less (food) waste

We are not always aware of the abundance we live in, and grateful and thankful for it. As a result we create a lot of waste, personally and as a culture. This is the first of several blog posts on becoming more aware of the abundance that surrounds us and at the same time reducing waste in different area of our lives. Why waste reduction? When we respect something, when we are truly appreciative of it, then we handle it with a certain reverence and wouldn't carelessly throw it away. That goes for food as it does for other things in life. Sometimes one of my kids will come home and put their school sandwich back in the fridge. Now what? I have repackaged them the next day but often end up eating them myself so they don't go to waste. When my son was much much younger he threw out a perfectly good (wrapped) sandwich he did not care for. I was so incensed that I made him take it out and eat it - he still talks about it.

With a bit more reverence for all the food we have (just today it struck me at the supermarket how much food we have access to so easily, what abundance!) let's try to reduce food waste, the first of the wastes I will be addressing. One rule is to be a good leftover processor - eat them, freeze them, or cook them up with something new, but don't let them go bad. I save leftover bread pieces in the freezer until I have enough to make a sweet or savory breakfast strata. My mom makes a "tapas" meal every so often with all the little frozen leftover dishes. If you do buy produce in bulk, like I do, process those vegetables you can't eat right away by blanching and freezing them as meal building blocks for later use, or cooking them up in a soup or stew to be frozen. If food does go bad in your fridge reduce how much you buy or space your supermarket trips further apart. And how about going through your fridge once a week and either making a meal from all the leftovers right then or freezing what you can't use immediately?

We have so much, let's be grateful for it.

why heirlooms?

Heirloom fruit and vegetables are older varieties that will reproduce exactly the same kind of plant again from its seeds (hybrids can't).   Biodiversity is also a very important reason to choose heirlooms over hybrids (and let me not even mention the G word), as we need as many plant varieties around as possible, and especially those that grow well under specific local or strained weather conditions. As a matter of fact, I read somewhere that Peruvians have almost as many potato and corn varieties as growing places, because these plants were all developed for very specific local conditions, and would not perform as well if planted elsewhere. Now that is biodiversity!  In addition, heirlooms are often more disease resistant and have more intense flavors - think intensely flavorful strawberry or tomato instead of those watery spongy supermarket kinds. There are now even seed libraries to preserve heirloom varieties for future use and generations. Sometimes you can draw from them, but you have to return seeds at the end of the season in exchange for your loan. Lastly, it is infinitely more interesting to taste many different pepper or tomato or apple or carrots kinds (love the purple carrots) than the one or two same old same old you get at the supermarket.

Hybrids, in comparison, while having some desirable characteristics, can't reproduce from their seeds - think of seedless watermelons or grapes.

And by-the-way, heirloom breeds exist among animals as well, and some farmers are now bringing these older breeds back for the same reasons heirloom produce is desirable.

organic soil and flowers?

A lot of people are now aware of the notion of growing food organically. But did you know that there is organic potting soil and that you can buy organic flowers? "Huh," you might say, or maybe "enough already with all this organic stuff." But if you recognize the value of organic food - to your health, to the environment's health, and to the farm workers' health - buying organic potting soil for either your houseplants or perhaps, more importantly, for your vegetable garden, makes a lot of sense. Organic potting soil doesn't contain pesticide and fertilizer residue, ergo better for your houseplants or the vegetables you grow in it. In addition, this soil is much richer in natural nutrients and minerals, as it hasn't been chemically enhanced and "propped up."  The vegetables or houseplants you grow in this soil will be more resilient and the former more nutritious to eat.

