For Local Hoops Fans

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Need to get me a #5 jersey!!

Potatoes, Smoked Salmon, Creme Fraiche

Needed an appetizer for my brother-in-law's house on NYE. Wanted something new. Saw this recipe for potato pancakes topped with smoked salmon and a creme fraiche sauce on the front page of the Food & Wine Web site.

I skipped the caviar. Perhaps caviar makes the dish something else entirely. I didn't miss it. At all. It was quite good, even with making the pancakes a bit ahead of time and reheating them in the oven before serving. Loss the crispiness it would have had from serving it within a few minutes of coming out of the pan. But sometimes sacrifices have to be made. There was general agreement that it was excellent.

Only thing I did differently was add about a teaspoon of honey to the creme fraiche concoction and a bit more lemon juice than it called for.

It Bears Repeating

It's hard not to feel like a broken record. Keep reading and writing about these same issues over and over and over again. But that's because they are so important, and they bear repeating.

And it seems, miraculously, that those in a position to help to improve the situation on a more global scale -- that is, members of Congress and in the federal and state agencies that oversee areas like agriculture and food safety -- appear to be finally paying some attention. We'll see, however, how long that lasts.

To the news. First, this excellent article from the Associated Press about the overwhelming use of antibiotics in agriculture and how it is significantly exacerbating the problem of antibiotic resistance in humans.

Researchers say the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals has led to a plague of drug-resistant infections that killed more than 65,000 people in the U.S. last year — more than prostate and breast cancer combined. And in a nation that used about 35 million pounds of antibiotics last year, 70 percent of the drugs went to pigs, chickens and cows. (emphasis added) Worldwide, it's 50 percent.

"This is a living breathing problem, it's the big bad wolf and it's knocking at our door," said Dr. Vance Fowler, an infectious disease specialist at Duke University. "It's here. It's arrived."

And we're actually hearing the right things from those in a position to affect some change!

"If we're not careful with antibiotics and the programs to administer them, we're going to be in a post antibiotic era," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, who was tapped to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this year.

Also this year, the three federal agencies tasked with protecting public health — the Food and Drug Administration, CDC and U.S. Department of Agriculture — declared drug-resistant diseases stemming from antibiotic use in animals a "serious emerging concern." And FDA deputy commissioner Dr. Joshua Sharfstein told Congress this summer that farmers need to stop feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals.

Whether any substantive change will happen or if, as usual, the powerful lobby of Big Agri-biz will win out and thwart any real change, is yet to be seen. But heading into the new year, there are at least encouraging signs.

This, however, is less encouraging. It's a story about how a company, South Dakota-based Beef Products Inc., convinced federal officials that it had found an innovative solution to killing deadly bacteria in ground beef. Just shove it full of ... wait for it... ammonia! Woo-freakin'-hoo!! I love floor-cleaning products in my ground beef. It was so effective, the company was allowed to have its beef "products" treated in this way be excluded from requirements for safety testing. But, alas, such a well-laid plan has apparently not been without its snafus.

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone. (emphasis mine)

But government and industry records obtained by The New York Times show that in testing for the school lunch program, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products meat, challenging claims by the company and the U.S.D.A. about the effectiveness of the treatment. Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

I'm not so naive as to think that everybody can get their beef and other meat from local, sustainable farms. But instead of continually propping up the big agribusinesses whose practices are fueling antibiotic-resistance, global warming, obesity, water pollution, and lots of sick (and some times dead) people, maybe we can do much, much, much more to help local, sustainable farms compete with the big guys, eh?

There were some positive things included in the most recent Farm Bill to help in that regard, but it's not nearly enough. Hopefully, there will continue to be incremental improvements, and the growing chorus of concern about the ills created by our current agriculture system will begin to overwhelm our elected officials to they point that they take more large-scale, meaningful actions. One can dream, no?

Farm Subsidies and Massive Hypocrites

It's my firm belief that everybody is a hypocrite. We all say one thing and do another at times. The most important point about the universality of hypocrisy is the extent and severity of it with respect to each individual.

