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Thursday, 27 January 2011

The Economics of Happiness & The Toronto Food Policy Council

On Monday, I had the privilege to attend a screening of "The Economics of Happiness" at the William Doo Auditorium at the University of Toronto. It was really an honour to be able to meet Helena Norberg-Hodge and have her introduce her own film. I was very thrilled to see the mass turn up of people who cared about Food and Economics and the like.

The main focus of the film is the striking comparison of a localized system and a world in pursuit of globalization. A localized system is self-reliant. Whereas, the world in pursuit of globalization is continually exploiting natural resources and people. The movie made me reflect on my own carbon footprint and how everything I do will affect the future of the environment. We consume resources as if they were infinite when we live in a finite world.

Here is the trailer:

The movie is a real eye-opener. Please watch it if you get a chance.

Sources: The Economics of Happiness

Tuesday, 25 January 2011

Nutrition Polkadots is back!

It has been a really long time since I wrote on this blog. Originally, I started this blog for my Nutrition Education course where I wanted to generate more awareness of the food that we eat. However, though I have stopped for quite some time, I want to continue to write about my adventures in food and food issues of today. In the time I have been away, I have graduated from the University of Guelph, battled some crazy health complications and gained a greater appreciation of the importance of Food and Nutrition.

Recently, there was a man who really inspired me. He shall remain anonymous but he was talking to me about my Nutrition degree & how I should continue to work hard towards Nutrition, branched with Preventative Medicine. This kind of talk has been thrown at me left, right and center by my mother. However, every time she pitched the talk, I just did not want to be a Dietitian. However, in these months of searching for my true self, I felt cheated. I am cheating myself of what I could be. Though I did not apply for Internships this year, I will work hard for next year. I want to be a Dietitian!

Never give up on your dreams & always remember to make time for the things you love.

Sunday, 15 November 2009

Cuba: a microcosm of world filled with organic food

In 1989, with the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba was no longer supplied with petroleum, farm equipment and food subsidies. Shortages were similar to those of war periods. Only the Venezuela and Nicaragua assisted Cuba during these hard times.

Without the support of the Soviets, Cubans had to start to adapt to the changes in their agricultural system. After ten years of hard work and major food shortages, most Cubans had access to fresh and nutritious food. This was due to the extensive amount of intensively cultivated urban gardens and state-run farms and cooperatives outside the city. Nearly all agricultural practices relied on little to none pesticides, fertilizers and expensive machinery.

In Havana, 8,000 organic gardens produce a million tons of food annually. The garden range from a few meters to several hectares.

Amanda Rieux, instructor for the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners' Gardening and Composting Educator Training Program, returned from a trip to Cuba with a Food First Sustainable Agriculture delegation.

Rieux says, "At one garden I visited, there was a construction worker, a mechanic, an engineer and a mathematician: all these people are working in the urban garden. You can make more money as an organic farmer than you can as an electrical engineer right now."

The new urban gardeners are supported by the state through extensive university research into sustainable organic practices, including soil health and fertility. Cuba's scientific community is also developing breakthrough biological fertilizers and pesticides using naturally occurring organisms and insects.

According to Food First executive director Peter Rosset, more than 200 biotech centers in Cuba produce and distribute cutting-edge, non-toxic biofertilizers and pesticides based on local microorganisms. Biological controls, such as Bt, a common organic pesticide, are available in the U.S., but Rosset says by focusing so much of its research resources in this arena, Cuba is way ahead of the rest of the world.

The Cuban gardeners incorporate some traditional organic practices, such as the use of worm compost-castings, worm poo, from redworms fed a diet of kitchen scraps. Worm compost is generated quickly and is higher in nitrogen that is more quickly accessible by crops than regular compost.

Farmers also heavily rely on interplanting, where diverse crops are planted together, which discourages the pests that accompany monocrop farming. This is a major shift from contemporary industrialized farming, with its acres of corn that provide a veritable buffet for bugs, as well as monocropping's inherent dependency on pesticides.

The city farmers are also tackling the lack of medicine in Cuba. Due to the U.S. trade embargo, Cuba can import neither medicine nor the ingredients to make medicine. Even aspirin is a rarity in Cuba. Rieux says she saw a lot of people growing green medicine in their urban gardens.

Prices were deregulated and the state created farmers markets, which legalized direct sales from farmers to consumers.

Here is a CBC special talking about the organic revolution for those of you who are interested in a more indepth look at what happened to Cuba.

References: Organic Consumers Association and San Francisco Chronicle
Pictures: The Croft, ABC net, Green Cuba and Panacea-BOCA

Saturday, 14 November 2009

Sustainable Eating
The current practices of agriculture are generating an enormous environmental impact in the world as mentioned in all my previous blog entries.

Cool Cuisine: taking the bite out of Global Warming is a book written by Laura Stec and co-authored by Eugene Cordero. Laura is San Francisco Bay Area chef and explains how large amounts of fossil fuels are being used in industrial farms which generate increased amounts of pollution. Eugene is a climate researcher at San Jose University who co-wrote a global assessment of the ozone for the United Nations in 2006.

Left to Right: Laura Stec and Eugene Cordero

In an interview with the authors by American Scientific, Cordero states that that food production accounts for 35% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world. This number is both alarming yet signs of solutions are not being sought after. Laura is a consultant who helps companies "green" their business with interesting case studies on how corporate companies are applying more sustainable food practices.

