Sustainable cooking

Global Warming: The rich get richer, the poor dry up.

Global Warming: The rich get richer, the poor dry up.

Hang your clothes out to dry now so poor countries won't  be too dry to produce food.

As temperatures around the world get higher, the countries closer to the equator will produce less food  by the end of the century. In fact the center for global development is predicting a global loss in agriculture, but the closer to the equator the higher the loss becomes.

As I spun my child’s globe and looked at the equator the countries that hang on this arid global necklace, I noticed they are mainly developing countries already struggling. Africa, which already seems to be the disaster punching bag of the earth, with famine, drought and disease all frequent problems, will potentially loose between 17 to 20% of its agricultural production, perpetuating the vast difference in wealth from the third world to the industrial nations.

 Given an increasing global population the numbers can only add up to more disparity among people, leading to more wars and terrorism.

 The good news is that there may still be time to stop the worst from happening. If people, as well as countries, start being more energy conscious it’s possible to slow this process down. If we all think about our actions daily, we can have an effect.

 The most powerful thing I have done for my children recently, was to make a clothes line where I could hang my laundry. Reuse is another powerful tool, anything we can use twice reduces energy production on that item by half. Plastic bags and bottles can all be reused, clothe napkins instead of paper, even given the water, soap and energy to wash them still decrease transportation, even if a comparison to production is a zero net gain.

 The bad news is action must be taken soon to avoid massive global inequities and starvation, the good news is that each of us can take simple steps to do it.

 

11th Hour Movie: MTV meets global warming, successfully!

Leonardo DiCaprio is the narrator and producer of 11^th, which jumps from subject to subject in environmental catastrophe mélange, constructed of images from multiple disasters around the world and intertwines it with blurbs from experts of all sorts.

This fast paced movie covers every corner of the dilemma facing our society, offering glimpses of problems and some solutions, occasionally calmed down by reflective scenes of DiCaprio contemplating the issues at hand. Though designed for the average American afflicted with ADD, which for one split second the movie points out is potentially caused by environmental influences, it succeeds in giving urgency and a touch of hope.

In conjunction with the movie, like every other modern movie, they are combining it with a web site (http://www.11thhouraction.com/), with extra clips and interviews, allowing you to expand on many of the twenty-second sound bites covered in the movie. What sets the web site apart from traditional movie sites is that they also include current news about environmental issues and connections to relevant blogs.

The movie was very effective at covering a wide breadth of complicated issues in an entertaining way. I would highly recommend it, as would my 15-year-old son to his friends.

Mobile Farming: Back to the Savannah

Post-industrial farms based on the Savanna’s ecosystem

In every continent vast herds of large herbivores move through grass lands, grazing on the green grass leaves but leaving the rhizomes’ regenerative root structure in place. This is then followed by flocks of insects, predators and birds, all of which contribute a vital product or service. The procession leaves behind a rich, vibrant layer of manure and bacteria that will make its way into the soil, combined with the cast off roots the grass no longer needs for its diminished solar production due to lack of green leaves, This creates a fertile subterranean ecosystem of worms, rodents and, once again, bacteria. The ecosystem then creates the ideal conditions for the grass to re-grow for the return of a herd in two to three weeks. This ecosystem has been around since before the dinosaurs.

Our inefficient industrial food production system takes the herd, makes it stationary, brings the stationary grass (corn) to the herd, loosing resources at every step. Nitrate rich manure, carrying precious enzymes produces proteins in the way of bugs which roaming herds would spread over the land, never leaves the pasture. At the same time we manufacture nitrates using a large amount of petroleum so that the corn can grow to feed the cattle. Much of the nitrates gets blown off by the wind, or washed away with rainfall, due to lack of sufficient top soil, which has been eliminated by the years of intensive industrial production and tilling. Birds are then grown in a completely different place, their droppings becoming a hot nitrate intensive waste. Their natural ability of aerating the soil and doing bug control by pecking for grubs in the manure of the herd is wasted. To make use of the waste products in the industrial system, transportation is needed, even though cattle and poultry thrive on movement. Each one of the industrial production facilities create an intense density of unutilized resources like a giant Petri dish, which breed germs, fungi and pests to the plant or animal grown on the land, creating the need for pesticides, fungicides, and antibiotics. These in turn kill off not only the desired invasive organisms, but also peripheral desired organisms, like bees killed due to pesticides or bacteria by antibiotics

  Some calculations have this inefficient system responsible for as many green house gases as cars, Excess methane is created by feeding cows corn, not grasses. This also creates a carbon intensive production of nitrates to grow the corn and as additives into feed. The waste from this has been tied to the destruction of wet lands, contamination of ground water, and even the creation of dead zones in the ocean..

