This was a simple meal just for me tonight and sorry, no photo: Parmesan Walnut bread slices slathered with marinated chevre and shredded fresh basil, and boiled beets. That’s it. I didn’t even salt the beets.

Parmesan walnut bread: Simple Kneads Bakery
Marinated Chevre: Goat Lady Dairy
Basil: My back yard
Beets: Handance Farm

I was wondering what I was going to do for my all-local meal this week when I realized - this was it. And it was good.

In lieu of a post, here’s the short “reflection” paper I wrote for my class this week on the second half of The European Dream by Jeremy Rifkin. This paper uses some of same material that I blogged about earlier this year.

The “precautionary principle” is the concept presented in this book that has most earned my respect for the European Union. Although the EU has weakened a bit to pressures by the United States and the World Trade Organization, it is heartening to know that in general, this government has decided to err on the side of caution, and to respect the decisions of individual countries within the EU when they decide to make a more protective stance.

This summer, the World Trade Organization ruled that “[t]he European Union acted illegally in stopping imports of genetically modified foods,” after the United States, Canada, and Argentina pressed forward in a suit intended to keep approvals open for GM crops. The EU actually lifted the moratorium on GM crops in 2003, allowing a type of sweet corn to be grown. However, several major European countries have banned most GM crops, including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg.¹ Switzerland banned all GM crops for five years, after a vote that was supported by Swiss farmers.²

What is especially interesting to me is that when Europe does allow GM foods, they are required to be labeled as such, where in the United States, labeling laws increasingly favor the corporation rather than the consumer. For example, Congress passed a law this year entitled the “National Uniformity for Food Act” which took away the states’ ability to label any foods on a stricter level than approved by the FDA. This effectively wiped the books of many labeling requirements, since the FDA has not taken an active role in this area in the past. Genetically modified ingredients in the United States are not identified and are often combined with conventional food ingredients. It is not possible to trace genetically modified foods to their sources in the U.S.

In Europe, accountability and transparency is deemed more important than a possible hit to a product’s marketability. Consumers are more informed and thus more concerned about what goes into their food supply. Or is it the other way around? Are European consumers more concerned because they are more informed? That is the position taken by many food companies and lobbyist groups such as the Grocery Manufacturers Association, who have pushed the United States to complain to the WTO about the EU rule that GM foods must “be labeled and the ingredients be traceable to the farm on which they are grown.”³ Since genetically modified foods are seen negatively by European consumers, GM food lobbyists would like to ensure that they are not made aware of what is in the food they eat, just like their complacent, uninformed customers in the United States.

I was somewhat aware that Europe was ahead of the United States in the recognition of the rights of animals, but I was surprised and happy to see that Germany went as far as altering its constitution to include fundamental animal rights. (346) It puzzles me that the “precautionary principle” does not apply to the conditions of most of the world’s meat production facilities. As the author points out, BSE (Mad Cow Disease) has been directly linked to the feeding of cattle to cattle. (350) There seems to be an easy solution. Why is forced cannibalism allowed in this country?

The heavy use of antibiotics would not be needed if animals were raised in clean, humane conditions because they would not be so susceptible to disease and injury. It is only common sense that these underlying conditions should be changed or improved rather than adding fixes, especially since the consequences for these “low prices” could be dire. By gradually changing the current meat, poultry, and dairy production system over to a natural and sustainable system that reflects the true cost of food, we could prevent a lot of health problems for animals, humans, and the earth itself, and gain the spiritual benefits that compassion brings. We consumers are ultimately responsible. Will we demand cheap meat or clean meat? The rate of meat consumption in this country is at a luxury level. We could all cut back on meat in our diets and be healthier, while saving our money to eat cleanly and humanely produced meat occasionally. By taking this precaution, we may save ourselves from a scourge of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

The Europeans are not waiting for others to decide whether there is enough evidence to prove that human actions are causing climate change. In accordance with the “precautionary principle,” they went forward with the Kyoto Protocol and began to proactively address the coming global fuel crisis. In Sweden, a country that could certainly justify the need for oil to heat their homes and businesses, they have committed to reducing their oil usage to zero by 2020, without relying on more nuclear energy. They have already reduced their oil usage from 77 percent to 32 percent since 1970! 4

We must take steps now to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the pleasures of this planet, clean air and water, food that has not been genetically altered by viruses or bacteria, food that is raised in fields nurtured by caretakers of the earth. It may be that biotechnology has let the genie out of the bottle already in the case of rice and some other grain crops. Adoption of the “precautionary principle,” especially in the matter of the global food supply, cannot come too quickly.

¹“EU ‘broke trade rules’ on GM food.” BBC News 11 May 2006.

² “Switzerland backs GM moratorium.” BBC News 27 November 2005.