And as this article drives home, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (Bats@#$t Insane-Minn.) has the high dishonor of being among the hypocritical elite. Rep. Bachmann profits from a family owned farm that has received $250,000 in government subsidies. This is, of course, the same Rep. Bachmann who has railed against the threats of "socialism" that could be brought on by the inept... oops, used my own adjective there... dangerous Obama administration

Bachmann’s financial disclosure forms indicate that her personal stake in the family farm is worth up to $250,000. They also show that she has been earning income from the farm business, and that the income grew in just a few years from $2,000 to as much as $50,000 for 2008.

Do go read the whole thing. There are other elected hypocrites of the highest order mentioned in there as well, all of whom love to rail against socialism and excessive government spending and welfare, blah, blah, blah, but don't mind if some of that welfare lines their own pockets.

Perhaps these people need a little visit from a one Jacob Marley, eh? Although I suspect Marley might actually be scared off by Bachmann...

Brewing is Back on da' North Side

Tom Pastorius has offered a cordial invitation to the public to partake in the first batch of Penn Pilsner of "the new era" at Penn Brewery.

Details:

Wednesday, Dec. 30
4:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Penn Brewery
800 Vinial St.
Da' North Side

Pastorius has said he'd like to expand their offerings a bit, possibly offering some "American-style" beers. I'm not sure what that means, exactly. I hope it doesn't mean macro-brew King of Beers/Less-Filling Tastes Great type brews. Rather, I hope that he means, among other things, hop-infused pale ales that are favored by many U.S. microbreweries, even if their origins are not necessarily American.

Either way, this is a great thing to see for this city and for beer. Hopefully the risk Mr. Pastorius is taking will pay off. The challenge, in many respects, will be to win patrons from -- or back from -- Hofbrahaus, which, from my experience, is doing quite well. That will indeed be a significant hurdle.

Good luck, fellas. Welcome back.

Scrapin' Up the Bits... Twitter Style

I'm pretty much addicted to Twitter, although I am not a "Watching '30 Rock' & Tracy Morgan is freakin' hilarious" kind of tweeter. I tweet mostly to learn about and share information/news on cancer research and food policy issues.

I was alerted to much of the content of this digest via Twitter. For example...

Why is this not a surprise?

In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants,

Then there was this tidbit of good news about sugar in cereal:

General Mills, one of the big 4 cereal manufacturers, including brands such as Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Trix, and Wheaties, announced yesterday that it will reduce the added sugar in its products. More specifically, the sugar in cereals advertised to kids will be reduced to “single digit” levels...

But apparently General Mills has math issues, because the company said by the spring of 2010 it will reduce the sugar content of its cereals to 11 grams or less. I could swear 11 was two digits, but maybe I'm looking at it wrong?

Genetically modified (GM) food is something I've been trying to read more about. A contention many critics of GM food products have held is that they have not been studied carefully enough. What does it mean, for example, to be introducing these genetically modified products -- that is, vegetables such as corn that have had foreign genes inserted into them so that they develop desirable traits, such as resistance to a pesticide produced by the same company that makes the GM seed -- into the larger ecosystem? Will they somehow affect other plants? How about animals or insects? Nobody really knows. Because it hasn't been very well studied.

GMO products got the go ahead from policy makers and regulatory bodies with very little of these data. To require such research would have meant "stifling innovation" or some such garbage like that.

So is it any wonder then when somebody does some research on just what is happening to the plants and bugs and animals around fields of GM corn finds this:

...we identified the cp4 epsps transgene [Fillippelli here: "transgene" = foreign gene introduced into the seed] in bulk soil microarthropods, nematodes, macroarthropods, and earthworms sampled within the corn cropping system. We found evidence of the transgene at all dates and in all animal groups. Transgenic DNA concentration in animal was significantly higher than that of background soil, suggesting the animals were feeding directly on transgenic plant material.

