Fast food battle plans ineffective

The heart of the healthier eating food debate is centered on the cost of healthy food; more specifically the added cost of eating nutritious items over conventional food and therefore poorer people are at a higher risk of becoming overweight.  Since we cling to this idea so strongly our food policy aims to make healthy foods more accessible to low-income families.  However, there is a huge problem with this approach; the largest consumers of fast food are not the poorest.  They are either the busiest or the laziest.

The Journal for Population Health Management published a story stating that middle class American were the most likely to eat at fast food chains.  These were households earning more than $60,000 per year.   It says that a family earning $80,000 a year is more likely to eat at these restaurants than one earning $30,000 per year and that 50% of obsess adults in the US are earning $77,000 for a family a four.

My guess is that there are many misconceptions intertwined.  First, fast food is not cheap.  Mark Bittman reported recently in the New York Times, a typical meal for a family of four at McDonald’s in Manhattan costs about $28.  That is not the cheapest way to feed a family.  So it’s not the money.

They are not the cheapest but they are the fastest.  Going to the food store, preparing a meal and cleaning up requires a lot more work than ordering food.

In addition they are EVERYWHERE. I am sure you can find at least a few fast food options on your way home.

Plus they appeal to children.  They have playrooms and toys to entertain small children.  The toys obviously get kids excited about going, but the playrooms.

So the real picture is that for a few dollars extra one doesn’t have to go to the store, prepare food or clean up the food, but that is just the start.  Those few extra dollars not only buy them time but makes parents lives that much easier.  Parents don’t have to take children to the food store or entertain them while they cook the meal or clean up the food preparation, dinner or even the toys used to distract the children during food preparation and clean up.

Since it appears parents are buying convenience than the ideas being thrown around to make healthy food cheaper for low-income families are not going to address the crux of the obesity issue.  We need new tactics and a new game plan.

 

Still slaves to natural selection

I have always wondered if we have beaten natural selection or do we just think we have.  Humans have advanced science and invented medicines and producers to cure disease and extend human life by decades.  We have not natural predators and our population is unstoppable.  It seems like the pressures of the natural world have very little impact on who succeeds in our world and who doesn’t.  It’s about money and beauty- right?

That might not be true.  Ten to 15% of couples in Western Countries experience difficulties getting pregnant. Of those 30-40% of the issues are associated with each gender and the rest is a combination of issues that are not fully understood yet. Women’s fertility is well researched.  Birth control is the most researched drug ever.  However much less is known about men’s fertility.

Researchers at the Fertility-Assisted Fertilization Centre in Brazil recently investigated lifestyle choices impacts on male fertility.  The results show that sperm quality is linked to lifestyle choices.  Higher fruit and grain diets led to increased sperm motility.  Also, men that drank alcohol and/or were overweight had lower sperm counts and less motile sperm.  These lower quality sperm resulted in men that drank more alcohol and ate more red meat had lower conception rates, compared to men that at more vegetables.

Overall fertility and semen quality have declined in the past few decades.  The scientist believes lifestyle changes are linked to increased obesity and exposure to toxins and pollutants.  Lower fertility rates and semen quality means that it is harder for those men to pass on their genes.  That is the definition of biological fitness the ability of a genotype or phenotype to survive and reproduce in a given environment.

This could mean that after centuries of selecting for a preference of sweet and fatty foods, that in future generations (no time soon), that humans will have preference for lower calorie foods, because the environment has changed.  The ability to store fat is no longer biological beneficial, when food is abundant.

 

Can’t the seasons be shorter?

I had a teacher in middle school that told my class that we had the attention span of a “ferret after drinking a double cappuccino”.  This expression always stuck with me and the sentiments were not limited to one teacher forced in a room with 25 eighth graders after lunch.  Many people believe that our attention spans have been reduced by increases in multi-tasking as well as all of the ways we have to be entertained: TV, computers, video games… This may be true, but I’d like to take it a step further.  I think that our attention spans have shortened with regard to our diets.

Most foods are seasonal, meaning they only grow at certain times of the year.  For centuries people have found enough food to survive all four seasons, however they at different things at different times of the year. This changed as we started shipping food around the global.  Now when products are out of season in one part of the world they are in season in another part. This means that consumers can eat whatever they want at any time of the year.

The ability to eat almost any food at any point in the year does not prove my point.  You see the decrease in attention span when people try to eat local or in season.  Meaning they stop eating fresh berries in the middle of winter (for example).  There are many benefits of eating local foods, including they are cheaper, fresher and potentially higher quality. However the trade-off is that you can only eat what is available in your area during that time of the year and by the end of the season people get antsy.

No matter how long or how short a growing season is, I find that by the end of it, I am excited for the new produce.  Cherries are in season for 6 weeks in the middle of the summer.  I must have bought two pounds of cherries every week for those six weeks.  And I think that satisfied my desire for cherries until next summer.

