Trust in meat suppliers eroded

This is my 30th article in the Mercury Food and Wine supplement.

In recent weeks food issues have gained prominence in the media. Most notably we have had the results of the Stellenbosch study on retail meats in which it was found that meat had been incorrectly labelled and contaminated by meat from animals such as donkey and water buffalo.

This scandal to me was indicative of the moral and ethical decay of our food system.

Food and especially meat has become commodified and decoupled from the traditional, open, farm-to-fork chain.

The farming of animals is now done on an industrial scale. I have written in an earlier article on the evils of feed-lot and battery production, but what I would like to touch on here is how the system of distribution has further destroyed the integrity of our food system.

The documentary “Food inc” featured the phenomenon of “pink goo”. This is ground and processed meat destined to be made into the hamburgers and sausages for the retail shelves. It was an eye opener to hear the claim that one hamburger could contain meat from up to a million different animals.

As a consumer one has no idea what you are eating, apart from taking on trust what the retailer claims on the product’s labels. That trust has been severely dented with the latest revelations.

Even if that burger does only contain beef, it is likely that it came from many different animals. There is no longer a connection between the animal and those who will partake of it.

In contrast I had the privilege to spend this last weekend at Zingela Safari and River lodge on the banks of the Tugela River. This idyllic spot is located in a hunting area and venison features prominently on the menu.

An animal was hunted and shot to provide the main course at the wedding feast. I know some would react with horror at this, but consider the context carefully.

This animal lived a natural life in wild surroundings where it could express its innate behaviour freely.

It was hunted with some measure of skill by a hunter who has a love for the bush and for nature. That same hunter butchered and dressed the carcase with care and it was evident by the way he talked about the animal that he had great respect for it.

No part of the animal was wasted. It contributed towards a sumptuous feast and was also eaten by the staff and their families. Yes, this is not for the faint-hearted but it is real and has undisputed integrity.

The industrial meat system has destroyed our trust and sacrificed what should be a humane, ethical procedure on the altar of Mammon.

When food is more than nutrition…

This is my 29th article in the Mercury Food and Wine supplement.

Last week I, along with fellow columnist Nompumelelo Mqwebu, had the pleasure of being invited to an innovative pop up dinner hosted by pianist and Steinway artist, Christopher Duigan. I won’t go into any details, Mpume has it covered. I am going to wax a little philosophical instead.

Photo courtesy of Christopher Duigan

What the experience demonstrated for me was the real meaning of “whole food”. One often hears the term bandied about without thinking seriously about what it really means. On first thoughts, it seems to mean food that has not been refined or broken down such as, “whole wheat”. It is however much more than this simplistic meaning.

What “whole food” means for me was encapsulated in the experience I had at the pop up dinner. This was a dinner in which all the guests contributed something to the whole, be it the food, their expertise, or their willing hands. Each dish was a culmination of effort by those participating, from the growing, preparation, presentation and the sheer enjoyment of it. This was personal food, not something anonymous.

Food is ultimately energy harvested from the sun and passed through the substance of living creatures – plant and animal. Something alive had to give up its life in order to provide us with food. This sacrifice implies that food is sacred and must be accorded due reverence.

Someone has had to hunt, catch, gather, grow or raise our food before it enters the kitchen. These tasks take skill and energy and imply an intimate relationship with the earth and sea.

Those who prepare the raw ingredients and turn them into worthy creations that honour their origins and add another level of energy should be revered. I have heard it said that the kitchen should be the most sacred place in a home. I wholeheartedly agree. As a farmer I am in awe of the skills of a chef in transforming produce from the fields into something sublime.

There is yet another level to our appreciation of food and that is in its presentation. This is where other forms of human creativity enhance the enjoyment of our food. The skill of the potter in creating fine tableware, and the eye of the decorator in laying the stage for our dining pleasure are essential parts of the reverence of food. The final ambiance is laid by the artistry of the musicians. Thanks to them we can enter a mood suited to completing this journey.

At the end the food we have eaten has added much more to us than just nutrition. Much more than just taste. It has brought us together and created a sense of community. This is the true meaning of “whole food” in the human context. It is food that is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. Last weeks dinner was a perfect example of “whole food” in action.

Below are links to articles about the pop up dinner by bloggers Sue Green  and Alex Sweet.

Pietermaritzburg Pop-up!