Now, what about organic flowers? Even more far fetched? The cut flower industry uses huge amounts of fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides, the same way conventional agriculture does for growing produce. Furthermore, when the cut flowers come from outside the US - and most of the cut flowers in this country are imported from huge Central American cut flower farms - they were likely grown with chemicals that have been banned in this country for their high toxicity. These poisonous chemicals leech into the soil and groundwater, are lethal to bees and other pollinators, and are of course toxic for the farm workers. We are less aware of this problem because it happens so far away, but it's worth a thought.

climate marching

Our family climate marched this past Sunday 9/21 - yes, it's a verb now. And I think we must do this every year from now on until We The People get the message to our politicians to act now, not later, because later is too late. Together with 300,000 to 400,000 fellow protesters in NYC, and tens of thousands more in all corners of the world from Paris to Melbourne, from Berlin to London and Rio, we participated in what MIT researcher Jesse Jenkins calls "one of America's largest mass protests," and Amy Davidson from the New Yorker "the largest climate change protest in history."

It was powerful and emotional to experience so much synergy and togetherness on the single most important issue of our times, climate change, which, if we are successful in shifting, will propel us beyond the singularly profit oriented oil age into a more cocreative and aware age of earth stewardship.

From the perspective of our evolving human consciousness this is the first time in history that we are awakening to the incredible realization, empowering but also sobering, that we can actually change and steer our existence, that our consciousness and drive are what creates everything around us. We don't all have to become activists. But we all can do our bit to help this momentous evolutionary process along, whether by buying more organics, insulating your house, getting a more fuel efficient car, eating less meat and only the sustainably raised kind, buying less stuff and recycling more, voting environmentally aware politicians into office, and on and on.

I'd love to hear what you are doing to help since, as one of the signs said, "There is no Planet B."

whatever happened to that breadbox?

When I came to this country in the early 1980s I was surprised to find that people stored their bread in the refrigerator, and that people's refrigerators were huge compared to the ones I was used to from Europe.

Oddly enough, despite our technical ability and being able to afford to refrigerate so much more than formerly we still waste lots of food.  But food waste and spoilage nowadays happen at the end of our food's journey, right in our own backyard, aka refrigerator.

In a recent NY Times article Dartmouth professor Susan Freidberg wrote that surprisingly all that expensive refrigeration doesn't necessarily reduce food waste, it merely shifts where the food waste occurs.

In former times most food spoilage happened between harvest and sale because the lack of refrigeration rotted some of the produce and meat before it ever got to the consumer.  We live in such overabundance and tend to buy more than we can realistically consume, lulled by the belief that it'll keep - and then it won't. Things also have a tendency to disappear in our large fridges, and when you finally find that piece of cheese, that yogurt or slice of ham- low and behold it has grown mold or is way beyond its prime. I am certainly guilty of that. Recently, I ended up with three open salsa jars (not sure how that happened), one of which became moldy before we finally discovered it. I also have three big packages of blanched beet greens in the freezer. Every time I open the freezer they say "hello" to me as I rediscover them, and they remind me that I should cook them up instead of "storing" them in the freezer forever (well, at least they won't go bad).

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We could save on all fronts, refrigerator size, energy consumption, and food quantities purchased, if we became more aware of our habits and realistic needs. After all, bread can go into the breadbox, jam in the pantry, the pretty red peppers on the table, and maybe we'll use them up quicker if we see them around instead of hiding them in that icebox.

oh, those late summer tomatoes

There is nothing better than a sweet tree ripened peach, a sun ripened soft and warm tomato that's just been plucked, or springy and perky greens that were harvested in the early morning hours before the sun comes up.  Just harvested produce that has sun ripened to perfection has so much life force. You can taste all the minerals and sunny goodness.

We lose those characteristics when we buy produce at the supermarket. Supermarket produce gets harvested before it ripens so it can be transported safely over long distances and is "ready" when it finally arrives at the store. That works more or less well for some produce types but not for others. Bananas and tomatoes can be harvested while still green and will keep ripening on the window sill, although they will not acquire that natural sun ripened sweetness. A hard supermarket peach or plum, on the other hand, will never get that juicily delicious sweet taste a sun ripened fruit naturally has - the peaches usually turn mealy and the plums stay sourish.

