catbird’s world

Last weekend we went to the local pet store to buy dog food only to find there had been a price increase, from $46 to $60 for a 40 pound bag. Wow, a $14 increase! We purchased a bag, but, out of curiosity, we checked the big chain store for a price comparison: $46. Plus, while we were there, a salesperson gave us a $2 off coupon, making the price difference $16.

I believe it’s very important to shop local. When you shop local, you’re supporting your neighbors who own the business and you’re developing relationships that make your community a better place to live. More of the money you spend stays in the community through profits, jobs, and taxes. Local businesses are more accountable and are more likely to utilize other local businesses. They also hire local people who provide better service to others in the community, who happen to be their neighbors.

No one can deny that shopping at a local merchant is more satisfying than shopping at a big box store. And who wouldn’t rather live in a town with a Main Street full of local merchants rather than next to a highway littered with strip malls?

As satisfying as it is, however, I do have limits. When a book I wanted to get my husband was $30 more at the local bookstore than at Amazon, I didn’t hesitate to buy it online. So, how much more am I willing to spend to buy local? It seems it depends on a number of intangible elements. But I do know I’ll continue to buy from my local merchants whenever possible. Whatever that means.

catbird :: Jun.30.2009 :: customer service, green, socio-pop :: Comments Off

Today, the friendly Thomasville deliverymen came and took our new chairs away.

We bought two upholstered chairs from Thomasville in April, which were delivered in mid-May. When they arrived, I checked them all over for damage. But it wasn’t until the deliverymen left that I sat down across from the chairs and noticed that the arms were stuffed differently, not just from chair to chair, but, on one of the chairs the two arms were drastically different.

So began my adventure with Thomasville customer service. My call was promptly answered by a real person, who sent me an email requesting photos. I email back photos that same day and immediately received an email confirmation of receipt.

The customer service rep assigned to my “case” said that the problem could probably be fixed by the upholsterer and, if not, Thomasville would replace the chairs.

A week later, not having heard anything, I emailed my customer service rep. With no response, the next day I left a voice mail. The following day, I called the main customer service number finally got my rep on the phone.

Luckily, the news was good. The upholsterer could fix the chairs, although they would have to go back to the warehouse for an indeterminate amount of time. I was even offered loaners! (I declined because the idea of keeping them free of chocolate smears and markers was too stressful.)

So, for now, our chairs are gone to the warehouse, to await the upholsterer. I have no idea how long they will be gone or if they will be repaired correctly. Sounds like I need to make a call.

catbird :: Jun.12.2009 :: customer service :: Comments Off

We just received our replacement parts for Nate’s Build and Play erector set — all the way from Hong Kong, no less. It cost Meccano $3 in postage to send us four screws… but now we can once again build all the vehicles. Huzzah! (said with just a smidge of sarcasm.)

Meccano was prompt and courteous in their service, which is a refreshing change from Nikko America, which was their previous distributor. I tried to get replacement screws from Nikko America in August of 2008, but I eceived no reply to my email. In November 2008 I tried again, this time calling the Nikko America number on the box. The number didn’t work. My third try, also in November, was another email to Nikko Ameica. This time I got a reply:

As of July 1st, Nikko America is no longer Distributor for Erector sets. Unfortunately we were not given any new information from Meccano as to whom their new distributor would be. We apologize for the inconvenience that this may have caused.

But a few weeks ago I caught a lucky break. A local toy store started carrying the Build and Play sets. I looked on the new box and saw the Meccano URL. I’m not sure why I didn’t go directly to Meccano earlier. I can only think that I tried, but was somehow flummoxed.

Regardless, my email to Meccano was answered within 24 hours and our replacement parts arrived a week later.