³Pollack, Andrew, “Trade Ruling Is Expected To Favor Biotech Food.” New York Times 6 February 2006. .

4 “Sweden aims for oil-free economy.” BBC News 8 February 2006. .

Okay, I feel a little better after going out to the community garden row, but not much. Argh. At least I didn’t get bitten by a huge honking spider this time. Scratch, scratch.

I planted “Georgia Southern” collard greens (seeds) and “Southern Giant Curled” mustard greens. The mustard was from an old packet of seeds someone gave me, packed for 2004. The collards are Seeds of Change organic, also free, also 2004. No big loss if they don’t come up, since I’m going to give them all away anyway.

The beans are coming up nicely and the mustard mix I planted is coming up too. The beets are continuing their curse, although I even bought a new pack of seeds. But there are a few that have come up. Four broccoli seedlings seem to be going to make it. That’s all I probably need anyway.

It has been so dry but rain is expected this weekend, which is one reason I wanted to get the seeds planted today.

Isn’t she lovely? Her hair’s a little dirty, but…

It’s my first leek harvested from my garden!

Wow, this has been so easy that I might decide to become a leek farmer. I’m definitely going to try growing some over the winter to harvest in spring.

Our local meal tonight consisted of roasted eggplant slices, potato salad, field peas and okra, and Parmesan walnut bread.

Sources:

I have to go study and try to think of something intelligent to write on Blackboard this weekend. I’m finding it hard to switch from blog-commenting mode to university graduate-level class response mode. I need to develop my thoughts more, and not get chatty. I have some creative work to do on the Local Food Guide and I still have a LOT of clean-up to do in the Back Forty before I can plant my salad greens for my fall garden.

I’m getting paid enough for the LFG work that I’m probably going to buy that little greenhouse from Johnny’s Seeds after all. Even though a little voice keeps whispering in my ear that I should save that money to spend in Italy, the other little voice says “Four Season Harvest! Four Season Harvest!” much louder.

I think that I might order some fava beans and walking onions from SESE this weekend, maybe some garlic. I’m inclined to do what I’ve always done and just sprout cloves that I buy from the market, though. There are interesting varieties there, too. I’ve never had a huge success with that, though, usually very small cloves when they do separate at all.

It is so dry here and I dread driving out to the community row to water now. My allergies increase ten times after I go out there. But it has to be done every day or so if I don’t want to lose the seeds I planted, and if I don’t want all my okra to become giant woody Christmas ornaments.

I won a market bag in the One Local Summer drawing at Pocket Farm! Now I need to come up with a One Local Summer post by tomorrow night - uh-oh. I’ve eaten well this week with lots of local ingredients, but I’ve also used lasagna noodles from Italy, coconut milk, turkey and ham cold cuts, cashew nuts, rice… There’s been at least one or two local ingredients in each dish or sandwich, though. I think that it might be time to break out the eggplants. Yes-s-s-s.

From Grist’s e-newsletter:

Like Blight on Rice
U.S. commercial rice crop contaminated with GM strain

The U.S. government admitted last week that its commercial supply of long-grain rice has been contaminated by an illegal, untested, genetically modified strain with the warm-and-fuzzy name of LLRICE 601. The European Union, the biggest importer of U.S. long-grain rice, may decide to delay or ban imports; Japan, which buys very little U.S. long-grain rice, will now be buying none. LLRICE 601, engineered by German biotech company Bayer CropScience to withstand an herbicide, has not been approved for human consumption. U.S. rice supplies from the 2005 harvest were contaminated, even though field testing of LLRICE 601 ended in 2001. Unknowns include where the contaminated rice came from, how widespread it is in the U.S. food supply, and how it occurred. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns stated, “There are no human health, food safety, or environmental concerns associated with” LLRICE 601. And if we never study it, there never will be! Handy.

Washington Post: U.S. Rice Supply Contaminated

What? GE crops cross-pollinate with normal crops? Somebody, quick, tell Monsanto. They’ve been sueing the small farmers that they’ve contaminated out of business. I’m sure that they will make amends, or the USDA and the courts will make them! Won’t they?

How does this affect North Carolina? Well, this investigative report by the Union of Concerned Scientists focuses on Ventria Bioscience, who is growing pharmaceutical rice right here in the Old North State, and the lack of oversight by the USDA in monitoring them. And you know how N.C. politicians l-o-o-o-ve all things biotech, so they’re generally favorable to these types of crops, even though Ventria was kicked out of California and Missouri.

Here’s an excerpt from the Center for Food Safety’s article on Ventria last year:

USDA granted permits for North Carolina field tests totaling 70 acres, in Washington County near the town of Plymouth. The North Carolina field test approvals come over objections from numerous stakeholders, including environmental and consumer groups, as well as the Food Products Association. Public comments ran 320 to 1 against approval of the North Carolina site.