That's why it is so rewarding to buy produce locally when it is in season. So what if you can only have strawberries in June and July? The local kind tastes ten times better than the spongy clamshell strawberries that come from far away year round. In Germany there is the annual spring asparagus craze that lasts for about six weeks when the fat white stalks are ready. Here, I love the fat juicy tomatoes that are at their best in late August and early September when the sun has had enough time to deepen their color to a profound red and they almost taste as sweet as candy. Now is the time for gazpacho, the chilled Spanish soup made from superripe tomatoes (no tomato juice!), cucumbers, peppers, a little garlic, a little vinegar; bruschetta, the Italian appetizer of cubed tomatoes with a bit of basil, served on toasted slices of garlic rubbed country bread; caprese, the Italian appetizer of alternating slices of ripe tomatoes and the best mozzarella you can find, basil, some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, or the Tex-Mex saladof leftover barbecued corn, red onions, tomatoes and lots of cilantro with a balsamic vinaigrette.

with nature, not against it

The present (waning) industrial petro-energy age, while having afforded us an enormous leap in standard of living, is also unfortunately characterized by domination and exploitation of nature, which we not only rape but also use as a dumping ground for the ensuing waste of the technologies we have developed - a win-lose situation all around. The dire consequences of this belief system are at our doorstep now. A new way of seeing ourselves is embedded and part of nature, not apart from nature. This perspective is birthing a whole new way of looking at technology. Science writer Janine Benyus calls it biomimicry and wrote a book about it. Biomimicry looks at how nature does things and then emulates it for our human applications.

A terrific example from architecture & engineering is a huge building complex in Zimbabwe whose cooling system was inspired by termites' design of their weird looking desert dens that maintain a constant 86 degrees F, even though the outside temperature may range from 30 at night to 110 in mid-day.

An example from agriculture is permaculture.  Permaculture is a man made food growing system that integrates local weather and soil conditions, native and predominantly perennial plants (that don't require tilling the soil), possible integration of animals into the system design, all in a circular wasteless process. Therefore, permaculture has no negative impact on the surrounding environment and it produces food for us.

Win-win all around!  What a great new paradigm.

no plastics for my food

I don't like to store my leftovers or homemade hummus, mayonnaise, apple sauce, or catfood in plastic containers. Plastics leach the chemicals BPA (bisphenol A), also used in the linings of canned foods, and phtalates into the foods and drinks that are stored in them. Moreover, heating or microwaving food in plastic seems to worsen the effect. Whether we are talking plastic food storage containers, or plastic water or soda bottles, it's all the same. I also try to avoid buying foods that are sold in plastic. Trader Joe's recently switched their organic peanut butter packaging from glass to plastic jars and I stopped buying it. Instead, I now buy organic peanut butter at my local supermarket that carries it in glass jars.

I also stopped buying seltzer and got a home soda making machine.  Not only do I no longer send all those plastic bottles to recycling, I also know that our own water is superior in quality and taste, as is of course the seltzer made from it (and who knows from what water source the commercial seltzer comes from).  Granted, the home seltzer bottles are made from plastic, albeit BPA free plastic (one hopes); in addition the home made seltzer is made to order and consumed immediately, while the store bought seltzer sits in a hot delivery truck in its plastic bottle for hours and perhaps days, and then on a supermarket shelf for more days, and weeks, and perhaps even months. 

Inert materials, such as glass, stainless steel, aluminum or porcelain are safest for food storage. Glass works best, though, because it is see-through. I save wide-mouth glass jars (they are more practical than the narrow-mouth ones) in all sizes from peanut butter, salsa, pickles and such,  and reuse them to store food. I also use Pyrex glass bowls with plastic lids (the lids don't touch the food) for leftovers.

Play it safe, play it glass.

the whole kit and caboodle

Two recent articles made me aware of a truer meaning of sustainable agriculture and where we need to go next in our farm-to-table awareness.