Thanks Meccano for your excellent customer service… once I found you, that is.

catbird :: May.23.2009 :: customer service :: Comments Off

I buy bulk food from Whole Foods about twice a month and each time I come home with my plastic bag full of rice, beans, popcorn, cous cous, or whatever, and transfer it into a glass jar. Sure, I could reuse those plastic bags for diapers, dog poo, or car trash, despite the light coating of grains and husks that always remain inside. But I always thought it would be great if I could take my own container with me to fill and eliminate the plastic altogether.

A quick call to customer service in the Millburn/Union store confirmed that I can bring my own container and have it weighed first. Having to visit customer service first each time is a clunky solution for both me and customer service. Which is probably why WF doesn’t promote doing this.

The better (really fabulously better) solution, I found out at the Whole Foods live blog, is one implemented by the the Green Mission Specialist at the Whole Foods in Santa Cruz: A program providing Ball jars to customers for a $2 deposit, to be used for purchasing bulk foods. Excellent!

While my emails to the West Orange and Millburn stores, sent through the Whole Foods web site, went unanswered (as of three weeks later. yep. three weeks), my phone call directly to the Green Mission Specialist at Millburn resulted in a quick reply.

Lisa Heimbuch, the Green Mission Specialist in Millburn sent me an email saying she wasn’t familiar with the program but would get more information. I followed up with the name of the Santa Cruz Green Mission Specialist and an offer to help in any way I can. In our last email, Lisa said she’d see about getting a similar program going in Millburn, and also see whether customer service can weigh my containers in the meantime.

Lisa was so enthusiastic and helpful — and seemed genuinely interested in implementing the program. I was impressed with her quick and personable responses, as well as her genuine commitment to the WF Green Mission.

Now for phase two of my plan…. get in touch with the West Orange store Green Mission Specialist.

It would be incredibly great if the second store to implement the Ball jar program was in NJ. Who will do it first… West Orange or Millburn?

Stay tuned!

UPDATE 5/23/09

I received an email from Lisa Heimbuch today about a new program at the Millburn/Union store:

I’m happy to tell you that we have come up with a program for you & your friends to be able to bring in your own containers for use in our bulk department. It’s actually very simple. The only thing you will need to do is to go to our Customer Service booth before you fill your containers. They will weigh the empty container & put two pieces of masking tape on it, one will have the tare/weight of the container & the other is for you to write the product item number on. When you are finished shopping you then will be able to go to any cashier & they will know how much weight to take off of your bulk purchase.

While this is similar to what I was originally told by customer service, I’m excited that it’s being called an actual Program, which means I can count on it every time I buy bulk foods. Maybe I’m irrationally excited about it, but anything that helps reduce the number of plastic bags in landfills sounds really great to me.

I hope everyone takes advantage of this program… and I hope other Whole Foods follow suit. (Do you hear me West Orange?)

catbird :: May.11.2009 :: food, green :: Comments Off

In some cosmic coincidence, on the same day I found out about Disney eggs, I also had to go to the grocery store to get a snack to take to Nate’s school tomorrow. Maybe it was because I had just read about Disney’s new venture into farming, but it suddenly seemed licensed cartoon characters were everywhere.

So there we are, in the dairy aisle of Shop-Rite, looking for some sort of yogurt to feed 11 five-year-olds. No Stonyfield Farms Squeezers. All the other tube yogurts had high fructose corn syrup and corn starch, which, I patiently explained to Nate, is icky and doesn’t belong in yogurt (and yes, I am certain the other shoppers were rolling their eyes). But Nate wasn’t listening….

He picked up Dora smoothies. Then Danimals smoothies. Then Trix yogurt. Then Scooby-Doo yogurt. Our usual Stonyfield yogurt in containers was right there, but Nate was blinded by cartoon marketing. When I nixed all his choices, he moved on to the Scooby-Doo cheddar cheese snacks, which, I’ll admit, we purchased.

Blurring the line between entertainment and food has several implications:

Children get the idea that they need to have their own special food

Media conglomerates have infiltrated virtually every aisle of the supermarket with the intent of marketing products directly to children and to parents who start to believe that they need special “kids food” for their children.

