Junk Foods, Sugar, and Violence

My little great-nephew Alex (the one who became a vegetarian at four years old) has a horrifying reaction to sugar. Within minutes of consuming even small amounts—in drinks or food—a charming little boy becomes an uncontrollable child, shouting and even hitting people. And it seems that he is one of many, as several of his friends at school are also on sugar-free diets.

My son Grub has a friend who was diagnosed with bipolar personality disorder. As he is a very large man there were times when his behavior was frightening—he actually chased his father around the kitchen table with a knife during one of his manic episodes. It was just after this that Grub read an article about the effect of sugar on the metabolism of some people, and convinced his friend to cut out sugar from his diet. The result was amazing—he became a much calmer person immediately. So I was fascinated to read about a study linking sugar and violence among prisoners.

Stephen J. Schoenthaler, Ph.D., a sociology professor at the Stanislaus campus of California State University, had a hunch there was a link between three alarming statistical curves: the number of incidences of useless violence, the increased consumption of fast foods, and the increased consumption of processed sugars. He convinced a large-scale prison facility in Virginia to help him conduct a study with inmates. Initially the prisoners were fed a typical American diet that included white bread, hamburgers, sausages, fried potatoes, cookies, sweet snacks, and soft drinks. After a few days they were switched to a whole food diet that included plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole meal bread, as well as fish and lean meats.

The results were remarkable. Once they moved on to healthy foods, behavior problems, such as violence and verbal abusiveness, immediately decreased. When they were switched back to the soft drinks and fatty foods, behavior problems returned. The findings created a stir in the national prison network, and Schoenthaler became a much sought after nutritional advisor. He also conducted an interesting study with approximately 8,000 teenagers at nine juvenile correctional facilities. In each site, the standard diet—high in sugar and other refined carbohydrates—was switched to include plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as vitamins and mineral supplements. During that year, the facilities reported that the incidence of physical violence, verbal abuse, and escape and suicide attempts decreased by almost half.

After twenty years of studying nutrition and behavior at juvenile and adult correctional facilities and in public schools, Schoenthaler is now convinced that the effects of diet are so powerful that everyone should be held responsible for what they eat, just as they are for what they drink when driving. Which means we must do a better and better job of educating people, and ensuring that all these junk foods that we know are causing so many problems are removed from the stores and from our kitchen cupboards.

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

One of the main threats to our health and the health of our planet is overconsumption. More than a billion of the most poverty-stricken people in the world are suffering and in some cases dying from lack of enough food. Meanwhile, it's estimated that a billion of the wealthiest people in the world are at risk of debilitating diseases and death partly because they are eating too much of the wrong kinds of food.

A person living in an industrialized country consumes, on average, twice as much grain, three times as much meat, nine times as much paper, and eleven times as much gasoline as someone in a developing country, according to the World Resources Institute. With all this consumption comes a huge amount of waste. Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, spent ten years studying food waste, examining farms and orchards, warehouses and retail outlets, dining rooms and landfills. His research shows that an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year in meat, fruits, vegetables, and grain products. Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion.

When I first returned from Tanzania, having experienced true poverty firsthand, to the so-called developed world, the thing that utterly shocked me was the waste. The waste of packaging. The throw-away this, that, and the other. And the waste of food. That was the greatest shock of all. The size of the portions of food served, especially in America. The amount left over in restaurants, after school meals, in the homes I visited. And the reason for my distress was not only that I had just spent many years living among people who had almost nothing, but also because I can never forget the lean war years of my childhood. We were taught that waste was one of the greatest sins.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Tempting and convenient as it can be, we should all avoid fast foods whenever possible and I certainly have given you plenty of incentive for doing so. Each one of us can also make a concerted effort to create as little waste as possible, each day. We can remember to start with smaller piles of food on our plates and ask for reduced portions at social gatherings and restaurants. We can always order more food or go back for seconds. Why not begin small and keep adding if you are still hungry?

