Even green fuel can be a killer

I wish I could say I was surprised, but no, I'm not. It turns out the green fuel, or bio fuel, revolution taking place here in this country isn't so green after all. As usual, it all comes down to greed. It is cheaper to dump bio fuel by-products than to dispose of them safely. The New York Times reported earlier this week on the illegal dumping of fuel production by products, including a tanker dumping glycerin in Missouri.

an anonymous caller reported [to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources] that a tanker truck was dumping milky white goop into Belle Fountain Ditch, one of the many man-made channels that drain Missouri’s Bootheel region. That substance turned out to be glycerin from a bio-diesel plant.

In January, a grand jury indicted a Missouri businessman in the discharge, which killed at least 25,000 fish and wiped out the population of fat pocketbook mussels, an endangered species.

Apparently Times Beach has receded from the memory of this Missourian, or more likely, he's the moral equivalent of W.

When I bought my car (Pontiac Vibe) in 2003, I researched extensively trying to find the best combination of fuel economy, safety, reliability and model that would meet our needs. I really debated about purchasing a diesel VW Jetta Wagon, hoping to run bio-fuel in it, but decided against it. My car at the time, a VW Golf, was only slightly more reliable than a Yugo, which did not inspire hope for reliability in the Jetta, and bio-fuel was still scarce in Maine at the time. Reading this story, I'm glad I opted for the Vibe, which gets good mileage, especially once I remove the snow tires, (35+mpg hgwy) and is utterly and completely reliable.

As for the polluters, time to make toxics dumping subject to the death penalty, and increase the fines and criminal penalties for businesses guilty of dumping, such that the business and its trustees are bankrupted. (Since my first choice is a firing squad, this seems like a compromise.)

What we are eating, part 2

When last we checked, we'd enjoyed grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner on Wednesday evening. Later that evening, I roasted up some cauliflower with garlic and onion to use for soup the next day. Here's how we used all those groceries during the remainder of the week.

Thursday
B: homemade muesli with yogurt, (milk for Dan), coffee,
L: sliced meatball sandwiches, oranges
D: roasted cauliflower soup with root vegetables

Friday
B: Henbogle eggs and toast, coffee
L: Ali, lunch meeting on campus, Dan soup, oranges
D: Pasta with meatballs and red sauce redux (and boy was I sad to see the last of the meatballs and sauce!)

Saturday
B: yogurt, toast, coffee
L: leftover cauliflower soup, white bean salad with green beans and tuna
D: freezer meal of pork chops with whiskey cranberry sauce, pan blackened Brussels sprouts, bread

One of the things I noticed about the Hungry Planet photo series was how ubiquitous soft drinks have become. Dan and I rarely buy soft drinks, treating soft drinks as party fare. We are very fortunate to live in a town with great-tasting, non-chlorinated, non-fluoridated tap water --our town won the statewide drinking water taste test this year -- we drink water with every meal, and we even bring it with us to work and on our travels. I'm sure that cuts down considerably on our grocery expenditures.

As you can see, I plan on using leftovers for lunches whenever possible, and we will often see a meal re-created into something else later on in the week. We used only a small portion of many of our grocery purchases for last week -- we will need to purchase a few items such as coffee, coffee filters, milk, canned beans, and some fruit but that's about all. There are meatballs in the freezer, I'll cook a pork roast tomorrow for sandwiches and other meals this week, and we'll no doubt have a meal of soup one night, too.

It is work to prepare meals from whole ingredients, but with practice, it gets easier and it is work that feels right. Preparing delicious meals is well worth the time invested. Dan plays an important role in the process, too. I cook, he cleans. When I arrive home from work (usually after Dan) any breakfast mess is cleaned up and the kitchen is ready for me to cook, and after dinner, he loads the dishwasher and does the rest of the cleanup detail. It's a great system!

What we are eating

Remember all those groceries? Well, here's what we've been eating this week. (Sorry for the lack of photos, I'll try and remember to snap some photos for the remainder of the week.)