The authors admit that they can't say whether what they are detecting are functional genes, but personally I find it a little disturbing that these products may be unnaturally altering the genetic makeup of plants, insects, and animals. I find it hard to believe that's a good thing.


Speaking of gee-whiz technology and food, this doesn't seem like the right cure for the problem:

Jason Timmerman coaxed a balky calf into a chute on his feedlot one recent afternoon and jabbed a needle into its neck. He was injecting the animal with a new vaccine to make it immune to a dangerous form of the E. coli bacteria. ...

While studies have shown varying degrees of effectiveness, many researchers believe E. coli vaccines can reduce the number of animals carrying the bacteria by 65 to 75 percent. That may be enough to prevent the surge of E. coli that typically occurs each summer, when the germ thrives and reports of illness increase.

How about not jamming a gazillion cows into feed lots so they can wallow in their own pooh, stepping up inspections at slaughterhouses, and ensuring safer slaughterhouse work environments? Nah. Just jab 'em all with vaccines. Maybe the taxplayer can help pay for the vaccines, too, since we're already paying for their feed. Then it's a win-win.

I'm pretty sold on the data I've seen about our overly clean environment being linked to the rise in children with allergies, asthma, etc. So we've pretty much been doing this for a while now:

McDade hopes that one day we may be able to safely expose babies to the protective elements of germs without incurring the risks that come with infections. In the meantime, he is taking a less high-tech approach: "If my 2-year-old drops food on the floor, I just let him pick it up and eat it."

After that lovely image, I'm sure you're ready to eat, no? This approach for oven-smoked ribs from Mark Bittman sounds like it might work. Hopefully I can give it a try some time soon.

Muppet Relief

I still love the Muppets...

A Scrapin' Addendum... An Important One

Two things that should have made it into the previous "digest" posting. Both somewhat sciencey. The latter probably more pressing than the former. The latter has also convinced me to stop eating bluefin tuna.

First, scientists from the Scripps Research Institute perform a cool animal model study -- that is, they did some experiments in rats -- and showed that their brains responded to a steady diet of junk food much the same way that heroin addicts' brains respond to heroin.

Pleasure centers in the brains of rats addicted to high-fat, high-calorie diets became less responsive as the binging wore on, making the rats consume more and more food. The results, presented October 20 at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, may help explain the changes in the brain that lead people to overeat.

“This is the most complete evidence to date that suggests obesity and drug addiction have common neurobiological underpinnings,” says study coauthor Paul Johnson of the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla.

Are humans rats? No, but we're not that different.

Second is, to me at least, more disturbing because experts have been warning about this for some time. This sentence sort of says it all.

A recent analysis of the Mediterranean bluefin tuna population by the WWF shows that the breeding population of the species will disappear by 2012 if the fisheries continue with business as usual...

What I find most disturbing about this are the parallels with global warming. I don't claim to understand the science behind global warming. I do understand the basic concept and that the vast majority of scientists who study the subject agree that the earth is warming and that humans are a big reason for that.

And it seems to me that at some time there will be a tipping point, much like there is with tuna now, when the potentially catastrophic consequences of the collective unwillingness to act -- because of politics or greed -- will become clear. And at that point, much like with the bluefin tuna, there won't be much to do about it.

Patience Pays Off w/... Lasagna

So yet again I am vowing to make more of what we eat from scratch, beginning with pasta. To this point, I had only done a single experiment with our pasta maker, a consequence of laziness and reticence, the latter owing to the trouble I encountered the first time making an acceptable dough.


So, in the return adventure to fresh pasta, lasagna noodles were to be the output. Should I use the "well" method favored by Mario Batali -- seen demonstrating it here with Martha "Sell the stock, sell the motherf@#$in' stock!!" Stewart -- or the method upon which Jamie Oliver relies in the video below?



For my initial go-round with fresh pasta I tried both. I failed miserably with the MM's more traditional method, so turned to Jamie O. and his food processor approach (struggling, of course, to figure out what 100 grams is in good ol' American! -- Pure snark, I assure you). And with that I achieved a decent dough.

