The industry blogs are even more fun, where bloggers like Yvonne Vizzier Thaxton of Poultry Perspectives argue semantics: in her view factory farms and family-owned farms are mutually exclusive. And the mere existence of factory farms is questionable. Oh, and this gem: “Poultry farmers are farmers and by nature these people love the environment otherwise, they could have a career in an office doing much less physically exhausting work.” (from “The message we need to shout,” 9/1/09; I’d link to it, but articles and blogs require a sign-in.)

Yesterday’s Meatingplace headlines were peculiar in that two stories were inconveniently interwoven.

The referenced author is Jonathan Safran Foer, whose new book is titled Eating Animals. He has an erroneously titled opinion piece here. I guess an honest, thorough title wouldn’t be as provocative. Do you think Foer’s critique of animal agriculture will be taken seriously? Is there room for another voice in this discussion?

Let us focus on some legitimate indoctrination:

“By the year 2000, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that one in five schools participating in the National School Lunch Program had brand-name fast foods in their lunchrooms.”

—School Lunch Politics by Susan Levine

More here.

Arugula Demystified:

“Also known as rocket or roquette, depending on the language you are speaking, arugula is a tall-growing, hearty green that will reseed itself throughout the garden without regard for any taming border lines the gardener has established.”
-Gardeners’ Community Cookbook

“Whether you call it roquette (French), arugula (Italian), or rocket (English), it’s a salad green with a spicy tang somewhere between that of cress and horseradish. If you want to try it, you’ll have to grow your own.
Fortunately, no spring or autumn crop could be easier to grow. In a sunny garden spot, either sow seeds thinly in a row, or scatter them in a patch.”
-Sunset Illustrated Guide to Vegetable Gardening

Arugula
Photo by JasonUnbound

“Because the food chain has become so long now, and it’s a global industry, we want to know the origin of our food as consumers,” says Monahan. “Consumers nowadays want to know the story of their food.”

-Dr. Frank Monahan, a scientist at University College Dublin, from the Forbes article: “What’s Really In Your Fast Food?“

Speaking of long food chains. Source: Oklahoma State University Extension

The demand is there. McDonald’s serves more than 47 million people around the world every day. I can’t say I’ll never again eat fast food. I swore it off after reading the book and…well, it didn’t stick. It’s generally a problem of convenience and craving that requires a certain disassociation from my meal.

In last week’s food issue of the New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan addressed these issues and more in an open letter to our next president (our farmer-in-chief). Pollan’s sun-food agenda is informative and inspirational. Where can I sign up for the School Lunch Corps?

• decentralize our food supply as a matter of national security
• enhance the prestige of farming
• more farms, more farmers; sun-food will require many more hands
• cultivate (pardon the pun) young farmers schooled in sustainable agriculture programs at land-grant colleges
• food regions and food culture
• can sustainable ag feed the world?
• “edible education”

Edited to add: Pollan on Fresh Air

From the Washington Post:

The report acknowledges that the decades-long trend towards reliance on “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, has brought some benefits, including cheaper food. In 1970, the average American spent 4.2 percent of his or her income to buy 194 pounds of red meat and poultry annually. By 2005 typical Americans were spending just 2.1 percent of their income for 221 pounds per year.

But the system has also brought unintended consequences. With thousands of animals kept in close quarters, diseases spread quickly. To prevent some of those outbreaks — and, more often, simply to spur faster growth — factory farms routinely treat animals with antibiotics, speeding the development of drug-resistant bacteria and in some cases rendering important medicines less effective in people.

It’s interesting to note that the commission also recommends the mandatory implementation of the National Animal Identification System, where each animal must be registered and tracked from birth to plate. NAIS participation is currently voluntary. Isn’t it funny that the small farmers avoiding the practices the commission calls into question (reckless antibiotic treatment; pollution of water, air, and soil; dense confinement), would bear the heaviest burden from compulsory participation in NAIS? The commission recommends that along with the announcement of mandatory participation in NAIS, that funding be made available to small farms.

