Vert-à-Go

Face the Fear is a series about a dozen things that you can do right now to feel better about what and how you eat.

(photo by Amanda Kelso)

Here’s a fact you might find surprising: how much meat you eat can have the biggest single impact on your personal carbon emissions. That’s right–not your car, not your trip to Mexico, not your house–but your steak.

Meat is one of the most energy-intensive and resource-guzzling foods around. It takes about 2kg of grain to produce 1kg of chicken, 4kg of grain to produce 1kg of pork, and 7kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef. At a time when grain is in short supply around the world, it is very hard to justify continuing to eat the Canadian average of just over 6oz of meat per day.

Here’s a quick indicator of meat’s impact: if Americans, who eat about 8oz meat/day, were to reduce their consumption by a mere 20% (less than one meat-based meal per week), it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as if every car-owner in the States switched from a standard sedan to a Prius.

Industrially-farmed meat–that is, what you usually find in the grocery store–is particularly hard on the environment:

• It takes 8 times as much fossil-fuel energy to produce animal protein as plant protein.
• It takes 3,900 litres of water to produce 1kg of chicken, 4,800 litres of water to produce 1kg of pork, and 15,500 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef.
• 40kg of water- and air-polluting animal waste is created for every 1kg of industrially-produced beef.

By eschewing meat altogether, eating smaller quantities of meat less often, or choosing chicken, lamb, or pork more often than beef, you can cut your carbon emissions dramatically. It will also conserve massive quantities of water, reduce environmental pollution, and free up acreage to grow food for people, not animals. Obviously, some land and some plants/grains are suited only for supporting animals, but I’m not talking about getting rid of livestock full stop–just reducing the excessive and unnecessary consumption of meat that puts huge stresses on the planet and the majority of its poorer inhabitants. Most of our grandparents certainly thought of meat as a treat, and we should too.

You can further improve the environmental impact of your chicken breast or pork chop by avoiding factory-farmed meat and choosing high-quality meat from small-scale local farmers which has been naturally or organically-raised. These animals are raised in much more humane conditions and it shows in the taste. This meat may be more expensive than the dirt-cheap grocery store option, but we have seen again and again that we simply cannot afford to cut corners with meat production. When rock bottom prices become the chief priority for food manufacturers and consumers, can we really be suprised when they start selling us garbage?

I must confess that I just like meat, and I used to eat it pretty much every day. But I stopped buying it at the grocery store quite some time ago after having not just one, but two, bulk packages of hamburger recalled because of suspected e.coli contamination. I had also read Fast Food Nation and was completely horrified to learn how animals were raised, slaughtered, and processed in the industrial meat system. Furthermore, I was living in England during the BSE crisis. As a consequence, I can’t donate blood in Canada and have a small but persistent fear about how long the incubation period for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) might turn out to be. I now buy meat solely from local farmers and ranchers, and it tastes how the chicken and the beef we used to raise on the farm used to taste.

In the past year I have tried to stick to a meat/vegetarian daily meal rotation, which has reduced my consumption by 50%. I’d like to reduce it even further–although I vividly remember the time that I decided to give up meat entirely when living in London, and by day 3, thought I was going completely insane. Despite huge quantities of plant protein and nuts, I was completely irritable, tearful, and felt utterly on the verge of collapse. Finally, in exasperation, one of my co-workers said to me, ‘For god’s sake, Sue, just go out and get a bacon sandwich!!’ I’m rather sorry to say that it completely did the trick and I have not attempted to go that long without some kind of animal protein again.

Further reading:

• Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bitten

“We Make it, Bake it, Grow it and Sell it.”

– Saskatoon Farmers’ Market motto

Saturday’s Farmers’ Market will move outside to Market Square for the very first time next Saturday, 3 May, from 8am-2pm. The Sasktel Mendel Art Caravan will be on hand offering children’s crafts from 10am-noon.

The new Sunday Market (how exciting!) begins 11 May from 11am-3pm.

Wednesday’s Market begins 21 May, 10am-2pm.

Happy Spring!

I confess that I do struggle against climate dread. Any new news about the environment is very seldom good news, and it is demoralising beyond belief to walk home from the farmers’ market with a bag of locally grown organic food, only to be blown past by someone chucking a McDonald’s wrapper out of the window of their Hummer.

