My first 100% organic shopping trip

I’ve been doing a bunch of chores this morning, as I can’t get into the state database I need to do the work I had planned today. I ran down to the local grocery store (Bayview Thriftway in Olympia, in case you’re wondering), and did a quick shopping run. Only after I got home did I realize that I had bought nearly 100% organic products - without even thinking about it, other than the usual attempts I make to generally buy organic. This has to be some kind of important milestone, that it’s even possible.

Here’s what I bought, all organic:

Apples and strawberries (west coast, carefully avoiding South American produce)
Colby jack cheese and parmesan
Three varieties of cereal
Two cartons of milk
Three kinds of yogurt
Kettle corn for snacking
Four frozen dinners (various organic brands)
Two frozen veggie packs (from Oregon, in little recycled paper bags!)
Four kinds of chocolate (small stuff) for Mother’s Day
Bread (local)
Toilet paper
a latte

There is one thing I bought that isn’t organic - Mother’s Day cards for my Mom and Grandma. If I had been thinking about it, it’s even possible those could have been at least recycled. But when it comes to Moms, it’s more important that the message be right :)

And then I had a fairly long conversation with the produce manager about whether it would be possible to separate out and make a little section for local organic produce apart from the stuff that comes from all over the world (using up lots of petroleum and generating carbon emissions in the process). He was actually receptive and said that in the summer and fall, they do that, and they actually take surplus from local farms. Not many big grocery stores are willing to go to those lengths.

I did tell him that, from the shopper’s point of view, winter is the hardest time to get local produce so it would be the most important time to highlight any they do have, for those of us purists who just won’t buy it if it had to come on an airplane (yes, I eat a lot of apples in the winter). He agreed that maybe increasing the size of their “grown in Washington” price labels would at least help us find what there is.

Anyway, good stuff :)

Sci-fi musings on a ketchup packet

The other day, someone told me it takes 30 gallons of water to make a single ketchup packet. Of course, I had to wonder if that’s true. On the other hand, knowing how much water it takes just to make a pound of beef, anything seems possible. If this is indeed true, I wonder if it is the ketchup or the plastic that uses all the water?

That led me to thinking (always dangerous)… what if we lived in a futuristic Blade-Runner type world, where access to information and databases was built into little chips in our eyes, with a heads-up kind of display that could identify the water, energy, petroleum, and greenhouse gas usage required to make any food item or other product just as we were considering buying it. How would this change people’s purchasing habits?

Judging by present-day Americans, lots of people just wouldn’t bother to worry about it. For those who did care, I could see it going two ways. Either the wasteful products would be shunned, causing manufacturers to clean up their act (most likely saving production costs in the process), or the wasteful products would be seen as signs of luxury and a way of flaunting one’s wealth, in which case their prices might increase. This would be especially likely if these items were taxed according to the true energy and resource use required to make them, which would become possible with the information available.

With the way the world is going, I can imagine that someday we may need to ration water, petroleum use, and emissions of greenhouse gas. In another grim sci-fi scenario, each citizen might have allotments of these environmental goods that they could spend on various products. Markets for trading of these allotments might develop, and a family might save up to splurge on something special, like a plane trip (or a steak dinner).

Though it sounds restrictive, something like this would almost be required to break us of our consumption overload and return the world to a more sustainable lifestyle. Let’s just hope people come to their senses (and information comes to the rescue) before it’s forced upon us…

Food and drink, two - bottles and bags

Bottled water - it’s ubiquitous these days, almost like cell phones. I carry mine everywhere - hydration keeps me healthy and helps stave off the effects of long commutes, endless meetings, and recycled air. We all know that drinking water is good for you - but like coffee, we’ve bought into the hype that the fancy bottled variety is better for you than the stuff that comes out of the tap - which ain’t necessarily so, according to an in-depth study of the issue by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Why should they care? Because the petroleum that goes into making all those bottles is considerable, and the landfill space they take up even more so. And not incidentally, they found that much of the bottled water was more contaminated than tap water, or actually was tap water in disguise. Yes, the bottles can be recycled - but it takes even more petroleum to do that. That innocuous-looking bottle of water on your desk, in your car, on your bicycle - is no less than a petroleum hog! Not really what we think of when we imagine a nice clean drink of (supposed-to-be) pure bottled water. And let me not even get started on all those plastic bags that come with groceries, and the newspapers.

