Protecting our Heirlooms

When we commit to eating more local foods, we not only help the farmers of our region, we protect our indigenous foods and animals. What we need is a world of adjoining regions each known and valued for the special and distinctive produce that has been uniquely flavored by the particular soil and climate where it grew. But if we do not fight to protect these unique regions, with their beautiful orchards, nut trees, and traditional crops, they will all too soon be wiped out by housing developments and strip malls or reduced to monoculture farms that mass-produce corn and soy for processed foods and animal feed.

Alarmed by the fast food and supermarket homogenization that threatened to take over the world's food supply, Italian Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food movement in 1986. When we think of the Slow Food movement, we might imagine a global mission to protect our regional markets—which means actively supporting crop biodiversity and sustainable agriculture as well as the regional food knowledge and customs that come with a locally based food supply. What began as a small, grassroots, Italy-based organization of a few concerned citizens has evolved into a rapidly expanding worldwide organization of over 80,000 members in fifty countries, with 12,500 official members in the U.S.

One of their many international efforts is to create an "Ark," a catalogue of farm animals, crop species, and agricultural techniques that are in danger of extinction. A quick study of the Slow Food Ark shows that the United States has many national treasures at risk. For instance, the Ark lists California's Blenheim apricot, which is described as "tart, honeyed and intensely aromatic." Biting into the deep golden flesh is said to be an "unforgettable experience"—and we agree—yet it may soon be forgotten unless their orchards are protected from developers.

Other fruits are endangered because they just don't fit the heavy travel supermarket model. New York's yellow- toned Spitzenberg apple, with its subtle streaks of red in the flesh, is perfect for eating fresh from the tree, but it does not ship well and is thus in decline. We may also lose the Rhode Island Greening, an excellent cider and pie- making apple that doesn't fit the generic, supermarket apple model. The Shagbark hickory nut of Wisconsin is endangered due to shrinking rural areas and the fact that manually recovering the meat is laborious. The nut has a delicate, sweet taste with no bitterness and once upon a time it was a traditional food item during the region's winter holidays. Fortunately, there are a few elders who still value the nut and sell it at local farmers markets in Madison.

When we protect the diversity of crops and food traditions of a region, we also preserve the special knowledge of how to cultivate and care for them. If we allow our local farms and orchards to be paved over or carved into housing developments, we also lose the growers who understand the soil, who understand the weather, who know how to work in harmony with their environment—knowledge that is far more valuable than chemical mixtures or instructions from genetically engineered seed manufacturers.

As those who Came Before

When we value the foods of the seasons, we help protect priceless ancestral wisdom as well as the heirloom seeds that have been passed on and perfected through many years and many harvests. Hundreds of years ago Iroquois white corn provided daily sustenance for the six nations of

the Iroquois based in New York state, Pennsylvania, southern Ontario, and Quebec. Legend has it that the Iroquois gave this corn to George Washington's troops so they could survive winter at Valley Forge. As it is with many foods that are crucial to native survival, the Iroquois white corn was also integral to many of their spiritual ceremonies.

To preserve its delicious earthy flavor and varied texture, the Iroquois farmers developed special methods of growing the corn, orally passing down the ancient knowledge from parent to child, generation to generation. The small number of growers who still cultivate the corn know the ancient secrets for keeping the corn pure and delicious, and they also know how to time the planting and harvest to protect it from being contaminated by a neighbor's commercial corn. The corn is still roasted or hulled and milled in a log cabin on the Iroquois Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York state.

The Seduction of Happy Meals

Worst of all is the rampant childhood obesity that comes from feeding our children an unhealthy diet of high-fat, high-sugar, fast food garbage. Many people questioned the validity of a class-action lawsuit filed against McDonald's in 2002 by New York teenagers Jazlyn Bradley, then nineteen, and Ashley Pelman, then fourteen, who claimed that the food giant's food made them obese and suffer from heart

disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Couldn't these children have just refused to eat so much fast food? But looking more closely at the lawsuit, we find remarkable similarities to the tobacco industry lawsuits. These teenagers claim that it was the unhealthy content of the food, not the amount of food eaten, that put them at risk for serious health problems. Although the teenagers' case was originally dismissed in February 2003, it was reinstated in January of 2005 and has yet to be determined.

