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Systemic Trends

post #1 of 22
11/14/04 at 6:51am
Thread Starter 
for the past two weeks I've had numerous conversations on GMO's, culinary training, state of the home cook......

Last week Dr. Beachy director of Danforth Foundation's research...."golden rice", "enhanced rubber ball tomatoes", corn, wheat,soy.....spoke at the Science Center. It was a fairly small group, about 40-50 people. I invited a food writer and an organic shiitake farmer/scientist from Eng. The arrogance was astounding....Dr. Beachy suggested we got all of our information from Greenpeace, Whole Foods lit, it was as if we were lumped into a group of non-thinking extremists. He said poor people could not access healthy food, that he would not eat organic because of ecoli....so I invited him to lunch (should be interesting).

After the hair on the back of my neck fell back into place I started calling people to get the inside skinny. Obviously people are not dropping dead at the farmer's market, and ecoli outbreaks are more associated with fast food snafus. So, the party line is just that.
But the poor not being able to access fresh food got me....so I called friends that work at Operation Food Search that teach in inner cities, I called Joan Gussow in NY, I called the director of nutrition at SLU.....
What I heard was, innercity grocery stores (small ones) do not carry alot of fresh produce (I experienced that when teaching after school programs) but the stores are necessary for the locals to access food.
Transportation is an issue, to access our major farmer's market downtown people either ride a bus, taxi or try to access a ride.
No refrigeration, product goes bad....especially from the downtown market that houses brokers selling day old(weeks old) products
Cooking skills are nil, loss of being able to take what's around and prepare it.

There are 133 gardens in downtown STL, I'm opening a mini market at an elementary school next year (2005) with gardeners raising extra produce to sell. I've contacted the culinary high school to see if the students would do cooking demos with recipes for the market....checking into sponsorship from a grocery that would provide basics (oil, flour, viniager, herbs etc)....it's a different premise from the farmer's markets I've opened but it makes more sense for the locale. What's going on in your towns?

Berkley has trucks with healthy snacks, sublimented from a grant. The program has been running a couple of years, I'm not sure how it's panned out.

WIC and Food Stamp card swipers are available in Cal. we don't have that ability yet. $800 machine....is on my wish list. :p

Co-ops are coming back strong, several include products from local farmers.....
CSA's are also filling quickly....several farms that started 17-20# weekly bags to provide cash flow.

The rest of my week was filled with talking to Food Lit students at Wash U....one was a biotech student who asked my opinion on GMOs ....you can guess the response, another was a farmer's daughter who wanted to know what I thought about ethynal plants (there are new gen grants where farmers co-op and the state matches monies to build/buy a processing facility)....my economist friends feel that ADM will pick them up for pennies on the dollar (tax payers' dollars) in a few years.

Talk ranged from CAFO's to Walmart to food wholesalers with cooked cryovaced prime rib for $5#...and it was good!, who can compete with that in a restaurant kitchen? To go from James Beard's recipe for galantine in 1950's Women's Day for the ave housewife picnic, to not being able to fry potatoes without instruction is monstrous.....it proliferates the system from beginning to end.
The whole cycle is cheap food/cheap life....supplimenting industries with tax dollars, (many major pig CAFO's are owned by Japanese)....

Larry Forgione was talking about CIA students not having fine dining experience.....he has An AMerican Place in DT STL and the experience of working with mid western farmers has been interesting to say the least.

The new state of the art High School with the culinary thread in STL has Aramark for the lunch program....chicken fingers and fries, hot wings and fries, pizza and fries...ummmmmm.....the city has sold our kids down the river.

Monday, I'm going to a board meeting on state policy changing for sustainable ag.....there have been changes, there is a sustainable ag thread now at Mizzou, the sustainable demo awards grants have a new lease on life,
state organic certification is alot cheaper than any others available.....
The nuts and bolts of farmers raising for a market are still in infancy stage but there is movement. Slower than I anticipated but it's going generally in the right direction. :o


grass roots....
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post #2 of 22
11/15/04 at 2:13pm
I buy from local farmers as much as I can. One guy I have been buying from for the past few years was telling me how hard it was for him to sell his heirloom tomatoes to other restaurants besides mine because they didn't look like the usual 5x6s that comes through the produce distributors. I pay .50/lb...I also buy heirloom and unusual onions, potatoes, squash, carrots, herbs, melon, leeks, cukes and fruit. I suggest supporting small farms before the only way for the farmer to make money is to sell his land for development.....Thanks Shroomgirl for your efforts. May your heartfelt energy and effort spur the rest of us to be more involved. I can't change the restaurant industry. But I CAN make a difference in my restaurant.
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post #3 of 22
11/15/04 at 7:19pm
Wow! $0.50/lb for heirlooms, that sounds like a steal!