The Table; pop-up food, wine, ceramics and music evening

All watched over by machines of loving grace

This video is worth watching. It challenges the romantic view of classical ecology. The central message for me is that change is everything and that our worldview has to be constantly open to change.

Restoring our grasslands

Take the time to view this TED talk by Alan Savoury on Holistic Management. It challenges the current orthodoxy, that paints grazing animals as a negative influence on the environment. This is bio-mimicry in action.

One of the key methodologies of organic farming, is the tight integration of animals with plants into the farming system. The environment cannot exist on plants alone. In a planned environment such as a farm domestic and wild animals play a huge role in maintaining fertility and overall health.

Chameleon

I thought I would show these two photos as a follow up to my Nature and nurture post.

I picked rocket and herbs for a salad yesterday and while putting the salad together this little guy popped out of the basket.

While this little guy is a reptile it is likely he will suffer the same as the amphibians that have the ill fortune to live on conventional farms as is shown in the following articles:

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/01/new-study-common-pesticides-kill-frogs-contact

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/04/study-monsantos-roundup-herbicide-has-weird-effect-frogs

http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130124/srep01135/full/srep01135.html#/affil-auth

Nature and nurture

This is my 28th article in the Mercury Food and Wine supplement.

 

A couple of years back I planted a few heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. Growing them in our climate was not easy. The humidity encouraged blight and my tomatoes were very sad indeed. I had all but given up on them when we were hit by a fearsome hailstorm, that was devastating to all other crops but the tomatoes.

It was as if the battering had given them a new lease on life. They yielded the most delicious and succulent tomatoes I have ever tasted. They were large, a slice would fill a sandwich, with firm pink flesh and a taste that hinted at its own built in seasoning. Unfortunately, the need to focus on the bread and butter lines meant my tomato aspirations were put aside.

Brandywine tomatoes

Until now. Our Daughters fiancée, Ryan, who has always shown a great interest in growing good food, presented me with an array of heirloom tomato seeds. The Brandywines were there, but so also were “Giant belgiums”, Tigerella, Pineapple, “Orange strawberry” and “Costoluto genovese” among others.

We took great care in preparing the soil. I dug in some of our best compost and Ryan laid out the best in drip irrigation. Apart from the fun of growing these amazing plants my other reason for the work was to observe which varieties were best suited to growing on the farm and which would be resistant to the old enemy, Late blight.

The tomatoes grew steadily and some had even started to fruit. We were well pleased, all seemed well. The next morning however when I went to inspect the crops my spirits sank. The enemy had paid us a visit. It appeared that someone had walked the rows with a blowtorch and sadistically tortured each tomato. As an Organic farmer I do not spray fungicides or any other “cides” but rather rely on mainly preventative measures to protect the crop.

Some so called organic fungicides based on copper do exist but I will not use them as the copper is toxic to beneficial soil fungi and it does not break down. One of the sprays I do use is bicarbonate of soda which is mainly preventative and completely harmless.

It was while spraying with bicarb that an incident occurred that reinforced my stand on toxin free farming. I was taking great care to wet the leaves both on top and bottom and was rather engrossed in the task. Suddenly a head poked out of a tomato bush, opened its mouth wide and indignantly hissed at me.

Flap necked chameleon

I started and nearly dropped the spray wand, but soon recognised the belligerent little fellow. It was a Flap necked chameleon, in bright green camouflage to match the tomato leaves. At least this fellow only had his dignity bruised. If I had been spraying with conventional fungicides he would not have survived.

We have a large population of chameleons and frogs on the farm and it is only the fact that we are organic that they are here at all. Latest research has conclusively linked fungicide and herbicide spraying with a vast die off of amphibians.

Tree frog on pumpkin leaf

My tomatoes will be 0kay. They will thrive as the weather gets drier with the onset of autumn. I look forward to those Brandywines and Orange strawberries and I will be happy that my green friend is happily guzzling down pests amongst their leaves.

Miracle grow: Indian farmers smash crop yield records without GMOs

Reblogged from Grist:

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What if the agricultural revolution has already happened and we didn’t realize it? Essentially, that’s the idea in this report from the Guardian about a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind.

Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had -- using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides -- grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare [~2.5 acres] of land.

Read more… 1,060 more words

New study confirms superiority of organic over conventional tomatoes.

This paper from Brazil has confirmed that organic tomatoes are better.