So how do we use the savanna’s efficiencies in modern food production? On a small scale, Polyface Farms, written about in Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, has many of the answers. The real trick of the Polyface Farms example is mobility of the animals and permanency of the plants. To do this on a grand scale, the post-industrial food production would need to have a paradigm shift in the way of thinking. Each producer must see themselves as true stewards of the land, not owners. The bureau of land management would have to assist the producers with guidance as to when land is ready for the herd, poultry or farming, and when it just needs a break. Ranchers would need to rotate their cattle as organic farmers do crops, throughout their land. Bird pens would need to be mobile (maybe solar powered to create a shelter for the birds as well) and enable birds to peck at the soil.

Imagine a herd of cattle, be it beef, bison, or other herbivores, being guided through our country, grazing the cattle, like one long cattle drive. A few days later the poultry farmer comes in a slow bird drive, truly free range, through the grazed fields. Using the grubs in the cow patties for food as well as the grasses, they leave behind a nitrogen rich patchwork of bird poop. Worms and bacteria then break this mix of animal by-products and create a layer of topsoil, helped by the turning of the ground by rodents, without the complete destruction of the root structure that prevents run off of soil. When a good, rich layer of topsoil has been built up, the farmers come in and do their magic, rotating crops for a few seasons, then moving to the next fertile fields, allowing the land they just moved away from to go back to the herd to regenerate. The only waste problems involved are that of the slaughterhouses. Distribution of the final products to the consumer would be the only transportation issue, assuming processing plants where appropriately placed on the route, all of which could be set up by rail along the parameters of the migratory route.

At least 5% of the total land mass is now used for food production. It’s a huge percentage of our land to degrade as we are now. If we keep up the present food production system, we will likely expand global warming, pollute our aquifers, destroy our topsoil, and promote antibiotic resistant diseases They also create more and larger dead zones in the ocean, which eliminate many fish breeding grounds as well as a host of many other environmental and social issues. Unless our population starts decreasing, we must at some point have a paradigm shift in our food production. Our present system is not sustainable, relying heavily on petroleum and manufactured nitrates. If we rely on the present growth and focus of sustainable foods, it will be decades before we get to partial solutions to these global issues, and many of the issues will still remain. Even 100% organic production will not be sufficient to address all the waste issues..

An alternative must be found, and where better to find a model but from what has worked for millions of years. It would not only reduce waste, but also reduce artificial chemical costs and replace it with labor. And best of all it could be sustainable for generations. The plains supported 60 to 100 million large bison in its hay day (no pun intended), our present beef production is 32 million cows so the numbers could work.

The Ultimate Solar Battery

Think of the earth as a solar powered battery. Since the beginning of the planet, it has taken energy from the sun, absorbed it through plants, and found better and better ways of storing it. Animals eating plants condense their energy, die and mix with dead plants and create soil. This soil layers upon itself through the years and condenses this energy into oil and coal, storing gas in underground chambers.

Year after year the earth adds resources into the ground, which has enabled us to create a society based on stored energy. So what happens when we start drawing out more energy than the sun can put in? Just like any battery, eventually the planet will die, or at least loose enough of a charge that it wont support us anymore.

According to the Global Footprint Network, since 2002 we have been using more resources than the earth can provide. Just the very act of tilling soil releases stored carbon into the air. Fossil fuels, stored over millions of years, are finite, and much of the material we create out of this stored energy is nonrenewable, such as many types of plastic. Add it all together and the potential that we are draining our great solar powered battery at a rate the sun can’t keep up with is eminent. The surprise about this is that even the developed countries, whose populations aren’t growing and who are focusing on energy efficiency, are using many more resources than their land can provide, usurping energy needs from countries that are abundant in resources. Interestingly enough, underdeveloped countries have decreased their footprint.

It isn’t clear that with modern technology, becoming better at collecting energy directly from the sun and bypassing the stored energy from organic life, that this trend is reversible. If we can’t find better ways of getting energy, and allow our earth to regenerate by leaving it alone as much as we can, our battery will eventually run down.

Cargills environmental awakening altruism or shell game

Here’s the deal. You, a small farmer, convert a patch of rain forest to soy production.

Once the land is converted, Cargill or some one like minded, offers to buy the land for above market value to the farmer to develop another career, The government (the Governer owns one of the largest soy plantations) says that you need to reconvert 80% of the land back to forest. You, the smart farmer, realizes the real money is in converting forest, not farming or trying your luck in the big city. Back to the forest you go to convert more forest into money. The company who buys the land has plausible deny ability about converting the forest, and can be seen as altruistic in trying to pay you to move into a different profesion.