Stec tells the story of Preston Maring, a doctor who took on the problem of hospital food within the giant California-based health care provider Kaiser Permanente. Maring discovered the menus of hospital dietitians included offerings such as grapes and asparagus in the middle of winter, sourcin the food from as faras South Africa. Maring initiated a systemwide study. Kaiser Permanente determined that it used 250 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables a year to make 6,000 patient meals daily in 19 hospitals. Much of the food originated on unsustainable agribusiness farms of 100,000 acres or more, and nearly half of it came from outside California. Kaiser Permanente recognized that designing more seasonal menus and procuring more produce locally could reduce the organization’s carbon footprint by more than 17 percent and in certain cases even save some money. If this study was viewed in a global perspective, think about how many hospitals exist and what kind of ecological footprint it will generate. If the market changess to people who eat more sustainably, the food production process may be changed for the better.

The idea that meaningful change could start in one's own kitchen seems more significant with the Preston Maring study. A stir-fry recipe and a full-page chart of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions represented by each ingredient can also be found in the book. The basic recipe contained a pound of vegetables. Variations included adding another another pound of vegetables, chicken or beef.

The results:
- vegstable: 3,013 grams of CO2 equivalent
- chicken: 5,520 grams of CO2 equivalent
- beef: 15,692 grams of CO2 equivalent

At the bottom of the page, Laura mentions that the CO2 difference between the vegetarian and beef versions of the meal is about the amount emitted by an average car driving 35 miles.

This book is not the first to make the point that eating has a significant impact on the environment. The information is presented in a form that is not overwhelming for readers to understand. Individual choices make a difference even on a small scale.

Simple ways to eat more sustainably:
1. Choose local foods. Whether you purchase it at the farmer's market or through services like the Garden Freshbox. Local foods means there is less carbon emission getting the food to your plate. Talk to your local farmers and let them know you want to eat more organically grown foods. Then you will the less dilemma of having to choose local conventional foods or organic foods grown halfway around the world.

2. Choose organic. This is a tricky one because some organic foods are grown in a far away farm. If you had the choice between the organic or conventional foods both from the same country, then definitely choose organic since organic farming create less pollution since there are no pesticides sprayed on the foods. Pesticides require a machine to be operated which may produce carbon emissions .

3. Reduce beef consumption. Growing beef requires a lot of land and water resources. Cows also contribute methane to the depletion of ozone. Switch to chicken, lamb or pork because it has a lower impact.

4. Eat seasonally. This avoids greenhouses who drain a lot of energy to produce food we usually eat in summer and or flying food from tropical regions. Eating more root vegetables during winter and eating what in season during the summer.

5. Avoid processed food with extensive packaging. Lots of energy is used to process, package and store food.

6. Grow your own food. Maintain a small pesticide free garden during the growing season.

7. Don't waste food.

8. Talk to your family, friends and neighbours about eating more sustainably.

9. Bring reusable shopping bags during grocery trips. Less garbage consumption means less pollution.

Together we can make a difference.
We can be the change we wish to see in the world.

References: American Scientific and No Impact Man
Pictures: Treehugger and David Suzuki Foundation and SLAC today

Thursday, 12 November 2009

Let's eat Frankenfood all day everyday~

Monsanto is a company that provides the seeds for 90 percent of the world's genetically modified crops. In an interview with The Real News Network, filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin talks about her recent film 'The World According to Monsanto' in which she exposes many of Monsanto's controversial practices of concealing knowledge of toxicity of PCBs to producing genetically modified seeds and related herbicides.

The World According to Monsanto 1 of 4 27min
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Monsanto has a long history of manufacturing dangerous products. In 1949, an explosion in Nitro, a Monsanto factory in the US, caused 228 workers to develop an extremely disfiguring illness caused by dioxin, a highly toxic by-product of 2,4,5-T, a powerful herbicide manufactured in the factory.

Plants are genetically modified to be resistant to Round Up. So everything else is killed after application of Round Up. Roundup is a herbicide which Monsanto advertised as biodegradable, is still sprayed on crops by unprotected farmers in Paraguay even though Monsanto has already been convicted twice of false advertising for the product.

When farmers buy seeds from Monsanto, they have to sign a contract that says that they will not keep the seed of the crops. So the next year, if the farmer only buys the Round Up and not the seed. They will be sued by Monsanto which will put them in a more bankrupt position with paying for lawyers and penalties to Monsanto. However, there was also a situation where seeds traveled to other farms and contaminated the crops of other farms. These people also got sued by Monsanto due to Monsanto claiming the patent on the seeds. A third situation is where Monsanto sends investigators to harass farmers about where they get their seeds and pesticides. If they do not cooperate, they send samples from the farmers' fields indicating they are using GM seed.
Monsanto denied of ever heard of Agent Orange, a herbicide sprayed by the US Army on crops during the Vietnam war. Monsanto had in fact manufactured, but also for manipulating scientific studies to hide links between Agent Orange, cancer and birth defects. The effects are still present in children in Vietnam.

According to Robin, Monsanto has bought fifty seed companies in the last ten years. In a clip from Robin's film, physicist and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva warns: "Once [Monsanto has] established the norm that seed can be owned as their property, we will depend on them. If they control seed they control food. It's more powerful than bombs. This is the best way to control the populations of the world."
India produces a great proportion of cotton in the world. Monsanto bought one of the main seed companies and introduced Bt Cotton. Bt Cotton costs four times more than normal cotton. Farmers go to high interest lenders to borrow money. When their harvests cannot pay back their debts, they drink pesticides and commite suicide. This happens at least three times a day.

In a Monsanto declassified file is found the sentence, "we can't afford to lose one dollar of business" even as toxicity of PCBs was discussed. This, Robin says, sums Monsanto's philosophy rather well. They only care about profits and not people.

There are so much politics and policy issues behind food that we fail to recognize. As a consumer, the buying power we have dictates demand and knowledge is power. The average grocery shopper may not even know what Monsanto is or know how they can stop this. The simple answer is to stop supporting GMOs.

References: The Real News Network and Smokescreen from Livevideo.com for the documentary