Supermarket Secrets

Watch this Channel 4 Dispatches documentary about the secrets behind British food and factory farms entitled Supermarket Secrets:

- Part 1, 49 min.
- Part 2, 49 min.

"How and what we eat has radically changed over the past few decades with the all-consuming rise of the supermarket. But what price are we paying for the homogenised, cheap and convenient food that supermarkets specialise in? In a two-part programme, journalist Jane Moore investigates how supermarkets have affected the food on our plates and reveals the tell-tale signs that the food we buy may not have been grown in the way we think."

Link:
Channel 4 Dispatches: Supermarket Secrets

Sunny Side Up?

I like my eggs with the sunny side up, please. Some people are more into scrambelled eggs, other people still are more of the over easy way, but like I said, I am a sunny side up kind of guy. So when I see a package of eggs from "The good egg people" I go get it. Rose Acre Farms is a family owned egg farm in the heartland of America. So these dudes are not only good egg people, they appear to be good egged Americans.

On their Golden Premium Eggs package Rose Acre Farms put the following relevant indicators:

Natural Eggs

United Egg Producers Certified, produced in compliance with United Egg Producers Animal Husbandry Guidelines

Natural Omega 3, Vitamin E

Cage Free Vegetarian Fed Hens

No Growth Hormones

Grains from Family Farms

A Good Source of Lutein

Egg packs are made out of 100% recycled PET-bottles and are 100% recycable

This all looked very animal friendly and healthy to me at first. Rose Acre Farms refer to the United Egg Producers (UEP) Certification, so here's where I looked for scrutiny. The Animal Husbandry Guidelines established by the UEP puts down a number of guidelines for the industry. So Acre Rose chickens have 67 to 86 inches of space per bird (at Acre Rose they are held cage free, but this does not increase the space per bird). In addition to this, I conclude from the beak trimming that was recommended by the UEP to prevent reciprocal agression by the hens that this space is still insufficient to ensure animal welfare.

The thinking of the UEP in general is heavily concerned with the efficiency and cost of egg production, so solutions toward animal stress and agression is found in beak trimming (reducing the effect of the birds' agression) and the breeding of a more docile bird, possibly by genetic selection or manipulation.

My advice is not to buy eggs that are only UEP certified, their certification is an over-easy and scrambled label and it's just not what I like.

Links:
- Rose Acre Farms
- UEP Certified
- Animal Husbandry Guidelines [.pdf]
- P.Y. Hester, Impact of Science and Management on the Welfare of Egg Laying Strains of Hens [.pdf]

GNN Agribusiness Video

Check out this Gorilla News Network on agribusiness.

Initial Thoughts on the Food Revolution

My reasons for the Food Revolution:
1. Stop supporting agribusiness.
2. Start supporting small and individually owned businesses.
3. Research our recent history of food production and consumption.
4. Make sure the things I consume are at least not bad for me.

I’ve had the philosophy of sustainability floating around in my head for about 5 years. I learned about if from my friend Tim when I was living in Austin. We discussed sustainability in the context of oil consumption. We were talking about alternative sources of energy such as bio diesel. Tim discussed sustainability in a larger context – more of a philosophy of solution. That vein of thinking was put into suspended animation as I became more focused on politics and war. My brother Pat gave me The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Christmas – this changed my focus.

After reading TOD, I realized that in participating in the standard food chain, I was contributing to the maltreatment of people, animals and the environment. In addition, on the personal side, I was consuming food that was not good for me. I also learned how difficult it is for small food producers and farmers to operate in the USDA system. This salon.com article will give you some quick insight on the difficulties of buying unpasteurized milk.

I would like the NYC Food Revolution group to provide information and support for its members in their pursuit of healthy food vis-à-vis a healthy environment.

A note on the execution of this idea: Although I am new to blogging (contributing), I am not sure if the blog format is the best way to share and categorize information. One of my goals in this endeavor is to share this information with other people who want to learn more about our food industry. I would like to be able to categorize the information – just some way to make it easily digestible for those that really aren’t aware of the problems. Maybe a wiki would be better. We’ll see.

