Respect my authoritah!

(Hmmm, I have a feeling there are a lot of misdirected South Park fans suddenly finding themselves reading a sustainable food blog....)

This Sunday's New York Times featured an op-ed that defended the apparently quite contentious Food Safety Modernization Bill. (What's that? Yes, though I spent Thanksgiving weekend in New York City, where the paper is available on every street corner, I didn't have a chance to read the article until today.) It was a hotly debated piece of legislation ostensibly because of criteria that some argued would unfairly penalize some small-scale producers. What? No! We need to help small, local producers who are doing things responsibly, who focus on quality over quantity! They're not the ones behind the giant food recalls in recent decades! Most of them only sell within a few hundred miles and any questionable items can be easily traced back to the source.

The anti-small-farm bias of the bill had been played up in recent weeks and I was a little uncertain about how I felt -- not that food safety was unimportant, but I had been concerned about how small farms would be able to make the necessary modifications in their systems and not lose the farm, so to speak, in the process of complying with more stringent standards. (I feared something akin to the passing of USDA organic certification standards a few years ago whose cost and inspection regimens have, at least according to a number of farmers I spoke and worked with around the country, been a major barrier to more widespread organically-certified produce.) What I hadn't known before co-authors Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan brought it up is that concerns about the small farmers affected by prohibitive costs and regulations had already been addressed by an amendment that allowed for state and local government control of these matters. The bill passed yesterday, and it's a good thing, too: it finally gives the US Food and Drug Administration the funding and authority to keep our food safe.

Admittedly my understanding of who does what in the USDA vs. the FDA is a little fuzzy. But then, my friends who work at both organizations are also a little fuzzy on who is responsible for what (and why). Food safety? Well, that's the FDA's role... usually. (The best explanation I have yet to hear about the two organizations is actually here.) As far as I can piece together, the USDA is much larger and handles all things food except nutritional labeling and food safety -- these fall under the purview of the FDA. Why, then, has this very important enforcement agency been given so little power to enforce food safety violations? I'd gotten the impression when reading Schlosser's (in)famous Fast Food Nation a few years ago that food safety was a major concern in our country. I just kind of figured that someone with political clout and a conscience had read the book, too. I was mortified to learn in this recent op-ed that only with the passing of this new food safety legislation do the USDA (for meat, poultry, and eggs) and the FDA (for all other food products) finally have the power to enforce recalls for contaminated food. Yes, folks, prior to this, the majority of recalls were not mandatory but simply requested. (WHAT?? Yes, requested.) A voluntary recall. "Please, can you recall those half a billion contaminated eggs from grocery stores around the country? No? Pretty please?"

Now let's look at who is against effective food safety enforcement: large-scale producers, who also happen to be the ones behind repeated food safety violations. (And, of course, the politicians who are financed by them.) Hmmm, how interesting. Yes, and they also argue that these new requirements are too... costly. Please. If you want to talk about unreasonable requirements and atrocious spending, try going through one of the new fancy(under)pants scanning booths at the airport. And at $150,000 per unit, I wonder how the budget for the high-tech groin inspection devices compares to that for improved food safety. (Sorry, I guess I'm still grumpy after being manhandled during my travel back from Vegas a few weeks ago where I was helping my brother launch his small business.)

For the record, I do think that safety -- in airports, in our food system, on bicycles (ahem, wear a helmet) -- is important and needs to be handled appropriately by the government to protect its citizens. The prevention-vs-treatment costs cited in the NY Times article are pretty compelling: $300 million for improved food-borne illness prevention as compared with $152 billion spent for treatment. Per year. Seems like a no brainer to me. But who knows, maybe the bill's opponents are using some kind of new math (similar to the calculations that suggest tax cuts for the wealthy will stimulate the economy).

