just don't do it. Just grab, glance (to make absolutely sure something crucial isn't being tossed), toss and move on.

But I have to admit, I found a page ripped from the 1998 June issue of Red Herring, a publication that doesn't even exist any longer that stopped me in my tracks. It was an example of the kind of thing I tried to get "answers" from back then. For the most part, I didn't fit into the corporate settings I was in and was constantly trying to figure out "the" answer so that I would. Finally I realized that leaving was what I needed to do, so I did. But back to the magazine page.

I had highlighted a segment of the article. This particular bit of wisdom that I'd gleaned and thought so important I had to keep said:

"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law' - which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportion to the square of the number of participants - becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."

Sheesh. Not only was this prediction really, incredibly wrong, but I was appalled to note that it was made by someone who I continue to read (in the New York Times) and typically agree with. Sigh. While the part about people not having anything to say to each other (nothing significant anyway) is true, the economic impact thing, is 180 degrees off. And the title of this article? "Why most economists' predictions are wrong." The author? Paul Krugman. Nobel prize winning, Paul Krugman.

Ok. Everyone can be...correction - is...sometimes wrong. But not everyone has the type of bully pulpit that people like Krugman does. So - note to self - the stuff in the files doesn't contain consummate wisdom.  Just because someone writes something down and gets it published, doesn't make them smart or right (although I admit many people who write and are published are quite brilliant.) I'm long past needing answers in files and can finally admit that throwing it out all this stuff won't change who I was and what I did.

Back to the files...

Pumpkin cake for the current me

I love pumpkin. Growing up I couldn't get enough of if, because it seemed that the only time we had anything pumpkin was between about mid-October and Christmas. Which, by the way, is historically the season to have pumpkin unless you canned it. Commercial canning and out of area growing made year-round pumpkin even more possible. Of course now what is labeled pumpkin may actually be a winter squash mix....but I digress.

After leaving home decades ago I found that pumpkin wasn't just for that tiny window and so started collecting pumpkin recipes. One of my favorites was a pumpkin cake that had orange juice and orange zest in it. It was heavenly and I made it often, even adapting it various ways. Time passes and for whatever reason, that recipe was replaced by others. But when invited to a dinner last evening, I decided it was a perfect time to bring that wonderful pumpkin cake as a dessert. So I dug out the recipe and rolled up my sleeves yesterday morning to make the cake.

HORRORS! I read the recipe and it called for a stick of butter in the cake AND a stick of butter for the frosting! Had I really eaten that? Yes I had, and loved every minute of if. Today though, I don't eat so much fat (or try not to) for various reasons. And I don't even try to fool myself into thinking I can do it occasionally. Of course I can, but I don't want to. So what to do?

My solution was to leave the butter in the frosting since I didn't have a good idea of what might substitute (sorry - fat free creme cheese doesn't do it). That left the batter. Often I've used apple sauce to replace a fat in baking. So this time I used some recently canned pear sauce (just like apple sauce only I think a milder flavor) and wondered what would happen. Yes, it's risky to try new things when you are bringing a dish to a dinner, but why not get feedback from people who you know enjoy and know food? So I dove in and made the recipe with the substitution.

At dinner I didn't say what had changed in the recipe, only let people know there had been a change and asking for their thoughts. Seriously, there were moans of "yum" "ooohh, this is so good" and the like. I actually thought they were putting me on so I tasted it. It was good - very moist and delicate and 50% less fat than the original recipe. I learned that I can use pear sauce just as well as apple sauce and not risk so much at all. And since I made the pear sauce with pears from a nearby friend, I knew it didn't have gobs of sugar or anything else in it either.

I've shared the recipe on the Recipes page of this blog. I apologize in advance because I don't know where the original one came from. But with this adaptation, I guess it becomes mine :-)

How could he not know?

Yesterday I went to the grocery and purchased what I considered to be basics. Vegetables (loose Cubanella peppers, green cabbage, bunched labeled radishes, and bagged and labeled Brussels sprouts), fruit (bananas, bagged and labeled red grapefruit and Gala apples) plus milk and a few other items. In the check out line I was brought up short by a couple of things.

