Radio for Foodies

I stumbled upon this awesome website, Heritage Radio Network, an internet-based radio station with weekly broadcasts on all things food-related in New York City (and beyond!). I've been listening to the Out to Pasture broadcast this weekend, which just happens to jive so well with my thesis research on distribution networks for local meat in NYC, that this just MUST be my lucky day.

The mission of the station's founders includes celebrating "the growing movement to change how Americans eat, and by extension, think about the planet." Amen! Check these programs out if you're at all interested in the food industry, and really now, who ISN'T interested in food?

is "sustainable hotdog" an oxymoron?

...Maybe not. Last night, feeling both terribly hungry and terribly indecisive, Chris and I played the time-tested "I'll list restaurants and you tell me when I get to one you want to eat in" game. Lucky for us, the winner was Bark Hot Dogs in Park Slope, one of the newest sustainable/local/green additions to the NYC restaurant scene.

Now, while I'm generally NOT a fan of hot dogs (or veggie dogs for that matter), I was excited to scope this place out. I mean, how often do the words "sustainable hot dog" even cross one's mind? In my case, I'd have to say never, so getting the low-down on these local dogs was really overdue. Plus, it was Saturday night, which seems like as good a time as any to chow down on some quality fast food. (For the record, quality fast food is NOT an oxymoron, but a real, live, viable business model. Check out Burgerville in the Pacific Northwest - motto: "Fresh, Local, Sustainable". I can say from personal experience that it's also DELICIOUS.)

Back to Brooklyn. We stoked our appetites for the big occasion by walking the 2 miles to Bergen Street. This helped curb the guilt inherent in having a hot dog, onion rings and milkshake for dinner (note - sustainable fast food is yummy and socially responsible, not healthy). It also left me hungrier than Hell. I liked the look of Bark as soon as I stepped inside: clean and bright, long communal pine tables, an awesome trash sorting station for landfill, compost and recycling, and a tap for self-serve NYC filtered water.

The food didn't disappoint either (though the Fries were a little on the thin side, I thought). I got the Veggie Dog with roasted mushroom-chickpea topping and pickled garlic mayo. It was, without a doubt, the best veggie hot dog I have ever consumed. Hands down. And I don't just mean compared to the low standards of other veggie dogs . This was GOOD. More like a veggie sausage than dog, and super duper yummy. Chris gobbled up his meaty hot dog (grass fed, NY state meat), and the onion rings and PB milkshake were pretty killer. Even though I abstained from the meat-dog pleasures myself, I'm psyched that sustainable meat is slowly but surely infiltrating the NYC restaurant scene. Check out this recent article in the Times about the connection between industrial livestock and global warming, and the importance of small-scale family farms.

More than the food though, I was SUPER excited by the resources menu (food/beverage/operational) that was posted on each table. Transparency - what a concept. There's something really comforting about going into a restaurant and being able to trace each item on your plate back to its source. This, combined with the fact that we were able to compost or recycle everything on our tray, left me feeling all warm and fuzzy about local food, and wishing I had a little sustainable restaurant of my own...hmmm...just have to think of a gimmick...sustainable grilled cheese, anyone?

The low-down on soybeans

Friday I was confronted with two disturbing facts about soybeans. The first I came across while reading an Op-Ed piece from the Times entitled "The Carnivore's Dilemma". This article, which calls into question the overly-simplistic argument that meat-eating is closely linked to global warming contained a startling fact about soy: 70 percent of newly deforested areas in Mato Grosso State in Brazil is used to grow soy. Wow! A lot of this goes to industrial livestock feed, but the article also states that the Organic Consumers Association notes that "Brazilian soy is common (and unlabeled) in tofu and soymilk sold in American supermarkets". Grrr! Why are our labeling laws so outrageously lax in this country?! Don't we have a RIGHT to know what our food is and where it comes from?

Later that night I watched the documentary Food, Inc., which has a great (albeit terrifying and heartwrenching segment) on Monsanto's genetically modified soybeans and super shady business practices. The film stated that 90% of soybeans grown in the US are Monsanto's GMO Roundup Ready beans, which are genetically modified to withstand serious spraying with the broad-spectrum pesticide RoundUp (also manufactured by Monsanto).