Their case may have a greater chance of success because of the message of an extraordinary documentary film, Super Size Me, which charts the health of filmmaker Morgan Spur- lock, who, for one month, lived on nothing but McDonald's food. He followed three simple rules: 1) He could only eat what was available over the counter; 2) He could only super- size when he was offered; 3) He had to eat every item on the menu at least once. Although he started off with a clean bill of health after medical checkups with three different doctors, by the end of the movie he had gained twenty-five pounds, was suffering from chronic headaches and nausea, his moods were swinging back and forth between lethargic depression and manic overdrive, and his liver and heart became so impaired that his doctor was begging him to give up the experiment even before the end.

Monica Ferreria, a Roots & Shoots coordinator who works with young people in Salt Lake City, recently spoke with me about one area that is often overlooked: the improper nutrition of the struggling poor in the United States. Yes, they do have food, she explained, but they are being poisoned by the quality of food. She told me about stores where everything is a dollar. These stores are very popular with young mothers who have small children and not very many resources. The food is cheap, but it has horrible nutritional value. And Monica said, "Everyone loves Twinkies and potato chips—the marketing of these products to children is unethical. It is an interesting dilemma, when the poor are not starving from lack of food, per se, but from too much of the wrong food."

Exactly so. Indeed, it becomes increasingly clear that the giant corporations behind the fast foods and junk foods, which are inundating the market around the globe, are motivated by making profit rather than providing nourishment. So it is up to us—the consumers—to bring their unethical business practices to an end.

With so many people suffering from diet-related illnesses, consumers are beginning to realize that the fast food industry should be held accountable for its global agenda to produce cheap, low-quality, high-calorie food for profit regardless of the harm it causes. Our children are especially at risk because of the quality of school meals, and the shocking capitulation to corporations such as McDonald's who are now providing the meals, and have demanded, as recompense for "good" deals, the right to install vending machines for their products. Indeed, there are schools that encourage their students to work for the good of the school by collecting soda caps. Schools with good scores are rewarded with substantial cash prizes. In addition, the fast food chains specifically target their advertising toward children who are seduced by Happy Meals and packages with free toys, games, collecting cards inside, and who eventually come to prefer the excessive sweetness.

BEWARE OF CORN SYRUP

Corn is the most prevalent crop grown in the United States—some 78 million acres of farmland have been planted in recent years. And no USDA subsidy program sends taxpayer money to more recipients. Between 1995 and 2003, just under 1.5 million individual farmers, partnerships, corporations, estates, and other entities received at least one corn subsidy payment. Michael Pollan, the author of The Botany of Desire, believes that the U.S. subsidizing of corn crops is one of its most harmful agricultural practices. It has caused enormous damage to the environment as industrial corn farmers heavily rely on agrochemicals. And it is directly linked to the rising levels of obesity throughout the U.S.

In fact, the national problems with obesity can be traced back to the 1970s when the government began subsidizing farmers who grew corn. Cheap industrial corn meant cheaper, high-calorie food. Some of that corn got turned into animal feed, fattening factory farm cattle and lowering the cost of beef, contributing to the excessive amounts we consume today. Unless you buy organic free-range animal products, almost all your eggs, dairy, and meat was raised on subsidized corn. It's also worth noting that corn-fed animal products are much higher in saturated fats—and our increased intake of saturated fats is directly linked to rising obesity.

"Fattening" and "fats" are key words here, as we talk about all this cheap, excess corn. One of the most common corn products is high-fructose corn syrup, which now accounts for 20 percent of the daily calorie intake of many children. Government-subsidized corn syrup is the main reason soft drink and fast food companies make such a huge profit. In the early 1970s the average soda container was a slender eight-ounce bottle; nowadays it's more likely to be a twenty-ounce tub. From bottles of ketchup to children's breakfast cereal, at least one quarter of all processed foods in the grocery stores contain high-fructose corn syrup.

As the government issues stern warnings about rising obesity it continues to support an agricultural policy that makes some of the emptiest and most fattening calories the cheapest and most readily available.