The person at the register was a tall, pleasant young man, possibly in his 20s. Perhaps he was in school working part time, or perhaps this job was all that was available to him in these tough economic times. I don't know. What I do surmize by looking at him was that he was morbidly obese. Even with his height I would guess that he was at least 75 pounds over weight. His belly not only hung over his belt, but it literally rested on the edge of the conveyer belt moving my purchases to the bagging area. I wondered about his habits and health based on his appearance.

Then as he registered all my items - scanning bar codes on most, having to weigh others - I was shocked again by his lack of awareness of fresh produce. He queried me about what the following items were:

• green cabbage
• radishes (they had a label)
• Cubanella peppers 

What had happened here? I don't consider these items obscure - ok, the Cubanella peppers may not be as common as the other two, but he seemed to not even know they were peppers. Did he really not know what these items were? Had he grown up not having them as a regular part of his diet? Did he not ask about the other items because they were obviously labeled with bar codes easily read by the technology? 

This isn't the first time a checkout person asked questions about the items I purchased. Unfortunately that is all too common as the emphasis is on speed (scanning as much as possible as quickly as possible) trumps product knowledge. But it is the first time I've been asked by someone where the apparent deficit had such potentially large implications. Maybe mine were the only items in the produce section he didn't know. I hope so. 

On a good day...

A number of years ago, when I reached "a certain age" I found that the mirror wasn't always a friend. I would peek at myself and on a good day, I could see the past, and on a bad day, I could see the future. That has only become more true, with fewer "good" days mixed into those mirror peeks.

As someone who always loved the change of seasons, and still does, it occurred to me today that perhaps people head for warmer, sunnier climes as they age because of a similar phenomenon.  While once, the passing of seasons was exciting and exhilarating (like long-ago looks in the mirror rarely bore long-term bad news), with age each passing season seems to happen faster, like there aren't as many days in that season any more. Holding onto a single pleasant season might fool one into thinking time wasn't passing. With fewer years ahead of one than behind, rushing into the future doesn't hold the allure it once did.

That seems to me to be all the more reason to slow down. Not the slowing down of a declining body, but the slowing down of an appreciative soul. To fully take in the moment, whatever it is, rather than looking ahead to what might not turn out to be all that great anyway. Or it may be. But the point is, it isn't anything yet. Only now is now. Here. Real. Livable. Regardless of what the mirror says, now is worth living to the fullest. As a friend said a number of years ago "there are only so many summers." Very true. And only so many Springs, Falls and Winters. Each deserving their due.

If it's true...

After my mother died in the late 1980s, I was afraid that my father wouldn't be able to cope. But he surprised me. Pleasantly. For a number of years he lived in the same house, taking care of it (even mopping floors on his hands and knees) and the yard, traveling with his brother and seemingly doing well. But eventually (as expected) it became more than he could handle so he ultimately sold it and moved into a relatively small condo. It was hard on him and me.

In the condo over a few years, things deteriorated, and his mental capacity began to slip. Normal, right? By the time he died in 2002, he had some form of dementia, had lived four years in a nursing home and had progressively less and less quality of life.

When I first noticed the decline, I also noticed that he had stopped cooking for himself and had taken to getting Meals on Wheels, a well intentioned, likely chronically underfunded service that dropped off meals designed to fill people up as cheaply as possible. That meant lots of processed carbs, processed meats and relatively few if any fresh fruits and veggies,  I found the meals abhorrent and tried to intervene to get better meals to my father, but he protested that they were too costly, even though I had paid for them. Not eating well was something my mother would not have stood for. And for her, eating well involved her making most things from scratch.

