Green Food

Here’s an update on yesterday’s update. It has been delayed due to rain. We apologize.

I hope everyone enjoyed local foods week. I heard a lot of people at Danforth saying how much they loved the food. I hope those people are encouraged to follow their taste buds, and seek out local foods everyday (be it cooking them or having them cooked for you).

I want to alert everyone to two up and coming programs/promotions. The first is actually nothing new. Team Green (the sustainability group in Dining of which I am a member) is spearheading a campaign to publicize the use of reusable mugs. Starbucks alone uses hundreds of cups (let’s say 286.5) in a typical day. Those cups invariably end up in the trash (the cup jackets, in case you hadn’t realized, are recyclable). A reusable mug circumvents this issue, and offers the cheapest cup on campus to boot! As you can see from the image accompanying this post, we’ve already gotten started. Look for more posters in this vain in dining halls, and get your own mug! If you don’t have one, you might want to check out the yellow mugs sold by Dining. They are made out of corn! Weird!

Finally, the Corner Store is now offing a weekly and monthly prize to people who use their own bags for purchases over $10. The hope is that this will help remind you to bring your bag when you need something from the Corner Store. As long as you don’t take a bag, you’re eligible. So hands are fair game, and more importantly, so are backpacks. I don’t know who decided that backpacks were only for books. You wouldn’t imagine the fun things you can do with a backpack. Think wallaby.

I’ll leave you with that. Have a good week.

This upcoming week is Local Foods Week. We can all agree that this is the most exciting week of the year, by far. By really far.

On monday the celebration is at Eastman, with a potpourri of local foods. On Tuesday the festivities move to the River Campus, where things get arts and sciences. By arts and sciences I of course mean not too different from Monday, but on Tuesday and in Danforth. Yes, the offerings will be local. Wednesday switches things up a bit. Enjoy your Wilson Commons Wednesday a little closer to home with the local WCW. I hope sincerely that you are not partied out by Thursday, because The Mel is hosting a local foods dinner. This is the fancy stuff, folks. So put on your top hat, tie up your white tie, and brush off your tails, because this one is posh.

But that’s only part of the story. That’s only 1/52nd. What about the rest of the year? This is the exciting part. Dining Services purchases more than 20% of its food locally, so you can enjoy the character of Local Foods Week, all year. Local Foods Year? Local Foods Every Year? Doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Sharing the Harvest:
A Citizen’s Guide to Community Supported Agriculture

Elizabeth Henderson began farming at the age of 36. She is responsible for establishing Peacework Organic Farm and the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) associated with it. She is actively involved with the North Organic Farming Association, as well as what seems like a dozen other farming organizations. So how do these credentials translate? They make Ms. Henderson an enormous repository of information about farming and CSAs (which are a community approach to food with a focus on involvement and shared responsibility). Sharing the Harvest, which was written by Elizabeth Henderson and Robyn Van En, seems to have all of that information. Admittedly, this is hyperbole, but for a book that labels itself a citizen’s guide, it certainly has all the information one could hope to find on community supported agriculture.
If my definition of a CSA wasn’t good enough (and believe me it wasn’t), Ms. Henderson includes a chapter defining CSAs and a full section on the different types of CSAs. Sharing the Harvest includes comprehensive information on why one would want to join a CSA, the different types of CSAs, and picking the right CSA. More than that, it offers the consumer some insight into the issues faced by farmers and CSAs. From legal matters to Organic certification, Sharing the Harvest sheds light on complicating factors in the world of food.
Sharing the Harvest is a perfect desk reference for anyone interested in getting involved in a CSA, or even in setting one up. While Sharing the Harvest is certainly not a prerequisite for buying a share in a CSA, it is an illuminating companion to membership. And although Sharing the Harvest is predominantly about CSAs, there is also plenty of invaluable information about food systems and farmers in general. The shelf life of Sharing the Harvest is unusually long. That is to say that the issues discussed are unlikely to be obsolete in the near future. This book can be pulled from the shelf at any time and still act as an accurate reference for matters CSA.

This one is quick, but I figured you guys could use a break from the heavy stuff. Ought you to use a tray in a dining hall? No (or at least probably not)! Trays must be cleaned, wasting more water than necessary, they increase the amount of food a person eats, and, moreover, they increase the amount of food thrown away! This is a pretty open and shut case. Reasons to use a tray: You need to deliver hors d’œuvres to a bunch of fancy people. That’s hyperbole, but the truth doesn’t lag too far behind it. They are legitimate reasons to use a tray, I’m sure, but I don’t like them here because I simply cannot think of them. The bottom line is that there was a time before trays, and, with any luck, there will be a time after trays. Muerta la bandeja.

If we are to live in a cooperative society, it is a moral imperative that we question our beliefs. And so, though I am a believing, practicing locavore, I devote this post to questioning that position.

First, I must present my conclusion. I think the issues are troubling, but I do not believe that they are strong enough to counter what I believe to be the benefits that local foods offer. They should be taken seriously, however.

Secondly, I must admit that these questions are taken directly from the New York Times Freakonomics blog. I recommend that people explore the content directly, I will not and cannot summarize it here. Freakonomics published a series of three articles entitled “Are Farmer’s Markets That Good for Us?“; “Let the Farmers’ Market Debate Continue“; and “Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?”

The first article questioned the interpersonal connection formed between a farmer and a market-goer. Perhaps, the article speculated, the novelty of talking to the person who grew your food would eventually wear off. By no metric am I a big people-person, and I do not go to farmer’s markets to chat with the farmer. Rather, the interpersonal interaction, for me, centers around determining where the food came from, how it was grown, and when it was grown. I am certainly open to small talk, but if that were all I were looking for, I don’t think I would go to the market.

