Archive for August, 2007
Mythbusters: Are Nalgene bottles unsafe for the environment?
Related to an earlier post regarding bottled water, evangelical-type eco-warriors are known to say that all sorts of things are bad for us — frequently because our awareness about what is safe and unsafe lie on the many unexamined habits and practices that we don’t examine closely. Scientific study to prove one way or the other frequently is barely keeping up — or ineffectively communicated to the public. But of all the horrors, just as bottled water is bad for Ha’Olam, now our beloved Nalgene bottles are bad too?? How??
A little bit of internet research is useful, categorized here in brief.
4 Comments »Does meat need to be hung up after it’s slaughtered?
While deciding whether or not to schect (slaughter) a goat at the Hazon Food Conference has created controversy, the question of how to schect a goat for quality meat also seems to be a cause for debate.
Yesterday Nigel wrote on The Jew & The Carrot: “The first thing we found out (and this surprised me): meat has to be hung up for a few days before you can eat it.”
Later that day, a blogger at The Failed Messiah countered with:
“Meat does not need to be “hung up” for a few days before you can eat it. Think back to the Temple, Nigel, and the sacrifices offered there…Nowhere in [The Torah] is a command to “hang up” the meat for a few days before consumption. In fact, quite the opposite is true.”
I think there was a bit of cross-conversation confusion – it seems that Failed Messiah was referring to halacha (and he’s right, there is no specific law about “hanging up” meat after an animal is slaughtered), whereas Nigel was talking about hanging up meat for taste and health reasons. Regardless, Failed Messiah’s counter post inspired me to look deeper into the logistics of schechting from my perspective as a registered dietitian who now works for Hazon.
Food, Mutuality and the month of Elul
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that a primary source for the teaching that “Elul” is an anagram for “Ani L’dodi V’dodi Li” (I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine) is the Shulchan Aruch - The Set Table. This verse from Song of Songs is seen by the sages as a call for us to reconnect with the Divine (our “Beloved”) during this season of teshuvah - renewal and repentance. Yet as we stare at our own brimming tables (and across them), this Rosh Hashanah, I offer the following meditations on this verse’s spirit of reciprocity - not just with God, but with each other and the food that connects us:
Of Church (and synagogue) and Steak
Today’s New York Times included a great article by Joan Nathan: Of Church and Steak: Farming for the Soul. Joan writes about the work being done across the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths to encourage sustainable agriculture, CSAs, responsible meat consumption and stewardship of the land within these faith communities.
The article is a who’s who of the faith and farming world and includes a shout out to Hazon for the Tuv Ha’Aretz Community-Supported Agriculture program and also The Jew & The Carrot as the front page of the emerging Jewish food movement. She writes:
“Environment-minded Jews are asking the leaders of Conservative Judaism to rewrite their kosher certification rules to incorporate ethical concerns about workers, animals and the land. Hazon, the Jewish environmental organization, has set up community-supported agriculture programs, or C.S.A.’s, in which customers purchase shares of a farm’s harvest….”
and later
Shechting a goat at the Hazon Food Conference?
Art, Blessings, Fair Trade, Featured, Food Writing, Holidays, Jewish Orgs, Judaism, Latkes to Lattes Conference, Leftovers, New Products, Participate!, Politics, Vegetarian
On the Friday night of last year’s Hazon Food Conference I said, “put your hands up if you eat meat - but would not do so if you had to kill it yourself.” And a good number of hands went up.
Then I said: “put your hands up if you’re vegetarian - but you would eat meat if you killed it yourself.” And a different group of hands went up. And after a brief pause, everyone laughed.
They laughed because the two responses revealed what a self-selected group we were - and how fascinating our different distinctions. The first group were essentially saying, “I do like eating meat - but I know the process of killing it is awful - it’s actually so awful that if I had to kill it myself, I just wouldn’t eat meat.”
The second group were essentially saying “I’m vegetarian because I hate everything about how animals are raised and killed in our industrial food economy. But if I actually took responsibility for killing an animal myself, I would feel I was acting with integrity, and in accordance with my beliefs - and therefore, in that instance, I potentially would eat meat.”
And my response, when the laughter died down, was to say “Great: next year we’re going to shecht (slaughter according to kosher law) an animal here at the Food Conference..”
And people went: “Oooohhhhhh..”