But we can’t sit around and do nothing, even if somewhere out there our evil twin is itching to replace every ounce of carbon that we struggle not to emit. And the food that we choose to eat can make a real and instant difference to our ecological impact. Here are a dozen things you can do right now to radically reduce your food footprint. Most of them will save you money and improve your health, too! I’ll be putting up detailed posts about each item in the series soon.

1. Eat less meat

2. Grow some food to eat this year

3. Eat seasonal, locally-produced food

4. Eat organic food, preferably locally-produced

5. Choose fair trade food products

6. Only eat fish and seafood from safe and sustainable fisheries

8. Reduce your consumption of industrially-produced/processed/fast food

7. Walk, bike, bus or carpool to the store, market, or restaurant

9. Plan your meals ahead and keep track of leftovers to avoid food waste

10. Drink tap water, not bottled water, and don’t forget the carbon/water footprint of other drinks too

11. Compost your food waste

12. Use more energy-efficient ways to cook your food

…and check out Reiko’s Bento Lab–just because I guarantee it will make you smile!

“Only two things in this world are too serious to be jested on–potatoes and matrimony.”
– Irish saying

Around the world, potatoes are growing in popularity as the price of wheat and rice continues to rise. Potatoes are not only rich in carbohydrates, protein, vitamin C, and potassium, but they can produce more food, on a smaller amount of land and in harsher climates, than any other major food crop. Up to 85% of the potato plant can be consumed, compared to only 50% of cereal crop plants!

So it seemed appropriate in this, the UN’s International Year of the Potato, to make the humble spud the star of the show for our simple but warming (and 99.9% local) dinner on Earth Day.

(Earth Day) Irish Colcannon

• 2lbs potatoes, quartered
• 8oz crisp green cabbage (you could also use curly kale, in season)
• 2 green onions, chopped (I used some of the brave little chives poking their heads out of the snow in my garden)
• butter
• fresh nutmeg, grated
• salt and ground black pepper
• 4 large eggs
• 3oz mature cheddar cheese, grated

Boil and mash the potatoes. Gently cook the cabbage until tender but still crisp. Preheat oven to 375F. Drain the cabbage and mix into the potato with the onions/chives, butter and nutmeg. Season to taste. Spoon the mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish and make four hollows in the mixture. Crack an egg into each hollow and season well.

Bake for 12 minutes or until eggs are just set, and serve sprinkled with cheddar cheese, alongside a simple green salad.

(from Roz Denny’s Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook)

(Serves 4)

Ingredient sources: Simpkins Market Garden, Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Grandora Gardens (Saskatoon Farmers’ Market), my garden, Armstrong/Saputo (local), Sunview Acres (local), Sifto (local), Orchard del Sol (Bulkcheese Warehouse)

(photo by Neil Wilkinson)

Here’s a quick round-up of five of the most fascinating food issue articles I’ve read lately:

Our personal actions to halt climate change can sometimes seem depressingly insignificant, says Michael Pollan in the New York Times. But the best way to start is to grow some–even just a little–of your own food. (registration required)

Genetically modified crops are not the solutions to world hunger that Monsanto claims they are, says The Independent. In fact, a major study has found that GM soyabeans produce 10% less food than their non-GM counterparts.

George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian, says never mind the credit crunch–the real crisis is global hunger. And if you care about it, eat less meat.

Forget carbon: you should be checking your water footprint, says Amol Rajan in The Independent. A new Dutch web site, waterfootprint.org, can help you work out how much water is used to grow, manufacture, and transport common foods and products.

Japan is a market pioneer again–it’s the first industrialised nation to run out of butter. This surprising shortage proves that even wealthy countries are not immune from the issues of self-sufficiency and food security, says Leo Lewis in the Times of London.

(Right: one of the stunning images from the documentary Sharkwater)

Last week I watched the documentary Sharkwater, which convincingly shows how the shy and intelligent shark has been the wrongful victim of human fear, loathing, and greed. The documentary also hammers another depressing nail in the coffin of hope for ocean sustainability.

Shark populations are being decimated. Over the past 50 years, they have dropped by 90%. It is estimated that 100 million sharks are now being killed every year. Most of these losses are from illegal longline fishing by poachers, who trail baited lines as long as 60 miles from their boats, trapping not only sharks, but also countless other marine animals (fish, sea turtles, dolphins).