The report [PDF] briefly addresses the social consequences of CAFO hiring practices:

Because capital-intensive agriculture relies more on technology than on labor, there are fewer jobs for local people and more low-paid, itinerant jobs, which go to migrant laborers who are willing to work for low wages (Gilles and Dalecki, 1988; Goldschmidt, 1978; Harris and Gilbert, 1982).

We headed over to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art to watch the documentary King Corn and hear a panel discussion. If you’ve read Michael Pollan’s books or articles on food, then you are already aware of the issues presented in this film, as the project was inspired by Pollan. Nevertheless, the information is delivered through the experiences of two recent college grads growing one acre of corn in Iowa while trying to find out why corn is pervasive in the American diet. I liked the non-judgmental nature of these two; they really sought to understand the process, not berate anyone for the messed up stature of corn in the food chain.

Corn has been getting some bad press lately: its subsidies perpetuate agribusiness, not family farms; it feeds the factory meat system; it is turned into a sweetener that may hasten metabolic syndrome; and the push for corn ethanol is effecting beer and meat prices, water quality, and biodiversity. Some of that is explored (though, not too deeply) in the documentary, but one comment a farmer made really struck me. He talked about corn with reverence; like it was oxygen—integral to everyday life without much thought about it. His comment humanized the issues; just like with most things, the more you learn, the more complicated they become. The farmers in the film acknowledged the massive amounts of corn grown in Iowa is not for human consumption; it’s hard, dry, and doesn’t taste good. No, this corn is for animal feed or for processing into corn syrup. So, farmers are enticed by subsidies–for it’s the government payments that pay the bills, not the market value of the crops–to grow corn, but they can’t actually eat any of it.

King Corn is thought-provoking, sometimes funny (the guys attempt to make corn syrup), and sometimes quite sad (feed lots and homestead auctions). It doesn’t answer any questions, and that’s fine. It might lead you to your own conclusions without being preachy or arrogant. It is showing again tonight at the OKCMOA and will be on OETA‘s Independent Lens on April 15th at 9:30 p.m.

We parked in front of the windowless building. The back/side has a corral that I try not think too much about. The market is first and foremost a slaughterhouse and processor. We walk in the front door, not really knowing what would be on the other side. Will the meat be displayed? What do we want? We took in our surroundings as we waited for someone to help us. Clippings, photos, and ads were all over the walls and the room was basically office space. There was a glass wall between the office we were standing in and the processing room, where several people dressed in white were hacking up meat. One man, engaged in a conversation, gestured with a hacksaw to emphasize his point. The workers chopped and sorted, making what I assume was a “keepers” pile and tossing the inedibles in a bin. I reassured and tried to desensitize myself. I feel like if I am going to eat meat, I should at get a better sense of how it got to me. I’m not to the point where I could raise and kill an animal…baby steps. Eventually a man came out to see what we needed. We told him what we wanted and he took a cart back to the freezer to load it up.

We bought some sausage, pork chops, and chicken breasts, with the intention of freezing the meat for later use. We also bought a sack o’ bones for the dogs. And we felt good about it because we assumed this was all Oklahoma meat. I mean, why else bother buying from this quaint meat market instead of a local grocery store?

Once home, I was putting the meat away and was surprised by the packaging on the chicken. It looked suspiciously…normal…and the contact number was in Atlanta. I called the market. “Yeah, I am wondering where you get your retail meat?”

“Ummm…our beef comes from Kansas.”

“Oh, okay. What about your pork and chicken?”

“Well, we get most of our meat from Cargill.”

Man, did I feel silly. I just don’t get it. Why is it necessary that a local, small business that kills and cuts up animals ship in processed meat from God-knows-where? Surely there is an explanation. Or maybe I’m just naive to have assumed otherwise. Maybe I’ll go back and ask or perhaps someone will fill me in.