time fer ask umbra!

[Guest guest]

this month umbra tackles everything from organics to Uncle oscar and his

anti-veggieness on thanxfernuthin day....

 

 

 

In search of a snappy comeback to use when Uncle Oscar attacks your

choice of vegetarianism at Thanksgiving? Look no further. In her

latest column, Umbra Fisk, Grist Research Assistant II and

environmental advice guru, explores whether human beings are

naturally vegetarian. She also examines whether organic food is

better than conventionally grown food, period (her answer may

surprise you). All this and more food for thought from Our Lady of

the Stacks, only on the Grist Magazine website.

 

only in Grist: Astute advice on all things environmental -- in Ask Umbra

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Flipping the Bird

 

Sage advice on vegetarianism, organic foods, and more

 

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by Umbra Fisk

 

26 Nov 2002

 

Questions relating to the environment?

Ask Umbra.

 

Dear Umbra,

 

I have been a vegetarian for a pretty long time, but my uncle told me that if

the human is not supposed to eat meat then why do we have teeth. He left me a

little confused. Is the human being naturally vegetarian?

 

Laida

Somerville, Mass.

 

Dearest Laida,

 

Your uncle is unkindly denigrating your ideas, and using his authority to

confuse you. His comment reminds me of a long-ago MAD Magazine spoof -- to

paraphrase, " If the Lord had meant us to have telephones, he would have given us

telephones instead of an appendix. "

 

 

If you want my opinion, and it looks like you do, it's a bit specious to seek

the " natural " in modern society. Proponents of sundry diets often use human

biology or history to bolster their arguments. One diet suggests that all humans

with Type O blood are linked back to the first hunter-gatherers and hence should

eat a meat-centered diet. Others, including some vegetarians, point toward our

common agricultural ancestors for proper dietary guidance. But if we aren't

behaving " naturally " now, how far back does " natural " begin? Should we all be

eating primordial ooze? The human being does not naturally travel faster than 20

miles per hour, use nuclear power, or have quilted toilet paper. God, evolution

and/or the march of time have brought us far, far from the cave and the

matriarchal rhythms of Gaia.

 

So, I would encourage you to set aside the " natural " question. You have made a

choice not to eat meat, for your own distinct reasons, and that should be enough

to satisfy all the naysayers. Of course, it isn't, so you must practice coping

with the thousands of folks out there, like your uncle, who have a burning

desire to poke vegetarians until they bite back. What you need is not the

natural history of the human diet, but an arsenal of responses to skepticism.

I'll lay out some tactical responses for use with pokers. Please review and

rehearse, and pull one out if the meat eaters should again raise their ugly

teeth.

 

Refuse to Play: He's poking you, don't take the bait. Blithely tell him it's an

interesting question and become distracted by Tony Soprano.

Speak to the Subtext: Ignore the obnoxious stated question, and treat the

underlying behavior. " You seem uncomfortable with my vegetarianism ... "

Gross 'em Out: " I'm just uncomfortable eating cannibalistic animals raised on

human sewage and the fingers of slaughterhouse workers. " Often turns into #5.

Caustic Retort: " Well, if you're not supposed to breastfeed, why do you have

nipples? "

Political Engagement: You know this one -- trundling out statistics on modern

meat production, holding your ground, mentioning rabbits (herbivores with

teeth), and treating his hair-brained arguments with respect.

Why do we have teeth? What better to clench at night while fretting about the

Bush administration's anti-environmental juggernaut? Respect your own opinions,

Laida, and ask others to respect them as well.

 

Seriously,

Umbra

 

 

 

 

Dear Umbra,

 

The tangerines I bought recently had this on the label: " Thiabendazole and/or

orthopenylphenol and/or imazalil used as fungicides, and coated with food-grade

shellac based wax or resin to maintain freshness. "

 

Presumably the shellac stays on the skin and does not affect the fruit, but what

about the other products? What are these products and do we know what the impact

of spraying or putting them on the fruit is, as well as the overall effect on

the environment? Is organic better, as far as these chemicals are concerned?

 

Bruce

Kansas City, Mo.

 

Dearest Bruce,

 

Organic is better, as far as any chemicals are concerned. Organic certification

has been the eater's main guarantee against ingesting and polluting with

chemicals for more than 30 years now. To be certified, organic growers must farm

without antibiotics, hormones, synthetic pesticides, or fertilizers for three

years prior to the first inspection of their farms and certification; and they

abstain from such thereafter. In addition, organic growers choose sustainable,

soil-building crop techniques, and often opt for barns with access to the

outdoors.

 

 

The idea of food without chemicals has been so wildly popular, even the feds

want to join the party. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's national organic

standards came into effect just last month, with a new sticker and a lot of

press. The USDA makes no claims that organic food is better than conventional

food, but I will freely make that claim. It is far, far better. Better in terms

of ingesting chemicals, because there are few or none on or in it, and better in

terms of overall effect on the environment. Practices excluded under the organic

rules -- sewage sludge as fertilizer, irradiation, genetic modification,

confinement operations, to name a few -- paint a stark picture of conventional

agriculture.

 

Returning to the first part of your question, the chemicals you mention are

fungicides. Chemicals are an expanding and leaking bulwark against the

unbearable demands of our food system. Industry consolidation and economies of

scale have driven large producers to monoculture -- vast fields filled with only

tangerines, only strawberries, only cattle housing -- in which disease and pests

run rampant and all crops are machine-harvested. Food travels thousands of miles

from farm to table. No ripe produce could survive the industrial food economy,

so food is shipped unripe, sprayed with substances to retard spoilage, and

shellacked to look cute. Your tangerine may even have been dyed orange.

