La Vida Locavore - Recommended Diaries

"The Oregonian" on Food Deserts in Portland

JayinPortland — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Here's an article worth reading from Saturday's Oregonian describing the experiences of a family living in the same area of outer Northeast Portland that I did last year, one I described in this diary from a few months ago.

How fresh can you and your family really eat when the trip to the grocery store is a once-a-month event?

Calderon rests her hand on the wheeled wire basket that will haul home nearly a month's worth of groceries for her family of four.
It's after 5 p.m. on a Friday. Calderon and her daughter, Amelia, wait for the No. 72 bus.
From the bus shelter, Calderon has a good view of the neighborhood's most prominent business, The Sugar Shack, a vast strip club and adult business.
"Let's just suppose if they were to get rid of the strip joint across the street, if they put a store there," Calderon muses in Spanish.
Instead, the closest markets are convenience stores. They're sugar shacks of a kind, given their selection of cigarettes, beer and processed foods. At one, the produce section amounts to a few bruised tomatoes, limes and jalapenos. The other charges $4.89 for a gallon of milk, about $2 more than a regular supermarket.

Besides the personal aspect, the article also brings up quite a few other great points...but since it was just apparently a quick feature, it didn't get too deep into those issues. The writer still did an admirable job with the space she was given, though -

Nationally, food deserts originated with the urban flight of the 1960s and 1970s.
When white, middle-class residents left cities for the suburbs, grocery stores followed, according to PolicyLink, a national nonprofit focused on social and economic inequities. Grocers tweaked their formats to favor a suburban customer, building vast markets with acres of parking, locking into long-term contracts with suppliers who offered price breaks because the chain stores sold in huge volumes.

And predictably, that led to this -

Stores that didn't make money, many in poorer neighborhoods, didn't survive. Convenience stores replaced supermarkets, high-calorie processed food replaced fresh, and a generation of poor people and minorities gained weight and developed chronic diseases.

There are, as always, many other factors that came into play along the way...but that's a pretty succinct description of just what happened and why.

Always great to see articles like these increasingly out there in the mainstream publications, raising these and many other related questions. Like the relationship between the current ridiculously inadequate levels of food assistance made available to families in need that make it impossible to regularly (if at all...) eat healthy, fresh whole foods; the subsidies and wide convenient availability that make possible the ubiquity of cheap junk food in our culture; and the latter's contribution to what is frankly an historic obesity epidemic and a disastrous public health crisis that is a serious threat to our future as a society.

Definitely worth reading the whole article, and especially for a key point touched upon later in the article about a local small natural / organic foods supermarket chain here in Portland, New Seasons Market. Besides putting a heavy emphasis on locally-grown and produced foods, and of course carrying most of what you'd expect to find in a Whole Foods...they also (for better or worse...) carry many products you'd find in the typical corporate chain, while locating stores in neighborhoods that have largely been abandoned by the corporate chains and that places like Whole Foods would never consider opening a store in. The Arbor Lodge store on North Interstate Avenue at Rosa Parks, for example...some might consider that store the leading edge of gentrification in that neighborhood, but I'd argue that they're bringing great food choices into a neighborhood that didn't have many a few years ago. It just might be an operation like this that's needed to bridge the considerable gap that exists currently between the two extremes of gas station c-stores and the other natural foods markets that are currently oriented more towards "better off" neighborhoods.

Other immediate options to improve food access to people living in these underserved communities would be more support along the lines of what the Healthy Corner Store Network is working on, and government / organizational grants and subsidies to enable the existing network of convenience stores to be able to offer more fresh produce. And of course, improving public transportation options to allow people more convenient and consistent access to the outer grocery stores that already exist for right now, while we go back to the drawing board to redesign all of our communities towards a sustainable and walkable mixture of all uses.

Bachelor Pad Thai /w Spaniel

StrandedWind — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:50:19 GMT

One box Thai Kitchen Pad Thai, contains rice
noodles and sauce packet

two large eggs

extra Pad Thai sauce

1/2 pound shrimp approaching seafood event horizon

One Brittany Spaniel, hyperactive, unbrushed

Set water to boil, begin to remove shrimp tails.

Pay Spaniel tax - one dog treat from jar on counter.