Most growing seasons are much longer than cherries.  I get most of my produce from a CSA  (my CSA is through Stars Hollow) and for the last several months we have gotten beautiful summer squash almost every week.  They taste delicious but honestly I have run out of things to do with it.  Maybe judgment should be passed on the lack of imagination I have in the kitchen or maybe I know I can walk into the supermarket and purchase anything I want and so another meal focused around squash seems dreadful.  That first chicken dinner with roast summer squash seemed so light and summer-y.  Now that Labor Day has passed and summer is almost over, I made soup.  This was my desperate attempt to find a new way to prepare the squash so that I could convince myself to eat it.  Roasting it is a great option, but after the amount of squash I have eaten this summer, I knew it would just still in the refrigerator.

That being said I am excited for fall.  I am excited about the cooler temperatures, the changing leaves, the heartier meals and the new produce.  We have started getting apples from our CSA and this week there is butternut squash.  I love butternut and acorn squash, but it is only the first week in September and in the back of my mind I know that by the time winter gets here I will have consumed more butternut squash soup and cook butternut squash with cinnamon and sugar, than I ever expected too.

Since we have so many options we have the luxury of getting bored with season foods so quickly.

 

Guilt free berries in the winter

Last week, I walked into Safeway (local grocery store) and berries were on sale- buy one get one free.  I couldn’t resist the temptation of eating delicious berries and bought them.  I rationalized my choice with the healthy attributes of berries attempting to remove any guilt associated with buying out of season berries that had been transported 1,000s of miles.  I ate the pint of raspberries as soon as I got back to my desk and am still enjoying the blueberries.

I never question how wonderful it is to buy anything from the grocery store, at almost any time of year.  Or the marketing power of “free”.  I just thought that since I think that local eating and sustainable agriculture is so important that I could resist. Turns out, we are all human.

 

Since checking out, I have wondered how I can eat fruits in the winter and compromise on my principles.  And it didn’t hit me until this morning, when I went to make a smoothie.  The berries for my smoothie were berries that I picked in June at a local farm.  I made jam with most of the berries, but since I bought a ton I had leftovers and froze them (making my Grandmother proud).  My plan was to make more jam (if I ever ran out) and to make smoothies.  Today I made my first smoothie. It contained locally grown berries and I ate them in the middle of winter!

With most advances we lose things.  In this case we have lost the ability and/or the desire to preserve our food.  In the modern world it is possible to never have a food shortage, so we have no need to find ways to save our food for times of scarcity.  Maybe those are skills worth keeping.  Preserving is a hobby for some and more of an art-form than a necessity.  But I think they are important skills.

Yes, I see that cultivating a huge canning movement is unrealistic.  People don’t spend them time to make their own dinners, like I said last week they eat at fast food chains for convenience and not economy.  How will I ever convince them to preserve food?  I won’t and maybe that’s not the battle I should fight.  But I do make my own food so I thinking preserving more fruits and enjoying them in the heart of winter is the next step on my food journey.

Conveniently, this is my New Year’s post and food preservation sounds like a great New Year’s resolution. This year I would like to support more local farmers and preserve more food.  I want to master a tomato sauce recipe.  Make jam, with a thicker consistency than this year.  Jar apple sauce in the fall.  Oh and make pickles! I love pickles.  And I will throw in a spicy salsa just to round out the list.

Happy New Years and good luck with your resolution.

 

 

Sunday at the Market

I finally made it to the Dupont farmer’s market yesterday. It was my first stop and it was a beautiful day in Washington, DC. I spent a good portion of my Saturday evening looking through a cookbook that I checked out from the library. I copied out a few recipes and figured that I would make whichever ones I could find the ingredients for at the farmer’s market on Sunday. Since I didn’t make a list nor did I write down the recipes this become my most expensive trip to the farmer’s market.

It’s just a fun place to go. I always run into people I know. The farmers are so nice and there are tons of samples to try as you walk around. By the time I left the market I had bought:

1. Broccoli
2. Cauliflower
3. Dill
4. Sweet Potatoes
5. Tomatoes – I was really excited to find bright red tomatoes
6. Spinach
7. Red onions
8. Carrots

It was great. Then I went to Safeway to pick up a few other things that they didn’t have at the market. The Safeway was not nearly as crowded as the farmer’s market, but it also wasn’t as social. People don’t meet at Safeway and wonder around together. I got everything I needed but it was dark and had narrow aisles.

Then I got home and I made Broccoli soup and this pasta dish from the cookbook.

I can enjoy of the fruits (and vegetables) of my farmer’s market experience all week- mostly because I cooked enough for a large dinner party and its only me for dinner.

 

 

USDA’s Merrigan Hosts Live Chat on Facebook

Yesterday Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan held her second live chat on Facebook. The topic was of the chat was getting food from farmers to local schools, what has become known as “farm to school,” part of the necessary groundwork for improving the cost and quality of school lunches. Merrigan ran into a few technical problems in the beginning of the session, but she filled the time by talking about her recent trips to schools and universities around the country.

Once her computer started working again, Merrigan started taking questions from the people attending the Facebook chat. She answered questions about what schools she plans to visit next semester and about regulations schools have when purchasing food.

