Cook for Good

Met w/ Cong. Miller about genetically modifed alfalfa

2011-03-25T13:51:00.001-07:00

I met with Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) today to request unbiased research and caution for genetically engineered food. We had a good discussion. I left feeling that he had heard my points and would have the appropriate staff member follow up on possible action. We agreed that these are technical issues, but that it is important to have good, unbiased scientific analysis before taking action that cannot be undone.

As I said during the meeting, when we found out what horrible side effects thalidomide caused, people could just stop taking it. If we find out that genetically engineered food causes horrible side effects, we may not be able to recall it from the environment. Thanks to Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore and Mark Kastel of the Cornucopia Institute for their help in preparing for this meeting.

Here are the points we covered:

People want to know what they are eating. An MSNBC poll this year shows that 96% want genetically modified food labeled so people can make informed choices. A Deloitte survey in 2010 found that 70% of Americans are concerned about eating genetically modified food.

Roundup Ready Alfalfa is not needed, according to a lawsuit filed by several groups against the USDA. 93% of alfalfa is currently grown without herbicides.

But Roundup Ready Alfalfa is now unregulated and has huge risks:

GE alfalfa would contaminate all alfalfa seeds in just a few years because the pollen is spread by bees. They will cross-pollinate non-GMO alfalfa and wild alfalfa miles apart.

It threatens organic dairy industry, a $26B a year industry growing at 20% annually, because it is the key food for dairy cows. No organic food means no organic milk, yogurt, or cheese.

It threatens the organic beef industry

It will speed up the development of Roundup-resistant super weeds. Farmers dealing with glyphosate-resistant weeds may stronger herbicides, such as 2,4-D, a chemical that has been linked to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and insulin resistance.

Animal miscarriages and infertility may be caused by Roundup and Roundup Ready crops, wrote Dr. Don Huber of Purdue University in a letter to Secretary Vilsack.

Alfalfa and other GE Crops put organic farmers at risk with through spills and uncontrolled pollination. Recovery and recertification can take years and lead to bankruptcy.

Scientists must ask corporations for permission before publishing independent research on genetically modified crops. Scientific American says “that restriction must end.”

World hunger can be better addressed through safer techniques

A U.N. report says that “agroecological” techniques can double food production in 10 years.

Poster-plant Golden Rice requires eating 12 times more rice than normal — 27 bowls of expensive rice a day — to get enough Vitamin A. Better to plant greens and sweet potatoes.

Hunger stems from poor distribution, political problems, poverty, and environmental problems. Nearly 90 percent of the U.S. corn crop is used for either ethanol (40 percent) or animal feed (50 percent).

Requested actions:

Ask the USDA and President Obama to restrict Roundup Ready alfalfa until it is proven to be safe.

Support unbiased research through funding and regulation.

Support Congressman Kucinich’s bills on genetically engineered food (the Right to Know Act, the Safety Act, and the Farmer Protection Act).

Why there's a rooster on my stairs

2011-02-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

With a busy busy week ahead, I kept the slow cooker going with beans yesterday. I made a stew with small red beans from my local Hispanic market and then made a pinto stew. This morning, I'm kicking myself because I forgot to put up the pintos before going to bed last night, so they will be feeding the compost instead of my Taster and me. If only I'd put the rooster on the stairs!

The rooster? He's a wooden list holder with a clothes pin as a beak made by a resident of my in-laws retirement community. The rooster holds the grocery list. And he perches on the stairs to remind me when I need to do something in the kitchen before going to bed at night. Most often, he reminds me to refrigerate food, including rising bread dough and brewed tea. The key point is that I can't get to bed without passing him and it reminds me to take another turn around the kitchen and do what needs doing.

Before the rooster, I used a less decorative but still effective cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels.

What memory tips to you use?

Happy Chinese New Year! Food at Raleigh Celebration

2011-01-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year, y'all! I'm looking forward to going to the celebration at the State Fair Grounds today. It's in the new Exposition Center.

I'm looking forward to these treats, recommended by Lisa Chang, VP of the Triangle Area Chinese American Society:

There's a woman who makes a Taiwanese soft crepe with savory fillings that's delicious and interesting to watch being made. The crepes are made by wiping a hot pan surface with wet dough/thick batter. The part that sticks to the pan becomes a very thin, translucent crepe that wraps around meats, vegetables, and peanut powder - very yummy.

I'll also have Asian style shaved ice at the CNYF. I just purchased a very expensive commercial grade cubed ice shaver for myself that I will loan to the event. We won't have the huge variety of toppings available that an actual restaurant would (plus mango this time of year is terrible), but we'll have enough to approximate the true Chinese shaved ice experience. I'll have red bean, almond jelly, mochi, brown sugar syrup, and condensed milk for sure, and others are up for debate.

You know I've got to try the red-bean shaved ice! Lisa also says the celebration includes:

marvelous performances, cultural exhibits, vendors, and of course, lots of food! There are a couple of fantastic cooks who will be lending their talents to the event in order to provide a some specialty dishes that aren't generally available at your average restaurant.

Turnips, eggs rule at January farmers' market

2011-01-08T08:51:00.000-08:00

I'm just back from the Western Wake Farmers' Market, watching the snow come down outside as I write this. Even after heavy snow starting Christmas night, the stalwart farmers who come to the winter market still had good selections. The slower winter markets are a great time to get to know your local farmers better.

I'm working on recipes with eggs and turnips, so you can see from the photo that I stocked up on each. The white "salad" turnips range in size from ping-pong to golf ball and are more tender than the larger turnips. I do like that purple band, though! The greens from both types of turnips are delicious.

Chickens lay fewer eggs in the fall and late winter, but start up again beginning with the winter solstice and peak in the spring. These free-range beauties were $4 a dozen.

I also got two types of organic sweet potatoes for $2 a pound, since I bought five pounds worth, and a small cabbage. Alas, no beets were available.

Lettuce, arugula, collards, various meat, and cheese was also available.

Scored collards and more for local New Year's Day feast

2010-12-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

I was SO happy to pull into the State Farmers' Market lot today and see Mrs. Wise in her usual place at the Wise Farm booth. She's there nearly every day except Sunday with great produce and great advice. She's here with her son, Gary, who owns the Mt. Olive farm with his wife Teresa.

My New Year's Day party will now have excellent local collards despite the snow! Mrs. Wise said that they'd run out of collards Wednesday, but they had plenty today at 9:00. They will be at the market on Friday and Saturday, so please drop by to get some yourself. Gary pointed out their excellent bok choy, which they've planted under row covers this year with good results. Those amazing tomatoes come from green houses and they will have hoop-house strawberries soon.

I got five big bunches of collards, red and yellow onions, and sweet potatoes. At other booths, I picked up two gallons of apple cider, some apples, and two pounds of Ashe County super-sharp cheddar. The egg booth wasn't open yet.

Between the Harris Teeter and Whole Foods, I also got local corn meal, eggs, milk, and buttermilk.

What's cooking for New Years' Day? Hoppin' John, Tasty Tahini Collards, corn bread, a new chocolate cake I'm developing, and my favorite lemon cake from the Silver Palate cookbook. Other folks are bringing salads, fruit, and more greens. Should be fun!

What are you cooking for New Year's Eve or New Year's Day? Any special local dishes or ingredients?

NC Christmas Trees at Bargain Prices this Year

2010-12-10T14:17:00.000-08:00

I set a speed record for picking our family Yule Tree this year. I started at Cole's Phoenix display at the State Farmers' Market in Raleigh. I'm originally from Lansing, Michigan, which started my attachment to Cole's years ago. Maybe this isn't quite rational, since they are from Lansing North Carolina. But Cole's often has terrific trees, so I always start there.

This year, the first tree I saw was a contender and the second tree was the winner! I had the tree trimmed and in the truck in less than 10 minutes, topped with a fresh wreath. Total cost: only $65. The tree is about 8 feet tall and 7 feet wide towards the bottom. It's very full and fresh, drinking water like an athlete.

I had lived in Raleigh for decades before realizing that the Farmers' Market had such a fantastic selection of trees at such terrific prices. You can find tiny trees, huge trees, very symmetrical trees, and trees with rough spots that you can face towards the wall, all at good prices. I've paid $85 or more for an equivalent tree at single-vendor lots near the State Fairground, back when I had a high-tech job and lots of moola.

This week I checked out the prices and selections at other Raleigh tree lots. Here's what I found:

Best price: $30 for 6-7' trees at the Food Lion
Next-best price for somewhat taller and fuller trees: $50 at Whole Foods
Good selection and good cause: the Optimist Club offers a good mix of trees on Blue Ridge Road between Rex Hospital and the Olde Raleigh Village Shopping Center. I would have paid about $90 there for a similar tree/wreath combo, but would have gotten a $5-off coupon for next year and would have been helping a good cause.

But I still like to go to the State Farmers' Market. Look at this greeting!

All the trees at all the lots I visited were from North Carolina. According to the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association:

North Carolina has 1,600 growers producing an estimated 50 million Fraser fir Christmas trees growing on over 25,000 acres. Fraser Fir trees represent over 90% of all species grown in North Carolina. The North Carolina Christmas Tree Industry is ranked second in the nation in number of trees harvested.

The artificial vs. real tree debate heats up every Christmas. Many artificial tree fans cite being able to use the same tree for decades. But as trees age, they may become dangerous, according to a study by EPA and other researchers:

Artificial Christmas trees made of PVC also degrade under normal conditions. About 50 million U.S. households have artificial Christmas trees, of which about 20 million are at least 9 years old, the point at which dangerous lead exposures can occur.

Happy and safe holidays to you all!

Q&A: Dairy-free recipes?

2010-12-03T05:40:00.000-08:00

Q from K.:

I recently had a babe and find that she does not tolerate dairy AT ALL. and my bigger kids dont take kindly to it either. You have recipes that dont require dairy but many of the desserts and sauces include it. Do you have alternatives to dairy that work well in these recipes? Oh and that are not soy alternatives? If you do i would love to see them featured. It seems like so many of the budget food ideas include or are heavy on the dairy group.

A from Linda: Thanks so much for your kind words and enthusiasm! We are actually cutting down on dairy in our household and I'm looking for non-dairy desserts, so you will see more recipes that work for your family in the coming months. The cheese-sauce recipe was actually just a response to the canned-soup casseroles of Thanksgiving.

Here are some recipes you might enjoy:
Lemon-Walnut Sauce
Hummus
just the sauce for Potato-Peanut Curry
Bean-Broth Gravy made with corn oil
Oooo, Mama! Gravy

Applesauce with Raisins
Minted Cantaloupe Sorbet (not in season now, alas!)

And I'll put non-dairy desserts on the front burner for January. I haven't tested any recipes with almond milk or other nut milks, but many cooks say they work fine. I used to use soy milk before we gave up soy. We often have plain fruit for dessert, but I'm sure you've already thought of that.

Does anyone out there have good non-dairy dessert suggestions suitable for vegans or people who can't tolerate milk?

What do you think about the new IOM study on calcium and vitamin D?

2010-12-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

A new research survey from the Institute of Medicine concludes that most people in the U.S. and Canada do not need more calcium or vitamin D to maintain bone health, although some teen-aged girls may be low in calcium and people over 70 might be lacking in both nutrients.

Too much calcium can cause kidney stones and too much vitamin D can harm one's kidneys and heart. The report says that both nutrients are needed for strong bones but not for "other health conditions." Widely reported studies that claimed these nutrients helped prevent everything from cancer to diabetes and help with physical performance and healthy reproduction were found to be from studies that provided "mixed and inconclusive results and could not be considered reliable." Wowser!