Do we? Not really.

Virtually any product you would buy with a character on it can be purchased in a regular version. Do cartoon characters entice children to eat certain foods? I don’t know. But I do know that kids don’t need to be enticed into eating yogurt, mac and cheese, crackers, cookies, juice, etc.

The imagination monopoly these characters have on our children is perpetuated

Cartoon characters such as Dora, Diego, or any Disney princess appear on any product you could want to purchase: clothes, bedding, toys, video games, books, toothbrushes, furniture, shampoo…. Maybe mealtime is a good place to give kids a break from the media marketing storm.

Our children’s health is impacted through over-processed and additive-filled foods

Take a look at what the “kid’s food” usually is: snacks, treats, yogurt-like products, highly-processed heat-and-eat food.

Of course, now Disney is taking it one step further with their Disney Eggs. I can’t imagine what a Disney Farm is like, but free-range, grass-fed, and organic are not ideals that come to mind. One more giant factory farm feeding chickens corn grown with petroleum-based pesticides. Just what we need. However, I digress. The point is that children don’t need eggs wrapped in Disney packaging and stamped with Disney characters, and cooked in the shape of Mickey Mouse. And as parents, we don’t need to spend the extra money to purchase these eggs. If you have extra money in your budget for eggs, make it free-range, organically fed eggs from a local farm. Please.

Our wallets are hit: branded products and “kid’s” products cost more

Compare the cost of kids yogurt to buying a big tub of yogurt and dishing it out into a bowl (or reusable container for school lunches). (Plus there is the added benefit of less waste.)

Many kids products come in a smaller size but cost the same or more as the regular version. Check out kids yogurt or smoothies or boxes of crackers or cookies for example.

Buying a “kids” version and an “adult” version of the same food just adds additional cost to your food bill.

While it would make life easier if licensed characters didn’t show up on food marketed to kids, I don’t see it happening. And, quite frankly, there are bigger issues with the food system that should be resolved first. But I do agree with Marion Nestle: “If food is nourishing and well prepared, it is entertainment enough and doesn’t need cartoons to entice kids to eat.” She calls for a boycott of food with cartoon characters which, today’s Scooby-Doo cheese purchase aside, I plan to wholeheartedly support.

As parents, we should all strive to feed our children and ourselves the most nutritious food we can. That means food, not “food.” If we take the time to read the ingredients of the food we buy, and, in fact, buy more ingredients to make our own food, we can make the best choices possible.

And even though it can be incredibly difficult to say no to a child clamoring for SpongeBob mac and cheese, Dora smoothies, or, yes, Scooby-Doo cheese snacks, we should fight the battle. While I fully believe it’s okay to say yes to a treat now and then, in daily life we would all be better off taking back control over our food.

catbird :: Mar.29.2009 :: food, mommyhood :: Comments Off

I’m so tired of obnoxious cartoon children breaking the fourth wall to ask my kids questions as a weak attempt at educational television. Do any kids answer? Can TV zombies even talk?

Saying my kids can only watch educational TV is like saying I only let my kids eat organic potato chips.

I don’t expect my kids to learn from TV. TV is not (despite what Noggin wants us to believe) preschool. I don’t think shows have to teach my kids anything. In fact, I think there is something nice about a show that doesn’t teach anything or have any message.

This Juicebox Jungle clip talks a lot about the TV vs. no TV debate, but really, how could I deny my kids TV? I enjoy it and to tell them they can’t watch it but I can wouldn’t be right. It would be like telling them they can’t have sweets while I eat a bowl of ice cream.

In fact, non-educational TV has provided lots of great discussion starting points for me and my children. Josie and the Pussycats: don’t be mean to your friends. Commercials: don’t believe everything you see on TV. Scooby-Doo: being brave can mean doing something you’re scared to do. Tom and Jerry: well, nothing, but it does crack them up. I don’t expect my kids to learn from these shows (that’s what family and school are for), but those are some good life lessons.