In today's New York Times, Mark Bittman discusses the possible link between poor diet (heavy carbs like my father got in his delivered meals) and Alzheimer's with the possibility that it is an extension of the varieties of diabetes - Type 3 to be specific. We have known for a long time that the SAD (standard American diet, to use Bittman's term) is not healthy, leading to obesity, diabetes and more. Now it appears that it may wreak even further havoc on the end of life. How can it be that companies can continue to make money while making us sick? There is something so very wrong with that. And I'm paying for this tsunami of illness in my insurance rates. Less than those with the illness to be sure, but paying none the less. And if Bittman's article is correct, we stand to see costs rocket to the further stratosphere in the future, putting even more strain on families and stressed health care providers.

I believe it is immoral to continue to produce foods that are literally killing us. And if you want to say the data isn't all in, or it's wrong to regulate what people eat, then I respectfully ask that for insurance purposes we split into two risk pools, those people who aren't convinced that certain foods and behaviors are the enemy be in one pool, continuing to do what they do. Then those of us who believe that that food - it's type, quality and variety - matters be in a second pool. You can continue to eat what you want and I won't be paying for it.


To read a summary of the research behind Bittman's article, click here.

I can't touch your food

Last week I did something I've wanted to do for a long time, combined a desired long train trip (I wanted the experience) with a hog roast in New York state (I've always said I'd travel for pork...). My paternal grandfather was a stationmaster back in the heyday of rail travel and I thought the trip a fitting homage to a man who died long before I was born. The pork was purely a selfish endeavor.

The trip involved overnight travel so inevitably there was food involved. There was a cafe car (snacks rather than meals with somewhat extended hours) and a dining car (meals from a menu, wine etc. with limited hours). How lovely it seemed. Oh, but not so fast.

In the 40+ hours I was on the train to and from my destination, along with catching a horrid cold, I was introduced to today's version of train dining. Perhaps better than in-flight meals, but not much. Everything that needed heat was microwaved. Ok, to be expected I guess. But I learned that they microwaved everything in its wrapper. On styrofoam plates. Ug. And I found that the veggie burger that I thought was so lovingly prepared for me in the dining car, was just another microwave offering in the cafe car. I felt duped.

But I had to eat and the veggie burger seemed to be the least worst choice. So when the person behind the counter offered to warm the meal without the wrapper. I thought that was better than in it. But then she said "I can't touch your food." She literally could not take the wrapper off my food and warm it. That was up to me. If she'd had her way, I would have warmed it on that styrofoam plate rather than on a nice, plain, unbleached cardboard box. But I prevailed, so enjoyed eating my bread-toughened scorching hot, nuked veggie burger with no toppings, for sustenance. A picture wouldn't do it justice...

Farm to Everyone's Table

Yesterday I enjoyed a lovely meal in a lovely setting. It was fresh from the farm and prepared well. All local, including the wines. And the company was lovely as well, as was the setting. In many ways, it was the ideal meal - consciously chosen, locally produced and enjoyed with friends and good conversations.

Try as I might to eat that way every day, at least one of the ingredients is often missing. Some days I eat a quick meal standing at my kitchen sink so I can get back to work. Other times, I succumb to purchasing something that is out of season or from out of the area. Rarely do I purchase processed or fast food, but even there I sometimes fall down and do. Yet I can choose to do those things so I am choosing how I eat. And this consciousness is something that would not have been present 20 years ago for me.

On the other hand, there are so many people who cannot make the choices I do. Perhaps it is because they have a limited source of fresh, seasonal foods or don't have the financial ability to choose them. Perhaps it is because they are unaware of the impact of their choices on their health, the health of small farmers and the land on which their food is grown. Or perhaps they are so pressed for time that any thought of cooking is elbowed aside by convenience. For whatever reason, by choice or by default, these people reach for the fast, the processed and, as evidence continues to mount, the unhealthy.

As I've written and said so many times, eating isn't optional. However everyone should have the opportunity to choose the food they eat. Truly choose - not between Burger King and McDonald's, but between fast food and fresh food. Idealistic? You bet. A big change? Yep. Something that will continue to require education and support. Most likely. But something that has started and is gaining speed? I do believe so...