Here are some calcium values from the USDA National Nutrient Database:

foods high in calcium	size	calcium (mg)
orange juice, fortified with calcium	1 cup	500
milk	1 cup	352
Cheddar	1 ounce	204
collards,cooked	1/2 cup	133
black beans, cooked	1/2 cup	51
kale, cooked	1/2 cup	47
broccoli, raw	1 cup	43
chickpeas, cooked	1/2 cup	40

What to do? I'm going to start taking a calcium supplement again and make sure I get plenty of sunshine and exercise. The IOM says growing kids need up to 1,300 mg of calcium a day, with adults needing from 1,000 to 1,200 mg. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of only 400-500 mg of calcium a day to prevent osteoporosis in countries with high fracture rates, including the U.S. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine director of nutrition education Susan Levin says in their response to the IOM study that:

The most healthful calcium sources are green leafy vegetables and legumes, or "greens and beans." Broccoli, collards, kale, and other greens are loaded with highly absorbable calcium and a host of other important nutrients. They’re also low in fat and cholesterol-free.

I'd love to hear what you think, especially those of you who are nutritionists or otherwise have expert knowledge in this area. Please add your 2 mg's worth below.

What's a few million of hungry people, more or less?

2010-11-19T06:28:00.000-08:00

The N&O ran a McClatchy story yesterday with an upbeat headline:Rise in U.S. hunger slows, but remains high. This indeed sounds like good news, or at least better than having the rate increase.

The headline for the same article on the McClatchy site is: Land of plenty? U.S. hunger rate remains stubbornly high.

Update: Reporter Tony Pugh did have it right after all: the number of people suffering from very low levels of food security was 17.4 million in 2009. The percentage for households with some level of food insecurity was 14.7%, which as I wrote earlier is the figure used in the abstract of the report itself. See table 1a in the report. Thanks to McClatchy Investigative Editor James Asher for the clarification.

New Comment: A good look at table 1a shows that the number of individuals with very low food security went up by 379,000 people from 2008 to 2009. While the report's abstract says that the rate was "essentially unchanged," that's more that all the people in any one of these cities: Honolulu, Wichita, or St. Louis.

Keep in mind that, according to Joel Berg of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, many of the figures for the number of people needing help are low because organizations have a limit to the number they can help and only report those they do help. So, if a soup kitchen was feeding 50 people lunch every day two years ago and was able to feed everyone who asked but now has a line that starts at 8 AM and turns away 100+, the reported number is still 50.

Have you actually seen a starving person in the U.S.? ask some of the mean-spirited comments on the McClatchy site. Probably not, since the nutritional-support programs have largely wiped out the pot-bellied, stick-legged look that used to be seen here. Let's thank another news agency for that. In 1968, the suffering described in CBS Reports: Hunger in America led to a Senate inquiry and $200 million more dollars for food programs.

But the current USDA report says that food-insecure households didn't have enough to eat 7 months a year and usually 1 to 7 days a month. Maybe the thought of children crying themselves to sleep because they are hungry 20 or so nights a year doesn't make you weep. In that case, please think about the long-term damage to their mental and physical development and the resulting low school and work performance.

Some supermarkets welcome, inform food-stamp recipents

2010-11-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

Kroger CEO starts helping customers with food stamps, WIC. Dave Dillion, chairman and CEO of Kroger, often visits his stores to talk with customers and see for himself what works and what doesn't, according to a recent AP story. His involvement helps explain why Kroger's earnings are up while earnings for other groceries are down. Dillion noticed that the number of customers using food stamps had doubled, resulting in many new recipients who were unsure about what they could buy. To reduce the frustration and time of having items rejected at checkout, Dillion has brought in new signs to help explain what items are allowed and also trained employees to help customers use the program.

As I report in today's Cook for Good newsletter, the Kroger I visited in Raleigh is starting to roll out better signage, but has quite a ways to go. They have labels for WIC-approved items, but not for food stamps.

Have you seen any effort to identify eligible items in your grocery store? Have you experienced or seen confusion in using the programs? Have you see any stores charging people extra who use WIC or food stamps (SNAP)? These fees are illegal, but I was told by a clerk that there is a 50-cent fee for each use of the food-stamp Electronic Benefits Transfer card. The store management later told me that had never been the case.

Eat a carrot, hurt the economy? Bad reporting, false choices.

2010-11-12T04:28:00.000-08:00

I was stunned this morning to see a headline over an AP article saying, Eat a carrot, hurt the economy? Sometimes. The story summarized a study in Lancet, saying that:

In Britain, experts estimated that fixing the country's bad eating habits might prevent nearly 70,000 people from prematurely dying of diet-related health problems like heart disease and cancer. It would also theoretically save the health system 20 billion pounds ($32 billion) every year.

In Brazil, however, the rates of illnesses linked to a poor diet are not as high as in the U.K. So Brazilians would get relatively few health benefits while their economy might lose millions.

Yet even a quick look at the Lancet series on The Health Benefits of Tackling Climate Change finds another conclusion. The first paragraph says making technical and lifestyle changes to combat global warming would not be "socially uncomfortable and economically painful" as is commonly thought, at least from a public-health point of view. In fact,

If properly chosen, action to combat climate change can, of itself, lead to improvements in health.

The series highlights several areas where climate-inspired changes would make people healthier, by reducing household energy emissions, changing urban land transport, and finding low-carbon ways to generate electricity.

But what about those Brazilian ranchers? They would have a greater health benefit than in the UK:

A 30% fall in the adult consumption of saturated fat from animal sources would reduce heart disease in the population by around 15% in the UK and by 16% in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. If the study had used additional health outcomes such as obesity and diet-related cancers, the health gains might have been even more substantial.

The study lists a "key message" as being:

Achieving a substantial cut in greenhouse-gas emissions will depend on reducing the production of food from livestock and on technological improvements in farming.

The full journal article itself, Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture, does address the benefits of raising animals for meat in certain situations:

For example, ruminant livestock in upland and marginal areas can help to maintain and build the carbon-sequestering properties of soil. Where grazing cattle are reared without use of feed inputs or additional fertiliser, and at low stocking densities, carbon sequestering can outweigh methane and nitrous oxide emissions....Further, in many geographical regions (including the uplands in the UK) no form of food production other than livestock rearing is feasible at present. Livestock rearing also has a key cultural and economic role in many parts of the world and is estimated to create livelihoods for a billion of the world's poor people.

False choices. The AP story presents a false limit on the choices involved. Certainly if people worldwide were suddenly told to quit raising animals for food and offered no other way to feed themselves, misery would ensue. But for the most part, the choices are not limited to "raise meat or starve."

Limited consequences. The AP article doesnt' mention other consequences not slowing global warming by all means possible, including the easy and healthy choice of eating less meat. More carbon emissions creates increased human aggression and ever more environmental refugees, already 20 million strong and growing rapidly, "more than those displaced by war and political repression combined" according to a U.N. study. We also hurt or kill other living beings and environmental systems.

So unless you are a subsistence farmer raising livestock on the thin, rocky pastures, go ahead and eat that carrot. Before you pick a burger over beans for lunch, check out these pictures showing the effects of rising sea levels on everything from the property value of beach houses to the displacement of 13 million people in Bangladesh to the very existence of the tiny island country of Tuvalu.

Apron survey comments / men who cook

2010-11-10T05:58:00.001-08:00

And the winner is — the apron with the hidden labels. There will be a Cook for Good logo label and a US flag label on the underside of the back behind the neck.

An apology and a defense. As I said in the newsletter today, I wish I'd mentioned up front that this apron is intended to be the first of a series, including a streamlined apron suitable for men and women. One comment took me to task for "reinforcing outdated gender roles." My sincere apologies for any appearance in that direction. It's a shame that so many women have been talked out of the joys and power of cooking from scratch, as documented brilliantly by Laura Shapiro in Something from the Oven. But that joy and power should be available to men as well. Nearly everybody can and should cook.

On the other hand, I was surprised by the survey response that said that selling the apron goes against the original intent of Cook for Good and that the money should just be spent on food. Cook for Good is for people of all income levels. Certainly you should feed your kids before buying an apron, but protecting your other clothes while you cook makes sense. And I always feel like I'm donning a superhero cape when I put on my apron — it's just fun. I hope some of you will choose to support my work by buying the ebook, taking a class, or eventually buying the apron. I don't get funding from any other source. Making a quality product in the U.S., especially with disabled workers, seems to be right in line with my "make a difference" goal.

But what do you think?

Market report: raspberries, green beans, pumpkins galore!

2010-10-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

I expected big crowds of folks out getting Halloween pumpkins, mums, and great fall produce today, but both the North Carolina State Farmers' Market and the Western Wake Market were fairly quiet.

I splurged today on four quarts of raspberries. They cost $7 a quart, $2 more than that the same stand about 18 hours earlier. You see it can pay to go to the market just before it closes to look for bargains on perishable items. The raspberry guy was cranky today, not topping off the quarts and scoffing at the idea of a discount for buying a flat ("It's $42 ... 6 times 7.") Oh well, everyone else was super friendly as usual.

Other great buys today were free-range eggs for $3 a dozen. One of those eggs is a lovely aqua color, but the photo doesn't show it. Ricky Barbour of East Wake Apiaries and Eggs forgot to bring quarters for change and had a lot of eggs from being at the State Fair intend of at the Western Wake Farmers' Market, so he's having a sale today.

Redbud Farm had gorgeous, certified organic Blue Lake green beans for $2.50 a pound. That's just 51 cents more a pound than the sprayed beans at the State Farmers' Market. Nancy Joyner said that green beans just love cool weather.

The small pie pumpkins were $2 each and the big cheese pumpkin was $5. They'll be decorations until Thanksgiving, then will go one by one into pies and other pumpkin dishes.

I also got apple cider, mustard greens, arugula, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, and the last of the tomatoes, which are cat-faced but still good.

Great food talks in the Triangle area

2010-10-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

We've got some great food authors speaking in the Triangle. Hope to see you at both these events!

Shirley Corriher is a biochemist, author and James Beard Foundation award winner. Her books CookWise and BakeWise show how scientific insights can be applied to traditional cooking and baking.
Where: at Meredith College, Kresge Auditorium
When: 6:30 p.m. on Monday, October 25, 2010.
Hosted by: Meredith College Master of Science in Nutrition and Nutrition Graduate Student Association
Get your free tickets here.

Jonathan Bloom will be doing a reading from his new book, American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half Its Food (and what we can do about it).
Where: Quail Ridge Books & Music
When: 7:30 p.m. on November 3

"Good start" funding for nutritional supplements

2010-10-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

What an excellent meeting yesterday with Patrick Brennan, legislative assistant for Senator Kay Hagan. We talked about the need for "good start" money for some people when they first receive nutritional supplement funding such as food stamps, SNAP, or WIC. This money would let them get started and make the best use of resources.

How? By providing a little extra money so they can cook at home, from scratch when possible. The money could be used to buy kitchen essentials, like salt, baking powder, and mustard. For some, it would be used to buy a pot, a kitchen knife, and enough plates and cutlery for everyone. Many people without traditional kitchens could cook if they had an electric rice cooker, crock pot, or skillet.

Patrick said he thought the idea was worthy of being considered as a potential addition to the next farm bill. I'll be sending him more info and keeping you posted here.

Meanwhile, let's thank Senator Hagan for her great work on the Tester-Hagan amendment to the current farm bill. This amendment would protect small, local food producers from regulations aimed at industrial-sized operations. Ask your senators to support this amendment with the Senate reconvenes.

What do you consider to be a kitchen essential? If you were cooking for weeks in a hotel room or on a picnic table at a campground, what would you need?

What have you done to make sure no kid's hungry?

2010-10-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

I've heard amazing stories at the Share Our Strength Conference of Leaders about folks raising money, awareness, and opportunities to help make sure people get enough healthy food to eat. What's your story? Do you work in a food bank, attend Taste of a Nation events, volunteer, or work for good laws? Do you work in the food system itself, as a farmer, grocer, chef, or nutritionist? Is making sure your own kids are well fed taking all your energy right now? Tell yours story in the comments.

Eden Pasta finally fixes its site

2010-09-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

Eden Organic Pasta has fixed its website. When it was still wrong last Friday afternoon, I penned a hand-written note to the company president. Who knows whether that shocking last measure had any effect, but I'm pleased to see that the serving size matches the nutritional information.