This time around, I started with the food processor and failed. My proportion of flour to egg was definitely off and I was not convinced it could be repaired.

So, after only a single failure, I turned to the well method. I looked at several different recipes for fresh pasta, and the egg to dough ratio was different for each. I ended up going with the recipe from one of our favorite cookbooks, Savoring Italy, which, despite being from Williams Sonoma, is truly an incredible cookbook for classic Italian food. It called for 4 eggs per 3 cups of flour.

The first well was not big or deep enough, and as I dropped the fourth egg into the well, one of its compatriots was quickly jettisoned over the edge like lava. I managed to get a lot of the egg incorporated back into the flour and, remarkably, got a decent looking, if not perfect, dough. I decided to try again (consulting with my wife about the size and depth of the well) and this time it went much better. In both cases I'm sure that I did not knead the dough for nearly long enough (which was really just a few minutes), but we had things to do. So I wrapped them in plastic wrap and let them sit for a few hours while we ran out to do some errands.

When we returned, I set up the pasta machine, got my 4-year-old diva into her lady bug apron, and we got cranking. Despite her stick-like arms, little miss thang was quite adept at cranking. At some point, however, my wife, despite still recovering from the piggy virus, assumed the cranking duties, while I guided the pasta through the machine and oversaw the flouring of the pasta and the thickness setting.

And from this effort were produced a lot of silky pasta sheets. Lightly floured them, wrapped in plastic wrap, and back into the fridge until it was time to start making the lasagna.

This, it turned out, was not a good decision. At least I think the refrigeration was the problem. When I removed the pasta from the fridge, it was stuck together and gummy (comments from any of LBoN's legions of readers - snicker, snicker -- about whether this was the problem are welcome). I was ready to toss the whole lot in the garbage, so frustrated I was. Ah, but the wife had a cooler head. She suggested rolling it all through the pasta maker again.

And it worked. Beautifully. Once again, and fairly quickly, we had perfectly thin sheets of pasta. In the interim we had also made a very simple sauce: half an onion (diced) and one clove of garlic, diced, cooked in olive oil until soft. Added one 28 oz. can of plum tomatoes, plus a little of the "juice" from the can, salt, pepper, cooked over medium heat until thickened a bit. Then a teaspoon or so of sugar and, just because I really like it, some freshly grated nutmeg.

Also in the interim, Sarah had made the ricotta filling, taken from Savoring Italy, which called for 3 cups of ricotta, an egg, a handful of flat-leaf parsley, salt, pepper.

The pasta noodles went into salted, boiling water and, a minute or two later, were drained. Then we started compiling the lasagna: a little sauce at the bottom of the dish, a layer of noodles, sauce, ricotta mixture, coating of freshly grated Parmesan, dots of fresh mozzarella, rinse and repeat twice, then finally the noodles, sauce, Parmesan and mozzarella.

Into a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.

The result was quite fantastic. Light, delicate noodles. Light, flavorful ricotta. Perfectly balanced sauce. (My apologies for the photography.)

Bonus: We had enough leftover rolled out sheets to be cut into tagliatelle for a first course or side dish. It's in the freezer, for use hopefully in the near future.

And some time in the next few weeks it will be fresh pasta round 2: Ravioli.

Scrapin' Up the Bits - Bollito di Manzo style

Gina DePalma's posts on Serious Eats are invaluable. Best known as the pastry chef at Molto Mario's world-famous Babbo, DePalma is in Italy doing research for a cookbook and writing up the occasional delicious recipe.

I printed out this Bollito di Manzo recipe some time ago. Now, with fall in full swing, some perfect grass-fed beef cuts for it in our freezer (short ribs), and most of the appropriate veg from the final week's take from our CSA, it was time to finally make it.

The result: good, but not great. The meat itself was really good: extremely tender with a real depth of flavor. You could tell it was grass-fed. The broth, on the other hand, was a little too tame. Not surprisingly, I did not have any veal bones. Next time (and there will be a next time) I'll add one more rack of short ribs, a few more all spice berries and peppercorns, and I may remove the short ribs when they are tender, strip off the beef and put the bones back in to cook in the pot for just another hour or so before turning off the heat and letting it cool.