Begin removing shrimp tails, manage scrambling eggs, accidentally drop one shrimp between counter and stove.

Hunt for shrimp with knife, remove scrambled eggs, notice boiling water, place noodles therein.

Succeed in removing shrimp, double Spaniel tax with incentive to seek further revenues, place surviving shrimp /w sauce in frying pan.

Eight minutes of frantic floor licking later remove noodles, strain, cool with flowing water. Swat Spaniel nose approaching counter level.

Place noodles in frying pan, stir. Execute advanced Spaniel management technique (shout SQUIRREL!, dash for back door, ensure it closes fully after warhead exit)

Stir noodles, wait for sauce to absorb, then enjoy. Listen for incessant barking - this will indicate leftover portion has cooled enough to be refrigerated.

Food Feature: Fish Farming Fallacies

bob zimway — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:27:11 GMT

Enjoy that wild salmon, it could be extinct-- or at least unobtainable-- in your lifetime. This is the message I get the more I look into it. It's one reason why I write on the behalf of wild salmon, because it is so good as a food, and such an inspiring work of nature, but it is becoming so rare. What would the Pacific Northwest, my home, be like without it? The rivers would seem barren. The orcas in the ocean would starve and diminish. The Web of Life would fray badly.

And it is fraying now.

What are the alternatives?

Declining ocean fish stocks have led to a rapid growth in fish farming. Let's see how that's working out.
Think farmed fish are the answer? Think again:

The total world aquaculture production contributes to the global fish supply. Aquaculture is one of the fastest growing food sectors, with production increasing from 10 million tonnes in 1990 to 29 million tonnes in 1997 (FAO, 1999). More than 220 species of finfish and shellfish are farmed today.
However, carnivorous farmed fish are fed on high levels of fish meal and fish oil and require a fish biomass input superior to the fish biomass produced. For the ten species of fish most commonly farmed , an average of 1.9kg of wild fish is required for every kilogram of fish raised. Unfortunately, there is an increase in the production trend of carnivorous fish (such as salmon or shrimp), rather than herbivorous or filter feeder fish. Small pelagic fish mainly provide the fish meal and fish oils used for aquaculture feed. Aquaculture's growing needs increase pressures existing on wild fisheries for small pelagic fish, which already suffer from overexploitation and are strained by climate changes resulting from the El Niño warming effect.

Pelagic fish are oily fish that live in the deep sea. This group includes herring, sardines and anchovies. Perfectly good fish in their own right, less likely to contain heavy metals as do the larger predator species, and in my opinion what we should be eating instead of tuna and farmed salmon.

Fish as food and fish food; a redundant article perhaps but I feel the need to show how the message is coming in from many authoritative sources:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One-third of the world's ocean fish catch is ground up for animal feed, a potential problem for marine ecosystems and a waste of a resource that could directly nourish humans, scientists said on Wednesday.
The fish being used to feed pigs, chickens and farm-raised fish are often thought of as bait, including anchovies, sardines, menhaden and other small- to medium-sized species, researchers wrote in a study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.
These so-called forage fish account for 37 percent, or 31.5 million tons, of all fish taken from the world's oceans each year, the study said. Ninety percent of that catch is turned into fish meal or fish oil, most of which is used as agricultural and aquacultural feed.
Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science and a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, called these numbers "staggering."

A recent study (pdf) on salmon mortality in the Columbia and Fraser Rivers has put the spotlight on the effects of farmed salmon lice that infest wild smolts coming out of the Fraser. A 2005 study found a correlation between proximity of fish farms and lice infestation. The fish farm industry refutes that and says that it is closely monitoring lice in its rearing pens. They apply lice killer, how and how much, I don't know, and what effect the chemicals have on the fish and on fish-as-food I don't know. But it's troubling.

Ocean Fish in Steep Decline
Fish farming get its food from the oceans. This fact leads one to ask how the sources of the world's wild fish are doing. Bummer.

A bleak warning from the UK:

A hidden catastrophe is unfolding off the coasts of Britain which could leave our seas filled with only algae and jellyfish, a leading conservation organisation warns today. The Marine Conservation Society says severe overfishing is the biggest environmental threat facing Britain and is having a profound effect on marine ecosystems. The warning comes in Silent Seas, a report released as the government prepares its marine bill for parliament.
The report comes the day after the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, which advises Europe's politicians on fish stocks, warned that parts of the North Sea should be closed to mackerel fishing because stocks of the species could be on the brink of collapse.
Simon Brockington, head of conservation at the MCS, said: "There's a moral imperative: we simply shouldn't be living in such a way that drives species to extinction."