When we bring groups of students together for a Roots & Shoots summit, we provide buckets for recycling various waste products, including food. After the first meal we carefully weigh this bucket of food scraps. The kids are horrified when they realize how much they have put on their plates, only to throw it out afterward. The amount of waste is then equated to how long that amount of food would feed a family living in poverty.

If you have a garden, you can make compost from food waste, as we do at my home in Bournemouth. But you can compost even if you do not have a garden. I met a group of youngsters from South Central Los Angeles, in the inner city, who collected food scraps from local residents, and broke it down by using worms. This is known as vermiculture—which can actually be located in the living room for there is no smell! Moreover, it gives the very best quality soil, which the children sold to local parks and greenhouses. They had created a flourishing business!

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.

The Cost of Organic Food

It's true, organic foods often come with a higher sticker price. Because of this, some argue that the organic movement is an elitist one—only offering healthy foods to the wealthiest. In fact, the mean income of a frequent organic food buyer in the U.S. is $43,280—solidly middle-class^— and 31 percent of frequent organic buyers make under$15,000 a year. And as more people buy organic, the more ,the prices will go down: Suppliers will have to place orders, which means more farmers will be encouraged to farm organically because they have a steady market for their goods. So this increases the easy availability of organic food, which often leads to a reduced price for consumers.

Some people willingly pay the price for organic foods, seeing this as a charity donation—a way to support the health of the planet or the farmers who are trying to do right by the land and their communities. In some spiritual communities it is even seen as "tithing"—which means taking a portion of one's income and giving it back to the world in a way that supports the greater good. Yet other people see it as a kind of health insurance payment, recognizing that by ridding their bodies, and the bodies of their children, of agricultural chemicals they may have fewer medical bills.

CAN WE REALLY AFFORD "CHEAP" FOOD?

There is another issue: We need to think carefully about the hidden costs of nonorganic foods. For years, we've been forced to buy into the chemical contamination of our planet and bodies under the guise of creating abundant, "cheap" food. But how cheap is it really? The real cost of industrial farming never shows up on the price sticker at the grocery store. The price never shows the money taxpayers pay for government subsidizing of agribusinesses. The grocery store price also doesn't reflect how much we pay for our damaged health and weakened immune systems. It's almost impossible to measure how much we spend trying to clean up and cope with the environmental damage caused by chemical intensive farming, but in the U.S., it's estimated to be $9 billion a year. We just cannot afford this "cheap" food much longer. About three million tons of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are used on this planet every year! Every continent is burdened with the ongoing cost of cleaning up this chemical contamination, especially in streams, rivers, and lakes.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Unfortunately, it will take a long time for the earth to break down and heal itself from much of the poisoning caused by farming with chemicals. For now, we can't easily rid ourselves of what we have already done, but we can stop adding more. And there is one sure way to do this: Eat organic. If you buy "certified organic" food, you are guaranteed that it was grown without chemical pesticides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers, sewage sludge, or preserved with ionizing radiation.

Purists may think we shouldn't bother with organic certification if it's being co-opted by corporate interests. But we must also keep in mind that the booming organic certification movement is doing an enormous amount to protect consumers as well as the environment from the harms caused by industrial agriculture. Organic certification offers us important safeguards—forcing agribusiness to abandon some of its more destructive practices. A whole line of McOrganics or Organic Coke may seem like horrible aberrations, corrupting the sacred intentions of the organic pioneers. But any restraints we can put on the corporate world are important. And in some instances, corporations might actually give greater economic strength and consumer recognition to small, ethical businesses without corrupting their core values. For instance, when M&M-Mars bought Seeds of Change it helped finance a wonderful company that has remained dedicated to sustainable farming and protecting the purity and heritage of our seed supply.

As we said, the rising availability of organic foods gives us solid evidence of the power of consumers. It tells us that we are forcing the corporations, some of which are the biggest names in agribusiness, to change their farming methods in order to capitalize on the fastest-growing trend in the industry. And in the next chapter I'll tell you more about what you can do to directly support the small-scale, deep organic farmers we value so greatly.

