Given two recent reports about the dangers of pesticides there really shouldn’t be a choice. But that isn’t a guilt trip to people who won’t fork over the cash to pay for safer products. It is to say  no one should have to choose not to poison their kids or be forced to bring harmful chemicals into their system because the other options are more affordable.

The recent report by the President’s Cancer Panel reveals, finally, that the most important aspect of the issue of cancer is environmental factors. Factors that are have been grossly underestimated and under-regulated. The Panel’s report is called REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK: What We Can Do Now.

It is almost shocking how straightforward the report is about the harm caused by the chemicals and environmental factors of daily life. We are so used to hearing measured responses to “possible health risks” associated with much of the stuff we are exposed to and taking these risks seriously in a consistent way can even make you feel a bit like a paranoid wing-nut. But now there is enough evidence and acknowledgment of that evidence prove that efforts to avoid plastics and pesticides are not wacky…but there is the disappointment, that yes, it’s as bad (or worse) than you thought. So yes, it’s an overwhelming report, but in all reality it’s a refreshing report because it finally puts these causes of cancer out in the open, and asks that be addressed. It is something that everyone should read which you can do in this pdf.

The report should be read so that as many people as possible know the harm of the exposure to these chemicals so that these chemicals will stopped being used. Rather than having choices about what products we are exposed to, these products, given the evidence, should be banned. Then no one can make the wrong choice.

The Pesticide Action Network sent out an e-mail to ask for support for  language in the Safe Chemicals Act that would give EPA more power to regulate persistent chemicals. You can contact your Senator through PAN here.

as this Washington Post report points out:

The panel said the country needs to overhaul existing chemical laws, a conclusion that has been supported by public health groups, environmental advocates, the Obama administration and even the chemical industry.

The current system places the burden on the government to prove that a chemical is unsafe before it can removed from the market. The standards are so high, the government has been unable to ban chemicals such as asbestos, a widely recognized carcinogen that is prohibited in many other countries.

About 80,000 chemicals are in commercial use in the United States, but federal regulators have assessed only about 200 for safety.

Chapter Two of the President’s Cancer Panel Report is “Exposure to Contaminants From Agricultural Sources”  It opens with this uplifting observation:

The entire U.S. population is exposed on a daily basis to numerous agricultural chemicals.  Many of these chemicals are known or suspected of having either carcinogenic or endocrine-disrupting properties. chemicals.

It goes onto explain the dangers of chemical use in agriculture to all of us, most especially the people who get their livelihood from the food system. Unfortunately the consequences of these chemicals are not limited to cancer. The other recent report that reveals the impact conventional agriculture on our bodies and brains is an investigation by a team of scientists from the University of Montreal and Harvard University, published in the journal Pediatrics, which found a connection between exposure pesticides and the presence of symptoms of ADHD.  Lead author Maryse F. Bouchard of the University of Montreal Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and the Sainte-Justine Hospital Research Center says:

Our study found that exposure to organophosphates in developing children might have effects on neural systems and could contribute to ADHD behaviors, such as inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

All this brings up that mantra of “Don’t panic, buy Organic”, which is more true than ever before. But again, it raises the issue of why this country has allowed this to be a choice. Sure we’ve carved out a market for those who are willing and able to pay the full cost of sustainably raised food but the remainder is too many people still being exposed to toxins, including those who paid to avoid it. We need to move beyond an organic certification to a certain market and apply those standards to all food. There is not enough evidence to prove that avoiding chemicals and feeding the people of the world are mutually exclusive goals, and remember that saying so sidesteps the issue that conventional farming isn’t feeding the world successfully either.

We are certainly in a better spot politically than we have been before to take these chemicals out of our system, and the more that people are aware of what is causing these diseases and disorders and choose, as much as possible to support practices and products that avoid them the better.

You can read more about the Organophosphate (OP) Pesticides addressed in there study here. You can also take a small action to, again through the Pesticide Action network, sign a petition to the EPA to ban Chlorpyrifos, an organophosphate insecticide.

I guess the message for now is, Be optimistic about Organic- choose it until you don’t have to.