OK - what to do? Why do I write about this stuff? I want to be more aware of where our basic needs - food, drink, shelter, energy - come from, and how we can reduce their footprint. With bottled water it’s actually pretty easy - quit buying the stuff. No need to be dehydrated - as Americans, we are lucky to have almost infinite supplies of drinkable water all around us. It just takes a tad bit of planning to refill those handy bottles (yes, you can buy ONE) at the nearest drinking fountain, from your filtered pitcher before you leave home, etc. Then you can have your water and drink it too - when and where you need it - without adding to our petroleum usage or landfill burdens.

So, each year I try to think of a few things I can do to reduce my footprint. I already have a Prius, have switched out all my lightbulbs, and have energy-star appliances. What I need to do is stop using so much plastic. The easier step is to stop buying bottled water and instead to refill the bottles. The harder step is to buy and start taking cloth bags to the grocery store so that I don’t get as many plastic bags. I’ll still get some, but it will help.

I have to admit, I have a weird resistance to reusing plastic bottles. There’s something about it that seems depression-era, hoarding, abundance-nonaffirming. Having grown up on welfare, I think part of this semi-subconscious issue has to do with once being poor and having to reuse things like that. Doing it feels cheap, broke, self-depriving. It’s interesting that I should feel this resistance, and that it takes identification of a specific environmental issue to get even me to stop a flagrant consumption practice. It says a lot about the culture in America and how we perceive wealth and success that most people would never even consider reusing a plastic bottle. I imagine future generations will look back on this time and just shake their heads at how distorted our values became.

Meanwhile - just say no to plastic!

The travels of food and drink - eat local

I’ve written previously on the ecological impacts of our food choices, which dance in a close and complicated relationship with health, variety, and the sheer wonderful enjoyment of food in all its forms. Lately, I took Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle with me on vacation, which continued my learning process. One thing I’m becoming more aware of is that distance matters, and processing matters - from a petroleum and energy usage point of view.

The concept of buying organic and buying local is becoming more integrated into our awareness. But it’s about more than just avoiding pesticides, and more than supporting our local farmers and community. Buying organic isn’t great if that raspberry in December is from Chile - the amount of oil used to get it here and the amount of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere by that plane far offset any possible benefit from organic farming.

Forget about organic farming for a minute - with the ever increasing globalization of corporations and food supplies, most of the food we buy comes from great distances. Here are the astonishing figures which may bring it home - if every American ate only ONE meal per week - that’s ANY meal - from local sources, it would save 1.1 MILLION BARRELS of oil PER WEEK in transportation, storage, and refrigeration costs. Imagine that.

It reminds me of the conservation efforts so prevalent during WWII, when our nation’s government figured out what we needed to ration, and asked each American to contribute. Imagine what could happen if the US government had an education campaign and asked Americans to contribute to US energy independence by eating locally. Not only would we save untold amounts of oil, possibly freeing ourselves from the need to stick our nose in the business of certain parts of the world, but our food would be healthier, fresher, tastier, and we would be supporting local family farms - as opposed to huge conglomerate agribusiness.

As for organics, you can have your cake (well, pear) and eat it too. Local food does tend to be organic, at least far more often than other food. Visit your local farmer’s market or small grocery that stocks it - you’ll find that not only is it local, it’s organic, heirloom, fresh, and tastes far better than the alternative. And contrary to popular belief - not any more expensive than grocery food.

In praise of macaroni and cheese

I felt moved to write about macaroni and cheese today, for no apparent reason :) Maybe I’m just craving it, which as you’ll read, is not unusual. Once upon a time in our childhood, my brother and I loved to play imaginative games (actually, every kind of game - and we still do). I remember the day we were trying to imagine weird things like, if we could only eat one kind of food for the rest of our lives, what would it be? Oddly enough, we both had the same answer - macaroni & cheese!