What's even worse is how the food-fish are obtained: trawling, where the ocean floor is scoured of everything, brought to the surface, picked through for say, shrimp, and then the other 95% of sea life, now dead, are thrown back.

An excellent Nat Geo article describes a harrowing decline in valauble food species, exemplified by the crash of the bluefin tuna

Once, giant bluefin migrated by the millions throughout the Atlantic Basin and the Mediterranean Sea, their flesh so important to the people of the ancient world that they painted the tuna's likeness on cave walls and minted its image on coins.
But, uh oh, bluefin tuna makes the best sushi.
Over the past decade, a high-tech armada, often guided by spotter planes, has pursued giant bluefin from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, annually netting tens of thousands of the fish, many of them illegally. The bluefin are fattened offshore in sea cages before being shot and butchered for the sushi and steak markets in Japan, America, and Europe. So many giant bluefin have been hauled out of the Mediterranean that the population is in danger of collapse. Meanwhile, European and North African officials have done little to stop the slaughter.
"My big fear is that it may be too late," said Sergi Tudela, a Spanish marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, which has led the struggle to rein in the bluefin fishery. "I have a very graphic image in my mind. It is of the migration of so many buffalo in the American West in the early 19th century. It was the same with bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, a migration of a massive number of animals. And now we are witnessing the same phenomenon happening to giant bluefin tuna that we saw happen with America's buffalo. We are witnessing this, right now, right before our eyes."

And that is just one species.

Popular species such as cod have plummeted from the North Sea to Georges Bank off New England. In the Mediterranean, 12 species of shark are commercially extinct, and swordfish there, which should grow as thick as a telephone pole, are now caught as juveniles and eaten when no bigger than a baseball bat. With many Northern Hemisphere waters fished out, commercial fleets have steamed south, overexploiting once teeming fishing grounds.

Africa's and Asia's surrounding seas are in steep decline. It's happening eveywhere. Bringing the crisis home, here's a bit of the fraying fabric that strikes the hearts of many in the Pacific Northwest. San Juan Islands orcas starving for lack of food.

Right now, looking at the mess we're in in every direction, I'm beginning to get overwhelmed by how bad it is on every front. Economy, energy, food, climate, species extinction, population... population? No one talks about that anymore. I wonder though, when we will....

I'll leave it here.

UPDATE:
Here's more on farmed fish problems. Farmed fish have been shown to produce sea lice that harm wild stocks, and the Canadian government has taken this and other farmed fish issues seriously. Last week a production quota scandal arose over Canadian farmed fish.

A central-coast salmon-farming operation has drawn the wrath of environmentalists for violating its licence by pumping out unsustainably high numbers of fish. Living Oceans Society said Monday it was "appalling" that government documents show Mainstream Canada salmon farm sites in the Broughton Archipelago produced as much as twice the tonnage allowed in their licences.
Production limits are supposed to minimize the impact that animal waste from fish farms will have on the local environment, reduce the risks of hyper-concentrations of sea lice, and minimize the health risks that overcrowded sea pens would pose to the fish themselves.

Obesity Epidemic is Bad News for Economic Recovery

Asinus Asinum Fricat — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:23:05 GMT

You think this is harsh and OTT? Dr Donal O'Shea, a famed Irish endocrinologist and Director of the Weight Management Clinic at St Columcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, said in a conference in Dublin last week that

"pouring funding into cardiology, cancer and dementia without tackling the obesity epidemic that is fueling these conditions would be a disaster."