What, when, how much? That’s a personal decision for each parent. But let’s not delude ourselves here. TV is entertainment.

And to paraphrase Cookie Monster: TV is a sometimes food.

catbird :: Mar.27.2009 :: mommyhood :: Comments Off

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is a sweet and wonderful story — one of my favorites — but does it really need to be made into a movie?

In the book, a boy gets in trouble and thinks his parents don’t love him anymore. After an imaginary trip to live with the other wild things, he gets lonely, and returns home to find his warm supper waiting in his room. His parents do still love him after all.

With Sendak’s charming illustrations, this story is truly a childhood classic. The message resonates with every child: even if you get in trouble, your parents still love you.

Why turn it into a feature-length movie about a boy dealing with “absent father issues“?

Hollywood, are you that hard up for new ideas?

catbird :: Mar.25.2009 :: mommyhood, socio-pop :: Comments Off

Last week at Whole Foods, I couldn’t find my usual Breakstone’s Whipped Butter. A helpful associate (that’s not sarcasm, the people at WF really are helpful) pointed me to 365 Spreadable Butter as a substitute. I guess, like me, this associate mistakenly thought “spreadable” and “whipped” were comparable terms.

Oh how very, very wrong we were.

The 365 label should read “365 Spreadable Butter Spread” since what is contained in the tub isn’t really butter. Here are the ingredients:

Organic butter (sweet cream), organic expeller pressed vegetable oil blend (canola, soy, palm fruit, sunflower and/or flax oil), filtered water, salt, organic soy lecithin (emulsifier), organic flavor (derived from corn).

For comparison, the ingredients in Breakstone’s Whipped Butter (salted) are:

Cream, salt

Did I even need to blockquote that? What is butter? It’s cream, churned up into butter. For salted butter, add salt.

So what’s up with the 365 “butter”? It’s got at least three ingredients on my “avoid eating” list: soy oil, soy lecithin (oooh but it’s organic! Now, that is sarcasm), and corn (see previous comment). This spread is everything that Whole Foods says they are against.

The Whole Foods web site says:

“We search for the highest quality, least processed, most flavorful and natural foods possible because we believe that food in its purest state — unadulterated by artificial additives, sweeteners, colorings and preservatives — is the best tasting and most nutritious food there is.”

Let’s see, this “butter” is processed, not in it’s purest state, and has artificial additives. While it could be argued that soy lecithin and corn flavoring are natural, I’m not so sure. I mean, how much processing does it take to make corn into flavoring for butter? How is that even possible? And, more importantly, why is it needed?

I’m disappointed in Whole Foods for producing and offering this product.

catbird :: Mar.08.2009 :: food :: Comments Off

Lucky me, I have two Whole Foods in close proximity: West Orange, NJ and Union, NJ. While the meat departments are about equal, the butchers are definitely not.

The Good: The West Orange Whole Foods butchers.

These guys know their stuff and aren’t afraid to share it. In fact, sometimes I even think they enjoy sharing their meat knowledge with me, but then again, that might just be my own personal delusion. While they aren’t warm and fuzzy (nor do I expect them to be) they are friendly, courteous, and respectful.

Any question I have, no matter how bizarre, annoying, or strange, is answered without any hint that they find the question to be bizarre, annoying, or strange. Almost every visit, I ask which meat is locally raised, what’s the difference between the cuts, and just how I should cook a bottom round roast anyway. At least once a month I ask about other meat from Simply Grazin’ Farm in Skillman, NJ. Yet, there is no sense that they are tired of my pestering, which, of course, I’m sure they are.

A specific example: Last time I was there I asked (for maybe the bazillionth time) about the local pork. The butcher couldn’t answer my question and called over the Head Butcher Guy who said he said he’d get the information from upstairs. Then, he actually got me information and had it waiting for me when I came back around at the end of my shopping.