Thinking about the future

Recently I've been out of sorts. Down in the dumps. Anxious. The space between my ears has been occupied by thoughts I try to keep at bay, but every so often, they assert themselves and make me, well, miserable.

Some thoughts are personal, ones we all have (at least I assume everyone has them...) as we go through life and lose loved ones, lose things with age, lose opportunities we no longer have sufficient time to take advantage of, or lose the desire to do what we once wanted to do. All that is manageable in doses. But once in a while a tsunami of these things collides with the global issues that also occupy my head space. Things like climate change, soil loss, broken food systems and the like. When that collision occurs I come to a screeching halt. What's the point, I think to myself. What's the point of trying to do anything? We're doomed - individually and together. Fortunately there are people who view the world from a more "half full" perspective than I can in those moments. But, I say to myself, it's still a half full view. I don't know anyone who is unabashedly optimistic about the future. Is there anyone out there whose glass is totally full and who honestly sees it continuing to be that way?

Like everything, this too will pass. But there is a sadness hanging about, even when enjoying a meal with friends or being inspired by others who share my world view who are working to make their communities better, more resilient places. I know doing nothing isn't an option. It only helps ensure my worst fears are more likely to be realized. But putting on a game face and getting back out there and working can feel like a fool's errand when I'm in my miserable place.

The New Old-Fashioned Approach to Canning

Canning is sustainable, right? It takes the available bounty and preserves it for the off season. It reuses jars again and again, eliminating purchases of "canned" goods whose containers are either recycled (if possible) or end up in the land fill. All good. And of course canned foods are satisfying in a way that only things you make yourself ever are. They are the product of your labor, represent your tastes and make wonderful, always-appreciated gifts. But...

Canning takes a lot of water. Washing the produce, sterilizing the jars, boiling water baths for processing and maybe even boiling water to add to the jar as in cold packed tomatoes. And then there are the lids. Every year they need to be replaced. In the old days women (women did most of the canning) knew how to conserve water because they had to, living off wells, and the canning jars and lids were glass, so unless broken, they weren't discarded. Yes, we've come a long way in terms of canning technology, but we (at least I feel I) use more water and hate throwing out those lids after a single use. So I reverted back to some old-fashioned simple ways to be more sustainable. 

First I reused the water in the big water bath kettle. I had always done this when doing multiple batches of processing on a single day, but this year I saved the water over night and reused the next day. No reason it (it seems to me) it couldn't be saved for several days in high canning season, adding to it as it depletes rather than starting new every time. It seems obvious, yet there was the competing need to clean up the kitchen after canning (using yet more water than necessary.) Now I no longer do that, saving at least 10s of gallons of water. It's not hard to leave a full water bath on the stove.  

Then there are those lids. I ran across some reusable canning lids in Mother Earth News but upon checking them out, decided they were too expensive. A knee-jerk reaction to a cost today that saves cost over time, perhaps. But I couldn't get it out of my mind that they were a wiser, sustainable thing to use, rather than throwing out all those lids as I canned more and more. So I gave in and purchased their starter pack (free shipping) that got me three dozen each of regular mouth lids and wide mouth lids. That many one-time lids would be approximately $18. These were about $50. But it would take only three uses (not years!) for them to pay for themselves and I've been known to put up things in the dead of winter. So I would quickly come out ahead. I will know how they work in terms of keeping food as I open what I've canned, but so far so good.  They can be found at here. 

It feels good. My canning is now much more sustainable and economical. No question there is still more I can do. I'll continue to work on that. 

Fooling Mother Nature

Found this image from a Google search on "Mother Nature".
It was on a blog site (Nifty Atheist).
Don't know who owns it so don't know who to credit.

Back in the 1960s I think, there was an ad for a margarine that supposedly tasted so buttery, it fooled Mother Nature. But she wasn't pleased and there were thunderbolts and lightening behind the announcer's voice that said, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" as a regal Mother Nature looked annoyed.