His take on obesity (about 24 minutes long, scroll down to the tenth video) is a sober approach to combating it. "Worldwide, obesity is the driver of a range life-threatening "lifestyles" diseases", he notes. The British Medical Journal puts it bluntly: "The driving force for the increasing prevalence of obesity in populations is the increasingly obesogenic environment rather than any pathology in individuals".
If you're looking for the visible signs of a wide scale system failure all you have to do is walk down the street in any city in the world and see first hand the crisis that is playing out in the bodies of millions of people. It's a slow moving disaster that has the potential to sink health systems worldwide and seriously hamper economic recovery. For instance here in Ireland, 24% of the population is obese, in line with the rampant epidemic in the US and it is already straining government coffers to the limit. I read the other day in a British magazine, can't remember which one, but its sheer logic jumped off the page and roughly it is as such:

"In common with all other species, humans instinctively conserve energy, using just as much as we need to feed and breed. Our physiology was simply never designed to cope with having unlimited access to high-energy fats and sugars that today are embedded in the foods that pervades our lives."

I have written about this in the past and got trolled by some irate posters who trotted out a number of reasons why I shouldn't point fingers. I'm not. Yes, I get that some people may be overweight due to illness, or suffer from hypothyroidism, pituitary tumor, endocrine abnormalities or other. Weight is often something a person cannot help any more than being female, short, or diabetic. People are often too quick to condemn and judge anyone who is overweight as being lazy and greedy, unable to control their eating. Other factors are transportation or lack of, proximity of convenience stores, cooking time scarcity due to the fact that some people have to hold two or three jobs to make ends meet and a host of others. But obesity is a serious disease which is readily treatable with exercise, a balanced diet and drugs where necessary.

Obesity is the medical term used to describe the state of being overweight to the point where it is harmful to your health. An obese adult is three times more likely to develop diabetes, compared to a person who remains within a healthy weight range. The news is even worse for children and adolescents.

The calorie intake of most people today is broadly the same as 20 years ago, but activity levels have dropped off. The way in which society has changed means that everything is now done for us. We don't even have to roll down our car windows anymore, we simply press a button. When we enter a building, we rarely have to use stairs because of lifts. While visiting New York I've seen a young couple entering a taxicab for a 200 meter ride! And I might add that if obesity is the disease then television is its principal vector. We all know the term "couch potato".

The nature of food is different today too. Convenience undoubtedly plays a huge role in people's choice, as indicated by the ever-expanding range of 'ready meals' now available, as well as the plethora of fast-food restaurants which continue to pop up nearby.

In dealing with this issue, balance is the key. We need a balanced diet, but the messages we receive about food also need to be balanced. I would like to see food and advertising companies endorsing healthier foods, and to make healthier foods attractive to young people. Take high-fructose corn syrup for example. It's a cheaply made agricultural byproduct that is ubiquitous in soft drinks and used widely as a sweetener in processed foods. The problem lies with the fact that unlike glucose, which sends a signal to the brain that your stomach is full, calorie-soaked fructose actually leave people feeling hungrier. These products are marketed shamelessly to kids via television shows ad breaks.

When it comes to the issue of obesity and children, ultimately, responsibility lies at home. This message needs to come through school (which should stop selling soft drinks and sugary snacks in their vending machines) as well but it must be delivered at home first and foremost. There needs to be a campaign for parents to make them aware of this issue. Another way to combat this avalanche of fatty products is to tax junk food the same way that governments tax cigarettes and alcohol. The tax revenues could be utilized to promote healthier foods, and make them affordable to all.

According to Dr O'Shea,

"there is much concern over the number of overweight and obese young patients attending not only diabetes clinics, but general medical clinics too. A recent study in the UK found that children as young as three were presenting with obesity. The strain that this puts on the pancreas...it simply would not be able to cope. This is a completely new phenomenon which has only been seen in the last 10 to 15 years".

The World Health Organisation defines obesity as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more. A person's BMI is calculated based on their weight and height. A person with a BMI of under 25 is considered normal and the risk of developing conditions such as diabetes is minimum. A BMI of 25 - 30 is considered overweight and the risk to health is increased. Calculate you BMI here.

The Skinny on Fatty Foods

Asinus Asinum Fricat — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:53:09 GMT

A couple of days ago I wrote this diary and copped quite a few unkind comments, mostly from misinformed posters and a handful of hardcore denialists. Yet the problems persist, and shooting the messenger rarely helps. But I'm a tough cookie, comfortable in the knowledge of what I know and write about and in this diary I'm basically tackling the same issues albeit from a different angle: "Big Pharma" and the multinational junk & processed foods companies ("Big Food") which, worldwide, make gigantic profits on the back of unsuspecting consumers, specifically marketing non-nutritious food appealing to children and adults alike via disingenuous advertising.