In the meantime, I have a good bit of of the broth from this first batch in the freezer. When I go to use that, I think I'll bring it to a simmer for about 30 minutes with a parmesan rind in it, maybe even use it to make some risotto. I'm thinking mushrooms.

I'll admit that I'm slightly torn on this one: whether raw oysters harvested during warm months along the Gulf Coast should be banned. I enjoy raw oysters. I eat them selectively, though, from places that I feel are dedicated to getting the freshest product possible. In these parts, that likely means the northeast coast.

Yet I know that when I eat them I am taking a risk. A small one, but a risk nonetheless that I may get sick. Apparently in the Gulf Coast region about 15 people die each year from eating raw oysters. They apparently have a higher risk of being infected with a nasty bacteria when they are harvested during warm months. And the FDA had proposed a ban on them.

After getting push back from legislators in the region and the oyster industry, that ban has been indefinitely delayed.

The agency said it would conduct a study of the issue. “It is clear from our discussions to date that there is a need to further examine both the process and timing for large and small oyster harvesters to gain access to processing facilities,” the agency said in a statement.

There are, reportedly, ways of dealing with the bacteria.

The anti-bacterial process treats oysters with a method similar to pasteurization, using mild heat, freezing temperatures, high pressure and low-dose gamma radiation.

But doing so "kills the taste, the texture," [said Mark DeFelice, head chef at Pascal's Manale Restaurant in New Orleans]. "For our local connoisseurs, people who've grown up eating oysters all their lives, there's no comparison" between salty raw oysters and the treated kind.

For now, the non-anti-bacterially treated Gulf Coast oyster is alive and well.


The health care reform bill -- you know, the one that will end democracy and freedom as we know it (that's snark, FWIW) -- passed in the House includes language that would require many restaurants, including fast food chains, to explicitly post on their menus how many calories are in each dish. It's interesting because the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation just did a study (careful, this is the whole PDF!) that showed providing calorie information at the point of purchase decreased the amount of food people ate during those meals.


Oh, and finally, while as a country we throw out like 30 percent of the food we purchase and have gazillions of acres of corn to provide feed for cows so we can have cheap burgers at Red Robin, there are a lot of people going hungry:

In its annual report on hunger, the [USDA] said that 17 million American households, or 14.6 percent of the total, “had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year.” That was an increase from 13 million households, or 11.1 percent, the previous year.

For those in the Pittsburgh area, you can make a contribution to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank here.

Action Alert on Food Safety Legislation

From the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition...

FOOD SAFETY ACTION ALERT!
November 12, 2009
MAKE A CALL TO PROTECT FAMILY FARMS,
LOCAL FOOD SYSTEMS AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

CALL SENATOR CASEY THIS WEEK!

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee will take up S. 510, the Senate version of major food safety legislation already approved by the House of Representatives, next Wednesday, November 18.

The bill would put real teeth into federal regulation of large-scale food processing corporations to better protect consumers. However, the bill as written is also a serious threat to family farm value added processing, local and regional food systems, conservation and wildlife protection, and organic farming.

We need a food safety bill that cracks down on corporate bad actors without erecting new barriers to the growing healthy food movement based on small and mid-sized family farms, sustainable and organic production methods, and more local and regional food sourcing.

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Organic Coalition, have fashioned five common sense amendments to S 510. We need your help to make them happen! The House has already passed their Bill. This is our last best chance to affect the final legislation.

Step 1: Make a Call

Please Call Senator Casey's office at (202) 224-6324 and ask for the aide in charge of food safety issues. Tell them you are a constituent and are calling to ask the Senator to support the amendments proposed by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Organic Coalition to the Food Safety Modernization Act. Specifically, ask your Senator to support the following key changes to the bill:

• The bill should direct FDA to narrow the kinds of value-added farm processing activities which are subject to FDA control and to base those regulations on sound risk analysis. (Current FDA rules assume without any scientific evidence that all farms which undertake any one of a long list of processing activities should be regulated.)
  