Man's thoughtless endeavors far beyond buttery spreads have been fooling (with) Mother Nature for a long time, and we are just beginning to understand that it goes beyond not being nice. We seem to have reigned down all manner of horrible problems by being ignorant of, or ignoring, the delicate interrelationship between the natural work and our ability to live. The New York Times today has a story - The Ecology of Disease -  discussing this in length. It is worth a read, and worth taking seriously.

Learning about life from my garden

Tools for life lessons

A number of years ago - probably nearly 20 now - who can keep track? - a woman shared a bit of wisdom with me about life lessons. Always one to collect quotes or brief snippets that appealed to me, I kept it. It was:

RULES FOR BEING HUMAN

1. You will receive a body.  You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.

2. You will learn lessons.  You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial and error and experimentation.  The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ulti­mately "works.”

4. A lesson is repeated until learned.  A lesson will be present­ed to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end.  There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better place than "here.”  When your "there" has become a "here,” you will simply obtain another "there" that will again, look better than "here.”

7. Others are merely mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you some­thing you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.  You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you.  The answers to life's questions lie inside you.  All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Author unknown, found on a refrigerator in Toronto

The most memorable zinging words were, "you will forget all this." Thus the need to be open to "relearning" perhaps in new, deeper ways the basic lessons of life, of which, I've decided there are too many to count on both hands. 

And so my garden has become my latest and possibly most patient and determined teacher. Clearly I am in need of a refresher coure in life lessons I'd forgotten I forgot, or perhaps ones where I haven't received the passing grade that will let me move on to the next lesson. 

When I started my garden a few years back in just a few months I had studied:

• patience
• understanding when enough is enough
• planning
• collaboration
• sharing
• tenacity
• peacefulness
• satisfaction
• curiosity
• acceptance and 
• adaptability. 

In no particular order these lessons popped into my consciousness like sprouts that push throught hte earth. One minute nothing is there, the next there is a fresh budding insight, to be nurtured and fed. Hopefully to develop into a fully formed healthy insight that can be appreciated and savored. 

I've learned patience in many ways, the obvious, waiting for seeds to sprout, the less obvious waiting for weather to accommodate my desire to plant NOW! Trying to move tender greenhouse started seedling outside because I'm ready risks losing all. Obvious enough yet when impatience is at its height, it can be almost painful the waiting, the "doing nothing" (As if waiting for the proper conditions weren't work) that is required of successful gardeners. Not satisfied with the growth in the greenhouse, when the calendar said Spring, I ignored the wisdom of experience gardeners and seed packet instructions and started to move things outside because I was ready to experience my perception of being a gardener. Needless to say the poor things suffered with cold snaps. Pricy oca, organic pepper starts and flowers (cosmos and chrysanthemums) all had their leaves bleached white with cold. They struggled because of me but managed to live, stunted perhaps but at least there. 

That was the first year. Since then I've following the lead of the weather rather than feeling like I need to bend it to my will. I've asked for and been given help and advise (gardeners are the original collaborative spirits I've decided) and I've not given up when various pests and blights have occurred, but tried to outwit them without using chemicals, getting more and more curious about how they occur and how to quell them. And I've accepted the inevitable when there have been failures, ripping out one thing and planting something else, adapting to the world as it is.

My garden has taught me in ways that people couldn't. A garden has no intention but to grow, unlike people who may have intentions that frustrate ours. Listening to the lessons that it teaches has been much easier (and more true) than listening to people who I could watch do just the opposite. 

There are more lessons in my garden. I've passed it's first round of tests and am moving on...

Oh, come on already!

Sometimes it seems that people don’t agree for the simple, and in my view perverse, joy they appear to take in disagreeing. What is the big deal about labeling food that has GMO ingredients? Alarmist, they say? If I want to know what I’m putting in my mouth, that’s unreasonable? Big food companies have been putting all kinds of things in my mouth for a long time. Yes, perhaps they are on the package, but if I’m not a chemist, botanist, a food scientist or a particularly curious person, I probably don’t know what they are. When we grew or raised what we ate, we knew. Yes, we needed to get more efficient and grow farming to feed the people. What we didn’t need to do was lose the connection between people and their food that we’ve managed to lose in the process. 