Obesity, though some would prefer to call it eating disorders, is a big growth area, not just for the unwitting sufferers, but also for some food companies which contributes so greatly to the problem. "Big Pharma" which works in tandem with "Big Food" would love to "terminate" its main source of competition: the natural products industry and the organic movement.
First let me remind you that Barack Obama's election means that it is Big Pharma that stands to take a hit, according to The Boston Consulting Group. Its analysis concludes that Obama's plan to let the federal government negotiate Medicare drug prices could cut industry revenues by a whopping $10 billion to $30 billion. That's good news for those suffering from a plethora of illnesses. I'm not sure how his administration will handle Big Food but one thing is certain: like the banks it badly needs to get regulated particularly in the area of food additives, supersaturated produce with empty calories in the form of white flour, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, transgenic (synthetic) fats, labeling and unscrupulously aggressive marketing.

There are over 320,000 food items on the market, and many food companies produce both "good" and "bad" food. If you thought that the following "modern" foods were harmless, think again: juices, yogurts, cheese sticks, corn flakes, pastries, chocolate & energy bars are all loaded with sweeteners and additives.

Soft drinks: (get rid of them) research indicates that if you drink as little as 2 sodas or colas a day, it promotes diabetes and weight gain. Informed nutritionists have known this for years, which is that taking in empty calories from sugar and high fructose corn syrup is not only wasteful, but can be harmful to the digestive system. HFCS is also found in condiments like ketchup, fruit juices and chocolate bars.

The dangers of hydrogenated oils and partially hydrogenated oils are also developed from otherwise harmless, natural elements. To make them hydrogenated, oils are heated in the presence of hydrogen and metal catalysts. This process helps prolong shelf life but simultaneously creates transfats, which only have to be disclosed on the label if the food contains more than 0.5 grams per serving. To avoid listing transfats, or to claim "transfat free" on their label, sneaky food manufacturers simply adjust the serving size until the transfat content falls under 0.5 grams per serving. Voila! The Harvard School of Public Health has estimated that at least 30,000 people, and more probably 100,000 people die every year in the US from cardiovascular disease caused by consuming hydrogenated oils, as opposed to natural vegetable oil.

Remember when some physicians told you about this new wonder drugs that can take off weight without even thinking? One such drug is Sanofi-Aventis' (SNY) rimonabant, which is marketed as Acomplia in the EU. No such "luck" in the US though, it was rightly rejected for its suicidal tendencies. The medicine supposedly suppresses the receptors in the brain that cause people to crave fatty foods. The other drug is GlaxoSmithkline's (GSK) Alli, which is now available over the counter.

Alli is essentially the over-the-counter version of Xenical, (generic name is orlistat) a prescription medicine already available. Xenical works by blocking the amount of fat absorbed through the digestive system.

At the time of the Alli's launch last year, GSK estimated it would eventually sell between five million and six million kits annually, translating to at least $1.5 billion in annual retail. A 60-capsule kit costs about $50 while a 90-capsule pack costs about $60. Does it work? Not enough to spark a run on Brazilian bikini but if you agree to a commitment to living your life in a new way as you must learn to change your eating and activity habits, then it's for you. But why spend that kind of money when you have to completely change your lifestyle and do all the proverbial heavy lifting? Those taking Alli, btw, have to put up with some diarrhea and flatulence.

And now on the legal front: on 17 April 2008, GSK, along with the American Dietetic Association and the Obesity Society (both regarded by many as fronts for the Big Pharma) petitioned the FDA to try to prevent any dietary supplement product making weight loss claims. The company wants weight loss claims to be re-classified as disease claims, therefore making them the sole domain of treatments with licensed pharmaceuticals. And since GSK's Alli product is the only weight loss drug that is on the over-the-counter market it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see their reasoning.

A lawsuit aimed at getting soft drinks firms out of US schools on obesity grounds is now ready to go, says one of the leading lawyers involved to BeverageDaily.com, as new research suggests obesity litigation will become the next "tobacco".

When it comes to using litigation as a strategy to combat obesity, food manufacturers should be most wary of lawsuits based on consumer protection acts, according to a new report that examines the application of tobacco litigation methods to obesity lawsuits.