These 2 bits of information left me worrying about whether the soymilk I pour onto my cereal and into my tea every morning is as sustainable as I assumed it to be, so I did a little investigating to try and find out where Silk gets their soybeans. I was thrilled to find a document on their website entitled Soybean Sourcing and Production Program, which outlines their environmental, social and business policies. Turns out that Silk is (as far as I can tell) a pretty responsible company dedicated to environmental and social sustainability. Silk only procures non GMO soybeans, and their organic beans are USDA certified organic. They support a slew of good things, including family farms, environmental health, living wages and renewable energy. They offset all of the electricity used in production by purchasing renewable energy credits. All Silk soybeans are sourced from North America. Check out the report for more information.

Feeding a City

OKAY, I've been at this blog for a few months now (albeit with a month-long hiatus). The time has clearly come for you and me to sit down for a friendly chat about a subject near and dear to my heart: food.

Furthermore, lets talk about my favorite type of food: the local, seasonal, environmentally and socially friendly kind. And lets throw in urban farming just for shits sake.

If you've known me for more than...hmm...like 10 minutes, you undoubtedly learned the hard way (think extremely grouchy Gwennie with plummeting blood sugar and no snacks) the central roll that food plays in my daily functioning. My life consists of little more than a series of tasks that I perform mainly so that I can justify my next meal, and I consume a good 5 square meals a day (I don't know who invented the 3 meal ideal, but it just doesn't work for me, my metabolism or my brain). Luckily, I can now boast several worthy justifications for this pseudo-obsession, apart from the fact that my brain and body don't function well when running on empty, I'm a super geeky foodie, and I enjoy me some good eats in a serious way:

1) I live in a city that boasts 23,000 restaurants (a fact i just learned!) This means that I could eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different restaurant every day of the year, and it would still take me like, 21 years, to dine at every restaurant in NYC. Whoa.

2) Since August, I've been working as an urban farmer and environmental educator on The Science Barge in Yonkers, NY.

3) I'm writing my thesis on distribution networks for local, grass-fed meat in NYC. Or at least I'm THINKING about writing my thesis. Lets all cross our fingers and say a little prayer that thinking will lead to writing sooner rather than later, so that I can graduate and get the Hell on with my life.

4) I spent last Saturday picking apples upstate at Fishkill Farms. Anyone who's ever been apple picking knows that u-pick apple orchards release a dangerous brain-altering chemical which makes you unable to stop putting apples in your sack, even as reason tells you you've amassed more apples than any one person could ever naturally consume. Goddamn apples. I am now busying myself with discovering innovative ways of disposing of my glut of the forbidden fruit--but more on that later.

5) And finally, I just finished watching this TED talk on "How Food Shapes Our Cities" with Carolyn Steel, which made the geographer in me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and the environmentalist in me feel oh so inspired. You should totally watch this.


My internship on The Science Barge - a prototype sustainable urban farm and environmental education center- has solidified my belief that food is a (if not THE) fundamental component for a healthy, functional world. Food is central to our daily lives, both biologically and culturally, and as such, is critical to a sustainable future. Food has the power to transform our society on so many levels. The way we grow food, transport food, consume food and dispose of food waste has huge implications for not only our physical health, but for the health of our cultures, communities, cities and the natural world. If food is so central to our functioning as species, shouldn't we take the time to make sure we're growing and consuming it in a sustainable way? YES!

For the first time in human history, more than half of the world's population lives in an urban area. Despite this fact, almost all of the food we consume is still grown in rural areas, far, far away from these population centers. More and more, this food is being grown in environmentally damaging ways, in a system more reminiscent of a factory than a farm. Every day, family farms are losing ground to huge multinational corporations. This is not only damaging to the environment, but to the vitality of rural communities. Sadly, the mammoth monoculture farms and Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) created through this industrial system are now referred to as "conventional", while food grown responsibly is labeled "organic" -- a niche market of healthy, environmentally and socially responsible food available only to those who can afford to pay for it.

This has to change! We must re envision our relationship with food and farming so that what is now a niche market for local, organic produce and humanely raised and slaughtered livestock becomes the norm rather than the exception. One way we can achieve this goal is to improve the distribution networks between small farms and the cities they surround, so that farmers are guaranteed a market for their produce plus fair prices, while all urban consumers are granted access to safe, fresh, seasonal, nutritious food. The New York City Greenmarkets are a great example of how this can work, but they are only one answer to a problem that necessitates a variety of solutions.