Opposition came from scientists who work at or with the state- and federally-operated Rice Quarantine Nursery at the Tidewater Research Station, which sits just over half a mile from the Ventria test site. The researchers are concerned about contamination of unique varieties of rice grown at the facility in a nursery that protects foundation stocks of new varieties. According to USDA scientist Dr. David Marshall, who is based at North Carolina State University:

“[T]he potential exists for stray rice pollen to be carried via air currents from the Ventria Bioscience fields to the Nursery and pollinating the introduced germplasm. If this were to occur, genes from the rice expressing human lactoferrin could be introduced into the rice germplasm of the National Plant Germplasm System, and thus be disseminated throughout the U.S.”

We’re the USDA and We’re Here to Help, Part Two

For more gummint wackiness from my other favorite Bushie Department, see Liz’s post, Bacterio-what?

From Michael Pollan’s email list, which you can sign up for at www.michaelpollan.com, here’s a link to a good LA Times article about the local food movement going mainstream.

My favorite line: “Americans are becoming more proactive (you can’t buy a congressman the way the high-fructose corn syrup lobby can, but you can say yes to locally grown berries).”

We have a choice, but if we don’t make an effort to choose wisely, we will be in danger of losing that choice.

Voting with their forks
By Regina Schrambling, Special to The Times
August 16, 2006

I’ve been talking about planting seeds for my fall garden again and again, blah blah blah, but I just got around to it today. Every time I went out to the community garden, I was too pooped after weeding and cleaning up the row to do anything else. But this morning, I actually got some seeds planted. I realized that if I really wanted to plant beans I didn’t have any time left.

In the front, I planted Jacob’s Cattle beans around a tobacco stick teepee, but it turns out that it’s a bush bean, which it didn’t say on its packet. So I’ll figure out what to do about those later, but I thought that the teepee of pole beans would look nice in the front (not to mention hide my mess). Oh well.

Behind them, in a short row on the west side, Golden Rocky Yellow Wax Bush Beans.

On the east side in a little patch, Early Wonder Tall Top Beets.

Behind that, a short row of Royal Burgundy Snap Bush Beans on the west and a short row of Black Valentine snap beans on the east.

Towards the back, near the broccoli (which is being eaten up by something), a small patch of Mustard Greens: Morton Mild Mix.

I’ll still plant some turnips and collards out there later, and maybe some leeks. Most of the lettuce will be planted here in the back forty.

Just got back from our area bloggers’ meet-up, where it is always interesting to put faces with the names. It was heavily weighted towards the men tonight, so more Greensboro female bloggers need to balance it out!

Miss Peanut is sitting up on the railing of the porch tonight, so whatever was ailing her seems to have passed because she has to jump up there. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad. While Peanut becomes more and more afraid of me, her mother, the creatively named “Mama Kitty,” lets me pet her more and more often. It has to be brief and in conjunction with food. After ten years of rejection this is very satisfying.

From the gardens tonight: field peas, red calico lima beans, okra, cherry tomatoes, carrots, a couple of small Brandywines, a few broccoli side shoots, a yellow squash, and a cucumber. I shelled some of the Kentucky Wonder green beans that got too big and added them to the peas and lima beans.

I realized that my dedication to voluntary simplicity has truly been ingrained in my consciousness when I found myself appreciating the large zip-lock plastic bag that the corn I bought from the farmers’ market was bagged in as part of the value of the purchase. There was a time when I wouldn’t have given that bag a second thought.

Looks like I’m back to work on the print version of the Local Food Guide again, as well as the database version once it is set up on the Slow Food Piedmont Triad web site. It won’t be anything fancy, but after talking to the printer I think I might be able to do it. This version will be in black and white and the photos will have to go because I don’t have any high-resolution photos. Bummer, but we might have drawings instead, which would be way cool.

Plus, I rather unwisely insisted on helping my husband maintain the local Sierra Club web site, thinking at the time that I would be finished with the Slow Food site by mid-August. Silly me.

So, don’t be surprised if I’m not around much for a while. I’ve got a lot of reading to do in the next few weeks for my Tuscan Farm class too. No wonder I’m stressed out!

Sunday night, I baked a Barred Rock heritage chicken that I bought from Back Woods Family Farm with garlic from Handance Farm and lots of rosemary from my garden. This was a very skinny little chicken that weighed only two pounds and had the legs of a high jumper. It was delicious but there was not a lot of meat on it!

I tossed some carrots from the community garden row in the pan juices during the last half-hour of baking, and we had a side dish of field peas and red calico lima beans, which I’m picking every few days now from the back forty.