The report uses the history of tobacco litigation as a model to evaluate potential legislation against the food industry, which the authors claim is another industry that poses a threat to public health.

Published in this month's issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the study says

that although national legislation against the food industry would be a "preferable" strategy to protect public health, lessons from the tobacco wars suggest that effective national legislation is currently unlikely.
One of the reasons for this is that the industry has a strong influence on the process, say authors Jess Alderman and Richard Daynard. Like tobacco, the food industry routinely- and often invisibly- seeks to influence both legislators and health professionals to support its agenda while ignoring its potential impact on public health".

And when it comes to individual personal injury lawsuits against food companies, these also could carry a slim chance of success, although the companies involved are likely to fight litigation at every step.

"Losing such a lawsuit could open the floodgates of litigation by encouraging millions of obese Americans to file similar cases, so it would be advantageous for the food industry to delay or defend every such lawsuit to the fullest extent."

However, as was demonstrated in the EU recently, lawsuits based on consumer protection acts are likely to be much more effective, as these avoid complicated causation issues and focus instead on deceptive marketing tactics and could fall under consumer protection statutes, together with false advertising, misleading claims and unfairly taking advantage of vulnerable consumers.

Indeed, back in 2005 an American consumer launched a lawsuit aimed at food companies including Kraft Foods, General Mills and Kellogg, alleging that "low sugar" labels on cereals were deceptive as the companies replace the sugar with other carbohydrates, thus offering no significant nutritional advantage. The suit claims that these cereals are misleading because they aren't any healthier than cereals with regular levels of sugar, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The food industry in general is coming under increasing pressure from food lobby groups and some parents, to "clean up its act" and offer healthier alternatives to help combat the obesity epidemic facing the world. Sugary cereals are frequently cited by these groups as guilty culprits, encouraging children to eat empty calories instead of nutritional whole foods. Will Obama appoint a food "czar", someone who can and will take on Big Food?

High fruit and vegetable prices may be linked to childhood obesity, says the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), although it suggests that further research is needed in order to confirm the "casual relationship" identified by its recent study.

The USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS) findings are based on an examination of the diets and weight of around 7,000 children between kindergarten and third grade.

"Children who lived in metropolitan areas where fruits and vegetables were relatively expensive gained significantly more weight than children who lived where fruit and vegetables were cheaper," said the USDA, adding that the children who participated in the study had a similar way and standard of living

Data from the Bureau of Labor cites that both American children and parents are spending increased time commuting from work, school and activities. Eating takes place en route from one venue or another, making sitting down to a home-cooked, carefully balanced meal even less of a reality for families. The absence of regulated family eating schedules was cited as one of the main causes of poor dietary habits. But other major concerns cited by respondents should serve as a warning to food makers that they are not about to be let off the hook just yet.

"Children's eating habits are suffering due to the lack of structured meal time, and this is as big a challenge as the lack of balanced meals," said Amanda Archibald, analyst and registered dietitian for Mintel. "Compressed schedules and cramped time availability for both children and parents may play a more important role than previously thought in making healthy food choices."

According to Mintel's Menu Insights, a menu-tracking system, more than 47 percent of children's menu items were fried. Chicken fingers led the way on the top 5 children's menu dishes list, followed by grilled cheese sandwiches, burgers, macaroni and cheese, and hot dogs.

Mintel's report also cites that overall restaurant portions have also steadily increased over time.

And recently, a number of academic studies presented at the AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research reveal growing evidence that overall cancer incidence and mortality resulting from overweight and obesity is also increasing, something which places more pressure on the food industry, and presents regulators with another headache.

If you'd like to read about Big Pharma cloak & dagger scare tactics, look no further than here.

Something Fishy About Organic Standards

Jill Richardson — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 08:11:30 GMT

This week, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) will meet (Nov 17-19). Among the topics for discussion are organic standards for farmed fish. As the Chicago Tribune put it, the organic definition for fish flounders.

With wild-caught fish the reason is quite simple: if the fish was wild, who the hell knows what it ate? I'd assume it probably ate food that was more natural than anything a fish might eat in captivity, but then there's the question of what kind of pollutants we lovely humans may have added to that wild fish's food. Hmm.