Another way is to grow food where people live - in cities! Once a pie-in-the-sky Utopian vision, urban farming is now becoming the "in" thing. Prototype farms, like The Science Barge, are teaching people that food can and should be grown in cities, while commercial operations like Rooftop Farms in Greenpoint, Brooklyn are demonstrating the economic and social viability of urban farming. Cities are full of places where food could be grown to support local communities: rooftops, brownfields, vacant lots and community gardens are just a few examples. Other
people, including urban farm expert Dickson Despommier, see the future of urban farms in vertical farming and hydroponics. No matter which method suits the inner farmer in you, urban farms will be vital to the health, security and prosperity of cities in the future.

Ok, time to step down off my soapbox and get to work...tonight I've got a kitchen full of apples (local, organic, AND in season) to chip away at. Tomorrow its back to The Science Barge, where I'll do my darndest to inspire a classroom full of kids to revolutionize the way they think about their next lunch. Good eats.

Compost = Common Sense...or DOES it?

After years of enduring the shittiest that shit has to offer in food service at Hunter College, Sodexo has been replaced with a new food vendor, AVI. For sustainably-minded students like myself, this is extremely exciting news for several reasons: 1) finding food that doesn't break the bank but is still within walking distance and marginally appetizing on the Upper East Side is really quite challenging, and 2) AVI promises to improve the sustainability of the food services at Hunter. Some of the exciting things their contract contains include:

• Work with Hunter on developing a rooftop garden to grow herbs and vegetables for its menus.
• Introduce a tray-less food service program to limit waste.
• Provide eco-friendly packaging made from corn-based polymers and recycled paper.
• Use only non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning products.
• Provide drinking fountains with paper cups made from recycled materials.
• Recycle used cooking oil for conversion into bio-diesel.
• Partner with New York Presbyterian Hospital’s successful composting program.

Hark! Did someone say composting? Well, sort of...

I walked into Tuesday's Sustainability Council meeting and was greeted by a schmorgazborg of breakfast goodies provided by AVI. Notwithstanding the vast array of free mini-danishes at my disposal, I was most impressed by the plates, cups, cutlery, etc, which were all compostable, made from recycled paper or corn starch. AWESOME! "This is too good to be true!" I thought. Then the cloud of doubt set in. AVI had clearly stuck to their vow to use eco-friendly packaging--and compostable packing at that--but were they planning to provide composting bins in the cafeteria to receive this eco-waste? I dared to ask this question, only to find out that my good friend Rion had raised the same question earlier in the meeting (yes, I was late. yes, i had a good excuse.)

According to AVI's spokesperson at the meeting, there was no need for this compostable cutlery to deserve special treatment in the waste stream...it would simply be composted in the landfill.

Ummm....WHAT?! This is bogus for at least 2 reasons, one of which requires a basic understanding of 7th grade science, and both of which require the capacity for common sense. Most organic matter biodegrades aerobically, or with oxygen. Typically, things break down best with a cocktail of oxygen, water and organisms like worms or microbes. When a landfill is sealed up, water and oxygen (and most likely, earthworms) are pretty much shut out. Hence the reason why you can go to a landfill and dig up a largely intact banana peel, 50 years post-consumption. Doesn't everyone know this? Apparently not.

Next, the benefits of compostable cutlery made from recycled materials are three-fold: 1) you reduce the amount of raw natural materials required to produce new products; 2) you decrease the amount of solid waste entering our limited landfill space; and 3) you create a useful product in the process--compost, which can be used in your garden to grow healthy, tasty plants sans synthetic fertilizer. Eureka!

So long story short, it looks like the students on the Sustainability Council will continue fighting an uphill battle in our quest to knock some sense into the silly, misinformed administrators of good old HC. Props to Hunter Solar Project for representin' in a serious way. And props to AVI for their early attempts at improving the sustainability of Hunter's food service. Lack of common sense aside, you're already a billion times better than Sodexo, and your coffee's pretty good, too. Keep the mini-danishes a-flowin' !