These poachers are not after the entire shark, which is an important source of protein for many people living in India and West Africa. They only want the fins, which are in huge demand in Asia for the highly-sought-after shark fin soup (an expensive dish that displays the wealth and status of the host), as well as so-called ‘medicines’ (whose efficacy has been debunked).

Shark finning is incredibly wasteful (as well as incredibly cruel) because the fishermen cut the fins off the still-live sharks right on the boats and throw the sharks back into the water where they bleed to death, thus wasting 95-99% of the shark’s body. There is no incentive for poachers to restrain their dangerously profligate harvesting because one large shark fin can be worth as much as US$10,000 and they can cram their boats full. Sharks could very soon become extinct because of it.

So why should we worry about sharks? Well, they are the largest predators on earth, as well as one of the oldest. They’ve been around for at least 450 million years, and haven’t changed much in the last 100 million years, which indicates they are perfectly evolved for their environment and perform an essential function in maintaining the oceans’ ecological balance. What are the consequences of suddenly wiping out a top predator from the sea? Very probably a sudden increase in the number of fish that eat plankton–and plankton, by the way, produces 70% of the world’s oxygen and removes more carbon from the atmosphere than any other organism. Did I mention that plankton populations are already in serious decline?

Shark slaughter therefore has a truly devastating effect not only on the oceans, but on we land-based animals as well. One of the biggest ironies is that because sharks are at the top of the marine food chain, they have become terribly contaminated with mercury and people really shouldn’t be eating them anyway! To save remaining shark populations and to help them rebuild, people need to refuse to eat anything made with shark fins and to campaign for better policing of the earth’s oceans.

Shark fin soup may not be seen on the menu in Saskatoon restaurants, but saving sharks is part and parcel of conserving all sea life and maintaining the health and abundance of the planet for future generation. For more information on what you can do to help sharks, visit www.savingsharks.com.

Twenty-four hours before I was expecting 9 people for a birthday brunch, I came down with a truly evil cold. An hour-and-a-half before the guests arrived, a city worker knocked on the door to tell us that they were turning off the water until mid-afternoon to repair a broken hydrant. This I could deal with.

But then I had a momentary brain freeze and loosened the angel food birthday cake from the pan before letting it cool entirely, and it instantly collapsed into a sad-looking heap about 2/3rds of its original height. I couldn’t serve it up to the birthday girls like that, and there wasn’t time to make another one. Time for birthday trifle!

Fallen Angel Trifle

• one fallen lemon angel food cake
• 500ml whipping cream + the remains of an old one I found lurking at the back of the fridge (about 150ml–expiry date 18 March, by the way, and it was still fine! Whipping cream lasts forever)
• Nigel Slater’s vanilla custard
• 4 cups frozen peaches

Rip your misbegotten angel food cake into 1-inch chunks (or thereabouts) and toss into a large flat-bottomed glass bowl (or glass dishes). There, don’t you feel better? Now prepare the custard (a double batch from Nigel Slater’s Real Fast Puddings):

• 600mL mixture of milk and cream (I used about half of each)
• dash of vanilla extract (Slater calls for a vanilla pod, which I didn’t have)
• 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks
• 6Tbsp berry/caster sugar

Heat the milk and cream mixture (I used about half and half) with a dash of vanilla until it is steaming and just beginning to bubble. Watch it carefully so it doesn’t suddenly boil over! While the milk is heating, mix the eggs with the sugar in a heat-proof bowl. When the milk is ready, pour a little through a sieve into the egg mixture and whisk thoroughly. Pour the rest of the milk through the sieve into the egg mixture and whisk it thoroughly again.

Give your saucepan a quick wash (this is easier if, unlike me, you actually have running water at the time), pour the mixture back into the pan, and place it over a gentle heat for about 5 minutes, keeping a close eye on it and whisking periodically. When it is thickened, take it off the heat. If it starts to go lumpy or grainy, take it off the heat and whisk the devil out of it (Slater recommends placing the pot in an ice-cold bath while you whisk, which, again, is easier if you actually have water in your kitchen at the time).

Pour the custard over the cake. Place the thawed peach slices over the custard. Whip the remaining cream and spoon it over the top. Chill it in the fridge for an hour (or as long as you have).