I admit that the choice for the video below is weird because Don Imus is not well respected since his many rude remarks, and he and his wife (Deirdre Imus) are friends of Sean Hannity and all their media is through Fox, but that doesn’t change the fact that I agree with Deirdre’s approach and her information and that ultimately she is doing good work on these issues. It’s always good to look at common ground among often divided groups.

                          

This small farm teems with life, and though death is a part of why they are all here, the focus is on the needs of the moment. Ted doesn’t like to discuss too much about slaughter for a couple of reasons: He raises his animals to give them a good life, to connect with them, and to give people a source of healthy and sustainable food. The death is always hard- there is no easy way around it, and it is also the smallest part. As we walk up the steep slope, Ted mumbles something about people needing to eat less meat. There, in the animals’ space this is a clear conclusion. If we are going to eat animals, they should live like this- If they are going to be able to live like this, there will have to be a lot less of them (but, a lot more farmers!). Ted could have more animals but too large a scale compromises his relationship with them.

It is clear that Ted wrestles every day with the difficulty of his task of raising friends for others’ food. He seems to reconcile this with the fact (Ted and I share the view that this fact is not really arguable) that humans are omnivores and if he doesn’t raise animals for food in this way, more animals will be raised in ways deprive them of a good life, one in which they can live out their days using their full instinct and potential.

I didn’t have a chance to really get into a full conversation with Ted about these ideas on this visit, so I don’t want to go further and risk putting words in his mouth. But I know he has a lot more to say and I hope to visit again and share more. Ted is the farmer from whom I buy meat the most often (what little I buy) and I often see him weekly. He is a very thoughtful man and I appreciate how much love he gives to my meals.

It is an emotional thing, seeing the animals you will eat. So forgive me if this post is a little heavier. But I think its important to acknowledge that eating meat isn’t a simple act, nor should it ever really be easy. It isn’t the act of eating per se but the ease we have created that has really made meat consumption a problem. An easy thing in terms of production and an easy thing in terms of what little we experience, and how far we are from the creature living out a life. (That life demands some death is a fact that makes this idea of test-tube meat all the more disturbing and so reductionist, as if we could be nourished on something that didn’t eat, that didn’t live at all)

As with many dilemmas about food, I again come to the conclusion that it is really important to spend more money on food, especially on those products from animals. When weighing price options, consider what corners were cut to provide whatever you might be saving.  It isn’t an easy choice, but I think 1) it is important to be honest that for most of us, spending on food is about choices, and 2) that it is only fair for us to make some sacrifices in return. Ted’s meat is just about the most expensive I could get. Ground beef is $7/lb. So I can’t buy very much, and I think Ted agrees that’s probably for the best.

                          

Baking with sourdough really is the best example of how much time it takes to make the best food. In fact its really a lot to ask; to keep something in your fridge that is essentially another mouth to feed, to keep track of one more thing, and to use it in a bread that takes over a whole day, often three to make. The cost of the flour alone makes me wonder if its worth it just to buy the beautiful $8 levain breads from the farmer’s market or the notable local Acme bakery. So maybe its just for novelty that I keep making this three-day bread.

The last time I went through the process, with the concern that after the second day it wouldn’t rise and it would all be ruined; the ten-minute kneading; the planning (once having to come home from work to bake my bread so it wouldn’t proof for too long), I thought that maybe specialization is a good thing when it come to baking. I pictured the adept bakers with their hundreds of proofing loaves, their active starters that are fed every day, and thought when is it that consumer culture hinders healthy food and when does it help it? I think everyone should make most of their own meals, working with other people, using their minds, hands, and fresh, real food- but does everyone need to make their own bread all the time?  Well clearly no, even in my Utopian real-food world, where people don’t work too long for so many things they don’t really need, -things that make them neither happy nor healthy- and where they put time and care into food, there would still be specialization of some kind. There is a benefit to becoming an expert at something and sharing your products and having a clear purpose. The problem with our current approach is that in giving over most of our food preparation to specialized producers we have lost skills that keep our minds and bodies active and the the quality of our food has suffered.

So, until my real-food utopia I am going to keep developing these disappearing skills, if only for the fun of it.