Friday night
Grilled kielbasa and onions with Raye's Winter Garden Mustard on the whole wheat rolls. (Kielbasa from a local-to-my-friend-Holly smokehouse in Western Massachusetts)

Saturday
B: Eggs, whole wheat rolls, grape jelly, grape juice, coffee
L: Leftover pasta with peas, onions and cabbage from Thursday night
D: Tortilla chips and guacamole, squash enchiladas, Mexican rice, brownies

Sunday:
B: Yogurt, fruit, toast, coffee
L: Mexican rice casserole (leftovers re-vamped with beans, corn, cheese)
D: -- light snack and dinner with friends

Monday
B: fruit smoothies
L: leftover squash enchiladas, oranges
D: pasta with meatballs, spinach salad

Tuesday
B: oatmeal, fruit, coffee
L: Ali, soup pot-luck on campus, Dan leftover Mexican rice casserole, oranges
D: Pasta with Maine shrimp & peas, mixed broccoli/cauliflower

Wednesday:
B: cereal with peanut butter toast, coffee
L: Ali, lunch meeting on campus, Dan leftover meatballs & pasta with broccoli/cauliflower, oranges
D: Grilled Cabot cheddar cheese sandwiches with Raye's mustard, pickled beets, bread 'n butter pickles

What's on tap for the rest of the week? Hmmm I'd better get to work roasting some cauliflower!

Egregious greenwashing

This story of the Bath, Maine McDonald's and their new-found commitment to recycling really frosted my cake. In my mind, the real story is that they have only recently begun to recycle, and that leads me to question how many other restaurants, or any businesses for that matter, are not recycling and at what cost to local communities?

So far, Fraser [the manager] said, only about 10 percent of the customers have caught on. But behind the counter — where store employees recycle storage containers, egg crates and plastic pickle boxes, among other things — the effort has cut the restaurant's total garbage output in half.

"Before we started recycling, we had 16 cubic yards of trash per week," he said. "Now we're down to eight."

At eight cubic yards of trash per week, in one year that's 416 cubic yards just for this one McDonald's Restaurant. Kudos to the manager for getting the program started -- he deserves a lot of credit for bucking the status quo -- but how is it that no one figured this out before?

I'm appalled that the Times Record covered this as a news story (page 3) and didn't ask a few challenging questions. A news story covering America's/McDonalds meaty habits can be found in today's NY Times. Mark Bittman, a food writer, did a great job with the story, raising really important issues facing the country and our apparently insatiable desire for inexpensive meat. Yeah, that's right, a food writer. Sheesh.

Is that a chicken?

I swear the gentleman on the left in this photo, from the What the World Eats photo series, is holding a chicken.

What we eat

Regular readers of this blog know I think about food a lot. Growing food, buying food, cooking food, eating food, writing about food, food politics, etc., food is almost always on my mind.

The photo essay about family food purchasing around the globe really caught my interest. (Quite possibly because it give me something to think about other than work these days, the stress of which is causing to me chew on my pillowcase in my sleep.) So I decided to post my own photo with list and notes.

I'm a big proponent of buying locally, but this is an area I really struggle with during the Maine winter (this morning's 8°F temp is not veggie friendly, at least until I get one of these). With just 2 of us at home now, a winter share at our local CSA farm is just too much food, especially of food that Dan and I are, shall we say, learning to appreciate more, like kale. So, what we don't have in storage from our garden or local farmstand purchases, I purchase at a grocery store like most other Americans. This week, I spent $160 on that food. My purchases:

• • 1 Empire sweet onion
  • 2 avocadoes
  • 3 heads garlic
  • ½ lb piece ginger root
  • 1 bunch cilantro
  • 4 lbs yellow onions
  • 1 bunch celery
  • 1 head cauliflower
  • 5 lbs organic carrots
  • 1 lb spinach
  • 2 lbs parsnips
  • 3 lbs butternut squash
  • 3 lbs 80% lean ground beef
  • 1 lb Cabot pepperjack cheese
  • 1 lb parmesan cheese
  • ½ gallon whole milk (for yogurt)
  • ½ lb half 'n half
  • 8 oz sour cream
    
  • 1 lb coffee
  • 2 lb bag blue tortilla chips
  • 2 lbs (36) corn tortillas
  • 2 bxs Ghiradelli brownie mix
    
  • 3 lbs old fashioned rolled oats
  • 2 lbs honey
  • 16 oz can cannellini beans
  • 16 oz natural peanut butter
  • 5 oz tomato paste in a tube (Italy)
  • ½ lbs sea salt (France)
  • 4 whole-wheat rolls
    
  • 2 ltrs extra virgin olive oil (Italy)
  • 1 bottle wine
  • 12 bottles microbrew beer
    
  
  

Unless noted, all items are produced domestically, and some are organically produced. I usually have a few meals in mind when I grocery shop, but my primary method is to have a well-stocked pantry that allows me to be 1) inspired and have on hand what I need, or 2) uninspired and in a big hurry, and to have the makings of a quick, nutritious and from scratch meal.

Of course, I was in a rush at the grocery store, and forgot a couple of things --some dried pasta for the pantry, frozen peas, vegetable broth, and black beans. I also plan to stop at the Co-op in a nearby town for yogurt culture, pepitas, whole wheat flour and some herbs and spices. All those items will add another $25 - $30 to the list, I suspect.