Eden Organic Pasta, Gulliver's Travels, and Knavery

2010-09-24T04:41:00.000-07:00

The Eden Organic Pasta website still has bad information about the serving size for much of its pasta, so I've written a note to Eden Foods president Michael Potter. Got a little shiver when I noticed that he shares a last name with Sue Potter, the marketing manager who has been my contact on this issue. I feel bad complaining to one family member about another, if that's the case, but I'd feel worse letting this slide.

Cathy H., a Registered Dietitian and Master of Public Health, wrote saying this is a big deal for diabetics as well as vegetarians and other protein counters:

Probably a more important issue with the mislabeled pasta is that the carbohydrate amounts would be off and if someone is counting carbs in order to match their insulin to the carbs eaten they would be off by 1/2 and with pasta that is a big deal.

When a company refuses to fix such as easily fixed problem (updating a few website graphics) after it has caught the public's eye, then what else is slipping through the cracks?

I've been reading Gulliver's Travels and was struck by this description of the laws in Lilliput:

They look upon Fraud as a greater Crime than Theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with Death: For they alledge, that Care and Vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a Man's Goods from Thieves, but Honesty hath no Fence against superior Cunning: And since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual Intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon Credit; where Fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no Law to punish it, the honest Dealer is always undone, and the Knave gets the Advantage.

I don't think the Knave Eden Organic is conniving, just permitting. Which honest Dealer is undone? In my case, it was Whole Foods. I quit buying their less expensive and nutritionally superior pasta in favor of Eden Organic's mislabeled product.

Timeline: Eden Organic response to bad pasta labels

2010-09-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to let this go, but this statement from Marketing Manager Sue Potter kept me up last night:

We began corrective measures immediately upon learning of our mistake in July.

I believe this is true: they planned to correct the boxes on the next print run. Two months later, they were working on the artwork for boxes that would be printed in a few more weeks.

But many corrective measures weren't in place months after they say they knew about the problem and some still aren't, including easy fixes like putting the right information on their website. Here's a time line (all dates 2010):

Unknown date: Eden Organic Pasta ships a variety of pasta with boxes showing the wrong serving size, making it seem like the pasta contained twice as much protein and other nutrients as it actually does.

July 13 — the date Eden Organic says they found out about the problem.

unknown date — a customer complains and accepts coupons as compensation.

early September — I search the web for a good version of high-protein, organic pasta. I'm delighted to find that some of Eden Organic's pasta has nearly the same protein level as Barilla Plus. I go to my local Whole Foods and buy every variety I can find for testing. EO's Kamut Vegetable Spirals are good enough that I decide to recommend them in my book and rework the shopping lists and cost calculations accordingly.

September 19 — During a test for cooking time with the vegetable spirals, I notice that there are far more serving than there should be in the box. I fill out the customer support online form describing the problem. My comment begins like this: "Problem with label on your Kamut Vegetable Spirals. Please help -- urgent request from author with book manuscript due very soon who wants to recommend your products." This is a Sunday, but I hope to hear something Monday morning.

September 20, 2:00 p.m. — I call Eden Organics, since I haven't received a response to my email. The Customer Support representative says that marketing knows about the problem and I'll have to talk with the Marketing Manager, who will call me back.

September 20, a while later — Sue Potter calls and tells me "everyone makes mistakes" and she's glad customers are willing to work with them. Work how?, I ask. After a fairly heated exchange, she asks what I would consider acceptable. I say, a refund and communications to the customers so no one else has this problem. I recommend she talk with others at EO and let me know what I should tell my readers.

September 21 — Sue emails me offering a 55-cent coupon for the product of my choice. (I'd paid $3.69 for the pasta with the bad label.) She says the website would be updated within the day. I respond, refusing the coupon, asking again for a refund, and pointing out that the website has incorrect information for several other products. I blog about the problem. At least one reader also contacts Eden Organic to complain.

September 22 — The website is corrected for Kamut Vegetable Spirals but not for other products in the same line with the same error. I draft a newsletter article about the problem.

September 22, 3:08 p.m. —Sue emails me with an apology and an offer to send me a refund for $4.00. She says that EO will put stickers on the boxes they have in inventory to show the correct serving sizes. I'm happy to hear about the stickers, so I update the newsletter and this blog.

September 23, 8:28 a.m. — The EO website is still has the wrong serving sizes for other pasta in the same line.

The persistence of bad information. Many people never read labels, but even those who do probably don't read them often. Once you find a product that works, why would you go back and re-read the fine print? Here's how a problem spreads when bad labels remain on the shelves and on the Internet:

Other families might do what I did, research pasta looking for the most nutritious choice, find an acceptable one, make it the family choice, and move on to other issues.

Other writers and menu planners might do what I did, use the Internet to find healthy food to recommend for their readers, clients, and patients. Once the decision and perhaps purchase order is made, why go back to look for label changes? Given how many colleges are offering green and vegetarian meal options, I wonder how many are serving Eden Organic Pasta without realizing there is a problem.

Other vegetarians might do what we didn't do, go back to eating meat when they felt hungry and weak after days of being short on protein. These people would now be at the meat counter, not in the pasta aisle scrutinizing high-protein pasta labels. Other families might quit having their Meatless Mondays for the same reason.

This is why I felt it was worthwhile pursuing this issue. It's not about getting a $4 refund after two emails and two phone calls. It's about making sure people have the correct information to eat healthy, organic food that is low on the food chain. Doing so is good for your health, the economy, and the environment.

What seems like just a "typo" to Eden Organics seems like a barrier to slowing global warming to me.

Eden Organic ships pasta with known bad label for months

2010-09-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

After last week's problem, now resolved, with Newman's Own Organics olive oil, I couldn't believe it when I found a much more important error on the label for Eden Organic Kamut Vegetable Spirals. Turns out that the label says the nutritional information is for a 1/2 cups serving, but it's really for a 1 cup serving.

My husband and I have been eating the serving size we use for all pasta, 3/4 cup, but were only getting 6 grams of protein instead of 12. Our daily allowance is 55 - 60 grams, so this is a 10% shortage ... enough to make a noticeable difference. That's why we've had the urge to snack on nuts after a meal made with this "high protein" pasta.

And I really couldn't believe it when Eden told me they've known about it for months, have not corrected their website, and refused to refund my money. They will be printing new boxes in a few weeks (no rush) and eventually the packaging will be accurate. Meanwhile, too bad about all those customers who are misinformed.

This means that I purchased at a premium price a pasta that claimed to be high in protein but in fact had half the protein per serving volume as labeled. I switched a few weeks ago from Whole Foods Organic Whole-Wheat Rotini to these spirals because I thought they had more protein, even though they cost more ($3.69 for 12 ounces compared to $1.79 for a pound).

Sue Potter, the EO marketing manager, says the company has known about this mislabeling since July 13th. They did not correct their website, which also had the incorrect information, until I asked them to yesterday. Sue wrote today:

Pasta box artwork is going through review and will be going to the printer in the next few weeks. Error will be corrected on the next printing. Please reply back to me an Eden food you would like to try (view all on the web site) and I will sent it to you at the Raleigh NC address along with retail 55¢ off coupons to use at retail stores.

I had requested a refund, but am being offered a coupon to buy more products with labels that I now doubt.

While it's true that the label also said a serving size is 55 grams, even manager Sue Potter said that few people would weigh rather than measure their pasta. When the purchasing decision is being made in the grocery store, the easiest comparison is cups to cups with other brands.

Why does this matter? As we discussed last week, food labels are required so customers can make informed purchases. Lots of people don't look at labels at all, but for some they are vitally important. In this case, I used the label to make sure my family was getting enough protein. Other families will use them to avoid allergic reactions or for other dietary or moral concerns. (No yogurt with gelatin for me, thanks.) In this economy, many families struggle with feeding their families on very limited budgets, so accurate nutritional information is essential.

And the way a company responds on a known issue gives you an idea of how they will respond on internal ones we can't guess at. I actually trust Newman's Own more now than I did before working with them about their label problem but will not be buying from Eden Organic again.

I'm very happy to have found this out before sending Wildly Affordable Organic to my publisher in a few weeks. My pasta recommendations will go back to being Barilla Plus or Whole Foods Organic Whole-Wheat Rotini. And I'm going to continue cooking as much of my food from scratch as possible to minimize the chances of being misled by a label.

Here's the contact page for Eden Organics if you'd like to let them know that you want them to provide truth in packaging. I'll be posting updates on this blog, such as any response I get from Whole Foods, where I bought the pasta.

[cross-posted on Daily Kos]

[update 1]Problem more widespread than thought Two days later, the Eden Organic site still lists 1/2 cup, 55 g serving sizes for Kamut & Buckwheat Rigatoni, Kamut & Quinoa Twisted Pairs, Kamut Ditalini, Kamut Elbows, and possibly more but I'm done checking. I notified them about this problem yesterday, but they should have fixed all the information on the website in July, when they say they first found out about the misleading labels.

I refused their offer of a 55-cent refund (!), saying:

[update 2] Problem partially addressed When I wrote to Eden Organic yesterday telling them a bout the additional problems on their website and refusing their offer of a 55 cent coupon (!) instead of a refund, I said:

I'm disappointed by this response. I'd asked for at least a refund for the mislabeled product I purchased. I would also expect you to notify the stores and customers of the problem. While it would be very expensive to recall the boxes, you could ask merchants to display a sticker with the correction. There are no doubt other ways of handling a problem like this, but misleading customers for months doesn't seem to be a good choice.

This "typo" caused me to serve several inadequate meals to my family. Fortunately, I have the luxury of having other food in the house, so when we were still hungry after dinner, we could have a snack, but not everyone can. This typo could cause vegetarians and vegans who are unwittingly 10% deficient in their daily protein allowance to return to meat....

FYI, here's how Newman's Own Organics handled a much smaller problem last week.

[update 3] — EO will relabel boxes, send refund
Was it the image of pork-chop eating vegetarians that changed their minds? A call from Whole Foods or the Vegetarian Times? We'll never know, but we've got progress. Sue Potter just wrote, saying:

We are sending a cash refund, your preference over product and coupons. A check for $4.00 will be mailed .... We sincerely apologize for our error, and troubling you with it.
New artwork is being dispatched to the printer, and current inventory is being re-labeled/stickered with the corrected common measure.
We began corrective measures immediately upon learning of our mistake in July.

The website is still wrong and there are mislabeled boxes in the store, but some action has been taken. The bad information will be out of the system more quickly now. Unlike Newman's Own, Eden hasn't pulled mislabeled products off the shelves or said what they will do for other customers who didn't get what they expected. But if you feel entitled to a refund too, contact Eden Organic Pasta.

Market report: old apples, recycling egg cartons

2010-09-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Brought home some terrific apples and eggs today from the Western Wake Farmers Market and talked briefly with the farmers who grew the trees and raised the chickens.

Stephen Godwin of Godwin Farm & Orchard inherited his farm from his grandfather. He grows about 15 varieties, although it's hard to tell exactly. His grandfather had tried to keep track, but didn't keep perfect records of every tree replaced over decades. Stephen does know that many of the trees are older varieties, including Rocksborough Russet, which was grown in the 1600s in Rocksborough Massachusetts. (Rocksborough is now known as Roxbury, as are the apples.)

In the picture above, you can see the three varieties I bought: big Dixie Reds, gray-capped Black Twigs, and Old-Fashioned Winesaps. He had about a dozen varieties to choose from with a variety of sweetness levels and sizes. I'm trying apple sauce recipes this week, so I was glad to find those Dixie Reds.

Ricky Barbour of East Wake Apiaries and Eggs gets big eggs from his chickens. They must like foraging in the acre of pasture that they have constant free access to.

Ricky said that this year, he'd bought hens that were nearly ready to start laying eggs, but this year he'll be buying day-old chicks and raising them himself. The more mature birds had had their beaks clipped, which made it hard for them to forage. He hadn't thought about it when he bought them, but he won't be doing that again:

I had two flocks, with the ones with clipped beaks in a separate yard. They ate twice as much food as the other hens because they couldn't forage as well. They're doing better now that their beaks have started to grow back.

The Western Wake Farmers' Market website says his hens are fed "a locally produced laying mash and lots of veggies."