Avoid Pesticides and Other Chemicals

Unless you primarily purchase organic foods, one item in three in your kitchen cabinet or refrigerator will likely contain pesticide residues. Government testing has found residues from as many as seven different pesticides on a single head of nonorganic lettuce. So if one of your main reasons for buying organic is to reduce your exposure to farm chemicals, you may want to substitute organic for the produce that typically has the highest levels of chemical residues.

U.S. shoppers should also avoid imported, nonorgani_c fruits and vegetables, since they consistently contain more residues than domestic samples. Also, many chemical corn.. panies take the pesticides that are banned in the United States and unload them in countries where there are fewer government restrictions.

Another bonus of certified organic foods is that they have to be processed without many of the food additives that have been linked to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, migraine, hyperactivity, and osteoporosis. For instance, the enhanced red color of some nonorganic strawberries comes from the fungicide captan, a probable human carcinogen that irritates skin and eyes, and is highly toxic to fish. Phosphoric acid in fizzy drinks has been linked to osteoporosis. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener in nonorganic foods, is linked to mood swings and migraines, and MSG (monosodium glutamate) is linked to asthma and headaches.

Feed Children and Babies Organics

As we said, children are especially vulnerable to the effects of pesticide residues. And we now have scientific evidence for what common sense already told us: Children and babies who are fed mostly organic foods have lower levels of pesticide residues in their bodies than children who are fed nonorganic foods. So it is well worth the investment in feeding children organic foods.

If you have no choice but to serve nonorganic foods, parents can reduce exposure by serving children vegetables with thicker skin, shells, or peels, since soft-skinned fruit and vegetables seem more likely to contain residues. According to research from Consumer Reports, pesticide residues in a single serving of peaches "consistently exceeded" the EPA's safe daily limit for a forty-four-pound child. Since pesticide residues can be transferred (often in a more concentrated form) through the placenta and breast milk, it is especially important that women who are pregnant or breast-feeding follow these guidelines.

Shopping for Unsuspected Grocery Part 2

Eat Seasonally

We have trained ourselves to plan meals around any food from .anywhere in the world at any time of the year. Eating locally means that we need also to become reconnected with the seasons, to think about meals in the way our ancestorsdid, organizing them around the fresh market vegetables, around seasonal delicacies. An easy way to get started is to eat one local, seasonal meal a week. Make a social occasion of it, invite family and friends to help, organize a seasonal foods potluck where recipes and resources are exchanged.

One way to better endure the lean months of winter and early spring is to preserve the local harvest by freezing fresh fruits and vegetables and leftovers such as organic soups and veggie dishes. Then they can be eaten during the late fall or winter. (It's generally recommended that we eat our frozen leftovers and produce within six months.) Those with the time or inclination can bottle or can foods of many sorts so that there will be a huge variety during the colder months. Some enthusiasts have even started local food clubs where consultants, such as chefs who specialize in local cuisine or experts in kitchen gardens, home canning, and preserving, are hired to teach workshops.

Protect Endangered Foods

Those who are active in the Slow Food and local foods movements agree that it's important to support the farmers and artisans who are.protecting endangered foods. Therefore, it is a good idea to include on our shopping lists those foods from other nations or states that are in danger of going extinct if the producers can't establish a larger market. For instance, the Tohono O'odham tribe plans to make its indigenous food products available for mail order. The Slow Food Web site offers numerous links to retailers who provide endangered foods. We also list international groups working on mail order food preservation in the Resources section.

Of course the most local food you can eat is the food that comes from your own garden. During World War II, many U.S. and U.K. citizens recognized the need for creating more self-reliant food sources. People in all areas of the country, rural and urban, made Victory Gardens to help raise food for their families, friends, and neighbors. Nowadays, there's a resurgence of interest in homegrown foods, as more and more people are concerned about their health, and the vulnerabilities of a more globalized food supply.

If you live in an urban area and don't have land to plant on, you can often find community gardens, sometimes called "pea patches," that offer plots in exchange for nominal fees or volunteer time. More than 10 million urban dwellers raise vegetables this way in small gardens across America. Thirty-eight U.S. cities host community garden projects and one third of the nation's 6,000 community gardens were formed in the past decade. Similar systems have been established in Europe and at least some parts of Africa. (The Resources section directs readers to the American Community Gardening Association for information on finding a local garden.)