Just out of curiousty, what are you guy's getting for baby vegetables?

The place I work at is paying on average about $2.50/lb for baby beets (candy stripe, reds, and goldens), turnips, carrots, and icicle radishes. Our supplier is a local produce company that deliveres.



I am going to have to think about the deeper philosphical issues brought up...
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post #4 of 22
11/16/04 at 10:28am
Thread Starter 
wow....heirlooms are $2.5-3 #
baby veg anywhere from $6 for haricot verte to $25 for micro greens
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post #5 of 22
11/16/04 at 11:14pm
i recently attended a symposium that was established as an annual event by the virginia institute of marine sciences to explain the bennefits of chesapeake bay oysters, supporting small time fishermen who support re building the oyster population, and the symposium focused on ways to market these and how to prepare them and also a wonderful and often overlooked fish the virginia croaker (my mouth waters every time i even think of this DELECTIBLE fish). rock on shroom girl support the little guy, help to make superior product available for everyone out there who wishes to find it. i am with you agriculture, aquaculture, and brewers, wineries, and anything else i can find. :chef:
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post #6 of 22
11/19/04 at 7:22pm
Thread Starter 
My sister in law today reiterated the arguement I've heard from RD's that make school lunch programs fit whatever USDA standards are out there......
"we want to give kids what they want"....um pizza and fries? My sister in law wanted to add sugar to the tomato sauce because her congregation is used to sweet tomato sauce. She knows what is nutritionally sound and yet wants to please the crowd instead of saying, "but this is what's good and actually better for you."

AAAARGH.....the incongruencies in her statement just make me nuts....mainly because that's what proliferates junk. :mad:
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post #7 of 22
11/20/04 at 6:30am
I am amazed at kids in culinary schools right now. Recently I have had kids working for me that didn't know what a leek or shallot was, who couldn't believe that I made a better Alfredo Sauce than Pizza Hut, who says Applebee's is their favorite restaurant, and when asked if they had ever even eaten at an ethnic restaurant said "Yes, I just ate at the Chinese Buffet the other day". It seems that most of our society doesn't have a clue, anymore, about what good, and healthy, food is. But unless we, as a society, make some major changes, and revamp our priorities things won't change. It's sad, but it's a fact of life, that cooking is quickly becoming a lost art form. Who has the time to cook anymore? Both parents working just to make ends meet, or a single mother trying to hold down a job and keep her family together. Let's face it, it is much easier, and quicker to pop a frozen pizza in the oven or stop by McD's. Not only are we creating a generation that doesn't know how to cook, but we creating a generation that craves convinience foods.
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post #8 of 22
11/20/04 at 8:19am
Once upon a time, there was no such thing as Physical Education in our schools. Then people began to realize the importance of having healthy children, owing in part to the need for strong soldiers going for the coming world wars. People concerned about health pushed and pushed. Now, while not always well funded, Phys Ed is a fact for every public school student.

We must do the same with food, and not just in terms of nutrition. Children must be taught about how to taste, prepare and grow food. They must understand that a steak does not come from a Styrofoam tray at the back of the supermarket. They must be given a grasp of the entire food circle, plant to plate.

One way to do this is to elevate school lunch from its lowly position as a function of maintenance in the school system to one as a full-fledged part of the curriculum. Lunch should be a required, for-credit class, from primary through secondary education. With the epidemics of childhood diabetes and obesity in the headlines every day, there is no excuse for ignoring this vital issue. The health and education of our children should be priority number one of every parent, every citizen and every level of government.

There are many organizations that are working on this important issue, many would be happy to join in with PFAW if it, too, will embrace the cause of food security and education. The Food Security Coalition, Chef’s Collaborative and Slow Food USA are among many strong movements that could help to build a coalition that makes this happen.

No child can be expected to learn while fed a diet of tater-tots and Taco Bell. Anyone's first response would be that it would cost billions. That's true, it would cost about $5 billion annually. Compare that to the $50 billion we spend annually on obesity related illness in this country and it starts to look like a bargain.

