Saturday, May 16, 2009

Cook's Corner: Portobello Pizza

Shipping is a terrible thing to do to vegetables. They probably get jet-lagged, just like people.

-Elizabeth Berry



I find the greatest obstacle to healthy eating, is inspiration for cooking something new. Still jet-lagged from a recent trip myself, I spent my morning shopping for fresh, organic, local-when-possible, blood-type diet friendly food
. The end result was Portobello Pizza for lunch. Simple, healthy, delicious!

Portobello Pizza*

Ingredients:

1 portobello mushroom, cleaned, stem removed and chopped
1-2 Tablespoons pizza sauce that is BTD compliant
1 Teaspoon feta or goat cheese (I used feta from goat's milk)
1 Tablespoon mozzarella cheese
minced garlic to taste
2 cups mixed greens and vegetables (I used spinach leaves)
1 Tablespoon oils (olive oil and/or falxseed oil)
Other toppings of your likings (I did Canadian bacon and pineapple)

How to make it:
1. Saute portobello in 1/2 oil & 1/2 garlic
2. Set aside
3. Saute veggies & chopped mushroom stem in 1/2 oil & garlic
4. Spread pizza sauce on top of portobello mushroom
5. Pile on chopped mushroom stem and veggies or other toppings to your liking
6. Add feta/goat cheese and mozzeralla cheese (I used mozzeralla from sheep's milk)
7. Place under broiler until cheese is bubbling & starting to brown
8. Enjoy thoroughly!

*Recipe from the blood type diet

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Local Food Movement

Back in February I was taking a road trip to Death Valley and used the long hours in the car to listen to Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. If you haven't read it, you should.

Kingsolver moves her family from the Southwest to a rural farm in the Appalachian mountains with the goal to only eat for a year what they can produce on their land or buy from their neighbors. Sure, this may sound easy for a writer/academic couple with the luxury of taking a year to devote to such a cause but even they are faced with the daunting tasks of having to kill their farm animals (sorry, all you vegetarians) and improvising favorite recipes when key ingredients are no where to be found.

To her credit, this is not an easy thing to do. Even in Southern California, with a year-round growing season, it is maddeningly hard to find a wide variety of local food. If I fail to make it to the Farmer's Market, I usually find about three "local" options from the Whole Foods produce aisles (disclaimer: there are usually greater options for conventional foods vs. organic). I've asked the produce boys to pass on my disdain about the matter to the management. It would help if they heard it from more people. It's all about DEMAND they tell me.

But more than just the movement to buy local, Kingsolver reminds us of the relationship we have with food. That it's seasonal, that it requires someone's hands to get dirty, that it's messy, and that the variety of seeds and crops we can use are are a true art form. When our relationship to food is reduced to packaged, sanitized, and color-injected food that is shipped thousands of miles before ending up on our supermarket shelves, it's easy to forget our connection to food. I'm convinced if we could all have gardens, we would have a greater appreciation for the food that we consume. I'll let you know when I find a way to convert my LA balcany to a mini-garden.

Some facts I borrowed:
  • Each item served in an American meal has traveled an average of 1500 miles before it reaches the dinner table
  • After automobiles food production ranks at the second-biggest consumer of fossil fuels. Americans consume about 400 gallons of oil per citizen per year directly related to eating.
  • Almost 75% of all antibiotics used in the United States today are used by Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations – 1152 chickens can fit into a 6 X 8 foot room
  • If all the products with corn and soy included in them were removed from your grocery store the shelves would be next to empty – even packaging is now made from corn starch
  • Over 70% of the Midwestern United States farmland now only produces commercial soybean and corn

Friday, May 15, 2009

Genetically Modified Food: The Future of Food

"I think this is probably the largest biological experiment humanity has ever entered into."

-Ignacio Chapela



Genetically Modified (GM) Foods
are "organisms whose DNA has been modified through genetic engineering, unlike similar food organisms developed through the conventional genetic modification of selective breeding or mutation breeding."

After watching the movie The Future of Food, I am concerned that the integrity of our food has been compromised. The movie will make you think twice about the food you eat, U.S. government regulation, and potential health consequences.
Following are a few highlights:

-Once it became legal to patent seeds, corporations now have the power to own and control species of the earth. In the 90's the pesticide industries bought the seed industries and now Monsanto, a large agricultural corporation, owns 11,000 patents...they own the marketplace.

-GM plants reproduce and when introduced into the environment, they cannot be contained. This means that birds or other animals can carry seed from one farm to another--or seed can blow off from a truck driving down the highway and corrupt all of the farmland that the GM seed falls into. Not only are the farmers losing the integrity of their plants, but they are being sued by the corporations that own the GM plant patents and being forced to burn their own seeds that they have used for hundreds of years.

-The GM process uses bacteria and viruses to invade the cells, leading to concern for health risks.

-There are three government agencies that oversee GM products:
Department of Agriculture (USDA)- is supposed to test the environmental impact of GM crops. The USDA did not require a single environmental assessment.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)- regulates insecticides. The insecticide BT is in every GM crop.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)- is responsible for food and drug safety. They placed GM products in the category of "generally recognized as safe" and therefore do not require testing or labeling of GM food.

-Because GM food is not labeled in the U.S. there is no ability to trace the health consequences, thus reducing liability concern for the corporations and putting the public at risk. Twenty-five other countries require labeling of GM food, including all 15 countries from the European Union. Japan has stated that before using GM food, they will "watch the children in the U.S. for the next 10 years."

-Because corporations now own the patent to thousands of seed varieties, they can limit the number of varieties that are actually used. Limited variety leads to increased risk to the world food supply. If one food variety is compromised, it can wipe out a huge portion of the world food supply (remember the potato famine in Ireland?).

I encourage you to watch the movie. It's worth thinking about what we are putting into our body. Let me know what you think by posting a comment.

Movie Synopsis (you can watch at www.hulu.com)

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.

Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.