• The bill should direct FDA to ease compliance for organic farmers by integrating the FDA standards with the organic certification rules. FDA compliance should not jeopardize a farmer's ability to be organically certified under USDA's National Organic Program.
  

• The bill must provide small and mid-sized family farms that market value-added farm products with training and technical assistance in developing food safety plans for their farms.
  

• The bill should insist that FDA food safety standards and guidance will not contradict federal conservation, environmental, and wildlife standards and practices, and not force the farmer to choose which federal agency to obey and which to reject.
  

• Farmers who sell directly to consumers should not be required to keep records and be part of a federal "traceaback" system, and all other farms should not be required to maintain records electronically or any records beyond the first point of sale past the farmgate.
  

Step 2: Report Your Call

Let us know how your Senator responded by clicking here http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=iDwJjwNOL9Ow7ubh59KDmnf2vBJtLWG%2B and typing in a brief report.

Step 3: Learn More

For more information on the Senate Food Safety bill, please see NSAC's Talking Points here http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZMugpdHrZ%2B5jVzlGNRk2rHf2vBJtLWG%2B and its Policy Brief Food Safety on the Farm here: http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=N0qoiyP9CL10FyBbFnz%2Fjnf2vBJtLWG%2B

Fast Food Abomination of the Week

The title of this post is somewhat of a misnomer. Sure, the large version of the new Quiznos Double Cheese Cheesesteak has 1,400 calories and nearly 3000 mg of sodium -- meaning that, in a single greasy swoop, it provides nearly three-quarters of recommended daily calorie intake and 50 percent surplus of daily recommended sodium intake -- which more than qualifies for it this prestigious honor.

But what is more impressive is that Quiznos managed to match up this dietary nuclear bomb with an equally sickening commercial. You know, the one where the two guys are sitting in a bathtub, outside, with a campfire underneath the tub. Something dubbed a "hillbilly hot tub."

Now, I'm no marketing guru, but, as a corporation, do you really want to embed in your potential customers' minds the image of two hairy, slovenly men sitting in close proximity in a dirty bathtub with one of your food products? Is a "hillbilly hot tub" Quiznos' version of "where's the beef?"

Something tells me that Don Draper would not approve.

Big Ag in the White House

Sigh. I know that he's got a lot on his plate, but some times I wonder WTF the current resident of the White House is thinking. If, during your campaign, you say you will not hire former lobbyists, then, you know what, don't do that, or at least try.

Some back story from the indispensable Tom Philpott here, including this:

President Obama has nominated one of [Big Biotech Ag's] own as the chief agricultural negotiator at the U.S. Trade Office.

To take the post, Islam “Isi” Siddiqui will have to leave his current perch as vice president for agricultural biotechnology and trade at CropLife America, the trade group representing the U.S. agrichemical industry (member list here). Its mission: to hip the public (and the government) to the ““benefits of pesticides and crop-protection chemicals.”

This is the crew that chided Michelle Obama for daring to opt not to use “crop protection” (i.e., toxic pesticides) in the White House Garden. ...

As the Doha round of global trade talks lurches on, Siddiqui’s position will be an important one. Southerm-hemisphere nations like India and Brazil are pushing for lower U.S. crop subsidies, while the U.S. is demanding wide-open markets for U.S. goods—everything from foodstuffs like industrial corn to agrichemicals. Siddiqui can be counted on to push that agenda hard.

So, if this nomination sounds like a bad idea to you, go here please and type in the requisite info.

Au Natural Necco?

Now I have to get a pack to see if I can taste the difference...

Necco, short for New England Confectionary Co., cranks out about 4 billion of the roughly quarter-sized wafers each year, packaging them in large rolls (36 wafers) and junior rolls (nine wafers). Beet juice, purple cabbage, cocoa powder and turmeric -- a spice often used in curries -- are some of the natural ingredients in the new wafers, which will be phased in at retail stores before and after Halloween.