Besides, if anyone out there can come up with a higher priority for our money than our children, I'd love to hear it.
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post #9 of 22
11/20/04 at 11:14am
Though I agree with you Devotay, the problem is where does this money come from? School budgets are getting slashed left and right. As a child of teachers I can tell you, from listening to my Mom, that the education system can't stand much more in the way of budget cuts, and to fund what you are talking about will cause other education programs to be cut further. I just don't see our government taking that money from somewhere else. As I said, in my earlier post, our priorities, as a nation, must change, and until they do, I don't hold out much hope. Maybe we can ask Bush to cut our Defense spending? Or reinstate the huge tax cuts he gave all his corporate buddies? Sorry, don't mean to sound bitter, but I just feel that to ask this administration to look to the next generation, and what we are leaving them, is just like talking to a brick wall.
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post #10 of 22
11/21/04 at 10:52am
Thread Starter 
There are towns in America where their public schools have changed the menu....Marion Burros wrote about one in Ala., it's a blue collar town whose citizens chose to pay more taxes and buy local produce for the schools...improve the offerings for the kids. Wisconsin, Illinois, California all have schools that have changed....it came from parents saying they would fiscally support the change and schools coming on board, valuing the end results....not waiting for the goofs at USDA or State wide systems to fund a program.
Literally I have sat in meetings where the powers that be state wide talk about our children as commodities not "our children". The afore mentioned argument runs rampent.....most people do not think of what can be but what is.....they do not see that change while a difficult transition is absolutely attainable.
If we all start in our corner of the world and make changes progress will happen, many just have to see the end product because they do not think things are possible. I've not wanted to dwell on the education of our kids but rote education produces non-thinkers....worker ants....

**Aramark poisoned STL inner city schools right after recieving a contract for all city school cafeterias....there were numerous children sent to hospitals from a couple schools. Great. What is insidious is that there are more daily being slowly poisoned by a poor diet that goes under the radar.....
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post #11 of 22
12/31/04 at 6:36am
My apologies for the delayed response.

The answer is actually much easier than you think. They get the money by gutting corporate agriculture subsidies. As it says in a NYTimes article from this past Sunday, such subsidies have never made less sense.

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post #12 of 22
1/3/05 at 4:48pm
As they say, all politics is local.

It starts with the community. I think smaller, less funded school systems should buy produce from their local markets. The problem is that all, or most school systems demand contracts for their business. Produce isn't "shelf stable," (obviously), so the distributor can lose money when produce is volatile, (such as we had recently with the tomato crisis). :blush:

Whoever wins the contract, gets locked into a fixed price for the longevity of the contract. Schools aren't the only recipient of government contracts, so are jails, colleges and universities, the military, government cafeteria's, casino's and on it goes...

Shroomgirl is on to something when she says, "the treat the children like commodities." This is exactly how they think of our children, it's all a numbers game, until it's your kid. :rolleyes:

However, some school districts have started pulling vending machines from school cafeterias, such as Los Angeles. And there's a growing trend towards diversifying the public diet. If school systems can incorporate their local produce market into their budgets, we all win!

But don't start jumping up and down yet.... It still comes down to local politics, and convincing them to do better when they have an opportunity at hand, or confronting them when they need to hear it! :o

Makes sense to me. :smiles:
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post #13 of 22
1/4/05 at 7:31am
I agree that it's all local, but I like to attack from every angle I can think of. Meanwhile, here in IC, we're building the new High School with a garden and an orchard in the original plans, literally from the ground, up! withing the first four years we hope to have it fully intergrated into both the lunch system and the curriculum. in fact as i've said, I'd like to see lunch treated as part of the curriculum rather than as a maintenance issue as it is in schools today.

All over the country, Slow Food convivia are working on similar projects, affecting the system at a serious grassroots level, ranging in size from a small plot of tomatoes to the famous Edible Schoolyard at MLK Middle School in Berkeley. See the growing list, and some curricula, at SlowFoodUSA.org
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post #14 of 22
1/4/05 at 3:00pm
Thread Starter 
Iowa is pretty far north....how are you adapting that garden so that the produce will be fresh during the Sept-May school year? When I've reviewed grants several of the cities have not addressed the weather/season aspect that is intrinisic with the 9 month school year. We have a farm that is essentially under hoop houses and producing year round.....most run from mid April through November....But until mid-May you are not assured of any substantial quantity of products. :o
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post #15 of 22
1/4/05 at 3:15pm
One of the distinct advantages we have is that this new High School will be open year round, hosting a large number of the system's summer school programs, and they hope to one day move to year round schooling. in addition, we are growing many foods that are panted and harvested during the school year - greens and asparagus in the spring, replace them with tomatoes to harvest when the kids return in August. A 6000 sq ft orchard will also be planted with apple, pear and assorted nuts.