Kosher Organic Dining 101
Local food is on the “back to school” shopping list for many colleges and universities across the country. Yale, Brown, Middlebury, and University of California Davis are just a handful of the institutions of higher education that have started sourcing some dining hall fare from regional farmers and even supplementing their menus with produce from student-run organic farms.
But Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA has moved one step beyond the sustainable food trend. Starting this fall, F&M will partner with food services behemoth Sodexho to offer kosher, organic food to all students on their meal plan. According to a press release from the school’s Office of College Communications:
“The program, featuring a Kosher, international, vegan/vegetarian, organic (KIVO) menu, will be offered to the entire College community in the Benjamin Franklin Dining Hall…In addition, the KIVO plan will be Star Kosher certified - all products that are served will meet Kosher dietary law, and the program will be subject to strict rabbinical supervision and employ a full-time, on-site manager that is trained and certified in Kosher dietary practices.”
Eating and Reading
Art, Books, Dinner parties, Holidays, Jewish Culture, Jewish Learning, Judaism, Kosher, Spirituality
There have been some very interesting issues raised about kashrut in recent months on The Jew & The Carrot, particularly regarding the compatibility of traditional kashrut with the ethical, ecological, gastronomical, and cultural sensibilities of many of our readers and and contributors. And of course, there are the reports about the the blatant abuses of some of the kosher meat processors. However, while the kosher dietary rules (which I personally observe) are an important source and means of expression for Jewish values about food, they are not the only ones. There are also many rituals connected with the table and the seasons that have also shaped how we think about and eat our food.
Reading books at the dinner table is something most of us Jews take for granted, based on our experiences of the haggadot scripting our Passover seders, Tu bishvat haggadot for Tu Bishvat seders, benchers for birkat ha-mazon and zemirot after Shabbat and holiday meals. Read more »
I can’t can
Well-seasoned foodies might find Sunday’s, NY Times article, In Pursuit of Farm Fresh Flavor, somewhat (excuse the pun) ”behind the times.” The article’s basic theses were that local is the new organic, people like feeling connected to their food and farmer, and that those same people are hesitant to pay more for organic/local food.
Yep. I’ve read that all before. (I’ve even written that all before, as have many other food bloggers and writers.)
The article did, however, indirectly point out one interesting trend, which was summed up by Southampton resident, Sandra Fox’s comment: “If you live [in the Northeast] you know that the supermarket is for winter.”
It seems that local food enthusiasts get more complacent about where their food comes from once the weather gets cold. As the farmers markets close up shop and the CSA season ends, the overwhelming urge is to grit one’s teeth and return to the supermarket’s fluorescent haze and the waxy produce from far away lands.
Back to the Tap
By the numbers, from Time Magazine:
- 1.1 billion - people around the world that the U.N. estimates that lack safe drinking water, a number that could reach 5 billion by 2025
- 8.25 billion - gallons of bottled water Americans drank in 2006, a 9.5% increase from the year before.
- $10.8 billion - water sales last year — all for something you can get virtually free.
- 4,000 - tons of CO2 generated each year — the equivalent of the emissions of 700 cars — by importing bottled water from Fiji, France and Italy, three of the biggest suppliers to the U.S.
- Less than 25% - percent of water bottles recycled, leaving 2 billion lbs. a year to clog landfills.
The Agricultural Origins of the Jewish Holidays
This article comes from Tuv Ha’Aretz’s weekly newsletter. Thanks Gary Rendsburg for the article which is especially relevant considering the upcoming holidays.
Ask anyone with a typical Jewish education today, and he or she will tell you that the three Jewish holidays of Pesah (Passover), Shavu‘ot (Weeks), and Sukkot (Booths) commemorate major events in Israel’s early history. Pesah, of course, recalls the exodus from Egypt; Shavu‘ot celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai; and Sukkot evokes the wandering in the desert. Naturally, this information is correct, but if we trace the historical origins of these festivals, we discover that all three began as agricultural observances.
Pesah is associated with the barley harvest, which occurs in the early spring; Shavu‘ot is associated with the wheat harvest and the ripening of the first fruits, both of which occur in the early summer; and Sukkot is the great fall harvest festival, celebrated after all produce has been gathered from the fields (note that many cultures in the world have such a holiday; witness, most familiarly, the Canadian and American Thanksgiving feasts). These three holidays, accordingly, were signposts for the ancient Israelite farmers, with their strong ties to the land – and let us recall that the vast majority of the people in ancient Israel was engaged in the growing of crops and the production of food.
