ReallyGoodWriter | Food • Writing • Poetry Iambic Cafe

food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

I have been a student in my day. Several times over in fact. And I know the pain of textbook costs, which is a large pain. As a poet, I also know the pleasure of being included in textbooks, and it is a large pleasure. Though relative to the pleasure of a living wage, it is a veritable widow’s mite.

I know we live in Google’s world, which promises to deliver free information to everyone, and I know that Google doesn’t really care how that information is created or obtained, so long as it’s provided free to the user in ways that help Google boost its revenues through other channels.

And in keeping with this spirit of largesse, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently published a revealing article (which, it has to be said, I read for free) about the struggles of Washington State to meet the cap of $30 per online textbook that will unlock a large grant from Bill & Melissa Gates, with the aim of reducing textbook costs for the state’s students.

What I find most interesting about this article is that it makes not the slightest attempt to address the reasons why textbooks are expensive, which include – but are not limited to – that irritating cog in the wheel of free information: the textbook’s author, who must be paid. Or more typically, the several authors and/or editors who put the material together. All the article does is bemoan the fact that it’s very hard to find good quality educational materials for free or cheap.

Like many of us, I sit on both sides of this particular fence. I benefit greatly from all the free information that’s available online. On the other hand, for many of the past few years if I were living on my earnings from writing alone I couldn’t have afforded to pay for what I accessed, had the authors been fairly compensated for their work. Because the opportunities for me to earn a living wage from my writing – once a respectable and reasonably lucrative profession – dwindle with the days.

In discussing course materials for the online course I teach, for a college with a less than ample budget, it became clear that new online program areas in bricks ‘n mortar institutions take a while to catch up with details like copyright fees and electronic rights. So for the time being I point students to a lot of free newspaper articles and other freely available materials to augment the (reasonably priced) textbook.

Are these freebies the best available materials? Possibly not, but who knows? It’s as hard for academic publishers to keep up with changing trends and topics as it is for today’s academics to monitor the listservs and discussion boards, the conferences and webinars and workshops, the tweets and the blogs. And of course the published materials, whether online or in paper.

VIDA has published a revealing set of pie charts based on a count of the number of women publishing or reviewed in some big name journals, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harpers, Poetry, London Review of Books, and others. They’ve broken the figures down into overall figures, reviewers, authors reviewed, etc. as relevant.

Interesting viewing.

Shame on everyone.

There’s so much going on in the GMO world right now. All a-flutter about GM Alfalfa down south, and tomorrow there’s the final debate on Bill C-474, with the vote on February 9.

If you’re Canadian, it’s worth writing your MP. CBAN makes it easy…

And if you’re interested in knowing more about why it’s worth trying to protect our organic and non-GM growers, there are good reasons why you as a consumer might not want to be eating genetically modified foods. Or exporting them elsewhere.

Because there is no mandatory labelling of GM foods in this country, at the moment your only option not to eat genetically modified foods in Canada is to buy organic .

And here’s why organics might be worth your investment, excerpt from the American Academy of Environmental Medicine’s Position Paper on GMOs (from May, 2009):

Natural breeding processes have been safely utilized for the past several thousand years. In contrast, “GE crop technology abrogates natural reproductive processes, selection occurs at the single cell level, the procedure is highly mutagenic and routinely breeches genera barriers, and the technique has only been used commercially for 10 years.”

Despite these differences, safety assessment of GM foods has been based on the idea of “substantial equivalence” such that “if a new food is found to be substantially equivalent in composition and nutritional characteristics to an existing food, it can be regarded as safe as the conventional food.” However, several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food consumption including infertility, immune dysregulation, accelerated aging, dysregulation of genes associated with cholesterol synthesis, insulin regulation, cell signaling, and protein formation, and changes in the liver, kidney, spleen and gastrointestinal system.

According to Dr. Arpad Pusztai,who exposed risks to the immune system associated with GM potatoes, “it’s not the foreign gene that’s added to a food product or animal hybrid that is dangerous – these things taken on their own had little to no effect – but it’s the entire process of changing the genes that creates the problem” (quoted last March). And that’s the outcome on which we’re gambling our health and that of our children.