Iowa city has a strong community garden organization, and this garden will be attached to those, and when combined with Slow Food members, it makes for a powerful network of volunteers for mainetance and care of the garden.

The new school (called Elizabeth Tate, by the way) has private preschools on either side of it, so we hope to involve them in some early years learning as well. We'll make foodies out of'em yet! :chef:
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post #16 of 22
1/5/05 at 8:43am
Thread Starter 
Is any of the growing space going to be under shelter? I'm consulting with a couple of elementary schools and a University on school gardens, one of the easiest ways to side step red tape is combine culinary classes with after school programming. There is a bigger block of dedicated time and less hoops and paper to process.
Gotta love the little guys getting out and playing in the garden.
Pull in some of the elderly and you have a great multigenerational program happening.....
STL unfortunately has inner city garden programs that are funded by Monsanto.....thus from the ground up it's not a viable option for me.

Seems like Philly has a high school with gardens on the roof, mostly salad greens but it sounded exciting. We have such a farming community in Mo. that I've wanted 4H ers to plant salad bars in the high school green houses....
I'd like to hear what's happening in Davis, CA. or in Berkley's cafeteria change over. Networking will help with the learning curve.
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post #17 of 22
1/5/05 at 9:02am
Shroom,

We hope to build hoop houses, but not 'til next fall earliest, and probably later. If I've learned anything at all in this process, which has taken me 3 years so far, it's that nothing happens as fast as you want it to, especially when it comes to dealing with such an entrenched buracracy as a school board. However, in your case, with Mon:eek:santo running the garden program downtown, I would hope that some folks would band together and take'em on, head on.

It's a safe bet that if these are inner city schools, then the kids are not those of the corporate bigwigs. Use Slow Food STL, your fellow organic farmers, parents, church groups, and make an issue out of it. Write letters to the Post Dispatch, conduct taste education workshops in the schools, show everyone why organic is better and why it's evil of them to expose the kids to those chemicals. It won't happen as fast as you'd like, but keep fighting and it will happen.

Dunnno much about the Philly thing, but I do know that you can watch the progress of the Berkeley experiment on both SlowFoodUSA.org and SlowFoodForum.org
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post #18 of 22
1/5/05 at 10:40am
Thread Starter 
Already been doing that.....but the 501 C 3 setup as Gateway Greening has got an infrastructure that is pretty embedded in the community.....133 downtown gardens. One of the organic gardeners leased out her farm and is now program director, we are hoping good things will occur because of it.
Beki Marsh has done some samplings in an elementary school.
Every year Gateway has a chef's in the garden benefit at $100-125 a ticket with chefs serving local food....when I ask the guys why they support a Monsanto project they kinda shuffle and give inanne responses....most shuffle that fact under the carpet....aw well. It would have been so loverly to collaborate with the gardens, they would have brought a piece of the puzzle that I don't have to the table and in a major kind of way.

You have my admiration for sticking out the planning stage in the new High School.....there is NOTHING like meetings to constipate an easy project. Special needs kids can do some amazing hands on projects that may be a wonderful addition to the gardens....if you have a special ed dept I bet the OT's and PT's would jump on this or at least they should. you may even pull in funding from MRDD to do the initial bedding plants. There is a super group in STL that pays special needs folks to farm, they've sold at Clayton and Maplewood Farmer's Markets.....during the off season they are making cement lawn orniments.....there is another offshoot that does lawn work. In both cases I applaud the work done to promote outdoor work and interactiveness between members of society that don't always have venues to see each other.
Work/Study on farms would be a great summer program....I've also taught "Farm Camp" during 2 week summer session.
The only way I'll teach now is if it's indepth....the one time show up and cook is not even in my lexicon, seemed more like a waste of time/energy.
I will eventually make it up to Iowa for you Fall Fest....
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post #19 of 22
1/7/05 at 7:45am
Shroom -

Just came across this via the Food Security Coalition, thought it might help against Monsanto:

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post #20 of 22
1/13/05 at 8:16am
Wow - talk about a rant - but a good rant. It's folks like you that change the world. Just a little something that a policitian unwittingly taught me one time - the currency that they deal in is votes. It is the only thing that is more dear to their hearts than money and the only thing that that the common folks have that can battle corporate money. Just something to keep in mind when dealing with entrenched shool boards - they can in fact be voted out of office. Otherwise keep up the good work.
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post #21 of 22
1/14/05 at 10:28am