The study found that vitamin C levels were 50% higher in organic tomatoes and that phenols were up to 139% higher. Phenols are thought to be significant in halting degenerative diseases and in their anti-cancer properties.

The authors have hypothesized that the higher nutrient content is attributed to the higher stress levels that organic crops are subjected to. The payoff seems to be that the organic fruits were smaller than the conventional.

These findings are consistent with my own experience as an organic farmer. I have found that my lettuce is smaller than comparable conventional lettuce, but is tastier and has a superior shelf life. The Brandywine tomatoes pictured above were the most delicious I have ever tasted but I had no conventional Brandywines to compare them with. They however knocked the socks off  supermarket tomatoes.

A Fishy Tale

This is my 27th article in the Mercury Food and Wine supplement.

On Christmas eve we were treated to a stunning entrée of smoked salmon and caviar which left such a lasting impression on my taste buds, that I still savour it now. Unfortunately since then I have been slapped by some unsavoury facts.

Salmon has become ubiquitous on most restaurant menus in either its Norwegian or Canadian incarnations. It’s flesh has a healthy looking pink colour which lends itself to sushi. It’s common knowledge that that fish, especially salmon, is healthy and has high levels of omega 3 fatty acids. It’s no wonder this pink fish is high on the popularity lists. But, is it all it purports to be?

Unfortunately the truth is less than appetizing. The majority of all the salmon on the market is farmed in a system that is fraught with health and environmental problems. Wild salmon stocks have dwindled due to over-exploitation and are now being further affected by salmon farming itself. Salmon farming is touted by the industry as the answer to overfishing of wild stocks but unfortunately this is not the case. Salmon farming is done in the ocean, not in tanks such as trout or tilapia. It is done intensively in a way that makes battery chicken farming look tame.

When any animal is crowded together with others of its kind in unnatural conditions there are two major consequences, disease and pollution. This is bad enough on dry land, but when it is in the sea there are no means to contain these two consequences. The fish are attacked by various viruses, bacteria and by a crustacean, the sea louse. The combat these infestations the fish are vaccinated and fed antibiotics. The sea louse is killed by the administration of extremely toxic pesticides. Of course these substances find there way easily into the wider environment and in to the flesh of the fish.

These fish farms are situated in the estuaries of major rivers which the wild salmon use for spawning and have a deleterious effect on the wild fish. The concentration of pathogens and pests in these nursery areas are infecting the wild fish and are placing an additional pressure on their already dwindling populations.

The sea bed under the farms is a dead zone, with piles of fish manure that constantly bubble with methane gas. Manure cannot be composted as on dry land and can only decompose anaerobicly, resulting in methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas, being produced.

The feed for these fish is also problematic. They are fed pellets made from a mix of plant products and animal protein. Salmon, being carnivores have to have animal protein and especially that from other fish. Wild bait fish such as sardines are exploited to serve this need. It can take between 3.5 and 9 kilograms of wild fish produce 1 kilogram of farmed salmon. This refutes the assertion that salmon farming is helping save wild fish stocks.

That pink colour that is so distinctive of wild salmon has to be artificially created in farm salmon by feeding them a dye called canthaxanthin. Because of their artificial diet, farmed salmon would have a grey flesh, but thanks to canthaxanthin we can have an appetising shade of pink. There is even a colour fan called a “salmofan” that is used to gauge the resulting colour. The deeper the pink, the better the price on the market.

Forgive me for this diatribe but a lover of good food and a farmer this whole tale distresses me. I remember the days when all restaurants had fresh line-fish on the menu. There was never the thought of serving imported farmed fish. We have only ourselves to blame for allowing our own wild fish stocks to be decimated through overfishing and environmental degradation. Next time you order fish, try to be mindful of how it got to your plate.

The beginning of the world

A repost from the blog: The Archdruid Report by John Michael Greer

 

Last Friday was, as I’m sure most of my readers noticed, an ordinary day. Here in the north central Appalachians, it was chilly but not unseasonably so, with high gray clouds overhead and a lively wind setting the dead leaves aswirl; wrens and sparrows hopped here and there in my garden, poking among the recently turned soil of the beds. No cataclysmic earth changes, alien landings, returning messiahs, or vast leaps of consciousness disturbed their foraging. They neither knew nor cared that one of the great apocalyptic delusions of modern times was reaching its inevitable end around them.

Read the rest of this post.