The recipe for this one come from my stand-by Breadtopia, with the cheery and informative videos. What I really wish he had though, and what I am finding impossible to find, are other types of baked goods and breads (like muffins, scones, banana bread etc) that use sourdough for proofing and fermenting, not just for flavor.  I am going to try this pizza dough recipe with a longer, overnight, rise and see how it goes.

The other option for quick breads is to buy sprouted flour (okay, the real other option is to sprout the grains yourself, dry them, and grind them into your own flour). Nourishing Traditions’ recipes for quick breads call for freshly ground flour (not sprouted); this is because pre-ground flour (sprouted included) is often more rancid than we realize. And apparently bread from freshly ground flour is beyond in flavor. Grinding your own flour isn’t as laborious as it sounds, since its really a process of pushing a button on an electric grain grinder. After grinding the flour NS has you soak it in buttermilk, kefir, or yogurt overnight (or for 12 hours). This addition of acidity does that neutralizing work to the nutrient blocking acids in grains (read more about that here. While the recipes say you can also use whey or lemon juice, its pretty clear that the outcome is not as tasty with this alternative.

So, I have to admit, I haven’t yet tried this technique. This is primarily because of the extra expense of cups of high quality dairy. I came up with an alternative I will try and then share; Bob’s Red Mill makes a buttermilk powder, just dehydrated, so I can make the amount I need store the rest. The whole package  makes six quarts for ten dollars.

I have some muffins and biscuits planned using this strategy, so stay tuned.

Also! Not that there is a lot of eating out going on these days, but we did go for Ethiopian food recently and I was very pleased to realize that the bread, Injera, which makes up the bulk of the meal, is made with fermented teff grain flour. So you can eat out and still get with real, live food- this chance is of course higher when you seek out restaurants serving traditional foods.

Sourdough Breakfast:

                          

The extent of the global economic crisis has understandably taken the majority of media attention in the last few months, and will likely continue to with the implications of the presidential election and the various decisions coming from the fed, but only in a few cases has the media brought up that everyday people have been having household level economic crises for the last few years. High debt, stagnant wages, more and more uncertainty. So I think its fair to say that while there has been more talk about thrift many of us have been at it for a while. And as more people pay more attention to their spending, and clearly they are cutting back, I think it is crucial that we not get tunnel vision when thinking about our personal economic situation. Now more than ever to we need to prioritize our spending so it supports workers, the environment, and health. These are investments. So while we need to personally cut back we need to be ever more aware of the impact of our consumer choices. Are the choices we make allowing other families to weather the economic issues. Or are we saving personally by undercutting others’ wages? (*cough* *cough* Wal-Mart).

Read the full post on this here

                          

She asked me about essential foods I keep on hand and how to deal with the eating at the rushed times during the day at breakfast and lunch.

Here’s something I know about my friend; she is a good cook. The problems she is having are not ultimately about a lack of skill, but a lack of inspiration from what she has on hand and feeling drained with the rest of life to take the time to cook. It seems like she is in a difficult cycle where her lack of time limits her creativity and ability to think through recipes so she goes out for more expensive food which limits her ability to spend a bit more at the store or market to get inspiring and easy foods to cook. I also know that she doesn’t really enjoy her job, so it’s even more frustrating that by giving so much of her energy to joylessly earning money she doesn’t have the time to live how she should like to live.

Given that many of us are in work that is not ultimately fulfilling it is even more important to make sure those hours we have outside of work are used wisely and towards meaningful, uplifting things. It is crucial to look at what those hours at work are paying for and whether or not the fruits are worth the labor, so to speak. Most of us see the majority of our paycheck go to housing. So unless you are living in a place beyond your means, that cost is going to be constant. There are other constants like insurance and debt payments. But much of our spending is up to us. The category of “non-essentials” can really be expanded to most of our living expenses. Particularly when you frame your expenses as hours working. Are the things we own and use worth this time?

Audit your spending, the things you own, what you do with your time and make sure you’re really getting what you want.

Then you can think about your grocery list. Where is your money going in the products that you buy? On a personal level does the food you buy make you feel good? Are you getting a balanced diet? What did you pay for in that food- packaging, processing, sugar, plastic, advertising? How did that purchase help or hinder a just and healthy community. Did your hard earned dollars go to an international corporation, or stay in your area? Did you help a family make a living?

