The recent warmth and humidity we've been experiencing make it clear that spring is edging into summer. But for many of us, there are other indicators, too. One is the changing hue of the green leaves, from the lacey light-green of spring to the darker, more solid-appearing greens of summer.
As we move toward the Summer Solstice on June 21st, the quality of light is changing, too: the sun riding ever higher in the sky, the days lasting just a bit longer, and the nights a bit shorter. The birds are in full song, even the laggards having made their yearly pilgrimage along the migration routes. The scent of wild roses and honeysuckle perfumes the air with a magical fragrance.
But perhaps most wondrous of all, fresh local produce is beginning to appear. As many know, I work on a farm called Spoutwood in Glen Rock, PA, which offers weekly bags of produce to shareholders. But even though our distribution season will not begin for another week or so, the gardens are already starting to produce greens, radishes, asparagus, and more.
Spoutwood is a community supported agriculture project (CSA), in which shareholders pay a set fee up front in exchange for 22 weeks of produce. But there are many others, including a number here in Carroll County. Lists of local CSA farms can be found at http://www.sare.org/csa/index.htm and http://www.localharvest.org/csa/, among other sites.
Not everyone will sign up for a CSA, however, and even those of us who do often find that we want one or two veggies that didn't come in the box or bag this week. Or, we may want more of something than our CSA share provided. For those folks, or anyone else looking for a taste of summer, fresh and local, farmers markets cannot be beat.
Not all farmers markets are created equal, however. Some, like the Farmers Market at the Ag Center in Westminster, combine a heavy complement of crafts with their produce-selling farmers. In some ways, this has filled in -- at least seasonally -- the void left by the departure of the Pennsylvania Dutch Market. Some markets allow their vendors to "buy in" produce from off the farm, or even out of state: just because it's at a stall in a farmers market does not necessarily mean the farmer grew it.
Others, however, are proud of their status as "producers only" farmers markets. As the name indicates, these markets require their farmer-vendors to sell only what they grow on their own farms, or if they are providing a value-added product (such as bread or preserves) to have made it themselves, often with at least some proportion of local ingredients.
The Downtown Westminster Farmers Market is one such producer-only farmers market. In addition to offering fruits, vegetables, breads, and even meats, this market offers the assurance that everything available for sale was grown, raised, or made on the farm or in the kitchen of the vendor.
Says Jackie Miller, market manager,
"There are many different things that people are concerned about when it comes to their food. Some are vegetarians, some want organic, some want to preserve the environment and conserve fossil fuels by eating locally, and some simply want the freshest, best quality produce available. Customers looking for chemical-free products can walk up to the farmer and talk with him or her about their growing methods. Furthermore, you are supporting your local economy by shopping at producer-only markets. We feel that this label is of utmost importance in keeping the integrity of our market."
This is not to say that other models for farmers markets are bad or incorrect. But for the assurance that what you buy is both impeccably local and impeccably fresh, it's hard to beat the knowledge that it's been picked in the farmer's own garden that very morning.
This is just a sampling of the many sources for fresh produce available this summer, including of course roadside farmstands, and even your neighbor's garden -- or if you're feeling ambitious, your own. Despite suburban encroachment, Carroll County retains a strong agricultural component, and there's no time like summer to take advantage of it.
Buying food locally -- becoming a "localvore" -- is good for the environment, good for farmers, good for local communities, and good for the eater of that delicious, fresh, local food. Be it garden or farmstand, CSA or famer's market, find your favorite source and enjoy summer's bounty. Bon appetit!
Showing posts with label Diet and Nutrition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diet and Nutrition. Show all posts
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Top 5 most influential books I've read recently
Here, for whatever interest may be contained, are five books which have strongly influenced -- and in some cases dramatically changed -- the way I view "life, the universe, and everything":
1) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A natural history of four meals, by Michael Pollan.
I list this first in part because I'm reading it currently, and partly because it goes into so much detail about what's wrong with our current industrial food system -- with digressions into resource depletion, greenhouse gases, globalism, biofuels, and other related topics. The health of plants, animals, people, the land, and communities are all covered, and in an engaging and at times even gripping style. Pollan's book clearly illlustrates the ecological principle that "everything is connected to everything else." More than you ever wanted to know about what most Americans are eating these days, and even many of us who consider ourselves fairly aware are probably eating more often than we should... I certainly am. But I know a lot of things I'm not going to be eating, after reading this!
2) Real Food: What to eat and why, by Nina Planck.
Just a heckuva neat book by someone who sounds like a heckuva neat lady, and who is also a successful entrepreneur, in the area of farmers markets and local foods. As the subtitle puts it, this is about what you should eat and why you should eat it. Here's a sample, just to give a "flavor" of the book:
"Sobering" doesn't begin to describe this book. It's flat-out scary. Forget Stephen King, if you want to stay up all night in sheer terror, read Kunstler. But it's not a thriller, it's his insightful discussion of how the approach (if not current fact) of peak oil -- the point at which we are extracting as much oil as we will ever extract, world-wide -- and the subsequent decline in supply and increase in price, will change the way we live, forever. Everything about contemporary American society, from suburbia to surgical supplies, not to mention our food chain, is abjectly dependent upon cheap, plentiful fossil fuels. And that era is over, as what is left will become ever more difficult and expensive to extract, particularly since "much of it is located in countries whose people hate us," as Kunstler ruefully notes. The upshot? Expect significant contraction in all areas of American society, as local communities become not a choice, but a necessity. Want to know more? Read the book!