Bring your clean egg cartons to the market for recycling, Ricky said. New cartons can cost nearly 50 cents each if you have to pay shipping. Just make sure the cartons are clean. Some people crack eggs and then put the shells temporarily in the cartons. He just has to throw those out. Recycling egg cartons helps farmers keep their prices down.

Other market finds. Gorgeous green beans, pepper, garlic, and cherry tomatoes from Redbud Farm. End-of-season tomatoes from Ben's Produce. I also spotted watermelons, eggplant, basil, arugula, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, and grapes.

Newman's responds. Problem resolved.

2010-09-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

[update] Once Newman's Own Organics really understood the problem, they called and emailed me to understand the situation and make it right. The last call was from Product Assistant Dory Mansfield, who gave me this background. Turns out that Newman's had known about this problem months ago but thought it was solved. It seems that the bad labels went nearly exclusively to Harris Teeter. First Newman's recalled the mislabeled oil from the warehouses. Then they asked HT to pull the oil from the store shelves. Since HT only carries the small bottles, customers couldn't get charged for the big bottles. If one slipped through, the UPC code would not be recognized at the cash register and any problem could be caught. Some smaller stores may have also gotten the mislabeled bottles and of course someone counting on getting 50 tablespoons out of that bottle would be disappointed, but the problem was largely contained.

Unfortunately, it seems that at my HT store and maybe elsewhere, not all the bottles were returned and someone "fixed" the UPC database so it recognized the code for the bigger bottle.

Newman's has contacted HT and asked its own brokers to recheck for mislabeled bottles.

My respect for Newman's Own has actually grown with this incident. They went the extra mile to make sure that their customers were treated fairly. Dory said "We take these things very seriously" and their actions show this to be true.

[original post] I just got this response from Newman's. I added the bolding:

We have reached out to our manufacturing plant and are investigating your concern.

We would like to send you either a replacement bottle of the 25.3oz size, or some of our other products (cookies, pretzels, popcorn, candy).

Should we hear from any other customers we will, of course, be offering the same type of replacement.

Thank you for making us aware of your experience. We appreciate hearing from our customers.

What to do if you think you paid for big and got small.
Don't contact Newman's if you don't have a mislabeled bottle. But if you do and you think you were overcharged, then let them make it right. Please contact their customer service department. Send them the UPC code (bar code) and the code printed on the bottle over the back label. And tell them where you bought the oil.

HT pulls mislabeled oil but Newman's Own stays mum. Attorney General notified.

2010-09-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

I'm surprised and disappointed by the lack of response from Newman's Own Organics to my complaint about the label and price for the big bottle of olive oil being on the small bottle. If it was a one-time error involving "only" a few thousand bottles that they chose to handle responsibly, then why not let me know? But I have not gotten a response to my follow-up emails or phone call.

A wall of silence when a manufacturer is found mispresenting a product is not acceptable. While this problem is trivial compared to the egg debacle, it could mean that thousands of customers paid $15 for a $10 bottle of olive oil and that mislabeled bottles are still on the shelves.

And worse, it weakens the food labeling laws. The point is not to just have a random label on the product. It's to have a label that accurately informs the customer about the contents.

Grocery chain Harris Teeter is doing the right thing, though. I bought my bottle at Harris Teeter in Cameron Village. The manager (Steve) pulled the mislabeled bottles off the shelves when I notified him of the problem and has contacted HT corporate quality assurance. In a follow-up call, Steve assured me that the mislabeled bottles are no longer on the shelves at Harris Teeter.

So I've filed a complaint with the North Carolina Attorney General's office. The complaint form asked me what I'd consider to be a fair resolution. Here's my response:

Newman's Own should contact the stores that might have mislabeled bottles and make sure that customers are not being overcharged or misinformed. They should offer a 50%-off coupon to people who may have been overcharged. I would like to hear their response. A wall of silence in a food-related problem is unacceptable.

Do bad labels on Newman's olive oil mean you're paying too much?

2010-09-15T14:36:00.001-07:00

Did you pay 50% more than you should have for Newman's Own Organics Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil? You might have if you bought a 16.9 ounce bottle with the wrong label on the back: one that says it contains 50 servings.

While checking my calculations for my grocery-price spreadsheet yesterday, I noticed something very odd. Newman's Own Organics claimed to have 50 tablespoon-sized serving of olive oil in its 16.9 fl oz bottle while Whole Foods only claimed 33. Google said that Whole Foods had the math right.

I contacted Newman's Own Organics. Peggy Westenhofer, the Director of Customer Relations, wrote:

The following information in blue is from our Product Development Manager-
Our 16.9oz bottle actually states that there are about 34 servings per container.
Our 25.3oz bottle states that there are about 50 servings per container.

A serving for either size is 1 tablespoon or 15ml.

So it seems that the label with the serving size and the UPC code for a big bottle had been put on the small bottle by mistake. Since the UPC code is for the bigger bottle, it's likely that in some stores people are paying for the big bottle but getting the small one. My husband, who is a manufacturing engineer, says that it's possible that thousands of bottles were mislabeled.

Today, I checked the labels at three stores in Raleigh. Harris Teeter had Newman's Own Organics olive oil with bad labels on the shelves. The manager pulled the oil after I pointed out the problem. Harris Teeter was charging a competitive price despite the label problem, but I remember my husband being astonished by the price when he bought the bottle that kicked off this investigation. Wish I had that receipt! The labels at Whole Foods and Fresh Market were correct.

Check your label if you have this oil. If you've got a label mismatch, please leave your city and the store where you bought it in the comments.

I'll post updates here on the Cook for Good blog. I've sent this information to Peggy Westenhofer at Newmans, saying:

I respect your company's philosophy and enjoy many of your products. I can't imagine that this is anything but a mistake. But it is a mistake that may well have cost your customers a lot of money. Will you offer coupons to people who have a bottle with a certain batch number? Contact the stores to make sure that no one else will be overcharged?

Market report and sauce to hide flaws

2010-09-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Perfect day today at the Durham Farmers' Market. Cool, slightly overcast, and not crazy crowded. It's a perfect time to make stews and chili with ripe, colorful peppers. Freeze some to enjoy when peppers cost three times as much in the winter and are tired from a long journey. Hot-weather crops such as okra, basil, and cucumbers mingle with cool season favorites such as argula and kale. Peaches mix with apples and pears.Pine Knot Farm has the best green beans of the season: not a spot on them even though they are certified organic. With whole-wheat flour and a dozen eggs, I'm nearly set for a week of delicious eating.

Do you mean physical sauce or metaphorical sauce? That's what I asked Matt Clayton at the Wild Scallions Farm booth this morning. He was describing the benefit dinner the farm had thrown to support Durham Central Park: sixteen people in a tiny house. He said it all worked out well, but they'd learned a lot. "We didn't have the right kind of sauce to cover up the rough edges and any flaws." Having thrown many parties too large for my house, I was intrigued. What kind of sauce would do this? How could I get some, preferably a lot of it? Would it work for flaws and rough edges in general?

Turns out Matt meant enchilada sauce, which would have masked the effects of stacking the enchiladas as part of cooking for more people than usual. This year was fun; next year will go more smoothly. I hope I can make it to their next event. And I'm looking forward to turning some of his gorgeous peppers into flaw-covering sauce this afternoon.

Market report: the lull between seasons

2010-09-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

The heat of August makes the produce, chickens, and even the farmers a little tired and unproductive. I overheard two of my favorite farmers at the Western Wake Farmers Market commiserating about hand watering and seedlings that didn't go the distance. Even though the crowds were thinner at the market today with so many people at the beach, some farmers were out of eggs by 9:00. Organic tomatoes were scarce.

On the other hand, winter squashes looked good: bigger and more mature than last week. Arugula is showing up and green beans, which are often hard to find, were plentiful and looked good. Just because it's not as crazy bountiful as May or July doesn't mean there's not plenty of fresh choices available.

I splurged on some fresh shiitake mushrooms. This weekend, I'm going to try making potstickers with shiitakes, butternut squash, cabbage, garlic, and onions. Got the idea of using winter squash instead of shrimp from Isa Moskowitz in her Vegan with a Vengeance, where she uses squash in spring rolls.

Sharpen and repair to save money on kitchen equipment

2010-09-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Sharpen. A few weeks ago, I took my kitchen knives in to be sharpened by the pros at A Southern Season. What a difference! I'm retesting and timing the recipes for my upcoming book, Wildly Affordable Organic, so I know that I'm saving minutes with chop-heavy recipes like Red Bean Chili. My hands are less tired after a big cooking session too. Sharpening three knives cost a little over $12. They are literally as sharp as new. But even with steep online discounts, a new set of knives would have cost about $200. My go-to knives are J.A. Henckels Twin Four Stars: the 3" paring knife and the 6" and 8" chef's knives. Savings: $188.

Repair. I resurrected my bread machine by getting a new paddle for it on eBay. I found the paddle plus a backup gasket for $16. The Zojirushi I've been admiring in the King Arthur Flour catalog costs $239 plus shipping. I just use the bread machine for bread and pizza dough that requires kneading, so my old Dak Auto-Bakery will keep doing the job just fine. (Don't have a bread machine? Use my Whisk Bread recipes to make great bread and pizza dough without kneading or a machine.) Savings: $223.

Put eBay to work. Now I'm on a repair tear. I spent my collected Sears Rewards on a new Cuisinart food processor the other day, but took it back after watching the instructional video. My 20-year-old Braun Multipractic 280 machine has more options and seems easier to use! My small grating blade came apart after years of making pimento cheese and the housing for the steel blade is beginning to crack, but other than that, it works like a champ. Parts are hard to find, but eBay is now sending me a note. I'm sure I'll be able to replace those for less than the $161 for the new machine. Savings: over $100.

What are your techniques for getting the best value out of your kitchen equipment?

Music & samples at the market

2010-08-21T08:12:00.000-07:00

Shopping at farmers' markets has upped my happiness quotient in so many ways. Take today's visit to the Western Wake Farmers' Market. I stopped by to chat with market manager Kim Hunter and try her delicious Summer Ginger Quinoa recipe. Many folks stopped by the Redbud Organic Farm booth to congratulate Clay and Nancy on the story in the local paper: Two Ministers on Three Heavenly Acres.

And then, at the end of the row of white tents, I saw a singer and guitarist: Jo Gore and The Alternative. What terrific jazz delivery, rich emotion, and vivid lyrics. I moved nearer into the shade, listening to original songs and a few well-chosen covers. I was smitten enough to buy their CD, from which I learned that guitarist Bo Lankenau writes the music and lyrics. He looks a little like Sting and sounds a little like Leo Kotke, a winning combination. Checking out the website, I see that the full Alternative includes more musicians and that Jo has a glamorous side that she must have thought was too much for the early morning crowd. She seemed beautiful but shy in black knit leggings and top, but she knows what to do with a red dress. Can hardly wait to see a full live show.

What was good at the market today? Figs, melons, peaches, basil, potatoes, eggplant, and even the rare green beans. Tomatoes, eggs, and summer squash were scarce because of the heat. The first winter squash are starting to show up.

Friends, figs, and a new band! Sunshine and samples! Going to the farmers' market can be miles more fun than shopping under the fluorescents at Big Box Mart.

Math Lessons for Locavores?!? Here's a tutorial.

2010-08-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Stephen Budiansky writes a op-ed piece in today's New York Times in which he offers Math Lessons for Locavores. The self-styled Liberal Curmudgeon says takes locavores to task for being "self-indulgent — and self-defeating." He says, "The statistics brandished by local-food advocates to support such doctrinaire assertions are always selective, usually misleading and often bogus." And then he proceeds to do the same thing himself. He's even harsher on his blog about the piece, saying that:

The problem is the way the food gurus have turned the whole "locavore" thing into one of those doctrinaire, authoritarian, and joyless religions that all too often make environmentalists their own worst enemies.

Oh, PUH-LEEZE! I'm a flexitarian who is taking stand-up comedy classes. The folks I meet at farmers' markets and sustainability events are full of humor and flexibility, not to mention great food.