 

 

Berry high pesticide levels.

 

For specifics on pesticides that you notice on your food, you can always find a

complete analysis on the U.S. EPA website. Imazalil is a probable carcinogen and

potential farm-worker hazard, for example, but satisfies the testing criteria on

other counts. Overall effect on the environment, your main query, is harder to

quantify than effect on lab rats. For one thing, most foods are sprayed with

multiple pesticides, as you'll see if you visit the Environmental Working

Group's website, and cumulative effect is hard to measure. Each month, it seems,

we discover new problems that may be a result of chemical pollution.

Conventional agribusiness, and its cumulative burden of chemical tonnage,

intensive tillage, and giant cesspools of hog excrement, is affecting human and

ecological health in profound and perhaps unalterable ways. Soils are dead,

workers are poisoned, groundwater is unsafe, and rural communities are

eviscerated.

 

You may be gathering that I am pro-organic, and I am to a point (see my response

to the question below). Over the past 30 years, the organic label has been the

indicator of a saner food chain, and it still signals a virtually chemical-free

route from seed to stomach. If organic food is not available near you, ask your

grocer to carry it. If your budget can't support it, either change your eating

habits to involve fewer high-priced processed organic foods, or shop

discerningly for conventional food. The EWG website keeps an updated list of

foods with the highest pesticide residue. Buy from local farmers who use

pesticides with restraint. Shopping organic may take a little effort, but you

won't find yourself wondering what you're eating.

 

Quite seriously,

Umbra

 

 

 

 

Dear Umbra,

 

I try to buy organic food where possible, but I notice that there is often a

tradeoff with other factors. For example, organic food has often been shipped

further and/or is more heavily packaged. How do I assess those tradeoffs?

 

Ellen

Watertown, Mass.

 

Dearest Ellen,

 

 

To market, to market, to buy organic produce.

 

As mentioned above, the USDA national organic standards came into effect last

month, an event that has caused both rejoicing and concern in the organic

community. The involvement of the feds in the organic movement reflects the

strong market growth of the organic sector, which has been around 20 percent per

year. This growth in turn reflects choices consumers are making toward food that

tastes better, seems better for their health, eases burden on the environment,

supports local farms, is safe for farm workers, etc., etc.; and choices farmers

are making to move away from chemicals, monoculture, and animal confinement.

Excellent trends that all conservationists should celebrate.

 

Concern rises from the issues that you have noticed. The USDA sticker insures us

against Thiabendazole and/or orthopenylphenol. It does not address farm size,

shipping distances, fair prices for farmers or fair wages for workers, and has

nothing to say about local economies. Although it addresses some of

agriculture's most grievous, polluting trends, organic does nothing, per se, to

address the corporatization of agriculture or the disappearance of the family

meal.

 

So, and I hope this doesn't seem too strange, evaluating the tradeoffs may

involve deciding that organic is not always the best choice. Think about your

reasons for buying organic. What are you actually hoping for? It could be fewer

externalized environmental costs such as shipping and packaging. It could be a

vision of a nearby farm kept in business by your purchase. Perhaps you simply

seek excellent flavor, better health, or a warm dinner table.

 

 

The Food Alliance label.

Photo: Food Alliance.

 

Like you, other organic proponents don't just want chemical-free food, they want

food to be grown with care on nearby mall-free land by people they meet at the

farm stand. So, as the feds join the party, the party is moving on, and we're

seeing the rapid growth of creative marketing and farming niches. New

non-governmental labels that further define food for consumers, often referred

to as eco-labels, are part of the transformation of the organic movement from a

movement defined farming practices into one clarifying its focus on healthy

farming systems and a healthy society. Eco-labels currently range from " locally

grown in Western Massachusetts " to those put out by the Food Alliance, whose

sustainability certification program includes farm-worker standards among its

guidelines.

 

Although secondary labels add an excellent level of environmental and social

information, they often still involve a middleman. So if you're looking to give

most of your money to the actual farmer, seek out farmers markets in your area,

or learn about community-supported agriculture (CSA), a direct marketing

subscription service. Begin to eat foods that are seasonally appropriate for

your climate, because bananas will always need to be shipped to Massachusetts

(we hope, see " juggernaut " above). There are certainly folks near you, folks all

over our fair nation, who are facilitating closer farm to shopper connections.

If you have trouble finding any of these alternative, call your state

agriculture department, Cooperative Extension office, or health food store to

ask them for leads.

 

Consumers are the most powerful agent of change in our current food system.

Small and mid-size farmers won't be able to stay in business unless they find a

market, and there isn't a market without the consumer. Demand the type of food

you wish to eat. And in terms of the packaging -- to avoid the extra plastic

wrap, you may need to spend more time with a cookbook at the stove. This column

has often reflected our overriding concern with the combustion engine; food

decisions should have similar weight in our minds. Happily, concentrating on our

gastronomic impact will only bring us joy. Taking the bus can feel like a chore

even if we know it is a better choice. But buying food from a farmer you have

actually met will be nothing but a pleasure, comparable to eating a type of

apple you've never eaten before, an apple that tastes like a Robert Frost poem

-- once you have opened the door to these pleasures, you may never wish to shut

it again.

 

Even more seriously,

Umbra

 

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any

nagging question pertaining to the environment.