Lettuces are a great place to begin; they're easy and immediately satisfying. Tomatoes are another great starter plant because they are so much tastier when grown in your garden. Though it's tempting to want to begin with delicious heirloom tomatoes, more standard varieties are often easier to grow. Cherry tomatoes are especially vigorous, easy, and therefore satisfying. Start small-scale, focusing more on the preparation of good organic soil and just a few plants.

Learn Where Grocery Store Food Comes From

It can be fascinating to learn more about where our food comes from. How far did it travel to get to our plate? How was it grown, raised, caught, or killed? Studying the labels on the cartons or packages at the grocer should help us discover those products that come from a local producer and those that have been transported from far away. Perhaps our vegetables come from a local farm. What do we know about the farm? Does it use a lot of fertilizers and pesticides? If so, do we really want to eat those vegetables? Do we want to buy them for our children, our guests, ourselves? Perhaps the fruit we chose came from a foreign country. Do we know where that is on the map? What sort Of lives do the people there live? These are especially important lessons for children: One of the projects for primary school children of the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots global program for youth consists of students going through the ingredients of meals they ate at home, then discussing this in their group at school. It is one of the best ways of learning geography, and they acquire a lot of other information also in the process.

We need to build a closer connection with the food we eat because, after all, it does become integrated into our bodies, into our muscles and nerves and blood. We are made up, physically, of what we eat and drink. We must begin to choose our food accordingly.

Shopping for Unsuspected Grocery Part 1

Obviously unless or until we see dramatic changes in our farming and grocery infrastructure, it will be hard for many, if not most, of us to get all our food from local sources. Especially if we live in one of the so-called food deserts. But each of us, as individuals, can play a part in bringing about these changes, doing our best to get as much food as possible from local markets rather than distant producers. Ultimately, what we are looking toward is supporting and building more sources of regional foods, while only eating foods from distant places to supplement local staples. Countries in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, cannot grow items such as coffee, tea, cocoa for chocolate, numerous spices, and so on. When we buy these imported products, we should choose those that are grown ethically and sustainably—fair-trade (meaning fair wages for foreign growers) and organic—so that our purchases are not contributing to the exploitation of another country's workers or natural resources.

Talk with Your Local Restaurateur and Grocer

If your favorite restaurant does not provide any local, sustainable options, or only a few, tell them you would like to see more. Chefs and owners usually appreciate customer feedback. Even fast food restaurants have been known tochange their menu based on customer pressure—for n- stance, imagine the mountains that consumer pressure had to move to persuade McDonald's to offer a greater variety of salads and low-calorie options. Fortunately,more and more grocery stores are starting to recognize that "locally grown" is the new label with appeal. Some grocerystore chains, such as Whole Foods Market, are making a concerted effort to sell the coveted local foods. Many even fea ture pictures and write-ups about local farmers beside the produce they supply.

One big New York grocer, Long Island's King Kullen, committed to buying Long Island's seasonal fruits and vegetables for its fifty stores. In 1999, it spent $100,000 on produce from Long Island farmers. In 2004, it spent $4 million. New Seasons Market, a grocery chain of six stores in Portland, Oregon, has a looser definition of local, using a "Pacific Village" label to denote foods from Northern California, Oregon, Washington, or British Columbia. Even in the wintertime, about half of its produce is from that regional "village."

If you have a store nearby that does sell local, sustainable foods, be sure to thank the store manager for carrying foods you can support. And if you'd like your local grocer to carry more local foods, be sure to ask the manager to sell locally raised meat and vegetables from independent family farmers, and request that the food be clearly labeled. For anyone who might be uncomfortable approaching a store manager, the Sustainable Table Web site (visit www.sustainabletable.org) offers a printable version of an "I Care" card, which lists the reasons stores should supply more local foods. All you have to do is sign the card and leave it with the manager. Because profit margins are so small, grocery stores will listen even if just a handful of customers ask for a certain product. But, as I said, if you convince the store manager to start selling a certain item, make sure you purchase the product.

