Freakonomics Blog | Is Locavorism for Rich People Only?
I’m generally skeptical of the “buy local” movement that has been increasingly gaining momentum in the U.S. McWilliams makes an interesting case that the movement also divides communities along socioeconomic lines and reduces cultural diversity.
Carolyn Steel tells a historical story of how we got separated from the food we eat. The main problem today is how we can effectively produce high-quality food with low environmental impact at the scale necessary to feed cities. I don’t think growing/eating local meaningfully solves the problem.
Food choices available on the registration page of the International Political Economy Society’s 2009 conference. Other than the exclusion of certain ethnic/religious food preferences, the choices are pretty comprehensive.
Koala cupcakes. One of my colleagues is a master cupcake baker/decorator.
Trade and Culinary Adventures: EU, Canada and Seals
But Andree Garcia, the owner and chef of Les Iles en Ville, says the EU ban has been “great advertising” - and as a result has moved up seal dishes from occasional specialities to a daily regular.“Seal has become extremely popular since everybody started talking about it,” she said. “We have Canadian diners who want to support the seal industry and we have tourists who had never heard of it before. We get a lot of customers from Europe and they all want to taste seal.”
I’m guessing that most trade disputes—even highly publicized ones—don’t have this aspect, where the dispute increases the demand for the product in dispute. I just have one question at this point: Does it taste like chicken?
The Unfortunate Sex Life of the Banana
The banana, however, is a freakish and fragile genetic mutant; one that has survived through the centuries due to the sustained application of selective breeding by diligent humans. Indeed, the “miraculous” banana is far from being a no-strings-attached gift from nature. Its cheerful appearance hides a fatal flaw— one that threatens its proud place in the grocery basket. The banana’s problem can be summed up in a single word: sex.I’ve heard this story about the banana problem before. Apparently, bananas have already become less tasty during my parents’ generation. [HT: Marco]
My Heretofore Implicit Thoughts on Meat Eating
I don’t eat a lot of meat—maybe once or twice a week. It has been a semi-deliberate change over a long time, but I never fully thought through my entire justification for it. (I used to cite my unpleasant experience of driving through a gigantic industrial ranch in Kettleman City, California, off I-5 as one of the key reasons.) Now I can rely on someone else who has put in the time to write down his thoughts on the issue, which almost perfectly captures what has until now been implicit and amorphous in my mind.
The author—Marco—works at Tumblr (the platform I’m using for this log) and he’s the programmer of a great web app-iPhone app combo Instapaper.
I’ve made a dramatic shift in my diet over the last few weeks: eating almost no meat. (update: thoughts on fish.)
There are plenty of good reasons not to eat meat, including:
- The treatment of the animals is awful. The more you know about industrialized meat production, the less you want to support it. (And it’s not just for cows. Chickens and turkeys aren’t much better, and pigs are probably the worst.)
- High-volume meat production creates a large environmental burden, usually as a result of having to feed the animals so much and figure out what to do with their waste.
- Meat is more calorie-dense than many alternative foods, and red meat in particular is unhealthy to eat frequently. Non-meat-heavy diets can generally be much healthier.
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food makes a great argument for low-meat diets. (You should really read it regardless of your thoughts on meat. Do you eat? Then it’s relevant to you.)
Wait, so are you a vegetarian now?
No.
I’m not big on all-or-nothing obsessiveness. I’m not a recovering hamburger addict who will sink back into meat abuse if I ever have another taste again. All things in moderation.
The problem isn’t eating animals. It’s a lot of people eating a lot of animals. If demand was reduced to 25% or less of its current level, we’d see massive environmental and health improvements. Humane animal treatment is trickier, since you’re still killing and eating them, but it could be improved if less meat was needed and it could command a higher price. For instance, actual free-range (not the bullshit kind) and grass-fed animals would become more practical.
A few weeks ago, I decided to significantly reduce my meat consumption. To start, I went all-vegetarian for one week to force myself to broaden my horizons a bit (especially for office lunches) and try new non-meat options. It worked, and was much easier than I expected.
Now, I’ve lowered my overall meat consumption to approximately these levels that I intend to maintain:
- Chicken or turkey: 1-2 meals per week.
- Beef: 0-1 meal per month.
- Pork: Almost never. Occasionally as a minor ingredient in something else.
With such a severe reduction, I’ll achieve most of the benefits of vegetarianism, but without many of the inconveniences. It’s still ridiculously easy to get good meals at restaurants or while traveling. I don’t even like tofu or giant mushrooms, and it’s still much easier than I expected to avoid meat most of the time and still eat healthy, satisfying, widely available meals.
Try it.
If a lot of people made this change, we could make a big difference on many important fronts.
Do the vegetarian week, then see how little meat you really need to eat. You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy and practical it is.
Making Baby Food at Home: Carrots, Squash and Peas
Making baby food at home is totally worth the effort, mostly because it takes very little effort to produce food of the quality that exceeds that of even good store-bought ones.
- Carrots (easy)
- Buy organic carrots, wash and cut into short pieces
- Buy one of these collapsible steamers
- Steam the carrots for ~ 20 minutes
- Purée the steamed carrots in a mini food processor with a bit of the water from the steaming
- Spoon the puréed carrots into an ice cube tray, freeze, pop out and store in an airtight container
- Squash (easy)
- Buy an organic squash
- Cut the squash into little wedges (about 1/6 of the whole). I made the acorn kind—butternut would be hard to cut and peel.
- Steam the squash wedges for ~20 minutes
- Peel the skin off the meat by scooping the meat with a spoon
- Purée with a bit of the water from steaming and follow the rest of the steps from the carrot recipe
- Peas (moderate)
- Buy a bag of organic frozen peas
- Steam the peas in a steamer for about 15 minutes (Most recipes call for boiling them, but I don’t think that’s necessary.)
- Purée the steamed peas in a mini food processor with some water from the steaming
- Push the puréed peas through a fine sieve to filter the hulls, which babies apparently can’t digest.
- Freeze and store the sieved purée the same way as above.
Oversalted Organic Cereal
I bought a box of Cascadian Farm’s “Purely O’s” yesterday at Sunflower Farmers Market to start giving to Xander. (Cacadian Farm is General Mills’ organic brand.) When I tasted one that Xander dropped on the floor, I immediately tasted the bitter saltiness. It turns out, this organic version of Cheerios contains almost 25% more sodium than the regular bee-branded Cheerios—250mg per 30g as opposed to 204mg. This is accounting for the difference in the two brands’ serving sizes.
Right now the comment submission on Cascadian Farm’s website is not working (maybe it’s never working?). I’m not about to stay on the phone for hours to complain, so there will be a snail mail letter headed to Cascadian Farm.