But let's look at the sources for his math lessons. Budiansky cites U of M's Center for Sustainable Systems, but their food-system factsheet on the page he links to urges readers to "Eat Locally" and cites a Leopold Center study showing that "increasing Iowa's consumption of regionally grown fresh produce by only 10% would save over 300,000 gallons in transportation fuel a year."

Old, Questionable Source on Use of Food Energy. Budiansky uses a chart which I have seen many times in anti-locavore works. It says that 31.7% of the food energy is used in household storage and preparation. Even if that is true, it's probably higher in my house, since when I buy locally from a farmer, I reduce or eliminate other energy uses in the chart: 6.6% for commercial food service, 6.6% for packaging material, 16.4% for the processing industry, and even 3.7% for food retail, since the market stand doesn't have air conditioning, coolers, freezers, or even electric lights. Many farmers markets don't even have dedicated building or parking lots. Check out the source document for this chart (see appendix B), you'll see that much of the data is at least 15 years old, before the efficiencies Budiansky himself mentions. The researchers make odd assumptions. The household preparation figure is high because it includes all the hot water used in household sinks. (Don't these people use the sinks in their bathrooms?) The packaging figure is low, since it includes only packaging that could be "specifically attributable to food packaging," but not corrugated boxes and plastic wraps.

Locavores also care about the overall productivity of farms. Dr. Tim LaSalle was the keynote speaker at last year's Sustainable Agriculture conference, run by the Carolina Farm Stewardship. Read his report on The Organic Green Revolution to see how organic regenerative farming systems will "sustain and improve the health of our world population, our soil, and our environment."

Eating mostly locally grown, seasonal food that is low on the food chain can lessen your energy use. It also helps support local farms. I want to live in a country full of local farmers, who take care of the land and help supply food to their communities. They also tend to hire local accountants, doctors, and mechanics, helping support non-farm jobs in their communities. As Wendell Berry writes in Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food,

The size of landholdings is likewise a political fact. In any given region there is a farm size that is democratic, and a farm size that is plutocratic or totalitarian. The size of landholdings is likewise a political fact. In any given region there is a farm size that is democratic, and a farm size that is plutocratic or totalitarian.

Newsletter discussion: average meal costs lowest ever, plus 2/3rds local.

2010-08-12T09:09:00.001-07:00

What did you think about today's newsletter? I'm thrilled that the average thrifty meal is down to 91 cents ... and that I was able to go 2/3rds local AND green for less than the food-stamp allowance. See the Save Money page for details. This week's recipe is Super-Local Pimento Cheese.

NYT: At Vegans’ Weddings, Beef or Tofu?

2010-08-08T06:11:00.000-07:00

Some headlines seem ripped from the pages of The Onion, yet show up in the New York Times. Take At Vegans’ Weddings, Beef or Tofu?

Tofu, of course, you think. Or Harvest Lasagna. Or asparagus quiche. Or a selection of many delicious and festive options, plus cake.

But I was surprised both to read that Chelsea Clinton is a vegetarian and that she served short ribs at her wedding. Short RIBS, such a vividly meaty-meat with all those bones and with echoes back to Eve. Why not pork barbeque? Her groom is Jewish, but evidently the morality of dining choices was not on the menu.

For years, I've had holiday dinner parties, with 50 or so guests, that had all vegetarian food. Many guests never noticed, exclaiming with surprise years into our acquaintance when they realize I don't buy or cook meat. Most people focus on the good food that's there, not what's missing.

I've been spared boorish guests like the article's Mr. Moore, who not only snuck out for chicken parm but brought it back to the wedding! He says, "I know it’s your day, but it’s not all about you. Why have a wedding if you’re going to be like that? Just print a bumper sticker.” By "be like that," does he mean honor the bridal couple's sense of morality? Isn't that what a wedding is about? Of course they should consider the comforts and pleasures of their guests, including not sneering at Aunt Ida's lizard pumps, but wedding guests will not go into meat withdrawal or get kwashiorkor in an afternoon.

What do you think? Should vegans serve honey and dairy? Vegetarians serve meat? Baptists and tea-totalers serve champagne? Various religious serve their versions of unclean food, be it meat, seafood, pork, or something not kosher or halal? Should anyone serve veal or foie gras? Bring your mistress up the aisle too, lest you hurt her feelings?

Where do you draw the line, if there is one?

Eat Local July: 68%, 80%, or 82% local!

2010-08-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

Here's the tally: my Taster and I spent way over half our food dollars on local products, mostly directly with the farmers who grew the food. We spent $421 on groceries, with the source breakdown shown in the chart. If you don't include the restaurant meals, it's the classic 80/20 split. If you count eating at all local restaurants as being local, then we're up to 82% local.

This was an unusually expensive and indulgent month by Cook for Good standards:

Performances. I was taking an improv class in Carrboro, so my Taster and I dined twice at the new and fabulous Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe, once for the "homework" of seeing an improv show and once for my class performance.

Power lunch. Christine Ramsey introduced me to Melissa Blaisdell at my long-time favorite, the Neomonde Cafe, where we talked about social networking, video, and finding new uses for great old fabric.

Politics. I met our new city councilor, Bonner Gaylord, for coffee ~~in my conference room~~ at the Cafe Carolina to talk about our Citizens' Advisory Council.

Pah-tay! For the Fourth of July, we went wild and got TWO four-packs of Boylan natural soda (yumm, black cherry!) and I bought a loaf of bread at the Farmers' Market.

People-power. Some of the local choices cost more than our usual choices, especially the fresh beans and peas but also cheese, peanut butter, and pecans. Smaller batches, more hand labor.

We learned that it's drop-dead easy to spend 10% of your existing food dollars locally in a great agriculture state like North Carolina. Not so easy for folks in the mountainous or desolate areas we drove through on the Coast-to-Coast Tour. But good choices here are:

In-season produce. Choose from a huge range of organic, sustainable, and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables at competitive prices.

Local free-range eggs and RBGH-free milk.

Local, bulk honey, now at Whole Foods for only $3.99 a pound. I still love honey from Little Flying Cows and better yet, from my neighbor Ziya's hives, but this is very affordable way to get local honey.

But to it can be hard to be local and organic or sustainably grown. Super-delicious, Super-Sharp Ashe County Cheddar Cheese costs the same as my usual organic cheddar from elsewhere, but it's not described as RBGH-free. The RBGH-free butter was too salty and the peanut butter came from conventionally grown peanuts. Brinkley Farms' whole-wheat flour is very fresh and flavorful, but it's not organic. (I'm waiting to hear where it is on the green spectrum.)

And in some categories, it's hard to be local at all. I did find regional, organic sugar, but no local oil, baking soda or powder, tea, dried beans, rice, or couscous. I am growing a hedge of tea plants (camellia sinensis), so soon I'll have very local tea. And I'm thrilled to see that Hmong farmers are growing rice near Hickory, even if they don't yet grow enough to sell.

Carrboro Market: variety w/ international feel

2010-07-31T08:46:00.000-07:00

During my Eat Local July challenge, I've gone to a different market every week to see what's available. The Carrboro Farmers' Market, just west of Chapel Hill, NC, will delight anyone looking for a foodie market, while still having enough stalls with more conventional and even old-timey produce and prices to keep your budget from screaming out of control. I got all the wonderful produce you see below for $27.25, including a dozen free-range eggs not pictured.

What makes the Carrboro Farmers' Market stand out?

Medicinal herbs heaped around a well-worn copy of The Green Pharmacy, with samples of purslane ("high in Omega 3!"). The purslane was delicious. I would have bought a bag, but the vendor had stepped away.

Indian food: pour yourself a mango lassi at one booth, then stop by Chicken Bridge Bakery for their popular green-garlic naan.

Huge variety, with good labeling. Want to try unusual varieties of peppers, potatoes, squash, tomatoes, or nearly anything else in season? Having trouble finding local whole-wheat flour, edamame, honey, and cheese too, all at one market? Come to Carrboro.

I indulged in a pint of figs and a piece of the naan that everyone was asking for. This post-market snack cost about $1.50, less than the cost of a cup of designer coffee, more satisfying, and better for you too.

Southern Biscuit Flour makes fluffy blueberry muffins

2010-07-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a breakfast this sweet and fluffy since I found out that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are legally but not actually devoid of trans fats.

My friend Karen introduced me to her (and now my) version of the Jordan Marsh Blueberry Muffins recipe when I rented a room from her during graduate school. There are lots of variations on the web, but we use 1 1/4 cup of sugar, 2 1/2 cups of blueberries, and no vanilla.

For this batch made during Eat Local July, I used Southern Biscuit Flour from Newton, NC. This all-purpose flour has just 3 grams of protein per quarter cup, instead of 4 grams like the flours I usually use 50/50 in this recipe: Whole Foods all-purpose and King Arthur white whole-wheat. Less protein means less gluten means lighter baked goods.

What's local in this breakfast? Flour, blueberries, milk, eggs, peanut butter, plus cantaloupe

What's not? butter (alas!), sugar, baking powder, salt, plus tea

Peak summer season at farmers' market today

2010-07-24T08:31:00.000-07:00

What a bounty at the markets today! I started at Western Wake Farmers' Market, where I got organic and spray free tomatoes, peppers, garlic, bitter gourd, green beans, eggs, basil, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and blueberries.

Next stop: State Farmers' Market. Roberts' Family Farm was out of Jackson Dairy Farms' butter, which was the main reason I'd come to the market. But I got an amazing basket of Contender peaches: 24 pounds for $15 for peaches in top condition. I spent my last cash at Wise Family Farms on a pint of pink-eye peas, a half-pint of six-week peas, and 3 onions. I also saw blueberries selling for $15 a flat (18 pints) ... and I think they were spray free.

Putting up peaches. This weekend, I'll make peach ice cream and put up peach ice-cream base for the winter. I was going to make blueberry pie, but will wait until I can get local butter.

Total cost & what stays local. I spent $74.75 total at both markets today, but about $20 worth of that will be going into the freezer for the winter. The usually ratio for how much of your money stays in your community when you shop locally is 42%, compared to 13% if you shop at a chain store or 0% when you shop online. But I bet this is much closer to 100%, since I bought directly from the farmers. Does anybody know of any studies about this?

Tomatoes & garlic from Barbara, chocolate cake with basil frosting

2010-07-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

Some lunches really make me glad to be alive. Today's lunch, for example. My friend Barbara brought us a wonderful selection of tomatoes she's growing in her garden just a few blocks away, including the adorable tiny tomatoes and juicy red slicer in the picture below. She also brought some garlic she'd grown, "sharper this year than last." You can't see it, but one spicy clove makes all the difference in those fresh black-eyed peas. Thank, Barbara! While the peas boiled, I sauteed a onion with Barbara's garlic, then added a sliced zucchini. All 100% local, until I added tahini (the new bacon) and salt.

The Irish soda bread contains local milk and flours, both whole wheat and all purpose. I topped it with slices of local Ashe County pepper jack cheese before toasting.

What's not local? A splash of olive oil, a spoonful of tahini for the black-eyed peas, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and vinegar.

Even chocolate cake can be mostly local! This one has local all-purpose flour, eggs, milk, butter, and basil for the center frosting layer. The sugar is the regional Florida Crystals organic sugar, which has a very faint but pleasant caramel taste.

What's not local in the cake? Cocoa, cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, coffee, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

I'll do the math again for the newsletter on Wednesday, but I suspect that even with indulgences like chocolate cake, we'll do even better than last week's 75% local.

Finding key ingredients for local week 3

2010-07-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

Had a great time at the State Farmers' Market in Raleigh yesterday. It was Peach Day, so Lumpy's Ice Cream was there giving out free samples of delicious peach ice cream. I also found two hard-to-get items: butter and peanut butter.

Butter
The tub of salted butter comes from Jackson Dairy Farm in Dunn, available at the Roberts Family Farm stand in the Market Shoppes building. Jackson Dairy Farm follows the balanced philosophy I love to see in modern, sustainable farms. Their website describes how they use the best of the old and the new:

Jackson's Dairy is a modern, state of the art production facility. However, due to our belief in the all natural concept, we choose not to use hormones on our dairy cattle or herbicides on the crops that we feed them. We employ more natural production methods.