Overall the session was very informative and Merrigan appeared to be having fun with it. She was personable and brought props. She was realistic with her answers and she explained her position on the issues.

I learned that schools are now starting to purchase their food for the 2009-2010 school year and that this is a problem for increasing the amount of food school districts purchase from farmers. Small, local farmers are not able to guarantee that they can produce two tons of blueberries next fall. The weather could be terrible and result in poor yields. People selling canned blueberries are not impacted the same way.

Another interesting point that she made was that it would be great to put a calorie maximum on the meals served in schools but this would also take away from the amount of fresh foods purchased from local vendors. Since kitchen staff would prepare more food the portions and measurements would be less exact. Therefore it would be near impossible that every tray served during lunch had the exact same number of calories. For this reason, Merrigan is walking a tight line to balance these two sides.

One of the attendees asked about kitchen equipment.  Most school kitchens do not have a lot of equipment to make food. Most schools right now don’t make food, they heat and serve food. Merrigan understands that there is a lot of great equipment out there, but most of it is not in the budget right now. She feels that a salad bar is a great solution to this problem. Salad bars do not require any expensive equipment but they enable schools to service students with fresh fruits and vegetables every day.

I look forward to attending her next Facebook chat in December.

If you missed this discussion or her first one in October please visit Obamafoodorama to see the video.

Also the Twitter hashtag is #kyf2

 

Is Progress Happening?

I want to know if people really are changing their habits. There have been several articles published this week about how Americans are demanding safer food and that the marketing tactics for 2010 will include simplier food. That many of the big producers are now cutting the number of ingredients in their products. Couple that with the number of farmers markets and the apparent size of the environmental movement and one would think that the world around us was revolutionizing and making great decisions for the enviroment and for our health.

But I am not convinced. I do not see this change happening in the people around me. I live in DC and I am not perfect. I do not buy as much as I could from the farmer’s market or local farmers. I leave my lights or tv on when I walk into another room and I don’t always recycle every piece of paper I come across. But my friends and family seem imperiable to these issues. I have friends that leave their lights on all day long, because they don’t pay for electric. Others that drive to dinner, when walking is an option, because they like their cars. And others that eat summer squashes in the fall – and I love fall squash!

I hope I am not being to critical. And more importantly, maybe I am not being critical enough of myself. I know that research states that peer pressure is a strong motivater in having better environmental practices. But I don’t want to be a nudge. I don’t want to bother my friends all of the time about these issues. I try to educate them when possible. Mostly, I talk about my compost box a lot or my weekly trips to the farmers market. Or I feel like I justify not serving enough meat when people come over for Shabbat meals.

If my friends that live in DC and are in their 20s are not willing to change their habits I am confused as to who is. I guess I could see young mothers trying to protect their families. And I understand that food costs are higher when you eat local, organic or fresh foods. I also now that I like cooking more than most people. If my friends and family are part of these changing trends then who is?

 

Eating Seasonally Helps When Eating on a Budget

One reason that people claim to eat processed foods is because they are cheaper. In general they are cheaper. However, I think that if you are a smart shopper you can get a good deal on fresh fruits and veggies as well. Fortunately, I have some flexibility when it comes to the amount of money a spend on food per week and I understand that not everyone has this flexibility. But eating the fruits and vegetables that are in season is cheaper and healthier than eating produce that is out of season.

Strawberries and most berries are a summer fruit. Four weeks ago strawberries were on sale. They cost five dollars for three quarts. Part of this might have been a pre-labor day sale, but either way, that is a lot of strawberries for five dollars. Then two weeks ago the strawberries were two for four dollars. That is $.34 a quart. Yesterday when I went to the food store strawberries were $3.99. That is double the price two weeks ago. It’s sad but summer is over. And summer fruits and vegetables are no longer in season. There are still some left, but over all the autum produce is coming into season.

So, a month a go a bought strawberries. I bought them because they were cheap. I did considered the fact that they were fresher because they were in season and did not have to travel so far. I  did not think about the environmental implications of buying out of season produce nor did I consider the health benefits of buying seasonal fruit, but my purchase carried all of those messages.

Yesterday when I went to the store, pumpkins were three for fifteen dollars. Thats a lot of soup and pie! But I also bought, what will probably be my last purchase of grapes. They were on sale for $.99 a pound. Grapes are one of those things that I only buy on sale. They come prepackaged and when they cost three dollars a pound that package is over ten dollars. I can’t justify spending that much on grapes.

Americans expect two things. They expect cheap food and they expect to be able to eat anything at anytime. Well, sadly, you can’t have your cake and eat it too. We have found ways to grow the produce we want in every season. You can buy fresh strawberries in the winter. However, they are not going to be as cheap or as fresh. And they are going to have a much higher environmental cost than strawberries in the summer.  This is a choice you are going to have to make. Do you want to take the time to be a more effective shopper or are you going to buy the items that you want when you want them.

Just because your local food store has every product you could ever want doesn’t mean you have to buy it. Be a smart shopper. The odds are being a smart shopper will leave you more cash in your wallet, healthier food in your cart and a better environment around you.