For farmed fish, here's the issue:

But under the proposed standard, farm-raised fish would be considered organic, even if what they eat includes fish meal, which is feed spiked with ground up wild fish.

So a wild fish is not organic, but farmed fish that eats wild fish is? How about not. I'll add to that my own personal concern with this that one of the major problems with some kinds of farmed fish is that it keeps the fish at the top of the food chain throughout their lives, whereas wild fish start lower down on the food chain and only achieve "top of the food chain" status in adulthood. This is significant because the higher you are on the food chain, the more pollutants you accumulate.

One more problem is:

The USDA requires that feed for cows, chickens and the like be 100 percent organic. But under the fish standard, non-organic feed initially would constitute up to 25 percent of the diet of an organically raised fish.

Perhaps NOSB should skip certifying fish and instead allow the MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) continue to provide the gold standard of seafood certification.

Groups opposing the proposed fish rules are Consumers Union, Food & Water Watch, Living Oceans Society, and the Center for Food Safety. I've included a statement from them below.
Below is a press release I received via email that I believe was jointly issued by the 4 organizations named above.

NEW POLL REVEALS THAT PROPOSED 'ORGANIC' STANDARDS FOR FISH WILL FAIL TO MEET CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS
National Organic Standards Board Meeting November 17 - 19 to Decide on Final Recommendation that Does not Meet Fundamental USDA Organic Principles
Washington, D.C. (November 13, 2008)-The USDA's National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is poised to dilute the meaning of the trusted organic label when it meets next week to decide what the label should mean for fish. The NOSB will vote on their recommendations for "organic" fish production that would allow fish to carry the USDA organic label-despite being raised under conditions that fail to meet fundamental USDA organic principles. The NOSB recommendations allow:
Fish to be fed food other than 100% organic feed-the gold standard that must be met by other USDA-certified organic livestock;

Fishmeal used to feed farmed fish from wild fish-which has the potential to carry mercury and PCBs; and

Open net cages to be used-which flush pollution, disease and parasites from open net fish farms directly into the ocean, adversely impacting wild fish supply, sustainability and the health of the oceans.

Just this week, a Consumers Union Poll revealed:
An overwhelming majority of Americans-93 percent-agree that fish labeled as "organic" should be produced by 100 percent organic feed, like all other organic animals.
Nine in 10 consumers also agreed that "organic" fish farms should be required to recover waste and not pollute the environment and 57 percent are in fact concerned about ocean pollution caused by "organic" fish farms.

More than 4 in 10 polled are concerned about the health problems associated with eating wild fish.

A copy of the poll can be found here: www.GreenerChoices.org/foodpoll2008.
"It's a disservice to the organic program and to consumers that the NOSB is ready to undermine the organic marketplace which relies on a higher bar for environmental health practices being met," said Urvashi Rangan, PhD, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst at Consumers Union. "Fish labeled as 'organic' that are not fed 100 percent organic feed, come from polluting open net cage systems, or that are contaminated with mercury or PCBs any measurable level, fall significantly short of consumer expectations."
The NOSB recommendation is full of holes that will not protect "organic" fish from contamination or ensure that open fish farms in the ocean will not pollute and adversely impact the surrounding environment. In the NOSB attempt to deal with the complex impacts of wild fish in feed and net pens, the proposed standards are couched such as requiring wild fish to come from "sustainable" fisheries-but there is no standard for "sustainable" fisheries. They also claim that the pesticide residue testing program for organic produce would cover contaminant testing in wild fish. However, farms are only subject to pesticide testing once every five years, which is not adequate to control contamination rates in fish feed. The NOSB reliance on conventional fishmeal production systems to self-regulate and separate "sustainable" vs. wild inputs is unproven and will be extremely difficult if not unfeasible in practice.
Collectively, Consumers Union, the Center for Food Safety and Food & Water Watch gathered nearly 30,000 signatures in favor of maintaining strong standards for the organic label for fish. "Consumer trust in the integrity of the organic label is at stake," said Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch. "But unfortunately, the NOSB wants to allow the farmed salmon industry to cash in on the organic label without meeting the basic tenets of organic production."
"In an effort to shoehorn every type of industrial fish farming into the organic label, the proposed recommendations create a dangerous loophole to get around the 100% organic feed standard by arbitrarily and capriciously defining wild forage fish feed as a 'supplement,' " said George Kimbrell, Staff Attorney for the Center for Food Safety. "Allowing such farmed fish to be labeled organic violates the spirit and letter of the law, is detrimental to the oceans and misleading to the public."
Last year, a broad coalition of concerned advocates from 44 organizations-which collectively represent more than one million stakeholders and concerned citizens-voiced urgent concern that the NOSB not weaken USDA Organic Standards. The co-signing organizations concluded that while the farming of herbivorous finfish may be conducted within organic regulations, farming carnivorous finfish (including salmon) in open net cage systems is an inherently flawed farming practice, incompatible with organic principles.
An inventory of international data reveals that open net salmon farms, whether labeled as "organic" or not, may inevitably allow escapes and the spread of sea lice and infectious diseases. "Allowing net pens to be certified as 'organic' weakens the incentive for producers to use innovative technologies like closed containment," said Shauna MacKinnon of Living Oceans Society, a member of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform. "The industry needs technology that controls impacts, not standards that endorse the status quo."
NOSB should reject this recommendation and draw the line so only fish that eat 100% organic feed and are produced in closed, controlled production systems where waste is not flushed into the environment, should be eligible to be certified as organic. If that line cannot or is not drawn, the NOSB should recommend that all fish and seafood cannot meet the current organic standards bar and therefore is not appropriate for organic production.