Its time to make that reconnection and it needs to be made in many ways. This is one. We need to give people a true choice of what they choose to eat.  If you don’t want to eat GMO foods and I do, we should be able to make that choice. If I want to save seed and you want to grow GMO crops, you shouldn’t be able to sue me if my seed becomes “contaminated” with genes from yours, or vice versa. Food prices, well, there is another sticky wicket. And an important one that must be addressed. But allowing information about if a food includes GMO ingredients, that seems to be a simple choice.

From today's New York Times:

Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food

Concern over the possible health and environmental effects of such food has prompted a move for labeling it, but scientists, farmers and technology companies call the measures alarmist.

Consciousness revisited

Today at the grocery I saw something that almost made me stop and stare, but I didn't. Even so, I can't get the image out of my mind.

I had just checked out and was annoyed that I'd forgotten my eco-friendly shopping bags, so I had to use the store's plastic ones. Yes, I could have bought more eco bags, but how many do I really need? On the way toward the exit I saw a woman in the self-check line setting up one of those eco bags to fill. It was a nice sight. Someone trying to do the right thing. Less petroleum, more earth friendly. A conscious choice.

Then I saw what she was putting in the bag. It was just the perfect shape and size to hold stacks of frozen dinners, boxed foods and all manner of processed things. I honestly didn't see a fruit or veggie anywhere in all her purchases. A conscious choice to use eco friendly bags and what appeared to me to be a completely unconscious choice of the food to put in the bag. Maybe I'm wrong, but it looked really odd to me. Go figgur....

Well-Pict Package

Photo from the Well-Pict website

I believe in eating local and in season. But every so often, I succumb to the temptation of a fruit or veggie that's out of season. Recently it's been occasional strawberry binges. I avoid the giant ones that taste like nothing and try to find what I consider to be more normally sized berries, typically in those clam-shell packages that at least can be recycled. Its a small comfort that maybe it's not as bad as if the packaging couldn't be recycled.

As I was getting ready to recycle my lastest package, I noticed something embossed onto the bottom. I'd never noticed anything on such packages before and was curious. In addition to the symbol showing that the pack could be recycled and the type of plastic it was (it was "1" or PETE, polyethylene terephthalate) the embossing said:

www.penpack.net
70% recycled drink bottles and 50% energy from the sun

This little bit of information was eye-opening. This particular brand, Well-Pict Berries, had made a conscious choice of their packaging and the packaging maker had made a conscious choice to use recycled and renewable in making their products. I was impressed. Not only was I not buying from the apparent gorrilla of the berry business, Driscoll, I was also buying from people who were concerned about sustainability. Hooray me.

Addtionally there have been concerns that reused PETE bottles are connected to health issues and their production new is not sustainable. So the idea of safely reusing such a land-fill hog was even more satisfying.

Here is more information on Well-Pict and Penpack. I still will eat primarily local and seasonal, but when I stray, I'll look more closely at the packages as well as the source of the food (which I had been doing) and make my own conscious choices.

Making a difference

I've been involved in a number of conversations over the last few months that have a common theme. They all somehow involve fresh, fair, available food and interest in growing it, preparing it, increasing awareness of it, supporting its producers financially and creating the policies and laws that support a food system that is sustainable and good for the people and communities it touches. It seems that everyone is interested in food, and that's a good thing. What is more challenging is organizing and selecting a focus that is both appealing (to attract the human, financial and other resources necessary to do meaningful work) and appropriate (the equivalent of solving the right problem in the right way rather than looking for how to make something into a nail because we have a hammer.)

Competition has no place in this arena. It's time to stop guarding information, looking out for "number 1" and establishing arbitrary territories that belong to "us" and "them." The problems we face are too big and too complex for any one group to deal with. And they are too interconnected to be simple to solve. If solving my problem creates a problem elsewhere,  net net, we are no better off.