The other thing to remember about genetically-modified foods is that they’re not developed for better flavour or nutritional qualities. They’re developed to tackle weeds by making the patented seeds resistant to a patented pesticide, the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate). So that means that when you eat genetically-modified foods, you are consuming foods produced with ever-increasing amounts of pesticides, which are proving ever less effective.

We have Monsanto’s assurance that glyphosate is not harmful to us. Curiously, it’s been deemed safe for us to eat, but is labelled a groundwater contaminant and is toxic to fish and marine life. I can’t help but wonder what long-term effect will it have if it reaches human digestive systems through seafood or groundwater?

A year or two ago I was interviewing someone about organic issues and genetically modified something or other and the topic of GM alfalfa came up. She told me that GM wheat had been on the regulatory table some years ago, but the public outcry was such that it was soundly defeated.

Which she thought was great, but the real problem would come when GM alfalfa came knocking at Canada’s door. That, she said, would kill organics, and the public wouldn’t even know to get excited because who cares about alfalfa? Wheat we can identify with; it’s part of being Canadian. But alfalfa’s just hay or something, right? Actually it’s at the bottom of our food chain, and so you had better care deeply, because it’s about to change your life.

As you may have heard, the American government has not just opened the door but laid down a red carpet for GM alfalfa, so it seems we have pretty much lost the battle before the bugle has even sounded. Alfalfa is the fourth most widely-grown crop in the United States behind corn, wheat and soybeans.

It is the primary animal feed – forage crop – in Canada. It is heavily used to feed dairy cattle, as well as horses, beef cattle, sheep, chickens, turkeys and other farm animals. Which means it feeds the dairy industry and the meat and egg industries. It’s popular in animal feeds because it’s high in protein, vitamins and minerals; this is why people eat alfalfa sprouts as well.

Organic producers are not allowed to use genetically modified ingredients or feeds, so if you buy organic eggs, milk, cheese, butter or meat, get ready to kiss them goodbye. Likewise organic alfalfa sprouts.

One thing to know about alfalfa is that it’s pollinated by bees, so it will travel. The bees who pollinate it are specialized (alfalfa leafcutter bees/Megachile rotundata). Honeybees can’t do the work because of the mechanics of the flower and the size and shape of the bee. Alfalfa leafcutters do not have the range of honeybees, but travel they will, and the GM alfalfa pollen with them.

Alfalfa is hugely important in farming because it’s a legume, meaning it has nitrogen-fixing qualities for gardens as well as farms, and so it’s frequently grown as a cover crop, as well as a forage crop.

Because of its position in our food chain, contamination of organic alfalfa with GM alfalfa means no more organic meat, eggs, dairy or sprouts for us, but it also means no more organic *or* conventional meat, egg or dairy products can be exported by Canada to protected markets like the EU which refuses to buy GM foods.

Surely this situation gives Canada grounds to sue the USA for violation of NAFTA’s environmental and trade protections? I think we should be questioning long and loud why Obama’s government’s love affair with the biotech industry is allowed to rob Canada of the right to choose whether or not to allow GM plants and foods into our environment and agricultural production. Won’t the American decision cause Canada clear economic losses by crippling our ability to produce organic foods and supply our export markets?

Therefore, this is a particularly important time to heed CEBan’s call to action over Bill C-474 which is thoroughly entangled in the alfalfa issue. Bill C-474 aims to protect farmers who wish to export non-GM crops into protected markets; it came up because of the accidental contamination of Canadian flaxseed with GM flax.

The final debate takes place February 8; the final vote on February 9. We need the Liberals to vote for this bill, so if you are in a liberal (or even conservative) riding (or care to drop a line to Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper) write, phone or otherwise harangue your MP today.

Write to Tom Vilsack and Barack Obama while you’re at it. Do not let them say that nobody complained so they did what they liked.

Busy times… I took in four interesting and very different readings and talks in just over a week. From Byzantium to North Van; from the farms of Milwaukee to forms of aging.