Our label stating milk from non rBST treated cows is the first and only label registered with the NCDA and DEHNR making this claim. In the event sickness or injury should occur and medication is recommended by a trained veterinarian, the cow is isolated from the rest of the herd and milk is discarded twice as long as the FDA recommended discard time to be sure you have the purest product available. Unlike most of the competition, all milk produced for PURE FRESH dairy products is from cows owned, fed, cared for and milked daily on the Jackson family farm.

The Roberts Family Farm stand also carries excellent, hormone-free Ashe County Cheese. I got another block of their Super Sharp Cheddar to see how local I can take my pimento-cheese recipe.

Peanut Butter
I got the only tub of plain peanut butter at The Berry Patch stand, also in the Market Shoppes building. They also had a tub or two of hot peanut butter and honey-roasted peanut butter, a relative bonanza after being out of stock all last week. The peanut butter is tasty, but I don't know anything about the way the peanuts were raised. It's certainly easier to spread than the slightly bitter and sandy peanut butter I made last week. I left the skins on the peanuts, which must have soaked up the oils. On the other hand, peanut skins have high levels of anti-oxidants, according to NCSU researcher Wanida Lewis.

Lessons So Far
In two weeks, I've been able to find local sources for the vast majority of ingredients. Cooking from scratch lets me use these ingredients to make meals that largely from my local food shed.

Pro: going local just takes the desire and some initial label checking. Once you've found a good local source, you don't have to check every time.

Con: supplies can be limited. And while some local ingredients meet my "green" menu criteria, like the milk and cheese in this post, other ingredients either don't or don't say, like the peanut butter.

All the more reason to support whatever sustainable practices you can find in your community, to help encourage producers and vendors to provide a stable stock at good prices.

75% local, with the help of Blueberry Clafoutis

2010-07-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

My Taster and I are taking the Cook for Good plan local in July to see what percentage of our food dollars are spent locally, without going to the extremes that Barbara Kingsolver described so delightfully in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. So far, I've spent $294 on food we intend to eat this month, with 84% of that on local ingredients. If you add the costs of eating at two local restaurants, we've spent $331, with 75% on local ingredients. So surely it's possible for most people to go 10% Local!

I'd hoped to go over 50%, but we've done much better, even though the total includes some indulgences. Our local gourmet superstore, A Southern Season, is having its summer sale now, so the total includes a splurge on their chocolate-dipped cherries.

And we enjoyed a meal for one person at the Neomonde and meals for two at Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe. Fun and tasty, but also a reminder that cooking at home saves so much. Three modest restaurant meals account for 11% of our expenses.

I made the featured recipe this week, Blueberry Clafoutis, with nearly all local ingredients.

The fantastic eggs and blueberries from Little Tree Farm, where every hand-picked berry is perfectly ripe, unlike berries that have been mechanically stripped from the bushes. I replaced the lemon zest with lemon-balm leaves from my garden. The sugar is the regional and organic Florida Gold, available at Whole Foods and some local groceries. The flour is all-purpose Southern Biscuit Flour from Newton, North Carolina. Alas, that flour is bleached, so I'm still looking for local source of unbleached all-purpose flour. With milk from May View Farms, only the salt and butter came from far away. In your area, you may have a different mix of what is local and what isn't, but you can see how easy it is to make a recipe largely local.

Simple Summer Delight: Toasted Tomato & Cheese Sandwich

2010-07-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just want something fast and tasty for lunch. One of my favorites this time of year is a toasted tomato and cheese sandwich on homemade, 100% whole-wheat bread.

The trick is to spread mustard on the bread, then top one slice with tomatoes and the other with cheese. Toast in a toaster oven, then flip the cheese side over on top of the tomato side. Yummm ... crisp bread, melted cheese, and hot tomato! This bread is from a new recipe and turned out a little short, so I'm having a sandwich and a half.

What's local: the Ashe County pepper-jack cheese, tomato, whole-wheat flour, and honey in the sandwich, plus arugula for the salad with garlic in the dressing. The cheese comes from the Roberts Family Farm stand at the State Farmers' Market in Raleigh, where they also sell an amazing extra-sharp cheddar. Don't be put off by the cheeses in the display counter, which seem to have been there for a long time. Just ask for what you want and you'll be offered a good-looking block from the cooler.

What's not local: yeast, salt, butter, molasses, mustard, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper.

Starting the day right with a healthy, local breakfast

2010-07-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

It took me about 15 minutes to make breakfast this morning and it will take my Taster about 5 minutes to do the dishes. Seems like a big time investment in this rushed world. But while cutting up the pepper and onion for the eggs, I wondered how many parents will do "anything" for their kids, but not make them a breakfast that will keep them awake in school. Or how many adults doze at work, or spend money on diet shakes, medicine, and doctors, when the answer may lie simply in cooking a few minute a day.

What's local on that plate: eggs, yellow pepper, onion, basil, stone-ground corn meal, asiago cheese, tomato. I forgot to put in the garlic, so it wound up in the stoup.

What's not local: olive oil, salt, pepper.

Excellent pizza with fresh mozz & asiago

2010-07-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

Easy and delicious, that's how my eat-local experiment is going. Today for lunch, I made one of the best and most local pizzas I've ever had, with most of the ingredients from the Durham Farmers' Market. Here's how:

Made Speedy Grilled Pizza dough, replacing the cup of white whole-wheat flour with Brinkley Farms' whole-wheat flour, which is very fresh and flavorful. For the initial kneading of the dough, I put it in the food processor which still had traces of pesto in it.

Chopped up a clove of crisp, juicy garlic from Cornucopia Farm and heated it with a splash of olive oil. Rolled out the dough and topped it with the garlic olive oil and kosher salt. Baked it at 500 degrees until nearly done. (The grill ran out of gas last night, alas!)

Topped the pizza with chopped ripe tomato from Maple Spring Gardens and two cheeses from the Chapel Hill Creamery: an aged asiago and fresh mozzarella. Baked that until the cheese melted, then garnished with fresh basil ribbons, also from Maple Springs Gardens.

The crust was as thin and crispy as any I've made, with the pesto and whole wheat adding flavor. The light yet complex toppings celebrated summer. See Cook for Good Year-Round for the Speedy Grilled Pizza dough.

What wasn't local? 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, olive oil, salt, and yeast. And even the olive oil was my local gourmet store's house brand: Southern Season's Signature olive oil, which is 40% off this month. I don't count that as local, but it sure is good timing during pesto season.

Eat local in July: where's the butter?

2010-07-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

I have to confess, when I said lunch was 100% local, I stretched the "local" a bit. I used Organic Valley butter, which has several NC dairy farms as members, but evidently makes its butter all from Wisconsin milk. I had planned to get Maple View Farm butter at the NC State Farmers' Market that afternoon. But alas, my dairy supplier there had quit carrying butter. No local butter at another health-food store or at Whole Foods, although Whole Foods did have the Maple View milk.

So let's take a moment to praise grocery stores, middlemen, and middlewomen. I prefer to buy direct from the farmer when I can, but I love the convenience and wide selection of a real grocery or co-op. These stores allow farmers to focus on farming, not running a store. Groceries also make shopping super convenient: with one place to go and one financial transaction, you can be done for the week. Many grocery stores are open early and late, even 24/7, which lets people who work on market days still buy local food.

Whole Foods improved its labeling of sources a few years ago, now differentiating between local, regional, U.S., and other. The NC grocery chain Harris Teeter has finally followed Whole Foods' lead by emphasizing local and regional food. My HT put a farm-stand display at the front of its produce section, heaped with local foods. They both still carry California melons when NC melons are abundant, but they are moving in the right direction.

I'm having trouble getting local peanut butter, too, but that's a topic for another post.

Eat Local in July: Day 1

2010-07-01T09:42:00.000-07:00

This month, I'm going to see how local I can go using the basic Cook for Good approach with a few changes and new recipes. In a March newsletter, I wrote that going 10%, 20%, and even 30% local seems low to me and that 44% could easily be local in the summer, even without using local butter or cheese. When you cook from scratch, part of nearly every dish can be local.

Can I make it to 44% local? More? Follow the daily reports on my blog, which starts today with a nearly 100% local breakfast. It should be easy to have all my produce, flour, and dairy come from NC. If you know where I can get local pantry items (peanut butter, oil, rice, baking powder, pasta, rice, tea, etc.), please drop me an email.

So far, it's going great. Breakfast was all local except for a family-sized bag of tea: scrambled eggs with peppers, onions, and basil, skillet potatoes, and melon. Lunch was 100% local: Summering Succotash, tomato, blueberries, and water. All so delicious!

Protein costs, with an update

2010-06-23T11:05:00.000-07:00

Protein costs. When I priced various forms of protein (based on the USDA's definition of the usable protein per amount priced), here's what I found:

Costs less than 2 cents per gram of protein: white and whole-wheat flour, dried beans, tuna, and peanut butter

Costs less than 3 cents: brand-name tuna, oatmeal, high-protein pasta, frozen whiting (fish), large eggs, fryer chicken, brown rice, organic beans, 2% milk (gallon)

Costs less than 4 cents: higher-end tuna, pork roast, powdered skim milk, chicken-leg quarters, cheddar cheese, ground beef (80% lean), beef chuck roast.

So your family wants to include some meat in the Cook for Good plan and still keep the costs down, you could substitute frozen whiting for large eggs, a fryer chicken for milk, or pork roast for cheddar cheese and still have about the same costs. What about tuna? Eat it rarely, if at all (see below). The costs above show a snapshot for one particular week; you'd want to buy what is on sale and use meat sparingly. Most adults eat far more than the recommended 55-60 grams of protein a day.

[Update: the prices show cheapest meat available. That's meat that would fit into my thrifty plan, if it had meat. This is the sort of factory-farmed meat that you would have sworn not to eat again if you saw Food, Inc. or Fresh. Kindly raised animals eating wholesome food cost more and are worth more. When you start saving money by using Cook for Good methods and if you eat meat already, put some of your savings to work by eating less but better meat.]

Unfortunately, tuna is easy, delicious, cheap ... and dangerous. The risk of harmful mercury levels is so high that the Mercury Policy Project asked the government to exclude light tuna from the WIC program. Albacore tuna, being larger and older, has even higher levels of this heavy metal. The MPP says that "the USDA cannot guarantee the safety of the mercury levels in canned light tuna because the FDA fails to adequately screen canned tuna and remove high-mercury canned tuna." MedicineNet describes the symptoms of mercury poisoning, warning that the effects are most severe for fetuses and infants:

Impacts on cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills have been seen in children exposed to methylmercury in the womb.

When I was in high school, my best friend had canned tuna with mustard every day for lunch as part of her Weight Watchers program. Thank heavens she wasn't pregnant! But mercury toxicity is cumulative, so even now I've got mercury in my body from the cheap tuna-curry dinners I made in college.

Dried beans still the winner. Even organic dried beans cost less than 3 cents per gram of protein. And they are superfoods, loaded with fiber, calcium, and folate, essential for early fetal development and good for us at any age.

Resist call to passivity from Big Oil

2010-06-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

A plume of news stories has started to seep into the media, telling us that we can't make a difference. They say: you can't avoid oil and petrochemicals. You can't fight BP at the pump. Nonsense.

It's easy to conserve and don't let the oil industry tell you otherwise. Replace the "fast-food milkshake ... with a petrochemical-based thickener" with one made from real local milk and ice cream. Cook dried beans at home instead of driving out to McBurger for beef. Eat local produce. Drink tap water, not bottled water. Carpool. Turn off your motor when your car isn't moving. Quit buying things you don't need. Bring cloth grocery bags. Borrow or buy used when you can. Oil is valuable and finite, so save it for products we really need, like medicine and even shoes.

I know that even people who talk the environmental talk often don't want to walk the walk ... and I don't mean just Al Gore. I used to be a member of district and state political committees that met several times a year. Almost no one carpooled to these events. We had a chance to save oil and to increase community (or network, if you prefer). But instead we chose convenience.

