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
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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.
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Since early spring, the foodie and business worlds have been all a-twitter about Whole Food’s proposed takeover of natural foods competitor, Wild Oats. The story just got even more interesting when the note Whole Foods was passing in class got intercepted by the teacher (aka, The AP). The New York Times reports:
“The Federal Trade Commission documents revealed that Whole Foods planned to close 30 or more Wild Oats stores, a move that the company believes would nearly double revenue for some Whole Foods stores…
Many of the details in the documents, which F.T.C. lawyers filed electronically, were not meant to be released publicly, but words intended to be inaccessible were actually just electronically shaded black. The words could be searched, copied, pasted and read in versions downloaded from court computer servers. Court officials realized the mistake and replaced the filing with a version using scanned pages of the edited documents. The Associated Press downloaded the document from the public server before it was replaced by an edited version.”
According to the document, Whole Foods set rules barring food suppliers from direct sales with Wal-Mart. Additionally, documents labled “Project Goldmine” predicted that the buy-out will send 80-90 percent of Wild Oats shoppers to Whole Foods. Shoppers will then be at the mercy of Whole Foods who, without competition, can drive up prices even more than they already have.
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Last week, The Jew and the Carrot blogger, Eric Schulmiller, posted his response to James McWilliams’ recent NY Times op-ed that stated some startling news for sustainably-minded foodies to ponder:
Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe’s push for “food miles labeling,” recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption… Most notably, they found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s fertile pastures and shipped by boat to the U.K. consumed 688 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per ton. By contrast, stock produced within the U.K.’s poorly adapted pastures consumed 2,849 kilograms per ton. In other words, it is four times more energy efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard. ”
Touche, anti-localvores, touche.
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Yesterday, in the New York Times, was an op-ed by journalist and author James McWilliams, about the true impact of the local food movement on the global environment. In the article, McWilliams, himself an enthusiastic member of a CSA, reports that,
“Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand, no doubt responding to Europe’s push for “food miles labeling,” recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption. Other scientific studies have undertaken similar investigations. According to this peer-reviewed research, compelling evidence suggests that there is more — or less — to food miles than meets the eye.”
These studies, McWilliams writes, actually prove that once factors other than “food miles” are entered into the equation (such as a farm’s water, energy and fertilizer/pesticide use; packaging, etc) the total carbon footprint of food purchased from half way across the world is often actually lower than that purchased from locally-grown sources. Quoting a noted New Zealand environental researcher, McWilliams notes that locally grown food, “is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle than during transport.” McWilliams goes on to urge fellow local-food supporters to view these findings not as a threat, but as a challenge to look at the food system in a new way, as both environmentalists and pragmatists.
There is certainly a large challenge present in this article. For one, it could generate unfavorable press for the local food movement when certain elements of McWilliams’ presentation are taken out of context, or are manipulated for political purposes. For some of us, this information might force us to reconsider whether the other values of local foods (taste, freshness, supporting local farmers, community development, worker’s rights, to name but a few) would still compel us to choose the low-spray apples we buy from the local farm, or, as John Mackey of Whole Foods would claim, we’d be better off buying certified organic ones from across the country.
It’s a discussion worth beginning, even if our answers lead to more questions.
FYI, here is McWilliams’ original article from the Texas Observer, on which the NYT piece was based.
And here are some other perspectives on this issue.
Rabbi Morris Allen has served Congregation Beth Jacob outside of St. Paul, Minnesota for 22 years. In his “spare time,” he is also the founder of Hechsher Tzedek – a proposed certification put forward by the Conservative movement last December that would endorse foods that are traditionally kosher and also produced in a socially just and sustainable way.
Hecsher Tzedek has received significant acclaim, and also sharp criticism since the idea was piloted eight months ago. I spoke with Rabbi Allen recently to find out the latest news.
“Kashrut is not simply a statement about what we can and cannot eat,” Rabbi Allen told me. “There are so many people who worry about whether a cow’s lung is smooth [glatt] or not, but have no worry about whether someone’s hand was mutilated in the process.”
After my goose bumps subsided, I asked him what this vision looked like in practice. He identified six criteria that will be the “meat and potatoes” of Hechsher Tzedek as it develops:
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The New York Times reported this week that New York City’s oldest diner, Moondance, is moving…to Wyoming. While property values skyrocket throughout the five boroughs, La Barge, Wyoming residents, Cheryl and Vince Pierce, “stole” Moondance for a tag-sale rate of $7500. The diner, which features many of its original furnishings, will travel across the country on the back of a flat bed truck, before settling in its new home. That’s one less restaurant for New York City, and one (total) restaurant for La Barge.
The whole situation is sadly fitting. With Starbucks on every corner and $25 omelettes on brunch menus, Manhattan is no longer the kind of place for a place like Moondance. In last week’s parsha, Eikev, Moses lies on his deathbed as the Jewish people are about to cross into the land of milk and honey they’ve been wandering towards for forty years. He commands them to beware and avoid the belief that ”my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth,” - in other words, to remain humble despite their new plentiful existence.
Hopefully, as Moondance makes its own journey towards a new home, New York - a city made beautiful by quirky diners and drab by each Frappucino - can take Moses’ message to heart.
Read the article here.