They Have The Corn

Today, the agricultural system in central Nebraska is considered one of the most productive in the world. But it produces mostly the same crop—corn. Nebraska is the third largest producer of corn, after Illinois and Idaho, much of it grown for cattle feed. The next most frequently grown crop is soybeans. The fertile soil of the Platte Valley can also grow other crops, such as sugar beets, dry edible beans, sorghum, wheat, and alfalfa. But because corn is the most responsive to applications of water and fertilizer, some fields have produced only corn for the past thirty years.

There are problems associated with growing this single crop over long periods. For one thing the lack of crop rotation means the potential for loss of soil as a result of wind erosion. For another, it encourages large populations of corn rootworms, corn borers, red spider mites, and others, and these gradually build up resistance to pesticides—requiring ever more chemicals to be used in attempts to eradicate them. These chemicals run off into the surface water, and seep into the groundwater. The aquifer has become increasingly poisoned. Also, with no alternative harvests, farmers suffer terrible losses when the price of corn drops. And this can be manipulated by the big corporations flooding the market, seeking to buy up and control ever more land as small farmers give up the struggle to survive.

THEY HAVE THE FACTORY FARMS

A facility with 40,000 hogs creates as much sewage as 160,000 people—nearly half the population of Omaha. But the distribution of feces produces more than just smell pollution; it also introduces bacteria and toxins into the air and groundwater and—because water sources are invariably linked—also to rivers and streams, where there can be devastating consequences to the local ecology. But all too often, by the time the effects of waste from these facilities are detected, it is too late for local plants, animals, and sometimes humans.

I met a man in Nebraska this spring who had lived and farmed in a small town since 1937. He remembered well the Nebraska hog farms that served an important role in their communities. Legislation for the dumping of hog waste was irrelevant then, because no hog farmer had more hogs than his property could carry. No one would have considered testing the groundwater for contaminants because no one was getting sick—adults weren't developing respiratory problems and babies weren't developing "blue baby syndrome"—and millions of fish weren't turning up dead in their streams.

But things began to change in the 1980s, he said, when big business came onto the scene and the first factory farms, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations, for pigs were established. As these began to raise large numbers of pigs that grew fast, due to hormones and antibiotics administered in the feed, the price per hog quickly plummeted from about $36 to $8. Local pig farmers found it difficult to make ends meet, and many went out of business.

Quite apart from the shocking cruelty of these factory farms, there is the problem of the disposal of pigs' waste. This is dumped in open "lagoons." Sometimes it is diluted and sprayed on adjacent (and often genetically modified) crops—fertilizer laced with residual antibiotics and often antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The stench of this waste is revolting. My friend Tom Mangelsen has his permanent residence in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but he still maintains a cabin in Nebraska, the state in which he was raised. On one of my visits to Tom's cabin the nearby field had just been treated with the diluted pig waste, and the smell made us both feel quite sick. No wonder the value of properties drops when a hog operation is built within smelling distance. The dung of the pigs on the farms of my childhood did not smell like that, not in the least. No wonder the American pork industry targets poor rural towns where it is cheapest to win political favor and easiest to silence critics.

"You could never dump this stuff in New York City," said Laura Krebsbach, one of the nation's experts on state and federal regulations pertaining to Confined Animal Feeding Operations, "but it's hard to get a big outcry in Cherry County, Nebraska, where the population is one person per square mile."

THEY HAVE THE GLOBAL SUPERMARKET

Farmers here face many other problems. In his insightful book Eat Here, Brian Halweil explains how, as recently as the 1950s, virtually all of the fruits and vegetables consumed in Nebraska cities were grown locally. Then long- distance transport of food became possible with refrigerated long-haul trucks, cheap gasoline, advances in food processing that made long-term storage possible, and a federally subsidized interstate highway system. This heralded the arrival of huge supermarkets appearing in more and more cities and towns selling food from all over the country and from overseas. And so, as local farmland declined in profitability, thousands of family farms in Nebraska (and the surrounding states) went under and farming communities were increasingly replaced by subdivisions and concrete. And the remaining farmers mostly depend on good harvests of corn and soybeans for their survival.