Note 1: If you absolutely don't have time to read the whole book (you don't have to read it all at once, ferpitysakes), at least read the article-length adaption published by Rolling Stone.
Note 2: I saw Kunstler and heard him speak at the 2007 PASA Conference in February; he is just as inspirational and motivational (in a kick-your-butt sort of way) in person as he is in print, but less curmudgeonly: he comes across as a genuinely decent guy who is genuinely concerned about the way our society seems determined to go. Sssh! Just don't tell him I said so. I think he likes his bad-boy image...
4) Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D.
Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF, for short) and Mary Enig is a brilliant but iconoclastic lipids researcher from the University of Maryland. Together, they do a bang-up good job of explaining why most of what you thought you knew about diet and nutrition is completely incorrect... okay, that's too gentle: flat-out wrong. Following in the footsteps of dentist and peripatetic entho-nutritionist Weston A. Price, DDS, Fallon and Enig encourage us to adopt the dietary wisdom of traditional societies, cultures and communities where people regularly lived long, healthy, and productive lives eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods -- including organ meats, full-fat (and raw) dairy, and other "healthy fats." Vegetables aren't left out of the equation, both in fresh and fermented forms, but Nourishing Traditions points out that there were no traditional vegan societies, and mostly-vegetarian ones invariably supplemented their diets with animal protein and fat in some form. This book is indeed food for thought and body alike.
5) The Untold Story of Milk, by Dr. Ron Schmidt, ND.
Ron Schmidt is a naturopathic doctor who cured himself of digestive and other ailments by adopting a diet rich in raw milk and other un-processed, un-pasteurized dairy products. That led him to an exploration of the history and culture of milk consumption, and especially the industrialization and mandatory pasteurization of our contemporary milk supply. Combining muck-raking journalism with a paean to holistic nutrition and small-scale, natural farming, Schmidt illustrates clearly why pasteurization is so essential in the mass-market commercial milk industry... and why raw milk and other dairy products are not only a viable alternative, when obtained from herds of healthy, grass-fed cows, but strongly supportive of -- perhaps even essential to -- good health.
I could go on and on about other books that have influenced my life, or at least my outlook on life -- and I may post another "top five" somewhere down the road. But these are not only interesting and well-written, but (I believe) timely and incredibly important. I strongly recommend you hie yourself to the local library or bookstore and obtain copies. And when you've read them, I look forward to any feedback or discussion thus generated!
Bonus Book:
If you've stuck with me this far, I may as well add a "bonus" that could just as easily be in the Top 5 in terms of influential -- the only reason I didn't put it there to start with was that it reaffirmed things I already believed rather than challenged or changed my outlook. But who knows? It might just change yours:
The Last Child in the Woods: Overcoming Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv.
This book makes a strong, well-researched, well-reasoned case for something that a lot of us have known intuitively and out of personal experience for a long time: that children need to be outside, playing and having what sociologists and educational researchers call "authentic personal experiences" in the natural world. As Louv puts it, "Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it." Certainly the mental, physical, and spiritual health of children depends to a large measure, as this book makes abundantly clear, upon direct personal contact with nature during childhood. And that kind of positive child-nature contact may also be vital for nature, as the children of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow. As G.M. Trevelyan wrote many years ago, "We are all children of the earth. Unelss our spirits can be refreshed by at least intermittent contact with nature, we grow awry." Likely much of the "growing awry" we see in many of today's children and youth can be traced by precisely to what Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder." Want to make a positive difference? Visit the Children & Nature Network to see what you can do.
1) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A natural history of four meals, by Michael Pollan.
I list this first in part because I'm reading it currently, and partly because it goes into so much detail about what's wrong with our current industrial food system -- with digressions into resource depletion, greenhouse gases, globalism, biofuels, and other related topics. The health of plants, animals, people, the land, and communities are all covered, and in an engaging and at times even gripping style. Pollan's book clearly illlustrates the ecological principle that "everything is connected to everything else." More than you ever wanted to know about what most Americans are eating these days, and even many of us who consider ourselves fairly aware are probably eating more often than we should... I certainly am. But I know a lot of things I'm not going to be eating, after reading this!
2) Real Food: What to eat and why, by Nina Planck.
