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food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

A second chance this morning to listen to the listenable David Suzuki, whose one hour special The Last Call is, happily, available on podcast. He took a look at our illusions about the immutability of the consumer economy and its effect on the planet’s limited resources.

Along the way he spoke to the Canadian CEO of Wal-Mart, trying to get him to answer whether he thought infinite growth of a consumer-based business was realistic (got the usual hoo-ha about how Wal-Mart is only serving the wishes of a buying public and what a wonderful thing the company is doing for people who can’t afford to pay more) (maybe someone should send this guy a copy of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture?).

And to the wonderful Annie Leonard, whose The Story of Stuff is an excellent use of any spare 20 minutes you might have, and who clarified mr. Wal-Mart’s delusions about the real cost – to the environment and communities who produce and sell them – of cheap goods. And she remained, like Suzuki, stubbornly optimistic that we can change the way we live, but not by simply altering our consumerism (what can I buy to make things better) but by enlisting the power of community. With the ultimate goal of living happier and more convivial lives.

Not so optimistic is James Lovelock, father of The Gaia Theory, which proposed reasons for the interrelatedness of our ecosystem, and who holds that politics gets in the way of the possibility of any real positive change in our destructive use of the planet; put simply, politicians cannot take the measures needed and get re-elected, because so much drastic change in our ways of life is needed at this point. So his interests are more focused on how to survive the consequences of our environmental irresponsibility. (His latest book is The Vanishing Face of Gaia.)

Al Gore, of course, is on the positive side of the argument that salvation is possible, and has more faith than most in the political system’s ability to produce sudden radical change in times of need. Let us hope he is right.

Water is always an interesting issue. Take bottles of water for example. For ages tap water got a bad press: but it seems like a great many of the stories came from vested interests: sellers of bottled water, water machines or water filters. Now there are movements against bottled water, which may have only made the manufacturers work extra hard to sell in a shrinking market.

If you haven’t seen the Evian rollerbabies, check them out on Youtube. As is often the case, the ‘making of‘ clip is almost better. The interview is good too.

But — bottled water still a no-go area, for so many reasons: its use of plastics, its transportation waste and its plain expense. Here’s a 20/20 program from last year which held one of those taste tests that are so satisfying in their unpredictability…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3QBZac3MSY]

Let us not forget that Dasani is, after all, tap water. And any water in plastic bottles is suspect – whether tap or branded – and likely to contain Bisphenol A, particularly if it’s exposed to heat, so keep using those metal water bottles. But it seems that consumers are turning away from bottled water, whether because they can’t afford it or because that wave is ending. Let’s hope it’s the latter.

Even if it is, the sharks are circling as the dwindling reserves of good drinking water start to create scarcity. And where there is scarcity, there is opportunism, and unsustainable solutions to shortages.

The Current did a great series on water last year, called Watershed, which they’ve been repeating this summer. One of the programs I caught talked about desalination plants in Israel, which sound like a great idea until the cons were enumerated: the energy required for the process; the unknown effects on the ocean of pumping highly salinated residue back into it; the introduction into the ocean of byproducts of the process. And the speakers questioned the point of going through all that in order to irrigate desert greenhouses so that this parched nation could export its precious water in the form of fruits, flowers and vegetables.

Much more to think about on this subject. But friends and neighbours are aquiring Berkey water filters in the meantime, partly for health reasons and partly in the interests of water security (living on an island as we do makes one think about many things, as almost everything is ferried or flown over here, including chemicals for treating the water supply). As one of them said: please buy one – I don’t want to be the only one who has one!

A mixed bag today. One important item for writers is the Canadian government’s Copyright Consultations: the public is invited to participate in guiding the government’s moves to reform copyright legislation. If you are a writer and would like to be paid for what you create, put your oar in between July 20 and September 13, or forever hold your peace.

The Environmental Working Group has many useful guides on its website, including the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which I’ve mentioned before – it shows which fruits and vegetables are high in pesticide residues, and which, if you can’t afford everything organic, are relatively low if farmed conventionally. The missing piece of the puzzle is the relative nutritional value of the organic vs industrial products, as organic (especially small scale) is generally better in that regard.

I hadn’t seen the EWG’s guide to safe tuna consumption though. It makes the point that albacore – the more sustainable choice from a fishery point of view (if line-caught) – is actually higher in mercury than the other type they mention (light – which according to this is probably skipjack) and the recommended consumption of albacore is less than half that of light. While you’re packing your wallet with sustainability guides, here’s another one that lists mercury content in fish.

The sunscreen guide (offered through the EWG’s Skin Deep – cosmetic safety site) is also very useful, as it’s bewildering to choose from all the brands on offer these days; and there’s so much weird information circulating about sunscreen. Now that there are rumours of cancers being linked to sunscreen use, it’s worth a look. This piece, from the EWG’s discussion of the research, caught my eye:

Controlled studies comparing sunscreen users with non-users indicate that sunscreen can reduce the risk of squamous-cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. There is little substantial evidence, however, that sunscreen reduces the risk of the other common types of skin cancer, basal-cell carcinoma and melanoma.

In other words, as we’ve been hearing for ages, no matter what and how much you slather on, you still have to cover up, wear a hat, and limit exposure.

EWG has many other tools and tips on the website but I liked this Everyday Pollution Solutions, which offers suggestions to simplify and detoxify your life. Though its mention of rocket fuel (perchlorate) contamination of drinking water gives one more thing to worry about.

Just back from a meander up-island, starting with Long Beach

where we enjoyed a side trip to Tofino and stumbled upon SoBo for supper. Some lovely food, including a smoked fish appetizer

grilled oyster with miso-mayo

mushroom enchilada

beet, goat cheese and walnut salad

and enormous scallops with a risotto cake

Walked a trail where local berries were ripe for picking: salmonberries, salal berries, huckleberries and thimbleberries.

On to Fanny Bay where supper featured some magnificent grilled spot prawns (from the Fanny Bay Oysters Fish Shop at Buckley Bay).

An interesting piece on absorption of nutrients from food on NPR this morning. Among the things they discussed:

• you need oil to absorb nutrients from foods. Not necessarily a lot, but some. (So, out with that horrible no-fat dressing!)(You also need oil to carry flavours across the tastebuds, so it’s an all-round good idea.)
• cooking vegetables with caratenoids – carrots, in particular – is actually better than eating them raw as it makes the caratenoids easier to absorb
• microwaving might help to preserve antioxidants better than other cooking methods because of short cooking times