Food blog no. 6 – putting up food in summer kitchens

Published September 25, 2010 by dbazely

In the 2001 reality tv show, Pioneer Quest: A year in the real west, two couples went back in time to live as pioneers would have done in 1875. Watching this show, all I could think of was how happy I was NOT to have been a pioneer in Canada. But, I foresee a future in which we will all be rediscovering and reverting to many of the practices of these amazingly resourceful people. They spent a huge amount of time harvesting and preserving food to see them through the harsh winter.

The Summer Kitchen is one great early Canadian pioneer idea. In Ontario, old houses often had two kitchens. One inside for the winter and one outside of the main house, for the summer. This summer was one of the hottest on record, and I made a summer kitchen on my back deck. We do not have air conditioning, except for a large American Elm shading the south side of our house, so I banished all heat-generating cooking to the summer kitchen. Putting up food, as it's known in North America took place outside in this kitchen over our propane camping stove. In the UK, preserving food in glass jars is known as bottling.

As part of my family's developing interest in eating more locally, in the last three years, I have officially progressed from freezer jam to boiling water canning. Along the way, I watched a ton of You Tube videos and amassed a library of very informative books, as well as scoured the USA Agricultural Extension Services' websites. This summer, friends and I embarked on an ambitious, comprehensive canning programme. This also involved picking our own berries at local Ontario farms - strawberries, blueberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, and cherries. It's hot, hard work, but it's very gratifying to know which tree your cherries came from.

I also discovered some of the top people writing on this issue today - both recognized in the print world of publishing and the blogosphere.

Eugenia Bone - whose food-preserving recipes have been featured in Martha Stewart Living - is a simply outstanding writer on the whole topic of putting-up, local food and growing your own. She can be found at her Denver Post blog. She divides her time between the rural and urban worlds (New York - seen below in her SoHo loft) and is provides a reliable for starting point for anyone wanting to get into this topic.

A more organic, grass-roots source of information can be found at Tigress in a Jam blogspot. The blogger, who doesn't give her name, as far as I can see, is a young, local-food and animal welfare activist, and she has instigated all kinds of seasonal canning contests, where people experiment with one main ingredient and post their recipes. It's a great example of the web as capacity builder.

Dawn R. Bazely

Food Blog no. 5 – the 100 mile diet? I’ll pass on the 100% version

Published September 22, 2010 by dbazely

The 100-mile diet, at least in Ontario, is, I believe, nothing more or less, than the rediscovery by a highly urbanized population, many of whom are recent immigrants to the province, that we live in one of the most productive agricultural regions of the world. As a teen in 1970's Mississauga, (or as I liked to think of it, by the pet-name, Miseryssauga), I was bombarded with Foodland Ontario recipes using local ingredients. But, along with Home Economics, and a basic ability to cook, much of this local knowledge appears to have been lost during the 1990s and early 2000s.

It's great that there is such a huge interest in local food, but I, for one, am not giving up olives, citrus, cinnamon and nutmeg or salt. The first three don't grow outside in Ontario, and I don't know of any local sources of salt. The history of humanity is all about how we moved from being hunter-gatherers, to providing ourselves with more predictable sources of food, by farming. Food preservation for the winter was hugely important, and spices, herbs and salt play an important role in this. Our most important spices are all tropical, as my Plants course students learned, in my lectures from our textbook, the wonderful, Plant Biology.

The spice trade is of enormous historical, geopolitical and economic significance. This is what took Marco Polo to China on the spice route. Ghandi's challenge to the salt tax, and his making of salt, shook the British Raj. Today, principles of sustainability, equity and justice come together in the fair-trade movement and are being explored in an interesting programme from World Wildlife Fund aimed at transforming markets and supply chains. At this year's Ecological Society of America AGM in Pittsburgh, Jason Clay gave a very interesting talk about the programme.

So, before you consider embracing the 100-mile diet 100%, please think again, and consider the 5,000 mile diet for 5% of your food intake. Remember that trade in foreign foods IS incredibly important for bringing income to local peoples elsewhere in the world.

Dawn R. Bazely

Food blog no. 4 – essential reading on the topic of sustainable food

Published September 21, 2010 by dbazely

I thought that I might have enough opinions about food sustainability for 4 or perhaps 5 blogs. I am aghast to find that I could probably write one blog a week for a whole year. I shouldn't be surprised, since we all eat to live, and this is a universally interesting topic. Plus I have a professional interest in the subject as a plant ecologist, with an applied ecology focus involving animals that we eat - like geese, sheep and deer. This has taken me to many farms. I am also a keen gardener, and a keen cook.