Just a heckuva neat book by someone who sounds like a heckuva neat lady, and who is also a successful entrepreneur, in the area of farmers markets and local foods. As the subtitle puts it, this is about what you should eat and why you should eat it. Here's a sample, just to give a "flavor" of the book:
"Does that mean you should enjoy real bacon and butter not because they're tasty but because they're actually healthy? In a word, yes. Some might mock this as a characteristically American case for real food -- call it the Virtue Defense. [...] Someone else -- a French chef perhaps -- might take a different approach in defense of real food. Less interested in health, he might champion pleasure for its own sake. Great -- I'm all for pleasure. If the sheer sensual pleasure of eating shirred eggs or homemade ice cream is enough for you to shed your guilt, throw away phony industrial foods, and return to eating real foods, all the better. I'll leave the nature of taste and satisfaction, guilt and pleasure to the cultural critics and moral philosophers. This book is about why real food is good for you."3) The Long Emergency: Surviving the converging catastrophes of the 21st century, by James Howard Kunstler.
"Sobering" doesn't begin to describe this book. It's flat-out scary. Forget Stephen King, if you want to stay up all night in sheer terror, read Kunstler. But it's not a thriller, it's his insightful discussion of how the approach (if not current fact) of peak oil -- the point at which we are extracting as much oil as we will ever extract, world-wide -- and the subsequent decline in supply and increase in price, will change the way we live, forever. Everything about contemporary American society, from suburbia to surgical supplies, not to mention our food chain, is abjectly dependent upon cheap, plentiful fossil fuels. And that era is over, as what is left will become ever more difficult and expensive to extract, particularly since "much of it is located in countries whose people hate us," as Kunstler ruefully notes. The upshot? Expect significant contraction in all areas of American society, as local communities become not a choice, but a necessity. Want to know more? Read the book!
Note 1: If you absolutely don't have time to read the whole book (you don't have to read it all at once, ferpitysakes), at least read the article-length adaption published by Rolling Stone.
Note 2: I saw Kunstler and heard him speak at the 2007 PASA Conference in February; he is just as inspirational and motivational (in a kick-your-butt sort of way) in person as he is in print, but less curmudgeonly: he comes across as a genuinely decent guy who is genuinely concerned about the way our society seems determined to go. Sssh! Just don't tell him I said so. I think he likes his bad-boy image...
4) Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Ph.D.
Sally Fallon is the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF, for short) and Mary Enig is a brilliant but iconoclastic lipids researcher from the University of Maryland. Together, they do a bang-up good job of explaining why most of what you thought you knew about diet and nutrition is completely incorrect... okay, that's too gentle: flat-out wrong. Following in the footsteps of dentist and peripatetic entho-nutritionist Weston A. Price, DDS, Fallon and Enig encourage us to adopt the dietary wisdom of traditional societies, cultures and communities where people regularly lived long, healthy, and productive lives eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods -- including organ meats, full-fat (and raw) dairy, and other "healthy fats." Vegetables aren't left out of the equation, both in fresh and fermented forms, but Nourishing Traditions points out that there were no traditional vegan societies, and mostly-vegetarian ones invariably supplemented their diets with animal protein and fat in some form. This book is indeed food for thought and body alike.
5) The Untold Story of Milk, by Dr. Ron Schmidt, ND.
Ron Schmidt is a naturopathic doctor who cured himself of digestive and other ailments by adopting a diet rich in raw milk and other un-processed, un-pasteurized dairy products. That led him to an exploration of the history and culture of milk consumption, and especially the industrialization and mandatory pasteurization of our contemporary milk supply. Combining muck-raking journalism with a paean to holistic nutrition and small-scale, natural farming, Schmidt illustrates clearly why pasteurization is so essential in the mass-market commercial milk industry... and why raw milk and other dairy products are not only a viable alternative, when obtained from herds of healthy, grass-fed cows, but strongly supportive of -- perhaps even essential to -- good health.
I could go on and on about other books that have influenced my life, or at least my outlook on life -- and I may post another "top five" somewhere down the road. But these are not only interesting and well-written, but (I believe) timely and incredibly important. I strongly recommend you hie yourself to the local library or bookstore and obtain copies. And when you've read them, I look forward to any feedback or discussion thus generated!
Bonus Book:
If you've stuck with me this far, I may as well add a "bonus" that could just as easily be in the Top 5 in terms of influential -- the only reason I didn't put it there to start with was that it reaffirmed things I already believed rather than challenged or changed my outlook. But who knows? It might just change yours:
The Last Child in the Woods: Overcoming Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv.
This book makes a strong, well-researched, well-reasoned case for something that a lot of us have known intuitively and out of personal experience for a long time: that children need to be outside, playing and having what sociologists and educational researchers call "authentic personal experiences" in the natural world. As Louv puts it, "Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depend upon it." Certainly the mental, physical, and spiritual health of children depends to a large measure, as this book makes abundantly clear, upon direct personal contact with nature during childhood. And that kind of positive child-nature contact may also be vital for nature, as the children of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow. As G.M. Trevelyan wrote many years ago, "We are all children of the earth. Unelss our spirits can be refreshed by at least intermittent contact with nature, we grow awry." Likely much of the "growing awry" we see in many of today's children and youth can be traced by precisely to what Louv calls "nature-deficit disorder." Want to make a positive difference? Visit the Children & Nature Network to see what you can do.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The raw facts on raw milk
This essay was originally written as a column in response to a piece appearing in the Carrroll County Times, for which I write. But it was overtaken by other events, and never appeared. Here 'tis:
In a recent Marketplace essay entitled "Risk comes with consuming raw milk, products,” agricultural extension educator Mike Bell asserted that "raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganism that can pose serious health risks to you and your family."