While it’s easy to get overwhelmed by these questions what you are actually doing is narrowing down your choices and ultimately making choosing food much easier. There are only so many products that get positive answers to these questions of how the food makes us feel, are we being good local consumers by buying it? When I walk into a store I no longer feel bombarded with the infinite choices provided, I know that there are limits to what I will spend my scarce dollars on and I decide between only the products that meet those requirements.

Not only are there limits on the products I will buy, but there is also a clear limit on the money I will spend. Often, but not always, the products I will purchase are going to be more expensive than those I prefer not to support.

You are paying for different things with either choice. For conventional vegetables you pay for long distance transport, with packaged and/or processed foods you are paying for the marketing, transportation, labor.
For local and or organic food you support a family’s livelihood and way of life, clean air and water and soil, happy animals, living wages, healthcare.

Where I save with conventional we all pay eventually elsewhere. Where I spend with organic my community reaps the benefits in a cooler planet, healthier body (cheaper to care for), smaller landfills, a more stable and equal economy. Seems like a bargain now doesn’t it?

Additionally, assess your waste and buy less: waste in packaging, uncooked or un eaten food, how much of what you buy gets thrown away? (If you reflect the national average, that would about 14% of what you buy) and also waste in excess eating (how much of what you eat gets wasted trying to burn it off?)

Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than people in any other country. We have seen food prices rise recently but are paying an historically low amount of what we make on food. In personal budgeting advice you will read that most people underestimate the amount of money they will or do spend on food. People end up overspending their budget because they were not realistic about how much they buy. This is only compounded by the recent increases in the price of food.

Here is how it plays out for us:

We have simplified our budgeting process by laying out the set expenses, the food and other shared items, and then the rest is up to us to spend or save. We have “personal cash” that goes to choices like clothing, getting lunch or dinner out or other treats, yoga, etc. Basically it comes down to those priorities and while we set them as a couple, we have a certain amount of free reign with the non-essentials. You can see we have a lot of our monthly income going to debt, and we didn’t stay exactly on target. It’s a learning process every month

While most Americans spend just under 10% of their income on food, we spend closer to 15%. So in many ways, when I discuss eating well on a tight budget it means looking at your overall spending in a new way.

That said, the one thing about a grocery bill is that most people buy much more at the store than food. So some of what you see in our grocery budget includes paper towels, toothpaste, shampoo etc. So our actual food spending is somewhat less.

Here is an illustration of other ways that we save:

Okay, so now I am at the store, with specific products I will and won’t buy, and a set budget to spend. What do I buy? I start with vegetables. In fact I don’t start at the store at all but the farmer’s market. We bring $20 to the market and we get what we can for the week. This means no meat, cheese, or prepared food just fruits and vegetables. The month of September (and October even more so) required less spending at the market due to the produce from the garden.

I start with in season vegetables and base the meals for the week on what I get. This is a great source of inspiration. I try to make sure these meals will provide enough leftovers to two of us to eat lunch after two have eaten dinner. Examples aplenty.

After the foundation of vegetables I shop in terms of meals. Beans, pasta, rice, other grains, eggs, ingredients for baking, oils and fats, some meats and dairy (yogurt, quart of milk, some cheese), spices and some sauces and broth. Then we get a few things that make life easier like snacks- popcorn, a bag of chips, salsa, rice cakes, peanut butter and jam. So its a progression to make sure the healthiest and most useful items for full meals are bought first and in the most abundance and then up from there until you’re at the set budget.

So, that is our process and what I can share. I think it’s wonderful to be inspired by food, prioritize the process and a way to spend time together. Learn new things, making it easier and easier each time. It’s hard to go wrong with simple and fresh ingredients. It seems to me that the economic situation will make the idea of people thinking of cooking a hobby sort of an absurdity, since we all eat we should all learn to manage that need in a way that is fun, engaging, and within our means.

And Delicious!