(serves 9 easily)

I happened to have peaches in the freezer, but you could use pretty much any kind of fruit, fresh or frozen. It would be wonderful with fresh-picked berries in the summer. I topped it with some extra pineapple that I had bought for pineapple mimosas, which tasted delicious and looked pretty too. Then I started doing some reading into working and environmental conditions on many of the pineapple plantations in Costa Rica. It was distressing, to say the least. I’ll be doing a post on the ethical minefield of buying tropical fruit soon.

Ingredient sources: Dairyland (local), Rogers (Alberta), Sunview Acres (local), Robin Hood (not sure where cake mixes are made yet), BC fruit stand at Saskatoon Farmers’ Market

(image from River Landing web site, showing planned changes for the 19th St underpass)

When I walked to the market this morning, I found that the freeway underpass along 19th St is now closed to foot traffic as well as vehicles. If you’re coming from the east, you’ll have to walk around to 20th, around or through the Toys R Us parking lot, and back up Avenue A.

I’m going to phone the city on Monday and find out whether pedestrians will be able to get through there at all while they’re working on the new freeway entrance (they won’t be finished until this autumn). I got a PSA about the closure last month, but it only mentioned vehicle access, not pedestrian access, and I assumed that pedestrians were still going to be able to get through without making a huge detour.

The planned changes to 19th Street, which include raising the level of the street to reduce the ‘dip’, as well as widening the sidewalks, will definitely make it a more attractive thoroughfare.

Currently 19th Street runs under the old rail bridge located between Idylwyld and the 1st Avenue on-ramp. This is an unpleasant area in which to walk or travel by bike, it feels unsafe at night. The sidewalks feel uncomfortably close to traffic under the bridge. Sight lines are poor for drivers and, perceptually, the area acts as a barrier between east and west. (River Landing web site)

The changes will be a great improvement to the underpass and will make it a lot more pleasant to walk through. It’s rather aggravating, however, when the city doesn’t ever bother to put up any signs letting people know ahead of time that they won’t be able to get through there on foot. If you’re using a walker, a wheelchair, or pushing a stroller with kids, it’s a pretty big deal to suddenly discover you have to go 3 long blocks around and cross at a smelly, noisy, busy, and generally pedestrian-unfriendly intersection (Idylwyld & 20th).

I guess we should at least be grateful that unlike that Saturday last summer, you can’t get all the way through the underpass before suddenly discovering that 19th St is closed at Ave A and you have to backtrack all the way back under the bridge, go over to 20th and trek as far as Ave C or D before being able to double back. That unexpected little detour added about 10 blocks to the journey, causing serious mass annoyance. Again, the closures were obviously necessary, but why not let people know ahead of time?

A huge number of people walk to the market, and the last thing the city should be doing is making it harder for them to get there on foot. All that does is encourage them to just get in their cars and drive there instead, or not go in the first place. I’m not disputing that the route might need to be completely closed while construction is underway, but if they could just put up a couple of measly signs a week or two before letting pedestrians know of the changes in access, it would save a lot of unnecessary aggravation for market customers. Especially when the route in question is soon to be called ‘Market Walk’!

Although the Sask Party government has pulled the $8M funding that was being held in trust for the Station 20 West urban renewal project, organisers are determined that the Good Food Junction will still go ahead.

The Good Food Junction Co-Operative at Avenue K and 20th Street will be a neighbourhood store owned and run by local people. It will provide a full range of groceries, including fresh produce, meats, and dairy, as well as frozen foods, canned, bottled and bagged goods, health and beauty items, and household cleaning supplies. Core neighbourhood residents have been without a local grocery store for nearly a decade.

Station 20 West organisers are petitioning the city (who graciously sold the land for $1 on the condition that the project be completed within a specific time frame) for time so that the architects can redraw plans for a smaller building that would house the grocery store. They are also looking for help from the Saskatoon community to get the store up and running.

Dear Friends,

Thank you for showing your recent support at the Station 20 West rally on April 5th. We have been overwhelmed by the support of the citizens from all over Saskatoon.

We are in the process of starting a major capital campaign to raise funds for Station 20 West. If you are interested in continuing to support our project, there are several ways you can help.

We are currently working on a fundraising poster to be distributed across the city, which will be ready on Wednesday April 23rd. We would appreciate your time to hang as many as you can. Even hanging 5 posters would be a major contribution. These posters can also be picked up at Quint Development Corporation, 207-203 Avenue R South, or we can arrange to get them to you. Please let us know if you are willing to help with the posters.