The Bad: The Union Whole Foods butchers.

Well, not all of them, just the woman has been helping me for the past three visits. For some reason, I always feel as if I’m interrupting her with my annoying beef needs. With her curt replies and poorly hidden disdain for grass-fed beef, she likes to begin her answer before I finish asking a question. Her favorite response? “It’s all the same.” Which, quite frankly, I find hard to believe.

Her demeanor is so off-putting that it’s no exaggeration to say that I buy less meat when she is “helping” me. On my last visit (see below), I even didn’t buy everything I needed. In fact, she single-handedly cut my meat purchasing by two-thirds. Luckily for our protein intake, the fish guys are friendlier.

A specific example: When I asked for a pound of the grass-fed ground beef, she turned to her fellow butcher and said “I think for lunch I’ll go outside and eat some grass.” To which I replied “It might make you more palatable, too.” Well, I didn’t really, but only because she continued talking.

The Ugly:

Okay, even I’m not snarky enough to comment about the butchers’ attractiveness. And anyway, the real hotties are in the fish department.

catbird :: Mar.02.2009 :: customer service, food :: Comments Off

It’s true. I’m addicted. I update my status at least once a day. I obsessively read friends’ status updates. In the evening, I often leave my computer tuned to “Live Feed” so I can keep up with people while I watch TV. And, it’s true, I have lost hours of my life looking at photos of people I don’t know at parties I wasn’t invited to.

I’m also out there pushing for the Facebook kingpin. “Just do it. Everyone is on there. You’re not cool unless you’re on Facebook.” Okay, maybe not that last one. Maybe.

Being addicted to Facebook isn’t just about the time you spend online. It’s also about how active you are. Some say that Facebook makes people a little too uninhibited and prone to oversharing. Well, okay, maybe that’s true. But I say if you don’t want to know what I’m doing every moment of the day, select “less about Cat” in your feed settings. If you don’t want to know 25 random things about me, don’t read my notes. If you don’t want me to comment on photos of your family, use friend lists. And if you aren’t truly interested in connecting with me, well, don’t friend me in the first place.

The problem, as I see it, isn’t that people overshare, it’s that people don’t know they are oversharing. I’ve read enough private conversations posted on public walls to know that people don’t know I can read their private conversations posted on their public walls. Just like that sloppy drunk at the office Christmas party who thinks everyone wants to see his Xeroxed butt, people on Facebook often forget that some things are best kept private.

If you do nothing else to manage your FB addiction, do this:
1. Use friend lists. Does your old co-worker care about your photos from high school? Probably not.

2. Set your application settings. Are you sure you really want all your friends to know how often you play Scramble? I didn’t think so.

3. Change your photo tag settings. Because, really, just because someone has an incriminating photo of you shouldn’t mean they can tell all your friends about it.

Most importantly, if it’s not in a private message, it means you don’t mind if anyone else reads it.

There is an upside to my addiction, though. As a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM? Some acronyms just weren’t meant to be), Facebook is like my happy hour hangout where I can commiserate with other moms, chat with friends, and yes, when I log on, everybody knows my name.

It hasn’t decreased my real-life socializing, since I wouldn’t otherwise be out with friends. It has, however, given me a low bandwidth way to keep in touch with old friends, continue conversations with current real-life friends, chat with family members I rarely get to see in person, and reconnect with friends that I truly wish I had never lost touch with in the first place. Rather than make me more isolated, it has actually made me more social.

As anyone who has ever celebrated their 21st birthday with a pitcher of red death knows (I won’t name any names), self-control is very, very important. But anyone who has ever gone to happy hour with friends knows a little socializing is good for the soul. I figure, as long as I remember to log off now and then, this is one addiction I’ll keep.

catbird :: Feb.07.2009 :: socio-pop, technology :: Comments Off

Oh, delicate little brown moth
Fluttering in my jar of organic rice
You’ve painted me a housekeeping sloth
And surely, we shall not meet twice.
For while ‘tis true I want to eat organic –
Only whole, healthy, grass-fed food
Grown without the use of pesticide –
Finding you there was so traumatic
That no matter what the greater good
Creepy-crawlies in rice I can’t abide.