I am not alone in my interest and there are superb writers and bloggers who inform me. My favourite book about diet, cooking and food sustainability is Hungry Planet and the photo essay, What the World Eats, reviewed in the following excellent You Tube video.

Alex Lewin's blog reviews books about food sustainability, including a number that I have mentioned.

Four other lists and sites worth mentioning include:

Change.org's sustainable food section's must-read books. This is a favourite, because the blogger admits to not having read Michael Pollan's In Defence of Food, which I haven't read either, for exaclty the same reason: I get the take-home message - "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."
Planet Friendly's website is worth a look, along with Treehugger.com's sustainable food booklist for 2010 and Nibble.com's 2008 reading list.

Dawn R. Bazely

End of the Line – free screening of overfishing documentary

Published September 13, 2010 by dbazely

Join Greenpeace Canada's Executive Director Bruce Cox for a free screening of The End of the Line

Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine the global consequences.

The looming collapse of fisheries threatens the most important source of food for 250 million people.

This Wednesday, Greenpeace Canada's Executive Director Bruce Cox will speak at a free screening of The End of the Line, a powerful film about one of the world's most disturbing problems – over-fishing.

The screening is sponsored by Trinity-Spadina MP Olivia Chow. To reserve a ticket, please contact her office by email at chowo1c@parl.gc.ca or by telephone at 416-533-2710. Seats are going fast!

When: 6:00pm, Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Where: Bloor Cinema, 506 Bloor St W, Toronto (View a map)

Food Blog no. 3 – why Gordon Ramsay’s F-Word is worth watching

Published September 12, 2010 by dbazely

During the three years before my family emigrated to Canada, I attended one of England's most academically elite schools: Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls.

At the age of 12, along with Latin, French and German, I was taught some very basic life skills in my Cookery and Sewing classes. I built on these skills when doing field work on the shorelines of Hudson Bay. At 19, I took my turn in cooking meals in a field camp for up to 30 hungry field biologists (I was one of them). Today, I'll never compete in a top amateur chef contest, but pulling off a 4-course dinner party, in which every dish served is cooked by me, is no bother.

Sadly, Home Economics has been dropped from school curricula, not only in the UK, but in much of Canada. Jamie Oliver is the most famous TV chef tackling the issue of food education for children, with his campaign to get British school kids to eat healthier lunches. The institutional history of British school food is fascinating. Jamie's latest T.V. show, the Food Revolution brings the campaign to the USA.

Jamie aside, for me, the most entertaining take on the whole "why can't people cook ?" issue is Gordon Ramsay, in his simultaneously hilarious and shocking F Word season 1 (the F Word is a programme about Food) campaign to get young British women into their kitchen. He got a lot of criticism for picking on women and was accused of being sexist. It certainly was mind-blowing to watch giggling young women admit to never having turned on their stove, but I can also attest to the fact that pretty much everyone I know who is under-35, male and female, with a FEW notable exceptions, lacks basic home economics skills. So, I'd have to side with the "Gordon was sexist" crowd on this one.

When a significant proportion of the younger demographic is not taught the basic ability to cook simple, nutritious food from scratch, and to plan menus and food budgets, why wouldn't we expect to see an obesity epidemic hitting the Global North from the USA to Europe? Lack of exercise is important, too, but for me, diet is as big a factor. Understanding food and where it comes from is also an essential part of educating for sustainability.

My extraordinarily busy family eats food mostly prepared from scratch, and we all pitch in, including my husband, a Julia Child afficianado. Forcing my kids into the kitchen has been a challenge. To do it, I had to run my own Home Economics course at home. Topics included how to clean a sink and toilet. And yes, I learned about basic hygiene back at Haberdashers'. Dawn R. Bazely

Food blog no. 2 – organic is grey, not black and white

Published September 10, 2010 by dbazely

I thought I'd be blogging about food all summer. But, at summer's end, I find that when I haven't been at conferences, or in the field, I have been kept very busy with gardening and canning or "putting up". This year I grew a large amount of garlic - Northern Quebec and Persian Star, from Boundary Garlic in British Columbia.

Back in the spring, I went to the very enjoyable Toronto-based Green Living Show, which my family has attended every year since it began in 2007. I enjoy chatting with the manufacturers and marketers of green products - some of them much smaller and more artisanal than the widely recognizable tent-pole names, like Loblaws, Roots and Pistachio. This included a lovely couple who were staffing the booth for an organic delivery company.

"Do people ask you about the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen, and when they do, what do you tell them?", I asked. "Well" they replied, "our position is that we should all eat organic, all the time.".

My come back: "well, you know that the prices make it simply unaffordable for most families, so if you want to be more nuanced in your approach, what's more realistic advice?"