Oil-covered beaches and birds are inconvenient. Poisoned shrimp and oysters are inconvenient. Global warming is very inconvenient. Make a change to today to reduce the demand for oil. You can make a difference.

$36 a day for a "low calorie diet"?

2010-06-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here's that old myth again: obesity is an economic issue because poor people can only afford to eat high-calorie food. AOL reports the latest version in Skinniest People Grocery Shop HERE. Seems that Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiology professor at the University of Washington claims that:

People who are poor and have less to spend on food try to get the biggest calorie bang for their food buck. That means they not only shop at cheaper stores, but also buy less healthy food.

They do not have to get the biggest calorie bang for the buck! Ideally, they will be trying to get the biggest nutritional bang for the buck. Obesity indicates in nearly all cases that too many calories are being consumed, which would permit purchase of fewer, more nutritious foods on the same budget.

You can afford to shop at Whole Foods even if you are on food stamps ... and I've got the data to prove it. Last month, my green meals averaged $1.83 per person. The North Carolina food-stamp allowance is $1.99 per person or 27 cents more. And my plan includes buying everything every month, including salt and cooking oil, and does not use coupons. Yes, my thrifty plan costs less at $1.18 per meal, but I could have spent less at Whole Foods if I hadn't chosen organic ingredients whenever possible.

But Dr. Drewnowski must consider Evian water or reduced-fat foie gras to essential Weight Watchers fare. How else to explain his study results that say:

a calorie-dense diet costs $3.52 a day, compared with $36.32 a day for a low-calorie diet.

That's more than $12 a meal, including breakfast.

I agree wholeheartedly that access to good ingredients isn't enough. People need the money to buy food plus the skills and a place to cook it. But you don't have to be rich to be thin.

Hard sell on salt? No, on processed foods.

2010-05-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

The Hard Sell on Salt in today's New York Times tells in many ways how salt enhances or masks the flavor of processed food. Writer Michael Moss seems to assume that processed foods are our only option and that only corporations can stop our dangerous salt habit. Oh, when will Kellogg save us all by reducing the salt in the Cheez-It? Hooray for Campbell Soup, which has already heroicly reduced the salt in its soups, making them only very very salty instead of very very very salty!

What Moss doesn't say is that when you cook with good, fresh ingredients, salt only enhances flavor and texture. It doesn't hide or preserve, so you need much less. Ask yourself why are we eating food based on such disgusting ingredients as these:

Beyond its own taste, salt also masks bitter flavors and counters a side effect of processed food production called "warmed-over flavor," which, the scientists said, can make meat taste like "cardboard" or "damp dog hair."

Without salt [Cornflakes] tasted metallic. The Eggo waffles evoked stale straw. The butter flavor in the Keebler Light Buttery Crackers, which have no actual butter, simply disappeared.

Maybe Campbell Soup should consider reducing salt in its "Buttery Crackers" by using butter. Maybe you should consider making your own crackers. (Crackers sound hard but are fast and easy.) But if not crackers, at least make your own soup. Use ingredients that taste good to start with, not ones that require a mask of salt.

Taste for salt "intractable"? — Moss reports that:

Now, the industry is blaming consumers for resisting efforts to reduce salt in all foods, pointing to, as Kellogg put it in a letter to a federal nutrition advisory committee, “the virtually intractable nature of the appetite for salt.”

That's not been my experience, and I've got a salt tooth instead of a sweet tooth. Given the choice between potato chips and ice cream or cashews and cookies, I'll usually take the saltier choice.

But after nearly three years of eating mostly home cooking, I've lost my taste for the super-salty snacks that used to tempt me. At one long driving day through Alabama on the Cook for Good tour, I bought a single-serving size of potato chips in desperation. (Most of the other choices were variations on fried pork skin.) To my surprise, this former treat had no potato taste but an almost burning level of salt. I ate a second mouthful in disbelief, then threw the rest of the bag away. Can't eat just one? No, can't eat any.

Our appetite for salt is not intractable. Our dependence on processed foods is not complete. It's time for individuals to reclaim their kitchens as a source of health, pleasure, and independence.

Don't eat more oil than you need

2010-05-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

It's easy to feel helpless while watching oil gush into the Gulf, spread to the wetlands, and ensnare wildlife. While most of us can't do anything about that disaster, we can make a difference by limiting the oil we use, starting with our food choices. Reduce demand for oil and watch the prices drop and the requests for drilling permits lose their urgency. We may even be able to take a step towards peace by reducing the incentive for war in oil-rich regions.

Eating the Cook for Good way helps reduce your oil consumption because you:

Eat low on the food chain. The website PB&J Campaign describes why this works:
Everything we eat comes from plants, whether we eat the plants directly or through an animal intermediary. The basic problem is that animals are inefficient at converting plants into meat, milk, and eggs. Relatively little of what they eat ends up in what you eat because animals use most of their food to keep them alive - to fuel their muscles so they can stand up and walk around, to keep their hearts beating, to keep their brains working.
Choose local and seasonal.Cut the fuel used to ship and store your food. The National Center for Appropriate Technology says that about 5% of all the fossil fuel used in the U.S. goes to transporting, packaging, and processing food. That's the same amount used to grow the food and to store and prepare it at home.
Eat pure, minimally processed food. Have a tomato instead of a can of V-8 or walnuts instead of potato chips. Eat beans that are recognizably beans instead of ones that have been spun into mock soy meat. Processing takes fuel, about 10 calories of fossil fuel for every one calorie of food energy, according to Richard Manning in The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq. Even seemingly simple food, like breakfast cereal, takes 4 calories to process for every one calorie of food energy. Bonus: pure food tastes great and is better for you.
Go organic. Avoid the fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides used in industrial agriculture. Richard Manning writes:
On average, it takes 5.5 gallons of fossil energy to restore a year's worth of lost fertility to an acre of eroded land-in 1997 we burned through more than 400 years' worth of ancient fossilized productivity, most of it from someplace else.

Thrift can make all these choices automatic. Pesticides, processing, transportation, storage, and links in the food chain cost money to the producer, who passes the price on to the shopper (us!).

Making these choices as often as you can will not solve the oil crisis, but you can make a real difference. Enough people eating wisely may give society a chance to wise up.

Farm to Fork Picnic: Arguably "Best AYCE Feast in Country"

2010-05-24T06:25:00.000-07:00

I drove through a merciful break in the thunderstorms to the Farm to Fork Picnic yesterday, anticipating a delicious experience but not convinced that I'd find what Bon Appetit restaurant editor Andrew Knowlton calls "The country's best all-you-can-eat feast."

Oh, Andrew, you are SO right! Nearly 50 booths served up breathtakingly fresh and creative food, ringing a field not nearly as muddy as it could have been. In the center, folks sat on hay bales or their own lawn chairs. The unamplified band sounded more like klezmer than bluegrass: another sign that while the barbeque may rule in the Triangle, there's much more going on.

After making my first sampling tour, I came back to the Magnolia Grill booth for my Best of Show round. I told baking genius Karen Barker, "This is even better than Host City Night at the IACP in Portland!" "Welcome home," said Karen with a smile as she offered me another slice of her cornmeal cake with blueberries and sorghum buttermilk cream.

Why better? Not afraid of flavor. Luxury in the form of super fresh, local ingredients. Fun and wit. Here are some highlights:

Box Turtle Bakery's savory croissant with heirloom red fife wheat, Castlemaine Swiss chard, roasted garlic, and spring onions. I didn't recognize this super-tender and tasty stuffed whole-wheat bread as a croissant: no tell-tale flaky layers. But baker Abraham Palmer told me butter is one secret to the rich taste and texture. Another secret? Palmer arranged to have the red fife wheat grown by a local farmer, then grinds it himself just before baking. Freshly ground whole-wheat flour is to store-bought all-purpose flour as a ripe garden tomato is to a shrink-wrapped grocery-store tomato. It's hard to believe they are related.

Farmer's Daughter's spicy napa cabbage kimchi. April McGreger makes this spicy fermented Korean dish using a variety of organic or pesticide-free produce. Her kimchi's still-crisp cabbage in pungent tomato sauce will wake up any meal.

Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe's vegetable pakoras with various chutneys. Oh, I can hardly wait for Vimala's Cafe to open this summer. Her hot, crispy vegetable fritters will entice hushpuppy lovers to try Indian food. Vimala's booth was one of many that paired a chef with a farm: in this case, Fiddle Creek Farm.

Other great bites and sips included a pea-green garlic wasabi shot, beet gazpacho, zucchini frittelle with basil aioli, deviled eggs, and strawberry tartlets with with creme anglaise.

Hats off to the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, the Orange County Cooperative Extension, and Slow Food Triangle for organizing this great event. Every detail worked, including the butcher-paper covered tables upon which the chefs had scrawled the names of their offerings.

I drove back through stormy weather, admiring a rainbow on the way (could it get any better?) and thinking about all the great people in the area who collaborate to make the eating here so excellent, from farm to fork. It IS good to be home.

Small actions, big changes over time

2010-05-09T10:48:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a few days off mid-tour to hike in two spectacular areas: the redwoods of northern California and red-rock country in Utah. The ancient trees and the wildly formed arches and canyons may seem to have little in common, but they both show the effects of small changes over time.

Redwoods seem to have more personality than other trees: straight or spiraling, huge columns or mini-forests unto themselves with side branches the size of full-grown East Coast trees. Many redwoods show evidence of recovering from fire or lost bark or even tops from wind, lightening, or the falling of other giants.

The canyons, rock fins, and arches in Utah show dramatic results from erosion and shifts in the planet's layers.

And the people on the trails and at the overlooks show the effects of diet, exercise, education, and other means we have to shape the bodies and minds we were born with.

Personally, I'm very glad to be carrying about 15 pounds less on the trails this year. I lost weight gradually by eating the Cook for Good way most of the time. As a patch of sunlight may bend a tree over time and drops of water may carve a canyon, small eating and not-eating choices create the Future You.

And on this Mothers' Day, I'm glad to look back on our family tours when I was growing up. Thanks to my folks for never saying what I heard one mother say to her daughter in response to a question about skunk cabbage:

I don't know what it is and I don't want to find out.

But that's a rare response here in the park. For the most part, everyone keeps up a lively conversation about the glories of our world.

Getting the groceries home

2010-05-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

This week in the Cook for Good newsletter, I write about Sherrie, a woman I met during a Cook for Good class at the Sacramento Food Bank:

One of the class participants nearly broke my heart by saying that she's always wanted a kitchen scale but couldn't afford to get one. Sherrie said, "I'm feeding five mouths and I only have two spoons. Food isn't enough. I need pots and pans."

Sherrie, who had three young children with her that day, talked about another big problem with cooking healthy food.

I'll be waiting for the bus with the kids and bags of groceries, but the buses won't stop. They don't want me with all my kids and all my stuff on the bus. Two, three buses will pass before one will stop.

The night before, she said, it had been nine o'clock before she got home.

Dawn Dunlap, the Program Administrator for the Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Collaborative, talked with Sherrie and the class about other barriers to healthy eating and promised to contact the transit authority about the situation.

After the class, Sherrie and I talked about the many problems she faces in getting good food on the table: money for food, access to food, child care, ways to cook and serve the food, and the skills to make tasty, nutritious meals. We didn't even get into health care or a place to live.

Our conversation reminds me that recipes, cooking plans, menus, and shopping lists are only part of the solution. They are the part I can focus on, but I'm so glad others like HEAL and the Community Food Security Coalition are working on the others.

Deborah Madison and "duty fruit"

2010-04-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

The presentations at the International Association of Culinary Professionals were good to the last drop. On Saturday morning, Deborah Madison (founding chef of my favorite restaurant, Greens, and author of eleven books) led a discussion with Anthony Boutard, owner of Ayers Creek Farm in Oregon, who grows amazing fruit and produce.