The second and third articles both tackled the question of whether farmer’s markets strengthen community bonds. The assessment given was that they may not. The second article seemed to have only one concrete point: That small farms may not be aware of the most state-of-the art sustainable practices. The third article made the claim that since going to a farmer’s market is a leisure activity, it is done only by the affluent, and thus the incentives for farmers are to grow foods that appeal to the wealthy, and thus further marginalize poorer segments of the community (most likely minority groups). The first argument seems to live only in the theoretical world. The main advantage one gains from talking to one’s farmer to to know what sustainable practices were used. From experience, the doubt seems to be unfounded. The third argument, however, seems sound. It is important to make farmer’s markets accessible, and the accessibility issue suffers from positive feedback loops. However, this is also theoretical. To know if there really is a problem one would need to look at actual farmer’s markets with actual people. I cannot claim to have a full data set, but walking around the public market this morning, there seemed to be people from a mix of economic backgrounds. Perhaps wealthy shoppers have a large impact on what farmers grow since they are able to wield more economic power (they have more of the cold hard stuff), but programs that increase the value of food stamps and EBT are certainly pointing us in the right direction.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the articles, go the the markets, and decide for yourself.

Nota bene: I have left a LaVar Burton quote unattributed in the above text. Can you figure out what is was?

We all know that Dining Services is a hotbed for local foods. From salads to cookies (that covers the spectrum, eh?) the getting is good. Sometimes, though (just sometimes) people want to eat off campus. The problem is, of course, that there is no local food off campus. Not true! There is a plentiful bounty of local foods in Rochester. The main difference in types is locally grown versus locally processed. For example, while the wings at Dinosaur BBQ are made in Rochester (I hope) and therefore support the local economy, they are not necessarily native Rochester chickens (although, again I don’t really know). There are upscale restaurants like Lento and The Social, and there are smaller restaurants (like the ones on South) that offer foods made with local ingredients. The options extend beyond foodstuffs, though. There are many local breweries (Dundee, Rohrbach) and wineries. In recent years Western New York has become known for Rieslings and has even produced a few acclaimed ice wines. [Disclaimer: You must of course be 21 to partake in the latter local activities.]

Ok, enough rambling examples. The point is that there is much on offer, and it’s there for the taking. Many of the links in this post point to RocWiki which is a great resource. Also, don’t be afraid to ask where your food is from. If it’s important to you, it’s something that’s important to do. (That last sentence applies broadly.) And as always, enjoy.

Admittedly, that’s a sensationalist title, but it gets at the truth (albeit in hysterics). First, let me be clear: my contention is not with the philosophical underpinnings of organic. It is with what I’ll call Organic (big O).

Let’s talk definitions.

If there’s one fuzzy word in the food world, it’s probably organic. For one thing the word has a surfeit of definitions in other fields. It can refer to order and harmony, it can refer to life and things lifelike, it can refer to chemicals with carbon (and hydrogen/nitrogen/oxygen), or it can refer to some kind of special food. It would have been a good idea to come up with four different words a long time ago, but so be it.

The definitions don’t stop branching there. What do we mean when we say that an item of food is organic? The heuristic definition is paradoxically the best definition. It’s food made in an “old-timey” way. Food made as it was made just a couple of generations ago. What does that translate into? Zero pesticides? Zero herbicides? Manure? Farmers chewing on honey suckle? These details (except for the last one) are important. It is imperative that if you ask someone if an apple was grown organically, that the response will have near equal meanings to the person answering the question and the person asking the question. Moreover, it is central to the question of cheating. If shoppers look for organic foods, and the definition is too loose, they may end up buying a product they do not support.

The political answer to the question “what is organic?” has been the USDA certified organic program. While it helped to standardize the word in supermarkets, it has had serious drawbacks. The definition has been criticized as being too weak and enforcement as being difficult and sporadic, but perhaps the most harm associated with the program is the cost of certification. If organic foods bring to mind mom n’ pop farms (i.e. small scale), then the process of certification and the cost of certification are inappropriate. Small farms, in general cannot afford the audit. So the USDA’s idea of organic is intrinsically skewed towards large farms.

I feel that I must, at this juncture, point out that there is nothing theoretically wrong with a large farm, but the historical analysis isn’t quite as idealistic as theory would seem to be. Hopefully future history will edge closer to the abstracted ideal.

There are other organic certification programs, and there are ways that small farmers can cooperate to get USDA certified, but not every farm does this. Many farms use organic practices. Unfortunately, that’s as ambiguous (or more ambiguous) that the word organic alone! It’s important to talk to farmers, ask what they’re doing, and buy from the people who farm in a way you support. Of course, this nearly necessitates going to a farmer’s market… so go! It will probably be the best food buying experience of your life.

I hope everyone enjoyed Club Rochester today and got a chance to enter the raffle. I’ll be seeing you next week, hopefully with an exciting project to share.

It’s a bit disturbing to think of school as home, but that’s something you have to come to terms with. Welcome home. The good news is that it converts all campus food into home cooking!

If you are a Freshman this may not interest you too much, but there have been some changes made in Dining over the summer. In either case, leave a comment and let me (and other readers) know what you think about the changes and how they effect Dining’s vision of sustainability.

I’ll be back here every Friday (at least), so bookmark this page, add it to your RSS feed, of just refresh it hourly one hundred sixty-eight times.