Well, yes. That's true. It can. But -- and this is a big "but" -- there is a long way between "can" and "does." Mr. Bell states that according to the CDC, more than 800 people have gotten sick from consuming raw milk or raw milk cheese since 1998. I'm no math expert, but that calculates out to, on average, less than a hundred cases a year, nationwide.
Liz Reitzig, President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, reports that "according to the CDC, there are 73 million cases a year of food borne illness, virtually all of which are from regulated, industrial, licensed food products." Of the relative handful in which raw milk is implicated, "most are from raw milk intended for pasteurization, not from a small farmer carefully preparing raw milk for direct consumption." Furthermore, she notes, "Pasteurized milk accounts for several hundred cases of food borne illness each year," again according to CDC figures.
Other assertions are similarly misleading. The question of the role of enzymes in digestion and health is far too complex to fit into a column, but suffice it to say that qualified experts have also challenged and, to my satisfaction, refuted Mr. Bell's assertion that our bodies don't use enzymes contained in food to assist our own metabolic process. It seems quite clear that our digestive system does indeed utilize food enzymes, when present, to spare our own and make digestion easier.
While it is true that pasteurization kills most (though not all) harmful bacteria that may be present, beneficial microorganisms, commonly known as probiotics, are also killed in the process. These would otherwise aid digestion and strengthen the immune system. And while some enzymes, and some beneficial microorganisms, may survive conventional pasteurization, none survive the increasingly common "ultra-pasteurization."
Also misleading were some of the statements in the box entitled "Myths, facts about pasteurization." For example: "Pasteurizing milk does not cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins."
Of course pasteurizing milk doesn't cause lactose intolerance or allergic reactions. Rather, raw milk, which contains the lactase enzyme, is easier to digest for many, though not all, people who are otherwise lactose intolerant. Sensitivity to milk proteins -- casein -- is an entirely different issue than lactose intolerance, and should not be confused with it.
The assertion that "pasteurization does not reduce milk's nutritional value" is just that: an assertion, and a questionable one at that. Many nutritional experts far more knowledgeable than I have contested this assertion, among them Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Ron Schmidt, ND, William Cambell Douglas Jr., MD, Thomas Cowan, MD, natural foods expert and writer Nina Planck, and nutritionist and author Joann S. Grohman. Do your own research, and draw your own conclusions.
Finally, regarding harmful bacteria. Milk simply cannot carry any pathogens that were not present in the cow, or else contaminated the milk after milking. That is why no pro-raw milk activist would ever suggest that pasteurization be abandoned, especially for large, commercial dairies and industrial milk-processing plants. All they are asking is that exceptions be made for small-scale farming operations to sell directly to a small clientele of local customers: face to face, neighbor to neighbor, where accountability is high.
So, can raw milk make you sick? Sure. It's possible. So can sushi. So can raw oysters. So can rare beef, or sunny-side-up eggs. So, for that matter, can raw spinach, or salad-bar lettuce. Pasteurized milk can, too. So what's the big deal about raw milk? If you really want to cover your assets, require a statement, such as appears on many restaurant menus regarding meat and seafood, to the effect of "Consuming raw milk or dairy products may increase your risk of food-borne illness," and then let people make their own choices. Sounds a lot like freedom, doesn't it?
Granting small farmers the opportunity to sell clean, fresh, unprocessed milk to local customers benefits the health of people, local/rural communities, and if the cows are grass-fed, as they should be for healthiest milk, the land itself, including the Chesapeake Bay, and will also help more farmers to stay on the land. It's an idea whose time has returned.
For More Information
Here are a couple of sites I'd recommend:
Campaign for Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
"The Milk Papers" at Nina Planck's Website
Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
There are plenty of sites and lots of so-called "experts" telling how "bad" raw milk is for consumers. These are a selection of sites providing the alternative view.
In a recent Marketplace essay entitled "Risk comes with consuming raw milk, products,” agricultural extension educator Mike Bell asserted that "raw milk can harbor dangerous microorganism that can pose serious health risks to you and your family."
Well, yes. That's true. It can. But -- and this is a big "but" -- there is a long way between "can" and "does." Mr. Bell states that according to the CDC, more than 800 people have gotten sick from consuming raw milk or raw milk cheese since 1998. I'm no math expert, but that calculates out to, on average, less than a hundred cases a year, nationwide.