 Suddenly Cargill becomes enlightened and says no more, but why?

 Biodiesel can be produced from corn or soy. Cargill is heavily invested in both so now that corn is emerging as the major market for biodiesel in the US, soy production isn’t as profitable. Cargills land holdings have increased 140% since 2002, though since they are a private company it is hard to know where the land is. When the soy bean price fell in the early part of the decade soy farmers had a hard time making it and American companies bought a lot of the soy fields in Brasil.. They also built a large port in Santerem for exporting products. So is their new idealism to stop deforestation due to altruism, or have they amassed enough soy production to meet their needs, and now want to hold onto market share?

 No matter what the motivation, the new idea is good and should be supported, but how do you show appropriate appreciation for a change in policy like this? If the effort is contractual and has financial implications for the company into the future if they change their policy, I could whole heartedly support the action. If it is only a temporary change, made due to political and financial influences, it becomes much more difficult to truly applaud. Unfortunately, this dilemma is going to come up more and more often as business’s gets positive press from green actions. Either which way at least something is finally working.

Atmospheric Nitrates Can Increase Forest Fires

Due to Nitrate saturated agricultural fields our atmosphere has a historically large amounts of nitrate “runoff “ (which is the term even if it is air born excess) is contributing to quicker growing forests and under brush. This increased growth has a positive effect of using up more CO2, a green house gas, but on the negative side the denser growth also contributes to forest fire dangers.

This is a good representation of the complexities of peoples effect on the world. On one hand the nitrates seem to help decrease the green house gasses, but in the long run the exacerbation of forest fires which increases green house gasses, and in turn creates more nitrate runoff. Nitrate runoff comes from agricultural nitrates as well as a small amount from burning fossil fuels.

More on the new menu

A menu remake for the twenty first century

The traditional menu which most people use today, grew up with the industrial revolution. Created before the time proteins became cheap and plentiful, our desire for them was created by scarcity, making the dense calories desirable. Now, when balance is important, for our environment and our health, it is time to rethink the structure of the menu. The focus on meats as the primary component of a dish is backwards.

As our bodies evolved with hunting and gathering, then agriculture, the main sustenance we needed were fruits and vegetables. The denser proteins, meat, were eaten in celebrations or seasonal harvesting due to the tremendous resources used in providing them, either in the human energy of hunting, or of crop production for livestock.

Dwindling resources, whether in energy, natural resources, or land make us need go back to eating habits from before industrial food production. There are many limiting factors in food production. Even something as essential to plant growth as potassium has a natural supply limit. In the 1920’s a German scientist was able to synthesize nitrogen, a previously limited resource, which enabled our agricultural industry to bloom with apparently no limits Its creation, however, is extremely energy intensive and will be limited by the cost or availablility of energy. No such advancement has been made with phosporous, another major building block for plant growth. The first of the natural resources, used in food production, that’s limit will be reached soon is oil, due to either availability or expense of environmental impact.

On the nutritional side, our bodies still crave the dense energy provided by proteins to satisfy an energetic life of hunting, gathering or working with livestock or crops. Even in the beginning of industrialization, factory work was very strenuous and burned off many calories. It was very difficult for people to eat enough sustain the energy needed to get through a day, so calories were fully used. In the modern day, an energetic life style rarely creates the need for more than 3 or 4 ounces of proteins, never mind all the increase of carbohydrates in our diet. Portion sizes have increased as the energy out put of people has decreased. It takes up to 7 times as much energy to create edible calories from meat than it does for fruits or vegetables so a vegetarian diet is much more efficient than a primarily carnivorous diet in food production.

Another factor in diets is whole grains have been replaced by refined products, reducing the amount of fiber in our diets. The fiber helps digest unneeded fats and keep the digestive tract and the blood stream cleaner, as well as provide for many other. nutrients needed for our diet. We also have increased the amount of carbohydrates eaten in our diet, much of which comes from liquids, such as soda’s and fruit drinks. These carbs are not processed by the body in the same way as solid carbs. This is especially true of High Fructose Corn Syrup. Combined with larger and larger portion sizes and we have a great recipe for obesity and diabetes.

Fortunately the solution for both of these problems is simple, though a seed change in society must take place for it to succeed. If you eat healthy, it will help the environment. Less meat and processed foods, and more whole grains are the key. Large portions of meats should be reserved for celebrations, not day today life. It is more important for us to think about what fruits and vegetables we eat than the protein.

Our new menu reflects this by giving vegetarian foundation plates as the start of building a meal. On top of this we offer sides of proteins and vegetarian add ons, to create as elaborate a meal as is desired. This allows for an inexpensive healthy meal that most people can afford, but also a tasty celebratory meal as well.