Veg-powered

Amid the pouring rain, my plans to work with a young farmer starting up a CSA in Santa Barbara fell through last weekend. The fields were soaked; I was bummed. When a door closes, though, a window often opens -- in this case, my new friends Joel and Becca guided me toward Ojai, CA, where I was to experience an amazing farmers' market, spend time with John and Jody's wonderful family, discover an innovative school, and learn about diesel engines powered by vegetable oil. Did I see any of this coming? Nope. But I'm so glad Joel set things in motion when he stood in the pouring rain outside my tent at El Capitan State Park to invite me to have a cup of coffee last Friday morning....

As I sat in their warm, dry trailer for a spell and scarfed a bagel and cream cheese, Joel and his wife Rebecca invited me to join them for a jaunt into Santa Barbara. In town, Joel introduced me to John, who runs Java Jones (an organic, fair trade coffee joint), and who, over a lovely cup of joe and a chat about what I'm up to, told me about his daughters' school in Ojai that focuses on creativity, conflict resolution skills, and environmental education. Well, there's a lot more going on at Oak Grove School, but I was most excited to learn of these elements as well as the garden plot each class nurtures and the school's local, seasonal, fresh vegetarian food served daily. (Michelle Obama's school lunchroom dream come true.) Three days later I found myself in Jane and Maisy's second grade class giving a talk. The kids were awesome, enthusiastically asking me about everything from how many miles I bike per day to what I do when it rains to if I ever get tired to how I do my laundry. We talked about food, too. After a tour of their garden, I joined the class for a delicious lunch at the covered picnic table area and we continued to chat about cycling, camping, nutrition, and some of our favorite foods. Those were some sharp, veggie-powered brains. Here's a post-lunch shot of Ollie and I with the class.

Many have made compelling arguments for vegetarianism, and it is a core value espoused by Oak Grove School. Even setting aside Jonathan Safran Foer's argument about the inherent cruelty of meat production, authors from Michael Pollan to Eric Schlosser posit that it requires less energy to produce vegetables and grain in comparison to raising animals for meat. This is one of the points I've often heard raised by environmentally and socially-motivated vegetarians. (I'm still hoping to get my hands on a used copy of Jonathan Safran Foer's latest -- "Eating Animals" -- and not just because dad told me about a hilarious interview he recently did on the Colbert Report involving bacon. I've been wanting to read it for a few months now.) Collectively, Americans would all do well to cut down on our meat consumption, in terms of both portions and frequency. But this is not a post extolling vegetarianism. There are other ways we can embrace a more plant-based existence, and one of these ways may pleasantly surprise you.

If you haven't been living under a rock for the past 20 years, you've no doubt heard the catchphrase "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse." Most people think this refers to cans and bottles and plastic bags. And it often does. But what about fuel? As folks are crippled by how much it costs to fill up their Volkswagens these days, many are saying it's about time we started supporting alternative means of transportation (public transit, bike lanes) and promoting alternative fuel sources. One of the coolest solutions I've come across recently involves making fuel out of used vegetable oil.

It's not science fiction. Joel and his wife have been converting diesel engines to run on veg for about a decade: www.vegpoweredsystems.com. One day he looked at the back of a bottle of vegetable oil and noticed the "contents may burn" warning and he got to thinking.... He's successfully converted thousands of vehicles, I learned during a series of conversations over the past few days, and he's darn good at it. (He's proud of his work without being pompous.) I get the impression he's been wielding a wrench pretty much since he could walk and he may be the only person I have ever met who knows the intricacies of engines as well as my car-obsessed brother. As I understand it, the converted engines work much like a hybrid, allowing drivers to easily switch between diesel and vegetable oil fuel tanks en route. Only veg-powered systems are more efficient than ethanol, and cleaner burning. And the trucks are fast. (No, really. They race 'em.) And the systems recycle used restaurant vegetable oil that, at least as far as I know, would otherwise just be dumped.

Free fuel! Recycling! Less carcinogens! I'm in! I'm certainly Ollie-bound for the foreseeable future, but down the line if I go looking for a car, you'd better believe I'll be looking for a veg-powered system.

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