Liz Reitzig, President of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, reports that "according to the CDC, there are 73 million cases a year of food borne illness, virtually all of which are from regulated, industrial, licensed food products." Of the relative handful in which raw milk is implicated, "most are from raw milk intended for pasteurization, not from a small farmer carefully preparing raw milk for direct consumption." Furthermore, she notes, "Pasteurized milk accounts for several hundred cases of food borne illness each year," again according to CDC figures.
Other assertions are similarly misleading. The question of the role of enzymes in digestion and health is far too complex to fit into a column, but suffice it to say that qualified experts have also challenged and, to my satisfaction, refuted Mr. Bell's assertion that our bodies don't use enzymes contained in food to assist our own metabolic process. It seems quite clear that our digestive system does indeed utilize food enzymes, when present, to spare our own and make digestion easier.
While it is true that pasteurization kills most (though not all) harmful bacteria that may be present, beneficial microorganisms, commonly known as probiotics, are also killed in the process. These would otherwise aid digestion and strengthen the immune system. And while some enzymes, and some beneficial microorganisms, may survive conventional pasteurization, none survive the increasingly common "ultra-pasteurization."
Also misleading were some of the statements in the box entitled "Myths, facts about pasteurization." For example: "Pasteurizing milk does not cause lactose intolerance and allergic reactions. Both raw milk and pasteurized milk can cause allergic reactions in people sensitive to milk proteins."
Of course pasteurizing milk doesn't cause lactose intolerance or allergic reactions. Rather, raw milk, which contains the lactase enzyme, is easier to digest for many, though not all, people who are otherwise lactose intolerant. Sensitivity to milk proteins -- casein -- is an entirely different issue than lactose intolerance, and should not be confused with it.
The assertion that "pasteurization does not reduce milk's nutritional value" is just that: an assertion, and a questionable one at that. Many nutritional experts far more knowledgeable than I have contested this assertion, among them Sally Fallon, President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Ron Schmidt, ND, William Cambell Douglas Jr., MD, Thomas Cowan, MD, natural foods expert and writer Nina Planck, and nutritionist and author Joann S. Grohman. Do your own research, and draw your own conclusions.
Finally, regarding harmful bacteria. Milk simply cannot carry any pathogens that were not present in the cow, or else contaminated the milk after milking. That is why no pro-raw milk activist would ever suggest that pasteurization be abandoned, especially for large, commercial dairies and industrial milk-processing plants. All they are asking is that exceptions be made for small-scale farming operations to sell directly to a small clientele of local customers: face to face, neighbor to neighbor, where accountability is high.
So, can raw milk make you sick? Sure. It's possible. So can sushi. So can raw oysters. So can rare beef, or sunny-side-up eggs. So, for that matter, can raw spinach, or salad-bar lettuce. Pasteurized milk can, too. So what's the big deal about raw milk? If you really want to cover your assets, require a statement, such as appears on many restaurant menus regarding meat and seafood, to the effect of "Consuming raw milk or dairy products may increase your risk of food-borne illness," and then let people make their own choices. Sounds a lot like freedom, doesn't it?
Granting small farmers the opportunity to sell clean, fresh, unprocessed milk to local customers benefits the health of people, local/rural communities, and if the cows are grass-fed, as they should be for healthiest milk, the land itself, including the Chesapeake Bay, and will also help more farmers to stay on the land. It's an idea whose time has returned.
For More Information
Here are a couple of sites I'd recommend:
Campaign for Real Milk
Raw Milk Facts
"The Milk Papers" at Nina Planck's Website
Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
There are plenty of sites and lots of so-called "experts" telling how "bad" raw milk is for consumers. These are a selection of sites providing the alternative view.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Striking a blow for food choice
Unlike our neighbor to the north, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states throughout the U.S., Maryland does not believe that people should have a right to purchase fresh, unpasteurized milk and other dairy products from trusted local farmers. Under the guise of protecting our health, the regulators are actually preventing us from enjoying the health benefits of milk and other dairy items which have not been "killed" by pasteurization, and which therefore contain their full compliment of enzymes and beneficial probiotics.
However, with the assistance of the Maryland Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (MICFA), that may be about to change. This very week the Health and Government Operations Committee of Maryland's House of Delegates is considering a bill that would de-regulate direct farmer-to-consumer sales of raw milk and dairy products, restoring both the right and responsibility to make informed food choices where it belongs: with the consumer. And, not incidentally, increasing the ability of small farmers to keep far more of the food dollar than they presently enjoy.
Here is my letter of support, sent to the Committee:
However, with the assistance of the Maryland Independent Consumer and Farmers Association (MICFA), that may be about to change. This very week the Health and Government Operations Committee of Maryland's House of Delegates is considering a bill that would de-regulate direct farmer-to-consumer sales of raw milk and dairy products, restoring both the right and responsibility to make informed food choices where it belongs: with the consumer. And, not incidentally, increasing the ability of small farmers to keep far more of the food dollar than they presently enjoy.