The first one was about the enormous waste in the EU (and likely in the US as well) created by discarding produce that doesn't look perfect even though it is in good condition and tastes just like its more conformist looking counterparts. A young Portuguese woman started a produce cooperative named Fruta Feia or Ugly Fruit to market and sell such imperfect produce at 20%-30% less.

The other article was from chef Dan Barber on widening the premise of sustainable agriculture and including in our food choices also those crops that are typically used as cover crops to replenish the soil.  Soybeans, kidney beans or cowpeas (used as animal feed) are typical nitrogen replenishers for the soil. But Barber was talking about a much more sophisticated and complex crop rotation that is needed to keep the soil fertile and full of minerals, which guarantees not only superior taste but also mineral and trace element rich foods (less supplements you'll need to take). Such other crops might include rye, barley, or buckwheat, all little used in this country because less marketed and less known.

Sustainability, in agriculture and elsewhere, is about a wasteless circular process, in which all "waste" becomes a reusable base component for the next process in the circle, thereby eliminating the idea of "waste" altogether.  A sustainable farm would not buy outside fertilizer, seeds, and pest management products, instead using the farm animal manure for fertilizer, using crop rotation, crop variety and inter-planting as main pest control techniques, and saving its seeds from one year to the next.  Being able to sell its cover crops in addition to its "main crops" makes the farm more  viable and eliminates further waste.

The whole idea behind truly sustainable agriculture is to embrace every part of the agricultural process, the whole kit and caboodle, whether it's the little used rye (here in the US at least), the funny looking strawberries, the carrots with a nose or legs, or the lesser known fava beans (I made a fava bean hummus the other day that was as delicious and tasty as a chickpea hummus).

Happy Earth Day

Today, I am wishing you a "happy" Earth Day with the caveat that our worldwide window to tackle climate change is beginning to close.  A few days ago I read something about 15 years.  If we don't achieve a definite downward curve on carbon emissions within that time frame our lives will change drastically, and not for the better. We can't keep shrugging our shoulders and putting the onus on "the government," because "the government" gets its nudge from all of us.   Things change when true pressure is exerted on "the government" from all of us.  Change comes from within, moves from the bottom up and out, and government is a reflection of us.

Why am I saying all of this?  Because the onus for drastic change is on each one of us! Now!  Don't throw your arms up in despair at the enormity of our challenges.  Instead, make a conscious effort to embrace what needs to be done by fully accepting our environmental calamity and committing to make a difference.

So, what can you do?  Here are lots of ideas, and the more of them you incorporate into your life the better for all of us.

Recycle and compost your kitchen scraps, plant a garden, buy an energy efficient vehicle (or at least consolidate your trips, or car pool), insulate your home to the max. and consider installing new tight windows, read all you can about climate change and the environment in general, buy local,  bring your own bags to the supermarket (no more plastic bags!  there is a plastic swirl in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas!!! and plastic does not, I repeat, does not disintegrate in hundreds and hundreds of years),  drink well water and forego buying water in plastic bottles (and who knows what leaches into that water from the plastic anyhow),  read all you can about industrial food production, then make a drastic change in where and what you buy to feed your family,  install solar panels on your home (30% incentive state tax credit until 2015), consider a geothermal heating/air-conditioning system  (after tax credits, cost is similar to a conventional system and you'll be off fossil fuels), switch your electric supplier to one who provides 100% electric from renewable sources, eat less meat (it's better for you anyways), spread the word to other people and inspire them to make a difference, most of all - inform yourself and become aware.

Don't be surprised that none of this is for free. However, you have a choice of making these investments now on your own terms (consider them an insurance premium for environmental health), or shortly being forced by environmental circumstances into a very ugly reality that money and technology will no longer be able to improve.

If you love your planet make it a happy Earth Day by making a difference for yourself and your children and grand-children.