There are many reasons why people choose to consume organic food, ranging from health concerns to concern about the impact of industrial farming on the environment. For many people, it is all about managing personal risk and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals. But is it really worth it? In the case of fruit and veggies, it all depends where your food is farmed. The main reason why I grew so much garlic, is that (1) we can grow good garlic and (2) in the last 2 years, the local Ontario garlic supply has run out by early winter, and (3) I prefer to avoid buying garlic from parts of the world where we hear about issues of food contamination, proven or not.

When it comes to pesticide and chemical exposure, you need to deal with the big stuff first. My husband was a toxicologist in a previous career and we are both biologists, so the whole issue of pesticides has been on our minds for decades. The mainstay organic purchase in our house, ever since my kids stopped breastfeeding, has been organic milk and yoghurt. And, btw, I was one of those working mothers with kids in daycare at 4 months, and an industrial breast pump, busily remobilizing the contaminants in my fat cells into my kids.

When it comes to food preparation, we have never knowingly stuck a plastic container in a microwave - ever since I first encountered a microwave, back in 1984. We also banned our daycares from heating any food up for our kids in any kind of plastic in the 1990s: we were well aware of the early research on phytoestrogens, and chemicals leaching out of plastics. I get frustrated when I see young, environmentally conscious students bringing their packed organic lunches to York in plastic containers, with painted nails and make-up. I don't wear make-up or nail polish - because chemicals can leach into my body through my skin. Nowadays, there is, finally, mainstream awareness of plastics and leachates, but it has taken a very long time.

So, what about organic food? Well, other than our organic dairy products, and garden veggies, we don't bother much with organic fruit and vegetable in my house. We do, however, eat as much locally farmed fruit and veggies as we can: Canadian agriculture has superb regulatory and consumer education systems both federally and provincially.

In a 2003 review of the evidence, in answer to the question: 'Is organic food better for you?' The UK Food Standards Agency, which, was, at the time, headed by my doctoral supervisor, Lord John Krebs, found that "In our view the current scientific evidence does not show that organic food is any safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food." Interestingly, over the subsequent 3 years, efforts were made to soften the perceived "anti-organic" tone of the report. But, the science still stands.

Eric Reguly of the Globe and Mail stirred the organic pot with his 2008 article entitled "No organic for me, please" in which he made some of these same points about cost as well as pointing out the lower crop yields of organic. This last argument against organic, is a topic for another post and yet another grey area in the whole complex topic of food security.

Dawn R. Bazely

Book Release: Climate Change- Who’s Carrying the Burden? The chilly climates of the global environmental dilemma

Published September 3, 2010 by jmedalye

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Last month, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives published Climate Change— Who’s Carrying the Burden? The chilly climates of the global environmental dilemma (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2010), edited by Professor L. Anders Sandberg and Tor Sandberg. This timely publication draws attention to the disparity between climate change and social justice concerns. Its contributors confound, confuse and extend what constitutes the meaning of climate change. Moreover, they juxtapose and make connections between climate change and the chilly climates that exclude and marginalize groups and individuals who live and imagine different ways of interacting that are more respectful of social and environmental relationships.

As the introduction succinctly notes, the devastating impacts of climate change are clear. But there are disturbing revelations about how global elites are tackling the issue. Al Gore—on one hand — promotes carbon emissions trading and green technologies as a solution, and—on the other—profits handsomely from his timely investments in those same initiatives. Infamous climate change skeptic Bjørn Lomborg recommends free market solutions to fight global poverty and disease. And it’s these solutions that almost exclusively receive the attention of world leaders, so-called experts and media pundits. This publication rallies the call of climate justice advocates and activists concerned with ‘system change not climate change’. This call demands control of local resources, the restitution of past wrongs, and the willingness to conceive and accept different modes of living and seeing.

The book is dedicated to those that suffer the most from climate change yet are the least responsible for it. The authors focus on the distributional impact and visions of climate change and the connection of climate change to wider systemic forces. The contributors present a view of climate change that is critical of markets, new technologies, and international agreements as solutions to the climate change dilemma and also explore the origins of climate change and the places where its impacts are felt the most. The collection makes a significant contribution to understanding climate change itself as an oppressive force in not only hiding the historical connections of the carbon economy to colonialism, capitalism, and a rampant and exploitative resource extraction, but also the resiliencies, possibilities and alternatives articulated by groups who fight and stand outside the carbon economy. It argues that there are chilly climates that surround the discussions on climate change that erase, exclude and marginalize alternative views and possibilities.