Monsanto Assault on U.S. Farmers Detailed in New Report

Shroom - especially for you -

Monsanto Assault on U.S. Farmers Detailed in New Report

January 13, 2005

Contact: Craig Culp, (202) 547-9359, or (301) 509-0925 (mobile)

First-of-its-Kind Analysis Reveals Thousands of Monsanto Investigations, Nearly 100 Lawsuits and Numerous Bankruptcies

Toll-Free Hotline Established for Farmers Facing Lawsuits or Threats from Monsanto to Get Guidance and Referrals

WASHINGTON - The Center for Food Safety released today an extensive review of Monsanto's use and abuse of U.S. patent law to control the usage of staple crop seeds by U.S. farmers. The Center (CFS) launched its investigation to determine the extent to which American farmers have been impacted by litigation arising from the use of patented genetically engineered crops. Monsanto vs. U.S. Farmers details the results of this research, discusses the ramifications for the future of farming in the U.S. and outlines policy options for ending the persecution of America's farmers.

"These lawsuits and settlements are nothing less than corporate extortion of American farmers," said Andrew Kimbrell executive Director of CFS. "Monsanto is polluting American farms with its genetically engineered crops, not properly informing farmers about these altered seeds, and then profiting from its own irresponsibility and negligence by suing innocent farmers. We are committed to stopping this corporate persecution of our farmers in its tracks."

The report finds that, in general, Monsanto's efforts to prosecute farmers can be divided into three stages: investigations of farmers; out-of-court settlements; and litigation against farmers Monsanto believes are in breach of contract or engaged in patent infringement. CFS notes in the report that, to date, Monsanto has filed 90 lawsuits against American farmers in 25 states that involve 147 farmers and 39 small businesses or farm companies. Monsanto has set aside an annual budget of $10 million dollars and a staff of 75 devoted solely to investigating and prosecuting farmers.

"Monsanto would like nothing more than to be the sole source for staple crop seeds in this country and around the world," said Joseph Mendelson, CFS legal director. "And it will aggressively overturn centuries-old farming practices and drive its own clients out of business through lawsuits to achieve this goal."

The largest recorded judgment CFS has found thus far in favor of Monsanto as a result of a farmer lawsuit is $3,052,800.00. Total recorded judgments granted to Monsanto for lawsuits amount to $15,253,602.82. Farmers have paid a mean of $412,259.54 for cases with recorded judgments. Many farmers have to pay additional court and attorney fees and are sometimes even forced to pay the costs Monsanto incurs while investigating them.
"Monsanto is taking advantage of farmers with their marketing and their threats and lawsuits," said Rodney Nelson, a North Dakota farmer sued by Monsanto. "It's hard enough to farm as it is. You don't need a big seed supplier trying to trip you up and chase you down with lawyers."

Farmers even have been sued after their fields were contaminated by pollen or seed from a previous year's crop has sprouted, or "volunteered," in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year; and when they never signed Monsanto's Technology Agreement but still planted the patented crop seed. In all of these cases, because of the way patent law has been applied, farmers are technically liable. It does not appear to matter if the use was unwitting or if a contract was never signed.

Various policy options supported by CFS include passing local and state-wide bans or moratoriums on plantings of genetically engineered crops; amending the Patent Act so that genetically engineered plants will no longer be patentable subject matter and so that seed saving is not considered patent infringement; and legislating to prevent farmers from being liable for patent infringement through biological pollution.

CFS has established a toll-free hotline for farmers facing lawsuits or threats from Monsanto to get guidance and referrals: 1-888-FARMHLP.

View Report Here
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post #22 of 22
1/18/05 at 5:42am
Hello all.
During my search for more information regarding Monsanto, found a web site that may be considered as a good source of information for the side that is con-Monsanto.
I believe this site is based on the battle between Percy Schmeiser and ‘them’.
Not that I’m siding with Mr. Schmeiser, farmers, free thinkers, parents who wish to bring up their children in a non-toxic environment, not be at the mercy of price gouging mega-corps etc….
Information regarding court cases, other companies and governments and their reports regarding GM foods and ‘them’.
http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

Please excuse me if this thread reply is out of place, politically incorrect, that I am way behind with this issue (only started culinary training 2 months ago). I have searched this forum to make sure this web address has not already been published. I have no affiliation in any way to this web site or to Mr. Schmeiser.

miklosb
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