Deborah painted a vivid picture of the problem with much grocery-store produce, shipped hard and underripe:

I watch people at the grocery store buying fruit and they never bring it to their nose. They never smell it, just pop it into the plastic bag. It's duty fruit. The government told us we should eat so many portions. It's not because it's a a wonderful, senuous experience.

Anthony talked about how taste varies so much from person to person:

Loganberry: people love it or hate it. You can see it in their faces when they taste them. It's the acidity. The best fruit has the acidity up front.

Kids love acidity; it sparkles in their mouths.

So try giving your kids loganberries, tomatoes, and other acid foods instead of Smarties and Sourballs.

If you want a jumpstart on making your summer as wonderful and senuous as possible, check out Deborah's new book: Seasonal Fruit Desserts from Orchard, Farm and Market. She said she'd considered calling it "Desserts for the Pastry-Impaired." The photos are inspiring and I'm sure that the recipes are as clear and rewarding as in all her previous books. Seasonal Fruit Desserts would be a great Mothers' Day present for a baking mom.

Talking with high-school seniors in Fairfield Iowa

2010-04-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

I promised you more on my amazing day in Fairfield, Iowa. Until I got there, I didn't really understand why Steve Boss kept saying, "We've got so much to show you!" But this small, rural town is home to many practitioners of Transcendental Mediation. Driving through the main streets, you'll see many restaurants and stores supporting a sustainable lifestyle. After a delicious lunch at Revelations Cafe and Bookstore, my guide Rose took me to speak to a class of high-school seniors about thrifty, healthy eating away from home and about the options available in life.

What a terrific class! About a dozen healthy, slim young women greeted me at the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment. While their green plaid uniform skirts and the girls-only class reminded me of Catholic high school, the open windows and encouraging quotes on the wall seemed to encourage creativity and exploration. No nuns with rulers! On the way out, they gave me a bag of fresh salad greens from their local CSA.

The community greatly prefers to cook all food fresh, so my Cook for Good style of cooking ahead and making "planned overs" didn't appeal to them. But the rest of the concepts did, and discussed how all the Cook for Good recipes could be made in smaller quantities and eaten the same day. It just takes more time. And as one young lady said, "If it's the choice between eating at MacBurger or eating beans I cooked yesterday, I'll go with the beans."

West Coast at Last!

2010-04-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm in Portland now, ironically installed at the Hotel Deluxe, an Art Deco masterpiece that was cheaper for the first night here than the hotel for the IACP conference. I couldn't bring myself to ask the uniformed bellhop to tote my portable kitchen up the lobby stairs, so we had room service last night: delicious but expensive mac & cheese, pretty much the only vegetarian choice and probably intended for the children's menu. My first intended career out of college was to write articles and books about architecture, so staying in old restored hotels is a special thrill. Bertie Wooster and his butler Jeeves would be right at home here, and I bet Jeeves would have negotiated an even better price than I found through TripAdvisor.

In a few hours, I'm going to do a video interview with Andy Fisher, the Executive Director of the Community Food Security Coalition. The CFSC is the major beneficiary of this tour, so I'm eager to hear the latest news from this group of nearly 300 anti-hunger and pro-sustainability organizations.

Great fun & food at sold-out class in Fairfield, Iowa

2010-04-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

The most intense class on this tour so far has also been the most fun. Steve Boss convinced me to do an actual cooking class with recipe samples for an evening at the At Home Store in Fairfield -- and I'm so glad he did! We made Double Asparagus Pasta, Spicy Peanut Sauce with Spring Vegetables, and Pears with Cinnamon-Yogurt Sauce. With Steve's great addition of a lentil salad and an appetizer of walnuts and raisins, we made dinner for 25. Since this was a Slow Food event in a community already sold on fresh, seasonal food, the menu featured restaurant-quality dishes you can make quickly on a budget.

One of my favorite comments came from At Home's owner, Rosie: "I expected the food to be starchy and sort of boring, given the budget. But it was so light and delicious. Full of vegetables and fruit!"

Ryan, who runs a local CSA, provided all the amazing local veggies and also good information during the class. Afterward, he asked me about the percentage of the Cook for Good budget that goes to fruit and veg (more than 1/3). He concluded that the Cook for Good budget would work for his CSA subscribers ... great news!

Tomorrow, I'll tell you more about Fairfield, including my talk to a group of high-school seniors. But for tonight, thanks to Steve, Rosie, Ryan, and all the great folks in Fairfield.

Teaching outdoors in beautiful Urbana

2010-04-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Urbana-Champain? Champain-Urbana? One of the participants in my class at the Common Ground Food Co-op told me folks say it either way, but that Chambana covers it all. We had about 10 people on a gorgeous spring day outside the co-op. I was a little concerned about the distractions from the fire station across the street and the occasional Harley in the parking lot, but all went very well. What a delight to be outside talking about delicious food with such a lively group.

A question came up about freezing food as it does in nearly every class. If that's a question you have too, please check out my freezing food primer on the site.

The Common Ground Food Co-op is in a bright & airy space, with spring-green walls and colorful displays of produce and bulk goods. Just eighteen months ago, they were in a church basement on campus, with irregular hours and limited parking. Front End Manager Rachel Hess told me how far the co-op had come in a short time, with regular hours, plenty of parking in lovely Lincoln Square Village, and record-breaking sales month after month ... even through the winter!

What sets Common Ground apart? Rachel told me she is especially happy about the partnership they have with local farmers. The farmers' market is in their parking lot every Saturday. The co-op opens at 7 a.m. so folks can get coffee and use the bathrooms. "A farmer who runs out of basil will tell customers, 'I sold a bunch to Common Ground yesterday. Go on inside and get some.'" She's also glad that, being in a university town, they get a fresh crop of customers every year to introduce to the joys of fresh and healthy eating.

I felt right at home in Chambana and knew it would be a great place to live after following Rachel's advice to get dinner at Mas Amigos. Excellent Mexican food with great service and lively music. I hope to come back soon.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the magical time we had in Fairfield, Iowa, and about today's adventures in Denver.

Sustainable Urbana

2010-04-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to the Cook for Good in 20 Minutes a Day class tonight at Common Ground Food Co-op in Urbana, Illinois at 6:30.

Before then, I'm going to check out all the terrific local businesses here in Urbana-Champaign. Local magazine Community Concierge ran a terrific article about the local support for independent businesses, particularly arts-related ones: Vitality at the City Square.

I love seasonal cooking and I love towns and cities with distinctive personalities!

Tour heat up! and Anna's on board!

2010-04-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Events are firming up for the rest of the trip! I'll be doing two classes at the People's Co-op in Portland on April 20th and three days of classes and talks in Sacramento. See the main tour page for details.

It's all coming together in part because of my terrific new editorial assistant, Anna Ferguson. She started Friday night, just as she moved to the Triangle area and just as I was leaving on the tour. She's only been here for two days and already making a difference. Welcome aboard, Anna!

Small but enthusiastic class in Lexington, KY

2010-04-13T09:15:00.000-07:00

And when I say small, I mean small! But Janet and I had a great time and she said she learned a lot, even though she's already a cook who's not afraid to spend an hour making a good dinner.

The Good Foods Market & Cafe was a very polished and well-stocked co-op, more on the Whole Foods end of the shopping spectrum. They have a terrific hot bar and salad bar.

Great event at Hendersonville Community Co-op

2010-04-11T07:55:00.000-07:00

What a great first stop on the western part of the Cook for Good Coast-to-Coast Tour. About 20 people gathered in the charming warehouse/classroom at the Hendersonville Community Co-op for Cook for Good in 20 Minutes a Day. Folks at the co-op set up about a quarter of the warehouse as a classroom and community area with art, colorful posters, and good chairs. After the class, co-op manager Gretchen took me on a tour, showing me the Preserve recycled products made in part from category 5 plastics, such as yogurt cups, that the co-op collects and ships to Preserve at its own expense.

Ryan and his crew in the deli there made us a delicious and colorful lunch: beet salad, potato salad, and a black-eyed pea salad. Made friends with Lynne at the cash register, whose 19-year-old son works at the co-op too. Lynne said her son had been coming to the co-op since he was about 4. What a warm place!

Gretchen invited me back to do more classes, so I'm looking forward to coming back to Hendersonville often!

March prices and spring cleaning

2010-04-09T05:07:00.000-07:00

The March prices for the Cook for Good thrifty and green menu plans are up on the website now. The "current" menus and shopping lists are now for spring. Great to see the green prices drop and the thrifty prices rise just a little.

A cooking radio show

2010-04-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to Steve Boss and Dylan prepping for his Great Taste cooking radio show just before we go on the air:

"Will the couscous be crispy?"
"Not in that broth."

"Sautee more garlic!"

... later after the show...

What fun! Dylan cooked during the radio show, so there was sizzling and tasting as delicious background music. Steve even sent me a picture of the food, so I've got all the senses going except taste!

Judy Kingsbury, the Savvy Vegetarian, joined us. She shared her adventures in researching the nutritional value of agave.

I'm really looking forward to meeting them all in Fairfield on April 15th.

Open discussion of newsletter.

2010-04-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Open comments on today's newsletter:

Check out the new video on making yogurt, get the new Cook for Good Year Round ebook, find out the latest on the Cook for Good Coast-to-Coast Tour, and make the most of a seasonal treat with the recipe for Double Asparagus Pasta.

Great tour kickoff in Wilmington!

2010-04-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous weather, enthusiastic classes, and the friendly folks at Tidal Creek Co-op made the Cook for Good Coast-to-Coast Tour Kickoff in Wilmington a rousing success on Saturday.

Special thanks to Claire Hosmann, Producer/Reporter for WECT Wilmington (Channel 6), who filmed the first class. She also interviewed Cook for Good fan Carol Moore, who came from Goldsboro with her husband for the class (!). See Claire's story here: Eating healthy can be affordable and help local economy.

BTW, the "asparagus tea" in the story is made by steeping the split, woody ends of asparagus in hot milk, then used to make asparagus quiche or pasta sauce. It might be good just served in a tea cup with a sliver of lemon and a few crumpets, but that's not my intention.

Looking forward to the next tour stop, Hendersonville, NC!

Silky smooth & slightly stinky

2010-03-21T06:51:00.000-07:00

Funny to see myself quoted as an unidentified customer in the great story on the Chapel Hill Creamery today.

At the Durham Farmers' Market on that same Saturday morning, McKnight bounces on her toes while chanting a slogan for the no-name cheese: "Soft and silky, slightly stinky." In response, a customer quips: "That's how I like my men." Laughter erupts.

I'm sure she said wasn't soft and silky, but silky smooth. She did introduce me to her brother who was standing right there in all his rough glory, a farmer heart-throb all ready for Sandra Bullock's next movie.

My "quip" was good for a laugh, but in reality, I like my man (singular, but married) super smart and dryly witty. But that new cheese from the Chapel Hill Creamery was very interesting and I adore their Pheta. Keep making that great cheese, Portia and Florence!

"Legs and eggs" at the Durham Farmers' Market

2010-03-20T13:06:00.000-07:00

What a gorgeous first day of Spring here in North Carolina! My husband came with me to the Durham Farmers' Market this morning and summed it up nicely: legs and eggs. It's so warm that folks were wearing shorts and the chickens are all laying up a storm. Just a few weeks ago, only the earliest visitors to the market were able to score eggs.

Britney of Tiny Farm (in photo) introduced me to a new type of lettuce: Taiwan Sword-Leaf, which the sign described as a cooking lettuce. Britney tore off a bit of leaf for me to try, pointing out that this lettuce provides more chew than the other tender lettuces they grow. She recommended mixing it in at the last minute with cooked dishes that could use a little extra green.

The trick is to not go overboard. For lunch, I stir-fried garlic, spring onions (also from Tiny Farm), and half the head of Sword-Leaf Lettuce with some olive oil and served the result on penne, topped with a grating of Parmesan cheese and lime peel. The lettuce mixture was tasty, but slid right off the penne. I'm eager to try again with angel-hair pasta or with my spicy Thai noodle sauce. The peanut butter in the Thai noodle sauce is sure to keep a grip on the lettuce.

Happy spring, everyone!