Here is my letter of support, sent to the Committee:
Honorable Delegates,Let's hope this bill not only passes in committee, but makes it through the other hoops and hurdles to become law. As I indicated in the letter above, small farmers, rural communities, the environment of Maryland (including the Bay), and the health of consumers stand only to benefit from the freedom to purchase and consumer this most basic and beneficial of natural foods.
Please let me add my voice to those already raised in support of HB1010, sponsored by Del. Mary Ann Love, which would legalize direct producer-to-consumer sales of raw milk.
It is deeply frustrating to me and to many that we do not have the choice to purchase and consume natural, fresh, unpasteurized milk and dairy products from trustworthy farmers in Maryland, despite considerable evidence of the health benefits such raw dairy products provide. At present, the system is skewed to support huge industrial dairies -- for whom pasteurization is an undeniable necessity -- and regulators have been unwilling or unable to think outside the box. HB1010, if enacted into law, would change that.
In the process, it would not only provide a major boost to health-smart consumers in the Old Line State, but it would help to enable more small farmers to stay on their land, by providing them with a greatly-enhanced source of income. This is good for consumers, farmers, rural communities, and the environment alike: the latter, particularly since farmers whose operations are geared toward on-farm sales of fresh, raw milk to savvy consumers also tend to be farmers practicing sustainable, ecologically-friendly farming methods. This, in turn, is a benefit to the Chesapeake Bay, as well as to our overall quality of life, state-wide.
For the health and well-being of consumers, farmers, and the land, I strongly encourage you to support HB1010.
My heartfelt thanks go to those members of the Committe who are co-sponsors of this bill: Peter Hammen, James Hubbard, Nicholaus Kipke, Karen Montgomery, and Joseline Peña-Melnyk. Those of us who care deeply about fresh, healthy, natural and local foods owe you a debt of gratitude.
And for the rest of you, I implore you to come onboard. With the passage of HB1010, we could be seeing the dawn of a new day for Maryland consumers and farmers alike.
Respectfully and with thanks,
Thomas H. Harbold
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Trans fats tip of Orwellian iceberg (Column: 2/13/07)
If, as seems likely, avoidance is the typical American response when faced with a problem, overreaction is the typical American response when the problem can no longer be ignored. Case in point: trans fats.
Some astute nutritionists, especially those of unconventional persuasions, have been saying for some time that the likely culprit in coronary heart disease is not natural fats, saturated or otherwise, but unnatural ones, such as trans fats, as well as other industrially processed and refined foods. Small quantities of trans fats occur naturally in meats and dairy products, but these naturally-occurring fats have not been implicated in health problems.
The problematic fats are those created artificially by injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to make them mimic the texture and behavior of naturally-occurring saturated fats. Crisco, for instance, is an artificially-created hydrogenated vegetable oil specifically intended to look and feel like lard. Now, ironically, it is turning out that lard is a good deal healthier for us than Crisco. This is a good example of why it pays to be skeptical of faddish health and dietary claims, and look to traditional foods and diets instead -- but I digress.
Now that it has been confirmed that trans fats are indeed a serious health risk, not only are restaurants and food manufacturers scrambling to find alternatives (some of which have their own problems associated with them), but many municipalities across the country are passing legislation to ban the use of trans fats.
That's where I draw the line.
For the record, I am very pleased that trans fats are being discredited. But I am not pleased that any time something appears to be bad for us, we pass laws to ban it. This kind of nanny-state mentality does us little credit, either as Americans or as humans. It should not be necessary to spell this out, but perhaps it is: freedom includes the freedom to make bad choices. Bad choices come with consequences, from which (hopefully, if we survive) we draw the experience to make better choices in the future.
Regulating every jot and tittle of our lives not only robs us of freedom, it robs us of the opportunity to learn and grow through our experiences. It moves us closer and closer to an Orwellian existence as automatons under the watchful eye of Big Brother, enjoying the last modicum of illusory freedom: the freedom to choose which corporate-controlled, government-approved channel to watch on our giant-screen plasma TVs.
I am exaggerating, of course, but maybe not by much. We see this nanny-statism all around us, and the trend seems to be growing. I don't smoke, in fact I strongly dislike smoking, but I'm still troubled by moves to ban smoking in all public places -- in some municipalities, even outdoors -- and if some radicals had their way, even inside private homes. I am troubled by plans to conduct body-mass indicator (BMI) tests on school-children and send the results home.
I am troubled by the response to the E. coli spinach scare, which is to recommend the creation of a massive new federal bureaucracy that will allegedly guarantee food safety (the same way the Feds guarantee border security, or success in Iraq?), rather than allowing people to make their own choices between industrially mass-produced and centrally-distributed foods, or local foods purchased from a trusted farmer.
And this is just a handful of the more prominent examples. Each of these can be defended, individually, on various grounds. But collectively, they add up to a massive invasion of our rights to privacy and self-determination. We are losing our freedom in the only way we can lose it: by passive acquiescence.
Lulled by high technology, labor-saving devices, and mind-numbing entertainment, Americans have gotten out of the habit of doing for themselves, and into the habit of expecting government to do it all for us: including make our decisions. And government, which by its very nature tends toward the ever more centralized and authoritarian, is all too willing to respond.