A Dietary Reevaluation
Most people who know me here at Adamah know that I do not eat dairy. I haven’t eaten it for over four years. Soon after deciding to abstain from milk products I found myself to be somewhat of an anti-dairy activist, always questioning friends’ dietary decisions and scoffing at cheese lovers.
I stopped eating dairy initially because I believed that it was unhealthy and bizarre to eat, and because I had trouble digesting it. I subsequently chose to cut the food group from my diet and have taken it to the extreme. I don’t eat baked goods made with dairy, I don’t eat pizza, and I don’t eat cheesecake. I further vilified the food group and its producers in conversations with friends and family to legitimate and validate my decision.
Here’s the problem. I’ve been eating plenty of non-healthy foodstuffs that are non-dairy. I found that I have mainly replaced dairy with processed soy products which I believe are far less healthy than dairy and worse for the environment (soy is produced as a monoculture in this country and is water and land intensive).
Here at Adamah I’ve begun to question my anti-dairy decision. Read more »
Beet the slump
I’m in a bit of an end-of-summer slump, and I don’t think I’m alone here. It’s that time after all my big summer plans have fallen into the past tense, and just before the spicy pumpkin pie/back-to-school excitement kicks in. The whole world seems slightly slowed down, like it’s spending all of its energy clinging to those last warm drops of summer sun. My refridgerator only adds to the problem.
Don’t get me wrong - summer isn’t over yet. The farmers’ markets are still bursting with indecently red tomatoes, cucumbers, and the last of summer’s sweet corn. But slowly, as the shadows of early fall begin to creep in, the harvest - and my mood - is changing. Soon, the flamboyant crops of summer will give way to autumn’s humble root vegetables. Soon, I’ll want to curl up into blankets and eat bowls filled with noodles and hibernate for a while.
As an antidote to my approaching fall melancholy, I’ve posted a recipe for “End of Summer Beets,” which I think captures the warmth and wealth of summer while embracing what’s to come. I’d love to hear your ideas for cooking beets (as they currently take up half the space in my vegetable drawer) as well as how you transition gracefully into fall.
Potluck
Tonight, my Shabbat table is going to be potluck in every sense of the word. On the menu is a mismatched (and hopefully charming??) set of dishes including yellow squash and spinach lasagna, tempeh with gravy, vegetarian sushi, and caprese salad with homemade mozzarella.
The group of people sharing this delightful meal is almost more interesting than the menu:
- Three modern orthodox men of varying persuasions within that denomination (one currently studying at Yeshiva University)
- One Jewish couple: he grew up conservative/kosher, she is studying to be a reform Rabbi at HUC
- One non-Jewish couple: both spiritually-minded, nominally Christian, and frequent Shabbat dinner guests
- One female Jewish farmer, currently living at Adamah
- One post-denominational, semi-observant, egalitarian woman (me)
This type of uber pluralism is rare in the Jewish community, at least on a small, informal scale. I’m excited but to be honest, I’m also a little nervous about this gathering. What will happen when the conversation steers out of safe territory (books, movies, favorite childhood TV shows)? Will it be tense if my friend’s phone starts to ring (which, inevitably, it will)? Will my non-Jewish guests be uncomfortable if we get into a round of z’mirot after dinner? I’ll post a comment after Shabbat to give the update - but for now, wish us (pot) luck!
Faith meets farming
Thanks to Julie Weiner who wrote an amazing article about Tuv Ha’Aretz, faith and farming for the Associated Press. It’s copied below, but if you want to read the full thing, click here.
By JULIE WIENER
For The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Faith meets farming and fuels community supported agriculture movement
On Wednesday evenings, faith and produce mingle at Atlanta’s Congregation Shearith Israel synagogue.
As parents gather to collect their children from Hebrew school or attend lectures, many also pass through the social hall, where they collect boxes of tomatoes, peaches, spinach and other organic produce.
It’s a blending of physical and spiritual sustenance that Rabbi Hillel Norry calls the best of Jewish values in action, and it’s just one of a growing number of faith-based community supported agriculture (or CSA) programs nationwide.
“We’re taking Jewish ideals of justice, economics, health, ecology, well-being and responsibility and putting them to work in the real world in a way that makes our lives and the life of the farmer better,” Norry says.