More Reasons to Love Tom Harkin

Jill Richardson — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 08:35:25 GMT

Tonight I discovered the fun of Thomas.gov, the Library of Congress website. Want to know what our friends in Washington are up to? Thomas will tell you. In my case, I was searching for something that I couldn't find, but I ended up stumbling upon a bunch of really great bills that Tom Harkin has proposed this year. They are:

S.771: A bill to amend the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 to improve the nutrition and health of schoolchildren by updating the definition of "food of minimal nutritional value" to conform to current nutrition science and to protect the Federal investment in the national school lunch and breakfast programs.

If I've got the facts right, you can't serve "foods of minimal nutritional value" in schools, but the way they define "foods of minimal nutritional value" allows you to basically serve whatever you want. Cheetos? Mountain Dew? No problem. Under government definitions, those aren't foods of minimal nutritional value (so what is? tree bark?). Good on Harkin for proposing this! Unfortunately, after gaining 32 co-sponsors, it went to the Ag committee and died there.

More below.
More of Harkin's food-related bills from the last year:

S.1412 and S.1460: A bill to amend the Farm Security and Rural Development Act of 2002 to support beginning farmers and ranchers, and for other purposes.

The first one has 3 co-sponsors. He re-proposed it and got 10 co-sponsors the second time, but both times it died in committee. Thomas isn't working very well - I'd love to be able to read what this bill (and the others) is about but at least from the brief description it looks good. Over in the House, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin proposed a similar bill, HR 2348, which also died in committee.

S.1529: A bill to amend the Food Stamp Act of 1977 to end benefit erosion, support working families with child care expenses, encourage retirement and education savings, and for other purposes.

Nice one, Senator Harkin. This time he got 15 co-sponsors but still the bill went nowhere.

S.2784: A bill to amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to extend the food labeling requirements of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 to enable customers to make informed choices about the nutritional content of standard menu items in large chain restaurants.

I know this is a tough one to pass - California just finally managed to pass a menu labeling bill - but I'm thrilled that he's at least coming out in support of it. This one went to the HELP committee and died there. I'm sure someone influential on HELP like Senator Dodd could be a proponent of this in the future, if Harkin would introduce it in the next session of Congress. Over on the House side, Rosa DeLauro proposed this same bill and got 14 co-sponsors.

S.3597: A bill to provide that funds allocated for community food projects for fiscal year 2008 shall remain available until September 30, 2009.

This one became law. I think this was fixing the glitch in the farm bill that messed up the CFP (Community Food Projects) program. But it should be noted that Harkin's ag committee was wonderful on the CFP issue overall, allocating $10 million in mandatory funding (double the amount given in the previous farm bill) to the program whereas the House allocated $0. In the end, the averaged the 2 numbers to $5 million, which meant that the funding stayed the same.