What we face in the food world is a global puzzle like a rubic's cube. Access to food that isn't affordable isn't a solution. Affordable food that isn't healthy isn't a solution. Healthy food that doesn't reach everyone isn't a solution. It's not enough to get problems solved in one part of the world because we're interconnected, and what we do upsets the pattern that others are trying to achieve elsewhere. Yet, it's hard to work with others who may hold views that we disagree with, but we must. It's hard to give up certain long-held goals to achieve other, larger goals, but often, we must. It's hard to try, and try, and try and come up short, but we must be willing to continue. Solving a puzzle requires that everyone contribute their piece to the picture and accept that others have pieces to contribute as well.

Planting financial seeds

Back when I grew up - it really doesn't feel that long ago, but in terms of practices I guess it is - people mostly knew the people they loaned money to. The same way that they had a pretty good idea of where their food came from. In just a generation or two, that has changed dramatically to the point where recently I saw a video of last an urban teenager from a less advantaged neighborhood taste his first apple. Nothing exotic, just an apple. But he'd never tasted one in his life.

On the financial front, people don't know where their money goes when they invest in a mutual fund or a huge international company. It may go for things they like - or they don't - and they don't have a say. Growing up I remember walking into the Savings & Loan with my little deposits into my savings account (that helped pay for college) and having a vague sense that they were going to get used to build things in the area where I lived. Maybe a house, or apartments or something like that. There aren't so many local financial institutions any more.

Locals used to be in touch with and helping locals. Now we often don't know our neighbors let alone what our savings or investments are used for. And therein lies a bit of a problem for me.

Seems to me that we need to take some steps back so that we return to those earlier practices. I'm not so naive as to think that the clock gets turned back 100% and everything is done on a local level. The world is too interconnected and interdependent for that. But it is possible to consciously choose to eat an increasing percentage of calories from locally produced foods and to encourage and support those people by investing directly in their operations when they need a new piece of equipment or a to expand their storefront, or have a great business idea to get off the ground. Not being the only investor or lender perhaps, but being there in a way that makes a difference. That's the simple idea behind Slow Money.

If investing locally in food and food related businesses is something you are interested in and you reside in SW Michigan or NW Indiana, let's make it happen. Let's recreate a local culture where neighbors help neighbors and we know our food.  Contact me (gardentotableinfo(@)gmail(dot)com). I'd love to hear from you and move this process along...

When to stop trusting experts

I grew up with parents who put great faith and trust in experts of all kinds. Expert was another name for authority. Whether it was science, doctors, the church or any other of all types of authority, if they said it, it must be right. I remember my father voting his stock proxies and when asked why he didn't vote against some proposed board members or proposals, he was genuinely taken aback and told me he always voted with management because they knew what needed to be done.

Then came my teen and college years and they were full of the rebellion of war protests over Viet Nam and hippies and all the anti-establishment actions you could imagine. My coming of age. Yet I wanted to believe in the benevolence of the authorities out there as well. I went back and forth trying to make sense of it all. It never did sort out exactly.

Today I believe most people, most of the time are good and want to do the right thing. By "right" I mean right for most people, not just themselves. And I believe that bad systems can, over time, corrupt good people. George Bernard Shaw said "Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." At the same time, I believe that what is considered good, can, with more time and information, turn out out to be bad. Good intentions have unintended consequences. A case in point in today's New York Times:

How Chemicals Affect Us

Scientists warn that chemicals we’re exposed to every day can cause genital deformities and even breast cancer. Is our government paying attention?

I don't believe for a minute that the chemical industry set out to create dangerous things that would cause health problems. I do believe that nothing should be assumed and over time, careful, honest investigators should learn more about such creations. If what they learn is negative, they have an obligation to share that information widely and unambiguously. I also believe the people have to pay attention to what they do because there is so much information out there (reliable and unreliable) it is overwhelming and critical thinking skills often seem in short supply. Yet, having people whose job it is to pay attention (regulators) makes sense to me, as long as they remain honest and committed to the welfare of the whole as opposed to the interests of a few - whoever those few are.