It’s true organic farming is best
Unless there is no diversity of crops.
Then it’s just a corporate nest
A farm that’s just a prop
For another brand that produces crap –
“Food” with odd ingredients
And words we can’t pronounce.
Just an over-processed nutritional trap
We eat with blind obedience
And now we must renounce.

Oh, little moth, what to do isn’t simple!
Wish you well and welcome you in,
Or compromise my principles?
Either way, I cannot win.
On one thing, however, I’m very clear
As I empty my jar into the compost
Then on it soapily linger
As much as I hold all creatures dear
The thing I did first and foremost
Was squash you under my finger.

catbird :: Jan.27.2009 :: food :: Comments Off

A NY restaurant was keeping “George” the 20 lb, 80-140 year-old lobster as a sort of mascot, but PETA intervened on the lobster’s behalf and convinced the restaurant to release George into protected waters off the coast of Maine.

As George was being taken away in his pimped out ice-lined foam cooler, the other lobsters were pressing their antennae against the glass of the tank, wistfully. One four-year-old lobster was heard calling to PETA representatives, “What about me? I have my whole life ahead of me!”

catbird :: Jan.11.2009 :: food, socio-pop :: Comments Off

Some common developmental milestones of preschool-aged children.

Fine Motor Skills
1. Learn how to open cookie tin.
2. Sneak cookie tin behind sofa and eat all the cookies.
3. Use “time out” to plot next move.
4. Teach younger sibling how to open cookie tin.

Gross Motor Skills
1. Learn to climb.
2. Use climbing skills to climb onto counter to get cookie tin
3. See “Fine Motor Skills” above.

1. Learn to hit plastic baseball off a tee.
2. Use plastic bat to hit sibling.

Personal Grooming
1. Learn to dress self.
2. Obsess over one particular shirt or pair of socks and wear it every day.
3. Take two more years to learn how to match.

1. Learn to use potty.
2. Decide you don’t feel like using potty.

1. Learn to spit out “big kid” toothpaste.
2. Practice your spitting all around the house.

Outside Play
1. Learn how to twist outside faucet on.
2. Spray hose into all open windows.
3. Give sibling a turn just before parent appears.

1. Learn to jump.
2. Find giant mud puddle.
3. Jump repeatedly into mud puddle until you are covered with mud. Make sure you are wearing white.

Writing
1. Learn to write name.
2. Write name on every available surface including tables and walls.

catbird :: Nov.23.2008 :: mommyhood :: Comments Off

The Washington Post writes:

With the Chinese milk products-melamine scandal generating fresh headlines, U.S. health officials on Friday unveiled what they consider acceptable levels of contamination with the industrial chemical.

The bottom line: No amount of melamine is safe in infant formula.

For all other foods, only amounts less than 2.5 parts per million are risk free, U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials said.

I personally prefer my food to be… food.

catbird :: Oct.03.2008 :: food :: Comments Off

1. She doesn’t have any national experience and less than two years experience as governor of Alaska
2. She’s pro-life. Fine in an individual, not in the VP
3. She’s against same-sex marriage
4. She supports natural-gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
5. She said, “[polar bears] are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species … should not be part of those efforts.”

Bonus reason: She named her children Bristol, Willow, Piper, Track, and Trig

BTW, Governor Palin, don’t patronize me by equating yourself to Senator Clinton. You don’t even come close.

catbird :: Aug.29.2008 :: socio-pop :: Comments Off

On Wednesday, the New Jersey Court ruled that factory farming practices cannot be considered humane just because they are widely used. This decision, reached unanimously, sets a legal precedent to end abuses of livestock on factory farms across the U.S. and comes as several other states are making similar rulings.

catbird :: Aug.01.2008 :: food :: Comments Off

Yesterday I sat on the grassy hump in front of my mother’s gravestone and dug out five shallow holes in the fertile earth in which to set five small flower pots. Nestling the pots in protects them from the wind and gives the roots access to moist dirt when I can’t get back to water them.