I hope I will not be found too irreverent if I paraphrase Martin Neimoeller's famous dictum: “They came for the smokers, and I did not speak, because I was not a smoker. They came for the junk-food eaters, and I did not speak, because I ate little junk food. They came for the trans-fat consumers, and I did not speak, because I avoid trans fats. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak.”
Some astute nutritionists, especially those of unconventional persuasions, have been saying for some time that the likely culprit in coronary heart disease is not natural fats, saturated or otherwise, but unnatural ones, such as trans fats, as well as other industrially processed and refined foods. Small quantities of trans fats occur naturally in meats and dairy products, but these naturally-occurring fats have not been implicated in health problems.
The problematic fats are those created artificially by injecting hydrogen into vegetable oils to make them mimic the texture and behavior of naturally-occurring saturated fats. Crisco, for instance, is an artificially-created hydrogenated vegetable oil specifically intended to look and feel like lard. Now, ironically, it is turning out that lard is a good deal healthier for us than Crisco. This is a good example of why it pays to be skeptical of faddish health and dietary claims, and look to traditional foods and diets instead -- but I digress.
Now that it has been confirmed that trans fats are indeed a serious health risk, not only are restaurants and food manufacturers scrambling to find alternatives (some of which have their own problems associated with them), but many municipalities across the country are passing legislation to ban the use of trans fats.
That's where I draw the line.
For the record, I am very pleased that trans fats are being discredited. But I am not pleased that any time something appears to be bad for us, we pass laws to ban it. This kind of nanny-state mentality does us little credit, either as Americans or as humans. It should not be necessary to spell this out, but perhaps it is: freedom includes the freedom to make bad choices. Bad choices come with consequences, from which (hopefully, if we survive) we draw the experience to make better choices in the future.
Regulating every jot and tittle of our lives not only robs us of freedom, it robs us of the opportunity to learn and grow through our experiences. It moves us closer and closer to an Orwellian existence as automatons under the watchful eye of Big Brother, enjoying the last modicum of illusory freedom: the freedom to choose which corporate-controlled, government-approved channel to watch on our giant-screen plasma TVs.
I am exaggerating, of course, but maybe not by much. We see this nanny-statism all around us, and the trend seems to be growing. I don't smoke, in fact I strongly dislike smoking, but I'm still troubled by moves to ban smoking in all public places -- in some municipalities, even outdoors -- and if some radicals had their way, even inside private homes. I am troubled by plans to conduct body-mass indicator (BMI) tests on school-children and send the results home.
I am troubled by the response to the E. coli spinach scare, which is to recommend the creation of a massive new federal bureaucracy that will allegedly guarantee food safety (the same way the Feds guarantee border security, or success in Iraq?), rather than allowing people to make their own choices between industrially mass-produced and centrally-distributed foods, or local foods purchased from a trusted farmer.
And this is just a handful of the more prominent examples. Each of these can be defended, individually, on various grounds. But collectively, they add up to a massive invasion of our rights to privacy and self-determination. We are losing our freedom in the only way we can lose it: by passive acquiescence.
Lulled by high technology, labor-saving devices, and mind-numbing entertainment, Americans have gotten out of the habit of doing for themselves, and into the habit of expecting government to do it all for us: including make our decisions. And government, which by its very nature tends toward the ever more centralized and authoritarian, is all too willing to respond.
I hope I will not be found too irreverent if I paraphrase Martin Neimoeller's famous dictum: “They came for the smokers, and I did not speak, because I was not a smoker. They came for the junk-food eaters, and I did not speak, because I ate little junk food. They came for the trans-fat consumers, and I did not speak, because I avoid trans fats. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak.”
Real food versus "nutritionism" (Column: 2/6/07)
Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, monosodium glutamate, sodium alginate, disodium guanylate, sodium tripolyphosphate, tocopherols.
What am I listing? These are just a sampling of the more than fifty ingredients in a convenience food product called "Hearty Cup o' Noodles" (source: "Know Your Ingredients," in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon).
Such mind-boggling, and tongue-twisting, ingredient lists are the rule rather than the exception among the brightly-colored packages of processed and prepared foods that line our grocery shelves these days. Convenient, yes; attractive, certainly. But healthy? That's a whole 'nother story. It's a story that is told by, among others, Michael Pollan -- author of the highly acclaimed The Omnivore's Dilemma -- in a New York Times article entitled "Unhappy Meals."
The problem, as Pollan sees it -- and I heartily agree -- is that the whole eating experience has been taken over by a worldview that he calls "nutritionism": a paradigm that takes nutrients out of the context of food, food out of the context of meals, and meals out of the context of culture.
Not all cultures share this view, however, and some of them who consider such things as pleasure and socializing, rather than health, to be the centerpiece of eating are actually healthier than we are. The French are a popular case in point.