To purchase a copy visit the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. See Climate Change— Who’s Carrying the Burden? The chilly climates of the global environmental dilemma

Contents

Introduction: Climate change — who’s carrying the burden? -- L . ANDERS SANDBERG and TOR SANDBERG

PART I: CLIMATE CHANGE AND CLIMATE JUSTICE

The Health Impact of Global Climate Change -- STEPHEN LEWIS
From Climate Change to Climate Justice in Copenhagen -- L . ANDERS SANDBERG and TOR SANDBERG
Paying Our Climate Debt -- NAOMI KLEIN
Vandana Shiva Talks About Climate Change -- AN INTERVIEW BY TOR SANDBERG
The Path from Cochabamba -- SONJA KILLORAN- MCKIBBIN
COP15 in an Uneven World -- Contradiction and crisis at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change -- JACQUELINE MEDALYE
Climate Change, Compelled Migration, and Global Social Justice -- AARON SAAD

PART II: CHILLY CLIMATES

Framing Problems, Finding Solutions -- STEPHANIE RUTHERFORD and JOCELYN THORPE
Penguin Family Values: The nature of planetary environmental reproductive justice -- NOËL STURGEON
‘Walking on Thin Ice’ The Ice Bear Project, the Inuit and climate change -- JELENA VESIC
Operation Climate Change: Between community resource control and carbon capitalism in the Niger Delta -- ISAAC OSUOKA
Broken Pieces, Shattered Lives: The lasting legacy of Hurricane Katrina -- TANYA GULLIVER
Unearthing Silence: Subjugated narratives for environmental engagement -- JAY PITTER

PART III: BEYOND CLIMATE CHANGE AND CHILLY CLIMATES

A Practical Environmental Education:Shrinking ecological footprints, expanding political ones - ELIZABETH MAY
“Keep the fire burning brightly” Aboriginal youth using hip hop to decolonize a chilly climate -- ALILAKHANI, VANESSA OLIVER, JESSICA YEE , RANDY JACKSON & SARAH FLICKER
Forty Years of System Change: Lessons from the free city of Christiania -- ANDERS LUND HANSEN
Marginal Medleys: How Transition Towns and Climate Camps are relocalizing the global climate crisis -- ADRINA BARDEKJIAN AMBROSII
Dig Where You Stand! Food research/education rooted in place, politics, passion, and praxis -- DEBORAH BARNDT

Fuel in an unlikely place

Published July 20, 2010 by iris_author

In the spirit of Director Dawn Bazely’s quest for reducing waste, I put to you: Tim Hortons cups have a second life, as biofuel!

It turns out that Tim Hortons' cups, over any other coffee distributor, provide an excellent food source for bacteria used to make biofuels, such as ethanol and hydrogen. As we know, ethanol can be made from certain food crops but this has dangerous implications for issues of social justice, not to mention the beautiful sections of the rainforest being cut down in order to plant such crops. In comes the used coffee cup.

Since these cups have already been pre-treated and processed into a “bacteria-ready form” they are a splendid form of biomass, preferred over alternative sources such as wood chips which must undergo a thorough transformation involving processes like steam explosion and acid treatment before they turn into bacteria-digestible sugars.

Microbiologists Richard Sparling and David Levin have devised a process where the shredded cups are tipped into a bioreactor which is kept at a temperature and pH level perfectly suited for the bacteria. Thanks to the shredding process, the bacteria have even more surface on which to latch allowing them to munch up the mulch even more efficiently. The cup waste is therefore fuel for the bacteria which in turn produce their own waste: ethanol and hydrogen, as well as acetic acid and carbon dioxide which can be used as fuel.

Now this is great news for all the waste produced by Canada’s favourite coffee outlet, Tim Hortons, especially during “Rrroll up the Rrrim to win” promotional times. Since these cups already exist and are being used at a, sadly, prolific rate, it makes sense to use them as a source of biofuel over planting new crops solely for the production of alternative fuels. Though the commercialisation of such a technique won’t be available for at least a few years, one wonders if it would be effective in diverting waste. Certainly Tim Hortons’ new recycling bins have not proved all that popular. Perhaps if this effort were turned into a private commercial venture there would be a much stronger push for the recuperation of cups.

Still, elimination of takeaway cup waste altogether would be preferable. Despite this ingenious reuse method, the impact created by the amount of energy, water and raw materials needed to make the millions of paper cups used and then thrown away each day indicate that it is time we changed our habits. Reusable mugs remain the best solution. They can be stylish or subdued in style and provide perfect control of your beverage’s temperature. Have no fear creators of biofuel everywhere, there’s a lot more waste left to be diverted. Keep it up with your ingenious discoveries!