Chronologically, we start with Myrna Kostash,

who read and spoke at the Open Space Gallery on January 20, launching her new book, Prodigal Daughter, an exploration of Byzantium and the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) Church. It was a cold, wet, miserable night but a warm and engaging discussion (Where does the East begin? How does Demeter relate to St Demetrius?)

Next up was David Zieroth

who read – at Planet Earth Poetry – some of his fine work from The Fly in Autumn, as well as some new writing.

And last Thursday I joined 700 others at the Croatian Cultural Centre in Vancouver

to hear urban agriculturalist Will Allen

talk about his work with Growing Power. He showed some 700 images of Growing Power’s many projects – mostly in the US but a few outside the country. His basic ideas are: that everyone deserves good, nutritious food; that it’s possible to provide this by intensive growing in cities; that the foundation of nutritious food is good soil, and it’s possible to provide this by composting. Which he does on an enormous scale, turning over truckloads of unsold warehouse fruits and vegetables with backhoes, and cultivating billions of worms to finish the job once the compost has been mostly broken down. He declares himself to be in direct competition with the landfill: showed us a picture of a garbage truck door that boasted the company had created 17,000 acres of wildlife habitat, and quipped “all I’ve seen is seagulls and really big rats.”

He shows that you shouldn’t let a little thing like lack of land to grow on stop you: he plants into 2 feet of compost, on top of concrete and tarmac, in abandoned industrial sites and on top of lawns and flower gardens. At its Milwaukee site, Growing Power produces a year round supply of herbs and greens in greenhouses; and is gaining some fame for its work in aquaponics, raising tilapia and yellow (freshwater) perch. Allen’s greatest interest is in teaching children about food and agriculture, and in providing disadvantaged people with the knowledge of how to produce food, as well as process and market it.

Too much time is wasted, he says, talking about urban agriculture: you need to get out there and do it. Create a project that will act to educate and motivate others in your community, that they can volunteer at, work on and buy from.

He’s big on creating networks that are inclusive and that reap tangible benefits like the space to grow food, and the tons of waste he diverts into his composting projects. When people sniggered at the picture of Wal-Mart execs touring his farm, he said “We need everybody at the good food revolution table. We can’t do it alone. The days are over when we exclude people and organizations.” And added, “Our families and friends work at these places.”

And then yesterday I joined several hundred others to hear physician/author Gabor Mate

talk about aging. We were bemused to see what a draw this topic is… Mate was blunt, opinionated and controversial, offering a blend of personal wisdom about the interconnectedness of the body, emotions and spirituality. When considering aging, he says, we are considering death, and that is why our youth-obsessed culture is so reluctant to permit it. In planning our lives, knowing they are finite, we should aim to leave the world as we entered it, with no baggage. By which he means we must discard the constraints and emotional demands of the world to be other than who we are.

His ideas on physical health as we age are quite simple: read Andrew Weil, get exercise, eat good food, and eat less. He moved on to some ideas about health and illness, saying that what he concludes from his experience in palliative care is: who gets ill is not a matter of fate. Nor are genetics the key to health and longevity: it is something of a no-brainer to say that there are too many variables in a person’s life, and genes are turned on and off by the environment.

To answer questions of illness, he says, we need to look at people’s lives. He read from a few obituaries and observed that so often in obits we celebrate the qualities that kill people: compulsive concerns with the needs of others to the neglect of their own. “When you don’t know how to say no,” he said, “your body will say it for you.”

Because the emotional centres in our brains send out hormones and chemicals that affect our physiology, it is not possible to draw a distinction between physical and emotional health when treating an illness; and if you suppress emotions, you also suppress the immune system. “Emotions are not luxuries: we have them in order to survive.” There are two primary emotions: fear and love; everything else is secondary. Love is about the human need for primary support.

There was a short unplanned interval while one of the audience members suddenly fell ill, but luckily there was a doctor in the house, and after ensuring that the man would be ok and the ambulance was on its way, Mate returned to the podium with a few words on dementia. It is not enough, he said, to keep your mind active with intellectual explorations; you must also maintain and develop emotional authenticity, because the biggest emotional stress you can put yourself under is trying to be other than you are.