My own suspicion is that by taking the emphasis away from flavor, enjoyment, and communal bonding, nutritionism probably has a negative effect on overall health, if only because it makes eating yet another source of stress, rather than pleasure and relaxation. As Pollan notes, "Worrying about eating can't possibly be good for you."
Still, what you eat does matter. The challenge, nowadays, is discerning authentic food from laboratory-created imitations.
Once, Pollan points out, food was all you could eat. But now, he notes, there are "lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket." Some of them even make health claims. However, he notes, "if you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat."
So what counts as food? According to Pollan, eat food your great-grandmother would recognize as food. Get out of the supermarket, and buy local and seasonal foods. Pay more (for high-quality food); eat less (of everything). Avoid food products that make health claims, have ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, or more than five in number, or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
Pollan further recommends, "Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren't a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn't still be around."
This is an important point, also made by Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price Foundation: fad diets based on theories and short-term studies are untrustworthy. Traditional diets that have kept traditional peoples healthy for hundreds or even thousands of years are vastly more likely to be healthy for modern people, even if some of their contents seem to go against the grain of contemporary nutritional orthodoxy.
Pollan and Nina Planck, author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why and The Farmers Market Cookbook, both agree that Mom was right: fruits and vegetables should make up the majority of a healthy diet. Pollan emphasizes leafy vegetables, and acknowledges that meat is okay, though more as a side dish than the main course. Planck flatly asserts, on her realfood.com website, that "meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and milk are some of the best foods you can eat. Most traditional diets contain plenty of all of them, and even traditional vegetarian diets all rely on milk and eggs for complete protein, B vitamins, and essential fats. There are no traditional vegan societies."
Finally, Pollan recommends, do your own cooking, and ideally, plant a garden. Don't be a passive recipient of prepackaged nutrients; rather, "take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance." Do your part to combat the corrosive idea that "food is fuel, and not communion. The culture of the kitchen," he notes, "contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism."
The bottom line is this: want real health? Eat real food. Bon appetit!
What am I listing? These are just a sampling of the more than fifty ingredients in a convenience food product called "Hearty Cup o' Noodles" (source: "Know Your Ingredients," in Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon).
Such mind-boggling, and tongue-twisting, ingredient lists are the rule rather than the exception among the brightly-colored packages of processed and prepared foods that line our grocery shelves these days. Convenient, yes; attractive, certainly. But healthy? That's a whole 'nother story. It's a story that is told by, among others, Michael Pollan -- author of the highly acclaimed The Omnivore's Dilemma -- in a New York Times article entitled "Unhappy Meals."
The problem, as Pollan sees it -- and I heartily agree -- is that the whole eating experience has been taken over by a worldview that he calls "nutritionism": a paradigm that takes nutrients out of the context of food, food out of the context of meals, and meals out of the context of culture.
Not all cultures share this view, however, and some of them who consider such things as pleasure and socializing, rather than health, to be the centerpiece of eating are actually healthier than we are. The French are a popular case in point.
My own suspicion is that by taking the emphasis away from flavor, enjoyment, and communal bonding, nutritionism probably has a negative effect on overall health, if only because it makes eating yet another source of stress, rather than pleasure and relaxation. As Pollan notes, "Worrying about eating can't possibly be good for you."
Still, what you eat does matter. The challenge, nowadays, is discerning authentic food from laboratory-created imitations.
Once, Pollan points out, food was all you could eat. But now, he notes, there are "lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket." Some of them even make health claims. However, he notes, "if you're concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it's not really food, and food is what you want to eat."
So what counts as food? According to Pollan, eat food your great-grandmother would recognize as food. Get out of the supermarket, and buy local and seasonal foods. Pay more (for high-quality food); eat less (of everything). Avoid food products that make health claims, have ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, or more than five in number, or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
Pollan further recommends, "Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren't a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn't still be around."
This is an important point, also made by Sally Fallon and the Weston A. Price Foundation: fad diets based on theories and short-term studies are untrustworthy. Traditional diets that have kept traditional peoples healthy for hundreds or even thousands of years are vastly more likely to be healthy for modern people, even if some of their contents seem to go against the grain of contemporary nutritional orthodoxy.
Pollan and Nina Planck, author of Real Food: What to Eat and Why and The Farmers Market Cookbook, both agree that Mom was right: fruits and vegetables should make up the majority of a healthy diet. Pollan emphasizes leafy vegetables, and acknowledges that meat is okay, though more as a side dish than the main course. Planck flatly asserts, on her realfood.com website, that "meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and milk are some of the best foods you can eat. Most traditional diets contain plenty of all of them, and even traditional vegetarian diets all rely on milk and eggs for complete protein, B vitamins, and essential fats. There are no traditional vegan societies."
Finally, Pollan recommends, do your own cooking, and ideally, plant a garden. Don't be a passive recipient of prepackaged nutrients; rather, "take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance." Do your part to combat the corrosive idea that "food is fuel, and not communion. The culture of the kitchen," he notes, "contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism."
The bottom line is this: want real health? Eat real food. Bon appetit!
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