On April 28th, we will be meeting with the executive committee of Saskatoon City Council to ask for an extension on the land contract. Please show your councilor your support for this project by emailing City Council, or by mail:

Saskatoon City Council
City Clerks Office
2nd Floor, City Hall
222 3rd Avenue North
Saskatoon, Sask. S7K 0J5
Fax (306) 975-2784

If you would like to get more involved with Station 20 West, we can use volunteers. Please let us know of your availability. We are hoping to have one event every week that will bring us public attention for our fundraising campaign. Please contact us and let us know if you have any great ideas for these events.

Click here if you wish to make a tax-free donation to Station 20 West.

You can find contact details for your Saskatoon city councillor here.

Last night was the AGM for the Saskatoon Co-Op. I went in part to support the resolution that was being put forward asking the Saskatoon Co-Op to explore ways of helping the Good Food Junction to become established. The resolution passed with flying colours and the president, Grant Whitmore, said a few words in support of the project, which was encouraging to see.

As a member of the Co-Op, I also wanted to express my concerns about the amount of local (or even Saskatchewan and Canadian) food in Saskatoon stores. Jen summed it up extremely well in her comment a few days ago:

For several reasons, not necessarily ideological, I have been a Co-op shopper for several years. One thing that I find really distressing is the apparent complete disconnect between the history of the cooperative movement and the buying practices of Federated Cooperatives Ltd, which is headquartered here in Saskatoon and is the largest cooperative in Canada. Imagine my disgust when last week I was in the Greystone grocery store and saw that pork ribs that were on special were imported - from FINLAND. This in the same week that Stomp Pork, which employs hundreds of people in Saskatchewan communities, filed for bankruptcy. Now, I don’t tend to buy a lot of meat at the grocery store, and I know there are a lot of issues with intensive pork barns, but at a time when the Saskatchewan pork industry is on its knees, why on earth is a powerful retailer like Federated Cooperatives importing pork from the EU?

After travelling all the way from Finland to Saskatoon, those ribs were being sold at less than three dollars a pound. I suspect it’s part of some EU-subsidized program to get rid of surplus in the European market, but it baffles me how it can be that freight from northern Europe is less than feed grain in the Humboldt area.

There are many environmental and animal welfare arguments against intensive hog operations, but if they continue to falter and we continue to lose the processors in this province, the few small-scale producers left will be in dire straits as well.

….those ribs have motivated me to start with turning my regular grumblings and occasional comment cards into more concerted lobbying to Federated Cooperatives to encourage them to think about their roots, their place in the marketplace, and the opportunity they have to be a leader in supporting Saskatchewan farmers, livestock producers, and greenhouse growers. For starters - why are the Co-op store brand pickles imported from India? Why are there US-grown potatoes on the shelves?

I asked the pork, pickles, and potatoes question at the meeting last night. There was also a question from another member about why late last summer, she couldn’t find any BC fruit in Saskatoon Co-Op stores. The general manager replied that in the case of fruit, they take the best quality produce they can find, with a preference to Canadian, but quality was the first concern. In the case of the infamous pickles from India , he said that we can’t produce them here because we don’t have necessary year-round production of cucumbers. He said that in the case of pork and potatoes, they would source Saskatchewan-grown product first, and then if it wasn’t sufficiently available, they would look further afield.

But how hard are they looking? Sobeys sells carrots and potatoes from the Sovereign Hutterite Colony in Rosetown well into the new year, and then they sell Manitoba’s Peak of the Market. Surely the Co-Op can find pork that at least originated in Canada, instead of Finland? Also, last time I checked, pickles last about 5 years short of forever. Do you really need to grow cucumbers all year round to have pickles on the shelves all year round? (my mother’s cold room says ‘NO’)

The Co-Op has a responsibility to listen to its members’ concerns, and if the crowd response to these two questions was any indication, members do take this matter very seriously. I am truly sorry to say that the Co-Op’s love affair with US-grown grown produce is a major reason why I don’t shop there regularly. I think it’s important to keep bugging the management about this. They need to keep trying harder to get well-labelled Saskatchewan-grown food on the shelves. Otherwise, we may find that when locally grown food becomes a necessity, there won’t be enough farmers left to grow it for us.

Your newly-elected Saskatoon Co-Op board directors are:

• Gord Bedient

• Joy Crawford

• Doug Surtees

• William Wardell

Make sure to keep them on their toes!