While I scraped out holes with a wire hanger from the back of the car, little ants and beetles kept crawling up and down my legs. I was very gentle in removing them from me, for, after all, aren’t they my brothers and sisters, nourished on my mother’s flesh and bones?

Later, driving home, one little ant came crawling up my arm. Reacting without thinking, I brushed her off roughly. I’m sorry, my little sister! I hope you found a stray pretzel or goldfish on the floor to make up for it.

catbird :: Jul.25.2008 :: mommyhood :: Comments Off

This TIME article about Club4Climate implementing a piezoelectricity dance floor to generate electricity reminded me of my post about using power generating equipment on playgrounds. Coincidentally, just before I read it, I was talking to a friend about how great it would be if kids could generate power, not just by spinning on those spinny merry-go-round things, but also on the swings.

Maybe it’s an idea whose time has come. The question is, who can build it?

catbird :: Jul.16.2008 :: green :: Comments Off

Sometimes I can’t even believe what I’m reading is actually real.

“For the first time, the new rule allows the government to publicly release the names of the stores that have sold recalled meat and poultry posing the most severe risks to peoples’ health.”

Note that it’s a “rule” not a law.

“..the changes announced today would not have applied to the February recall, which was categorized as a slightly lesser risk to public health.”

Not a “most severe risk” although it was the largest recall ever in the U.S.

Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer stood by the new rule, pointing out that consumers are a bunch of idiots and can’t handle too much information: “‘We don’t want to unnecessarily scare the public,’ he said asserting that releasing information during recalls that have less serious health risks might confuse consumers.”

This must have left more people than just me scratching their heads in disbelief.

Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch’s executive director said (and I heartily agree), “If a problem is serious enough to spark a recall, it is serious enough to give consumers all the information they need to avoid potentially dangerous products.”

The Consumers Union suggested (wisely) that the rule should include to Class II recalls and that the lists of places receiving tainted meat and poultry should also include schools and nursing homes.

Well, duh.

My personal theory is that the USDA doesn’t want us to know how many recalls there actually are. Sign up for recall notices by email.

catbird :: Jul.11.2008 :: food :: Comments Off

Just one day after reading that scientist James Hansen believes Earth is near the climate change tipping point, I read this interview with Michael Pollan in which he discusses farming, environmentalism, and ways to combat the current food and energy crises.

Pollan talks about the connections between, well, everything: what we eat and how it’s grown or raised and how those things are related to skyrocketing oil prices, food shortages, obesity and the increase in food prices. He outlines three things we need to do… I won’t spoil it for you but let’s just say it has to do with fewer subsidies and more solar-based agriculture.

Here’s a taste:

You can compare conventional beef production to a grass-based system of beef production, which is how we used to produce beef. Cattle are evolved to eat grass — they have rumens so they can digest it. So when they [cows] are getting grass, you have a really exquisite and sustainable food chain — where the sun feeds the grass, and the grass feeds the ruminant, and the ruminant feeds us. They are not competing with us for food, and it doesn’t take vast amounts of fossil-fuel fertilizer to produce that food. It takes none, until you start trucking the animal off of the ranch.

The problem with that system for the marketplace was that it’s a slower way to produce beef, and it takes more skill. It’s a lot easier just to put them on a feedlot, give them lots of corn, give them antibiotics so they can survive the corn, give them hormones to speed up their growth. Suddenly you take a two-year process and get it down to 13-14 months. Time is money, so we moved that way.

Wow. I think I have a little geek-environmentalist crush on Michael Pollan.

catbird :: Jun.26.2008 :: food, green :: Comments Off