Fish Fish....I love Cooking Fish

Seafood Selection Steamed over Fresh Herbs with Champagne Sauce

8 black mussels, on the half shell

16 scallops with roe (coral)

8 large prawns, deveined; shells on

4 x 80 g portions filleted kingklip, skinned
4 x 80 g portions filleted Norwegian salmon, skinned

salt, milled black pepper, lemon juice plenty of fresh herbs (parsley, lemon grass, basil, coriander)

Champagne Sauce

1 onion, finely chopped

15 ml chopped fresh herbs

(dill, parsley, thyme)

30 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

250 ml champagne or sparkling wine

60 ml cream

120 g soft butter, cut into cubes

2 ml Worcestershire sauce

Place the seafood in the top layer of a Chinese steaming basket and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Crush the herbs and pack in the bottom layer. Put the layers together, cover with the lid and steam over simmering water for about 12 minutes until the seafood is cooked.

Champagne Sauce: Combine the onion, herbs, lemon juice and champagne in a medium saucepan and simmer uncovered until reduced by half. Add the cream and reduce until thickened to a coating consistency.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt and pepper

To Serve: Arrange seafood on warm plates and offer the champagne sauce separately.

Serves 4

Kabeljou with Mediterranean Flavours

4 x 180 g portions filleted kabeljou, skinned 50 ml extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

5 ml crushed garlic

100 g sun-dried tomatoes, chopped 100 g black olives, pitted and sliced

3 fresh basil leaves, finely shredded 6 sprigs fresh coriander, chopped

15 ml finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

Potato and Corn Risotto olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

4 potatoes, peeled and diced into 2 cm cubes salt and milled black pepper

1 sprig rosemary

250 ml cream

kernels cut from 4 cooked sweetcorn cobs 50 g butter, cut into cubes

30 ml grated Parmesan cheese

Potato and Corn Risotto: Heat olive oil in a heavy saucepan and sauté the onion until golden.

Stir in the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and add the rosemary and cream. Cover and simmer gently until the potatoes are soft. Uncovered and simmer briskly until the cream thickens.

Add the corn kernels, butter and Parmesan cheese and heat through.

Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a nonstick frying pan and seal the kabeljou over high heat. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add the onion to the pan and fry until golden. Add the garlic and sun-dried tomato and simmer for a few minutes until softened. Add the olives, basil, coriander and parsley and season with salt and pepper.

Return the fish to the pan and simmer, spooning the onion-tomato mixture over, until cooked.

To Serve: Spoon potato and corn risotto onto warm plates and top with kabeljou. Serves 4

Lemon Grass Skewered Prawns with Peri-Peri Sauce on Japanese Rice Noodles and Tofu

24 large prawns, shelled and deveined 8 stalks lemon grass

salt, milled black pepper, freshly squeezed lemon juice, olive oil

160 g tofu, cut into strips

100 g rice noodles, cooked

20 g butter

10 ml soy sauce

80 g mixed julienned vegetables

Peri-Peri Sauce 50 g butter

1 onion, finely chopped

7 ml chopped garlic

6 fresh red chillies, seeded and chopped

20 ml tomato paste

50 g tomatoes, blanched, skinned and diced

8 sprigs fresh oregano, chopped

200 ml white wine 50 ml water

Impale the prawns on lemon grass spears and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

Peri-Peri Sauce: Heat the butter in a medium saucepan and sauté the onion, garlic and chilli until the onion is translucent.

Stir in the tomato paste, then add the diced tomato and oregano. Add the white wine and water and simmer uncovered until reduced and thickened to a pulp. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat olive oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the tofu until golden. Season with salt and pepper, add the rice noodles, butter, soy sauce and julienned vegetables and heat through.

To Serve: Grill the skewered prawns on both sides under a hot grill until cooked.

Spoon the tofu mixture onto warm plates, place prawns on top and brush with peri-peri sauce. Offer the rest separately. Serves 4