Daily Groceries (1)

Every day, we do our daily grocieries, and thus so do I. The area of Manhattan where I live, Upper West side, has several stores that I visit, all within walking distance. Every day we do our groceries, and although we have assumingly a free will and a wide range of choice in the products we buy, I must admit that the moments of decision making go by without much notice. Sometimes I look at the price, sometimes at the brand or at the product being fresh, organic or healthy in some other intuitive way.

I am a dilettant on the path of the Food Revolution to Food Utopia, I admit. I find it hard to occupy myself mentally with food and nutrician, with the effect of microwaves, the types of sugar or alike. So this experiment to understand what we eat, has an open end on my part. So, with that open (i.e. ignorant) mind, let's take a random day and summarize my groceries of today.

The following summary lists what I bought today. There are a few things that I find interesting and note worthy. First of all, of course, most 'organic products' or 'natural products' are not certified, which means mainly in my opinion that I have no guarantee that what I buy as organic or natural, is really what I am to believe what it is, and therefore it could be anything, including not organic at all, i.e. my Food Revolution just imploded.

Second, I must conclude that although I am fully aware that some products market themselves as appearing to be healthy, natural and perhaps disguised as organic even, when looking at much of the ingredients, I am little aware of their health effects. Thirdly, I am a little bit surprised that while producers go through so much effort to label or market their products as healthy, natural or organic that only few products give any attention to either the wrapping material or the lengths of distribution.

Store:
Met Foodmarket
1316 Amsterdam Ave
New York, New York 10027
212-662-1644

Organic Whole Milk, Ultra Pasteurized
1.89 L
Organic Valley
$3.99
Organic Grade A Milk

Product: Tropicana Pure Premium, No Pulp Original
Qnt: 1.89 L
Brand: Tropicana
Price: $3.50
Notes: "100% Pure & Natural Orange Juice"

Product: Organic Promise Strawberry Fields
Qnt: 295 g
Brand: Kashi
Certified: USDA Organic, Quality Assurance International
Price: $3.99
Notes: Promotes Organic Horizon milk
Company: Kashi Company

Product: 100% Natural Granola Oats, Honey & Raisins
Qnt: 396 g
Brand: Quaker
Certified: No
price: $3.39
Notes: "Box made from 100% recycled fibers, 35% minimum post consumer content"
Made in: Danville, Illinois
Company: The Quakers Oats Company


Store: Apple Tree, Amsterdam Avenue
Product: Bombay Potates
Qnt: 285 g
Brand: Tasty Bite
Certified: Kosher Inspection Service
price: $2.59
Notes: "All Natural, Vegan", "Not Vegetarian, Vegan, No Gluten, No MSG Added, No Preservatives, Kosher, No Refrigeration, 18 months shelf life"
Ingredients: Saturated Fat (400mg, 2% daily value), total fat (6% daily value), sodium (412 mg, 17% daily value), Total Carbohydrate (13g, 4% daily value), dietary fiber (3g, 12% daily value), sugars (2g), Protein (5g)
Made in: India

Product:Tom Yum Soup
Qnt: 285 g
Brand: Tasty Bite
Certified: No
price: $2.59
Notes: "All Natural, Vegan", "Not Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten, No MSG Added, No Preservatives, Not kosher, No Refrigeration, 18 months shelf life"
Made in: India

A Factoring System for the Food Revolution Scale

No filosophy is complete without a system ofcourse, and no science exists without verifiable facts, so this endeavour should be accompanied by some sort of factoring system.

The elements of measure that comprise the grade on the Food Revolution scale are:

1. availability, i.e. the radius within which a product was bought;


2. organic, ranging up to USDA certified;


3. fair-trade, although many levels of certification might exist, for now we stick to a simple boolean fair or unfair;


4. price;


5. distribution, i.e. where was the product produced: some of the 
   most vulnerable elements in the food chain are the sometimes insane 
   distances food travels back and forth before reaching the consumer;


6. waste material, like there are wrappings, peel, etc.

There are other factors that should be given a weight to determine the grade on the Food Revolution scale, some I might have forgotten, others might be debatable, and some I should have omitted perhaps, so feel free to contribute and comment. It needs little explanation that this system is an organic system, which will develop over time. I will keep making corrections to this post and add information.