Back in 2000, I was fortunate enough to take part in a “Jewish heritage” tour of China. I came home with some amazing memories, including shabbat dinner and davening with a local minyan in Bejing, and a tour of the Jewish neighborhood in Shanghai where thousands of Jews successfully fled Nazi persecution. Six straight weeks practicing with a Chinese language tape in my car allowed me to successfully navigate the streets of China (or at least ask, “where’s the bathroom?” or “is there pork in this?” at least five times a day). But my proudest moment came when I was able to walk into a store in Shanghai and order a package of my new favorite tea (a sweet concoction called ba-bou-chai - “8 treasures tea”) without uttering a word in English.
I had quite a different cultural experience when I entered a brand-new coffee shop in the Forbidden City and ordered a Venti non-fat caramel latte. Yes, Starbucks (or *$ for short) had managed to outdo the parodies of its own ubiquity by opening a branch in the most culturally innappropriate spot in all of Asia. I shouldn’t have been surprised - American culture had infiltrated urban China to such a shocking extent that an alien plunked down in Tienanmen square would have assumed from the sheer number of KFC awnings that Colonel Sanders was China’s “Great Leader,” and not Chairman Mao. But the juxtaposition of American consumerism and ancient/communist Chinese culture was too great to wrap my head around without a serious infusion of caffeine. Read more »
In honor of Independence Day, here’s a short excerpt from a longer NY Times Op-ed, “Red State Welfare,” by Tim Egan.
“Every five years or so Congress drafts a farm bill. The last farm bill was a masterpiece of Soviet-style goals and giveaways signed by that faux-rancher who likes to show off his cowboy boots, President Bush.
This massive piece of legislation could be a blueprint for rural America. But it has become a spoils system where the congressmen-turned-lobbyists make sure that their clients get triple-figure checks for growing things that the nation already has in surplus.
This year, things are different. It’s not their farm bill anymore. It is quickly becoming a food bill, a design for the American diet, possibly the worst in the industrial world. Budget hawks, nutritionists, small farmers and big farmers who grow fruits and vegetables without subsidies, alternative energy advocates and rural renaissance types — all are ready to do battle over the new plan.
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Water is strolling the red carpet a lot these days, from concerns about overhydration, Dead Sea water levels, and access to fresh water, among other things. Today’s Times article, “The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration,” illustrates another aspect of water’s newfound popularity. It traces concerns, from the late 60s, over the development of “bottle bill” programs that reward bottle recycling.
The article’s author, Jon Mooallem, emphasizes the complexities in the debate over bottle bills as well as the major players on both sides of the debate. New York State has taken significant steps in addressing the issues of water bottle recycling.
This year, the Bigger Better Bottle Bill campaign in New York is making its sixth attempt to redirect those unclaimed deposits — estimated at $100 million each year — into a state environmental fund.
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Concerns over working conditions at Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meat processing plant, are heating up after a walk-out organized by the United Food and Commerical Workers, The Forward reports.
The NYTimes piled on with a profile of Conservative rabbi, Morris Allen, leading the charge for a social justice oriented tzedek hecsher.
Allen joined a team of rabbis who investigated the Postville plant last summer: “We weren’t able to verify everything [the Forward reported on working conditions]” Rabbi Allen recalled, “but what we did find was equally painful and filled with indignities.”
The Orhtodox Union equivocated.
“The issues raised — workers’ rights, safety, environmental issues — are not mundane issues,” Rabbi Genack [of the OU] said last week in a telephone interview. “The question is one of implementation. These issues are best dealt with within the mandate of other agencies — federal and state. We believe they’re handling it properly and have the expertise and the authority to handle it.”
Kosher Today suggests the Forward might be on an “Orthodox bashing” “crusade”, that the UFCW is stirring the pot, that there’s no market demand for a social justice certification and anyway, things are tough all over. “The anti-Agri crusade also ignores the fact that Agri is part of a larger meat industry where conditions are considerably worse than at the kosher plants.”
Tom Lehrer responds: Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department” says Werner von Braun.
Like me, some of you may have pondered the significance of dairy on the festival of Shavuot. I have mixed feelings about the various explanations I have heard for this association:
- Since the rules about not mixing milk and meat had just been revealed at Sinai, there was no time for the Israelites to buy a second set of dishes so they had to have a dairy meal to celebrate the giving of the Law.
- Using gematria, the letters in the Hebrew word chalav (milk) add up to 40 - the amount of days the people waited at Sinai (or the number of years they wandered in the desert)
- As long as the Israelites followed the words of Torah, they would inherit the land flowing with milk (and honey)
- Just as Torah has been compared to water, so it has been compared to milk (i.e. “Milk and honey are under your tongue” (Song of Songs 4:11).
It’s this last idea on which I’d like to focus the remainder of this essay. When it comes to Torah as milk, the following Talmudic passages some up the values behind this metaphor nicely:
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“Do not wrong one another, and you shall fear your God; for I, The Eternal, am your God.” (Leviticus 25:17)
[This verse] forbids wronging others with words…And if you say: “Who knows if I had evil intentions?” For that reason the verse continues: “You shall fear your God”…[Regarding] anything which is a matter of conscience, known only to the person involved, [The Torah adds]: “You shall fear your G-d.” (Rashi on Lev. 25:17)
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” (Proverbs 28:21)
While researching for a d’var torah for this week’s parasha, I came across the following midrash, courtesy of a Union for Reform Judaism TableTalk by Barbara Binder Kadden:
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Any doubts that humane, healthy, organic and local are the dominant food trends? Witness today’s NYTimes dining:
Assuming the dining section is one step behind the curve, reporting peaking trends rather than coming ones, what do you think will be next? Where will sustainability take our plates tomorrow?
[NYTimes]