When my Mom would go out for New Year’s Eve, she would let us stay up and watch movies until she got home, and have as much of one kind of food as we wanted. You’d think we’d pick chocolate, or popcorn, or something like that. Noooo - macaroni & cheese! (I think we did have popcorn one year - but it wasn’t as good). Mac & cheese has a kind of iconic status in my life, as many times in later years I actually did have to live on it.

Later I had moved out and was living with my boyfriend in high school. We were really, really broke, having something like $5 left over after paying rent and utilities for the month. We used to buy macaroni & cheese in bulk and just eat that - back then you could get 5 boxes for a dollar, and I swear there was more in a box - seems like boxes now are pretty skimpy. He would eat one box for dinner at night and I’d eat at school, and that’s the way it was.

Then I got to college and it was pretty much the same deal. I just about lived on mac & cheese and I never got tired of it. The only problem was affording the milk and butter to make it with. We quickly determined you could make it with milk and not butter - but not the other way around (ewww). I also made a very weird version in college which was mac & cheese mixed with a can of corned beef hash, and fried. Strange and looked really, well, never mind - but tasted good and was very filling. Talk about broke college food!

Finally I emerged from poor studenthood, and amazingly enough, I still love it. Now I might make it with chopped fresh tomatoes and basil, with several kinds of freshly grated cheese and a bit of sour cream for the sauce.

Though it’s truly hard to resist the bright orange Kraft variety, childhood memories and all. Still there are other boxed choices for the discriminating diner-in-a-hurry, including new white cheddar and alfredo varieties, Safeway O (organic) versions that look and taste just like Kraft but are cheaper and better for you and the environment, and Annie’s organic varieties, of which there is even a whole grain pasta version now - not to mention the ever-wonderful psychedelic peace pasta :)

Such riches! The ultimate comfort food - I believe I’ll be eating macaroni & cheese ’til the end of my days :)

Chocolate and coffee and cream… mmmmmmmmmm

I’ve so much enjoyed writing this blog and all the readers who stop by and visit, I just wanted to give you all a present, a recipe that I love and which makes one of the most wonderful desserts on earth. Tiramisu is one of those things we crave, and which seems to come in a different form every time you order it in a restaurant. Over the years, I’ve found that very few of these are actually better than this one we can make ourselves, so here it is - an espresso and a bittersweet chocolate version (my mom doesn’t like coffee, so I made up the latter variation for her birthday).
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1 C sugar
6 eggs, separated
1 lb Mascarpone cheese
1 7-oz package Ladyfinger cookies
1 T cocoa powder (semisweet or unsweetened)
2 C espresso
unsweetened cocoa powder
semisweet chocolate shavings

Whisk together sugar and egg yolks. Gradually add mascarpone cheese and cocoa powder until mixture is creamy. Whip egg whites into meringue, and carefully fold into mascarpone mixture. (note: the eggs are never cooked so use a safe source of eggs)

Quickly dip ladyfingers into hot espresso and line the bottom of a glass serving dish in a single layer. Cover ladyfingers with mascarpone mixture and dust with cocoa and chocolate shavings. If the pan is deep enough, two layers may be used.

Chill at least 4 hours or overnight.

All-chocolate version: Substitute hot, unsweetened cocoa for the espresso.
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The fun part of this recipe is acquiring 2 entire cups of hot espresso - regular coffee does not do. It was pretty hilarious the first time I went to an espresso stand and asked for 16 oz of pure espresso!! Thankfully they were nice to me and didn’t charge the full amount. Now, of course, I have an espresso maker of my own and I just crank it out :)

So, this is the yummy post about food - for the serious post about food, see below…

Food Diversity

There’s an interesting thing about working in the environmental field - you’re really forced to look at environmental data seriously, and evaluate your own lifestyle. I already do some of the things that Al Gore recommends, such as driving a hybrid vehicle (and working at home so I don’t drive much), using long-lasting fluorescent lights, landscaping my yard so it doesn’t use much water, etc. But clearly, there is more I can do on the carbon budget - so I plan to go look that up, calculate what I use, and see if I can’t work on reducing it.