Scrapin' Up A Few Bits... Policy Style

Serious food issues actually in the news. It's not just health care reform and Jon & Kate. Who knew?

Cracker Jacks, which I'll admit I enjoy, would be hard to characterize as a nutritionally "smart choice." But that didn't stop Frito Lay from smacking a "Smart Choice" label on it, as part of the larger, snack-food industry backed Smart Choices Program. [UPDATE: Per a note from a Cathy, who purports to be a Frito Lay employee, Cracker Jack was not included in the Smart Choices program. My bad. And, more importantly, the Associated Press's bad. Which, in turn, means the bad of about a gazillion news outlets, including little ones like the Washington Post, L.A. Times, Wall Street Journal...] I guess it's decisions like the Cracker Jack's Froot Loops one that led to the program's voluntary termination.

Industry leaders launched the program this year to highlight foods that meet certain nutritional standards with a green label on package fronts.

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that such programs may mislead consumers about the health benefits of certain foods, and it told manufacturers it will crack down on inaccurate labeling. It did not criticize specific products or label programs or give a timeline for enforcement.

Froot Loops were also considered to be a smart choice. 'Nuff said, I guess.

And the Obama administration, despite its many challenges on many fronts, appears to be -- with an extra emphasis on "appears" -- getting serious about improving nutrition in schools.

First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack challenged the nation’s middle schools and high schools on Wednesday to provide healthier meals and more time for exercise and physical activity for their students.

My understanding is that schools often have their hands tied as to what they can serve, where they can procure the food they serve, and, of course, having the kitchen staff who can do anything more than reheat frozen food items.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the "taco in a bag" on the menu at my son's elementary school sounds great. His description is that it's taco meat in a bag with tortilla chips and some cheese. Also called nachos, I suppose. And I would suspect made with the finest factory-farm ground beef -- "slaughterhouse trimmings and mash-like product" and all.

In other words, the very definition of nowhere to go but up.

And speaking of healthy school lunches, Baltimore City schools have implemented "meatless Mondays." ABC News covered it the other evening. And the Center for a Livable Future puts the kaibosh (sp?) on questions about whether these meatless meals are depriving children of much-needed protein.

The United States is among the very few wealthy nations in the world where people derive the majority of their dietary protein from animal sources. The global average is 30% of dietary protein from animal sources, including dairy and eggs, and 70% from grains, vegetables, and fruit.

If Mr. Riter had bothered to contact the Baltimore City Schools he would have found that each meat-free meal contains more than the amount of protein required by the USDA. My guess is that Mr. Riter jumped to his mistaken conclusion after reading misleading quotes from a meat lobby organization, or he really needs to brush up on his basic biochemistry.

Gorilla + Drums = ?????

You'll have to wait to see. It's worth it.




A big hat-tip to NPR's Marketplace, which tipped me off to this old commercial, which, BTW, increased sales of Cadbury products in the UK (possibly Europe?) by 10%.

Tea

Made an Asian-style soup with curry paste, ginger, lemongrass, lime juice, etc. earlier in the week. It was quite good. At the end of the week, still had some of the ingredients in the fridge.

Which brings me to my point. I've been doing some intense weight training and, along with it, increasing my intake of protein and fiber, among other things, which can leave me with quite a bit of stomach upset.

So today, with said stomach upset in full force, I made a ginger-lemongrass tea. Very simple:

Boiled enough water for a single large mug. When it reached a boil, removed it from the heat and added about 2 tablespoons worth of quarter-inch sliced ginger and a two-inch long segment of lemongrass that had been smashed with the side of a knife.

Let the "tea" sit for about 10 minutes, pour into a mug, add a little honey, stir, and drink.

Within the hour my stomach felt much better. Whether this was due to the tea is really not important, because it was delicious.

Pollan Talks Shop w/ Farmers, Jamie O. in the NYT

This is from NPR's "Talk of the Nation."