                          

My reason for bringing this up isn’t about telling people donuts are unhealthy or criticizing people for drinking arguably shitty coffee. It’s that Dunkin Donuts (and all fast food, Starbucks, Mcdonalds, etc.) contributes to the problems Ms. Ray’s nonprofit is explicitly trying to address- that almost a third of American children are obese because sugary salty processed fast food is more accessible to children than healthy food or home cooked meals.

 (a picture of health, esp. that Styrofoam cup)

People eat there and that’s fine to an extent- but what really frustrates me is that we are supposed to reserve criticism for these places and their patrons because they are more affordable than healthy food. So we should support fast food because it feeds the poor? This is unacceptable right? Can we take a step back and see the ways in which these places contribute to the problem of access rather than being the only viable solution to feeding low-income families? How much does Dunkin Donuts pay their workers? Do they have reasonable pay and hours in order to provide home cooked meals for their families? Does any of the money spend at Dunkin Donuts stay in the community in which its located? Do any rural farm families profit from the eggs or wheat sales? Likely no, for any chain.

They may have a 300 calorie sandwich but they are not making any real difference in issue that 1 in 5 kids in the US face food insecurity (from Ray’s site) and almost a third are obese (how these overlap is another matter).

People are so quick to defend these products for the “regular, everyday folks who keep America running”, but they fail to see the ways in which the profits from these products contribute to the larger problems our communities face. It’s important not to be too idealogical about your own or other’s food choices, but when it comes down to the ways in which these choices impact us generally- e.g. the annual cost to society for obesity is estimated at nearly $100 billion, who pays for the landfills for all those styrofoam cups, do workers at these places rely on public programs for health care- then I think we have a right to look at the bigger picture and get a little nitpicky with those who have an audience and money to make a difference.

                          

The trick now is to know what that money is for. Obviously for “living expenses”. But my cost of living has always just expanded to fit my income.

Once I got to a place where we might not make rent, it became very clear that previously we hadn’t been just covering the basics. We were spending money because we could and then starting again at the same place each month.

Making enough seems to create a mindset of extra money. We feel that in order to maintain a level of normalcy that money should be spent.

The other state of mind that created these habits is the intention/plan that we will someday make more. This is dangerous. These habits just get worse.

Being in a tighter situation it finally occurred to me in a real way, instead of a general philosophical way that I need to re-define my basic expenses. Otherwise, why do I work? Where am I going? It’s one thing to work part time and try to make ends meet and really just be plain poor. And another to make good money and never feel like I have any, and work all the time.

For a while I have tried to keep in mind the concept of satisfaction through rejecting a desire rather than fulfilling it. I promise it’s not so puritanical, and only applies to material goods/desires. The trick for me is applying this to more and more things that seem reasonable given my new income.

GetRichSlowly has a nice discussion on this. The overall issue is “lifestyle inflation” and the real heart of it, is being satisfied with what you have.

I will say that many of the discussions on cutting costs start at a higher level of consumerism that most of us are at. We wouldn’t have bought a new car or any car at all, we can’t really afford brand new things anyway. We already feel like we’ve pared down our consumption relatively far, so how much further could we go? But then we’re still in the place of just working through all our time and spending all our money, so something must change.

This idea of satisfaction really should go hand in hand with understanding our purpose for work. And our enjoyment of work. If we are working too hard, doesn’t it seem good to get to a different level of satisfaction or basic living and then work less…and maybe be happier?

Here’s an interesting source of inspiration for getting creative with our idea of work.

In thinking about purpose, I am working at this full time job to:

• support our little household while one is in school.
• get out of old habits, pay for old mistakes, and build the savings.

I will commit to:

• Redefining our baseline and our priorities of money. The more I spend now, the more I have to work later.
• not indefinitely putting off working less and living that good simple life.

GetRichSlowly has really been a great resource for me in this. From the discussions on budgeting I found this program, Pear Budgeting. I like it for the endless capacity for custom categories and because it makes you enter your receipts. This is going to be the hardest part, because why would you spend your time with this…but how else will you really know where the money goes? And is does all the math etc. Just going through the first step of entering in guesstimates of expenses and seeing how it all adds up was a good start.

A lot of this is common sense passed on through adages over the years, now with some experience and real pressure it’s all sinking in.