But the issue of food is one that frequently comes up, and which I’ve been thinking about more lately. We live in what is possibly the most interesting time in history for food diversity, and I LOVE food. Love eating it, love cooking it, almost as much as, well… you know ;)

Next time you go into a grocery store, really look around and think about what you see. At the Central Market near where I used to live, I could buy emu meat from Australia (excellent and very healthy), fresh seafood from Japan, Korean kimchi, African spices mixes, Indian curries, berries in winter from South America, and organic just about everything. This store didn’t bother with an organic section - organic food was everywhere. You could fill up your cart with it. And this is a basic chain grocery store in the Seattle area.

We have access to so much incredible food now, due to global distribution and niche marketing. Probably more than anytime in history - but enjoy it while you can, because the future looks grim. By the time I’m really old (and the women in my family live to be 90-100), I am fairly certain much of this food will be a distant memory.

In my copy of Science today were two articles illustrating what I’m talking about. One was the study of global fisheries that you’ve probably already read about. Still, it’s worth repeating - 91% of global species in coastal areas have declined to less than half of their former abundance, 38% (including fisheries) have collapsed to less than 10% of their former abundance, and 7% have gone extinct in the last 100 years. The decline and collapse of global fisheries is increasing at an alarming rate, with fishermen putting out greater effort and getting less catch. At the current rate of decline, it is projected that ALL global fisheries will have collapsed by 2048. ALL. Just what are people going to eat??? That’s only 40 years from now!

This is not the first report like this by reputable scientists. You may recall a similar sounding of the alarm by NOAA a few years back. But do you think this is affecting people’s behavior? Of course not. At a recent convention of fishing nations, most pushed to eliminate the use of bottom trawling on the high seas, because it destroys the bottom habitat along with catching the fish. Several prominent fishing nations (e.g., Japan) opposed it, and treaties on the high seas require unanimous agreement. Japan is a wealthy nation that depends on fisheries to feed its people. I can’t help but wonder what they think they’re gaining.

The other was a review of a new book called Six Arguments for a Greener Diet. This book pretty much overwhelms the reader with data supporting why one shouldn’t eat meat, the reasons being 1) health benefits, 2) reducing foodborne illness, 3-5) improving the quality of soil, water, and air, and 6) reducing animal suffering. Now these arguments are nothing new, and worthy of consideration. But one really stuck in my mind - it takes 20-30,000 gallons of water to create just 1 pound of beef.

Think about that for a minute… Let’s say we’re having a back-yard barbecue for our friends, and serving up hamburgers. Maybe we buy 4 lbs of ground beef for our summer party. That’s an incredible 100,000 gallons of water!!! Imagine if we got a bill for all that water use from our local water company - it would cost a fortune. Certainly we would change our ways to avoid paying that much. But since we never pay for this water usage, we don’t think about it. Now you might be tempted to say that you’re paying for it in the price of beef. To which I say, nuh-uh. Compare the price of a pound of beef to the price of 25,000 gallons of water if you had to buy it from your water company, and you’ll see right away that the beef farmer is getting that water essentially for free - through water rights to his local river or groundwater. Water rights that are in increasingly short supply…

And that’s just one impact of eating beef. I won’t go into any more - you get the picture. I’m not a vegetarian or a vegan, and I do love food. But increasingly I’m thinking, we need to eat at the bottom of the food chain to avoid a lot of these types of impacts. If you want to eat meat, eat a shrimp, not a cow (you couldn’t possibly conserve enough water to make up for eating any amount of beef). If you want to eat a fruit or vegetable, eat one grown close to home, not one that has to fly in an airplane to reach you (LOTS of carbon emissions there) - even if that blackberry from Nicaragua is organic. If you want to eat a fish, learn something about where it comes from and whether the fishery is sustainable. All of this will go a long way toward ensuring that there is still some diversity left for us to enjoy in our 80s, much less for future generations and populations who have limited food supply choices.