I'll have to listen to the entire thing soon. Got about halfway through. Really good stuff.

Also, Jamie Oliver's been doing a series of shows about food in America, for the BBC I believe. This lengthy feature about it will also have to be weekend reading.

Broken Record Post: NY Times & Beef Safety

The hordes of LBoN readers (snicker, snicker) are familiar with the coverage this blog has given to the safety of one of our country's favorite foods, beef.

As was pointed out on a science journalism blog, just when you thought this territory had been well covered -- that is, that it has been fairly well established that there are some serious problems with beef safety, etc. -- the New York Times' Michael Moss one-ups everybody and rips off this doozy in last Sunday's paper.

It leads with the story of Stephanie Smith, who can no longer walk due to an infection with E. coli that she got from a hamburger. It turns out, Mr. Moss reports, that ground beef, whether it's in a nicely packaged mound or frozen pre-made patties, isn't necessarily always what you think it is...

Ground beef is usually not simply a chunk of meat run through a grinder. Instead, records and interviews show, a single portion of hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses. These cuts of meat are particularly vulnerable to E. coli contamination, food experts and officials say. Despite this, there is no federal requirement for grinders to test their ingredients for the pathogen.

The frozen hamburgers that the Smiths ate, which were made by the food giant Cargill, were labeled “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Yet confidential grinding logs and other Cargill records show that the hamburgers were made from a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin. The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.

I particularly like that ammonia bit at the end. "Would you like fries with that? Oh, and we're running a special extra-value meal for burgers with extra ammonia. It's a real bargain, I tell you."

So, as I did once before, I'd like to come back to a letter to the editor (scroll down a bit) that came in reply to my op-ed on the subject of beef safety published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last year. The LTE came from Mr. William R. Henning, the Emeritus Professor of Animal and Food Science at Penn State University.

Penn State has come under criticism from some in the sustainable ag community because of its cozy relationship with the corporations that make up big ag. They have this one professor, Terry Etherton, who apparently believes that anybody who doesn't think pumping cows full of hormones is the be-all end-all of "progress" is anti-science and anti-agriculture. Nice, I know.

Keep that in mind when you read this bit from Mr. Henning's LTE: [NOTE: From this point forward, all bolded text is mine for emphasis]

I'm confident we have a very safe and affordable supply of this important protein. Strict and numerous government regulations along with strong industry leadership protect the safety of our beef.

And then a little later on in the LTE:

For example, each of the 100 million animals that enter the human food supply is closely inspected by veterinarians and trained inspectors. And the inspection system continues throughout the entire process, including careful examination of both raw and fully cooked products.

I tried to wrap my head around how 100 million animals could possibly be closely inspected, even if there was a fully stocked army of inspectors, which published reports have indicated there is not.

In any case, compare the LTE claims with this from the Times' article:

The United States Department of Agriculture, which allows grinders to devise their own safety plans, has encouraged them to test ingredients first as a way of increasing the chance of finding contamination.

Unwritten agreements between some companies appear to stand in the way of ingredient testing. Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies. Slaughterhouses fear that one grinder’s discovery of E. coli will set off a recall of ingredients they sold to others.

It's almost as if Mr. Moss and Mr. Henning are talking about two entirely different worlds, no? In any case, the article apparently caused enough of a ruckus to prompt a response from the Department of Agriculture, from Sec. Vilsack himself no less.

He talks about additional inspections, new guidelines, better record keeping. But something seemed to be missing: The fact that something can be labeled as ground beef and yet really be "a mix of slaughterhouse trimmings and a mash-like product derived from scraps that were ground together at a plant in Wisconsin."

Anyone else find that unnerving? Perhaps the "strong industry leadership" touted by Mr. Henning from our state's largest (only?) land-grant university will address that?

Right, right. Dumb question.

UPDATE: Speaking of Big Ag influence on land-grant universities, The Ethicurean provides a primo example, this time involving Michael Pollan.

H20 & Manure

Otherwise known as

Water...

and ...

Poo.