What will all those items become, meal-wise? Dinners will include a big Mexican feed tonight (with company for dinner), shrimp chowder (with Maine shrimp from the freezer), squash soup and/or squash enchiladas, meatballs with tomato sauce and pasta or (for Dan, his favorite) meatloaf with potatoes, roasted cauliflower soup. Spinach salad, carrots, parsnips, squash will all be seen as vegetable sides. Lunches will primarily be leftover dinner. Breakfasts will include fruit from the freezer in smoothies, oatmeal, or, you guessed it, Henbogle eggs. There may well be a quiche or eggs for dinner some night, too. Brownies are always on hand for company or a chocolate emergency. We will make bread from flour and yeast on hand, and other pantry staples like rice and potatoes will also find their way into this week's meals.

You'll notice there are few pre-packaged foods, and that is not unusual. I did not have macaroni and cheese from a box until I went to college (boy, was cafeteria food in the mid-80s an unpleasant surprise!) and I learned to cook from my mother. Dinner at our house started as ingredients, and I've cooked that way pretty much ever since, although I will say Annie's macaroni and cheese and Classico (no corn syrup added) spaghetti sauce have been seen in my pantry. Since then I've discovered roma tomatoes heated on the stove with olive oil and garlic is better tomato sauce, and Kyle is not here as often to inhale the Annie's mac and cheese (and much else) from the pantry. I do purchase some treats from Trader Joe's when I get the chance, namely their ethnic sauces or my big weakness, TJ's tuna in curry sauce (YUM YUM YUM).

Many years ago now, a new-ish friend was at my home, and looked in the pantry and asked me where all the food was (huh?) I didn't really understand at the time that she meant where were all the cans of soup, boxes of mac n cheese, jars of spaghetti sauce, etc.? I was not enlightened enough to know then that the way I cook was not typical, and sadly, is becoming less so all the time.

A look at food budgets around the globe

The Slow Cook recently wrote about this interesting look at weekly food purchases around the world. The photo series was originally published in a book by Peter Menzel, The Hungry Planet. It was really interesting to look at what folks purchased and spent on food. It was astonishing to see the amount of processed and fast food (how depressing to see Tony the Tiger in Italy!) and sobering to see what the family in the refugee camp in Chad survives upon. I'm counting my many blessings right now.

Links to the additional pages: Part II, Part III

Cloning is just creepy

Earlier this week, the FDA determined food derived from cloned livestock is safe. More than ever, am I glad my freezer is full of locally, humanely raised chicken, lamb and pork (and strawberries, greenbeans, corn and swiss chard. And yes, I know it needs defrosting.)

I don't know why the idea of cloned meat is so creepy -- after all, we clone plants (also known as propagation from cuttings) all the time. The idea of cloning animals for meat production, though, is just too Soylent Green for me to be comfortable with it, and I am concerned for the poor unfortunate animals whose cloning experience was unsuccessful. Dolly the sheep had multiple health issues which may --or may not -- have been linked to her cloned status, and birth defects are common in cloned animals.

Part of my unease stems from the FDA itself. After all, the FDA's record of late could use a little beefing up -- Vioxx and Avandia spring to mind.

All in all, this just gives me yet another reason to stay out of the supermarkets. We just received a yummy stash of porcine splendor from my pal who raised 2 pigs in his backyard. I'm really looking forward to pork chops, made the old-fashioned way.

Locavore logic

Eating locally can be a challenge and it can also be more expensive. It isn't for everyone, and it is important to me to respect other's circumstances and choices. But Dan and I are choosing to buy locally when we can, because we like our neighbors and I'd rather support them than some California mega-farm. (That said, however, I'm not giving up exotic spices, olive oil, or citrus fruit, etc.)

Kim at Yankee Food over in NH recently had a great post about eating locally. She really articulates many of my feelings about eating locally. What it all comes down to, however, is this: I'd rather give my food dollars to my neighbors, and in so doing, support them and their farms, and thus preserving the Maine I know and love.

Backyard gardeners rock

There was an interesting article in the NY Times today about the role of European backyard gardeners in protecting genetic diversity. Long live the backyard gardener! We're saving humanity from supermarket tomatoes, one garden at a time.

Backyard flocks and avian flu

This article, Backyard Flocks are Victims, Not Vectors of Avian Flu, appeared in the Barre, VT Times-Argus on April 21. Makes a lot of sense to me, especially in light of Rumsfeld's close ties to Tamiflu.