We also feature some creative dishes with whole grains, like our vegetarian chili using wheat berries, and our Mediterranean salad using kamut. We also feature some more traditional café faire like pot pies, soups and salad, using 85% organic fruits and vegetables, heratige and/or humanely treated meats, and rocky junior chickens. All of our pastries are made with organic flour and our chocolate is declared to be slave labor free. We try to achieve all this in a delicious, homey way. Soon we will even offer family style meals which reflect this idealism as well.

Global Warmings Silver Lining: Hope for the affluent.

It seems more and more often people are beginning to herald global warming as a positive thing. Lower heating bills for the northern or southern most hemisphere’s, nitrogen emissions from cars helping forests productivity. The list could be pages long, but the advantages are only going to be seen by those who can afford to adapt. When global food supplies are effected by drought, disease, depleted oceans diminishing land resources it is those just barely surviving that will bear the brunt.

To whale or not to whale

Whether it is nobler to curse the whale with the slings and arrows suffered by the largest land mammal in favor of a few struggling economies or to save for generations ahead the largest and most majestic aquatic animal.

As many countries are trying to legalize whale hunting, we should look at the ivory market for guidance. Many species of Elephants are on the brink of extinction or have become extinct due to similar problems facing whales.

Both have long gestation periods, and need expansive ranges to live in, so these species are highly vulnerable to man’s exploits. Diminishing land is a major factor in the elephants case, while diminishing food supplies are a major issue for the whales. Both are subject to a large amount of poaching as well.

The major difference is that we live in the terrestrial world with the elephant, but are unfamiliar with the whales aquatic world. We know very little about their environment, habits and needs. Its difficult to get a firm grip on what the present population of half the whale species in our oceans.

This makes it impossible to identifying when the whale population starts to diminish. If whaling is legalized in more countries we will have a hard time discerning illegal whale meat from legal whale meat. Unlike the case of marijuana, where supply would be plentiful if legalized, the whale meat would always be scarce, and there for be at a premium price. Presently whale meat sells for $100 per pound in Asia. Unless it is easy to identify the difference between legal whale meat and illegal whale meat, then a black market would thrive even more when the ban is lifted.

 Up to 5% of African elephant population is being poached right now. Other herds are extinct or in extreme danger of extinction. The difficulties of policing the oceans, with no national boundaries is exponentially more difficult than attempting this on land.

The only way of trying to stop poaching from happening is to limit the demand of the product as was shown with the ban on ivory in the late ‘80s which decreased poaching dramatically. The black market on ivory has grown recently due to wars, poverty and lack of focus by governments.

There is even a question as to what a reasonable level the whale population should be. A scientist recently discovered, through DNA, traditional whale populations were huge compared to the present populations. Unfortunately it would seem that our harvesting and polluting the oceans would make a return to those numbers impossible, leaving the long term survival of whales in doubt.

Ancient trade routes as a guide to sustainable products

If it could be delivered by boat or camel it could  be sustainably delivered today.

As carbon foot prints help define sustainability, Ancient trade routes can help us determine what can be delivered efficiently.

Through out the world ancient trade routes sold food that was dry, preserved, or could last for a long journey. This still make sense for long distance trade today.

Fresh foods should always be as local as possible, for the sake of sustainability and quality, however preserved food from afar could have a significantly positive political influence as well as having a good carbon foot print.

The Mayans trade was geared to feed huge cities, with out having beasts of burden. The carbon foot print was solely based on feeding people (deforestation being the primary issue).

The carbon foot print of an item that is shipped by freight from Michigan to California is much higher than on a slow boat from China, though present diesel engines in ships presently have a high sulfur oxide output  Products that need refrigeration increase energy use  hourly, so air freight might end up being better than ground for chilled items, due to shorter traveling time. There are many variables in predicting carbon foot prints. One exception to the camel rule is local products grown in hot houses, may have a larger carbon foot print than those shipped by air freight .

  Developing sustainable markets in a global scale can be just as important as developing local sustainability. We are all in one large ecosystem, dust from the Gobi desert blows into North America, so bad agricultural practices spread through out the world, so if our decisions can limit pesticides in china it helps our local environment as well as globally.

Local food is normally the most sustainable  but outside of a 100 mile range the the advantages become cloudy. The question then becomes how does the product get here, and how much energy does it take to produce it at its origin. Political issues must also be considered. If a region is developing it is better to ensure that it starts sustainably than trying to do catch up later. After pesticides and herbicides have already been used, it takes years to convert back to organic production.