Recently, I’ve been really into palmistry and numerology.  You might be surprised to find that I was really in to palmistry in junior high.  Flash to a montage of my best friend and I at library round table, surrounded by books all about palmistry.  Some of them modern, some of them aging.  We’d whisper and giggle, attempting to unlock the secrets of our destiny.  I’m not sure why we stopped.  I feel like there were a lot of great passions I’ve had that at one point simply stopped.  I haven’t lost interest in them, so I’ve never quite figured out why I stopped researching them.  I was never into numerology before, but my friend mentioned it and it seemed interesting.

My numbers and my palm express destinies that I’m terrified to live up to.  A and L got physically excited when reading my palms.  They were jumping up and down, whispering excitedly to each other.  Meanwhile, I sit silently, jealous of this intuitive knowledge they have which I seem to lack but wary of what they’re about to tell me.  Both agree that my palms say that I’m going to make some huge impact on humanity.  There’s other things, including something unique about my bracelets linking together or something.  I don’t know quite enough about palmistry to really be knowledgeable about it.  My numerology places me at an 11.  Coincidentally, it says things similar to what L and A told me.  Part of me wants to believe in this sort of magic and souls.

On a silly note, L was excited to tell me I’ll meet my real soul mate in my thirties.  My response was, “I have to wait THAT long?!”

Too often, I feel like time is passing me by faster, ever faster, yet when I write, I find that time slows down and I speed up.  The sensation isn’t immediately noticeable until I look up from my notebook and see Kay still checking out the table who got up to leave when i started writing.  Surely that was almost ten minutes ago, right?

Nothing is so frightening as the idea of lost time.  Of lost memories.  I find myself lost when looking back over my lived years.  There’s so many gaps.  The gaps are particularly frightening because I remember remembering what occurred then.  It’s like my life has been saved in smoke and the room that’s held it keeps getting bigger and bigger until one day, though the memories are still there, I’ll never be able to see them again.  I’m told everyone goes through these sorts of sensation and I’ve no doubt that they do, but it’s still a very singular and isolating idea nonetheless.  My most hated momemnts are when I’m in the middle of something and completely forget what I’m doing.  Sometimes I’ll re-remember several minutes later, but most often I won’t.  Having no context to base these experiences on, I’m not entirely sure what I should do.

Right now, I’m at VI, not because I work here any more, but because these are the only people I’ve made friends with and I don’t see them any other time.  I wonder what I must appear to them.  This sad and lonely girl with no where else to go.  Maybe I should leave.

I walk into the twin glass doors, setting off the sensor that tells those in back a guest has entered the building.  Kay looks up from her paperwork and I say, “No worries, it’s just me.”  I sit down across the table from her and say breathily, “This is the best last shift ever.” She laughs.  But truly, it is.

It’s been a steady night.  Not steady enough to call it busy, but nice enough that I’ll probably walk out of here with a respectable $80.  I spent my half hour break outside of the restaurant, taking bites of our ‘homemade’ mashed potatoes between pages of The Invisibles and puffs off my cigarette.  My phone playing quietly in the background, it was the most relaxed and content I’d probably ever been in the last six months.

My smoking habit is new, stemming from two unrelated set of circumstances.  The first being that the only time a server ever really gets a break is the occasional smoke break–and when you work a 12 hour shift, it’s nice to just get a few minutes outside with no one questioning your motives.  The second is I’ve always seen something poetic about writers and smoking.  Irrational and illogical as the second one may be, it’s actually my primary driver.  I have very probably been wooed by the marketing campaign of big tobacco.

It’s muggy out tonight and while my co-workers and guests complain of the heat, I find myself embracing the warmth.  Lying outside, it feels like I’ve been wrapped in an invisible blanket while the wind whispers softly in my ear.  Sitting inside the far too cold restaurant–though Kay contends it’s too warm–, I wrap myself in my black, ISU jacket.  I wonder vaguely if there could be any meaning or relavence to Vega being the only star I could see.  After all, I live in a relatively rural town in Iowa; stars are a sight so often seen, their magic has been lost.

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. … It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries”

That odd moment where you realize your worst fears about humanity are in fact: true.

Reality is always worse than what we convey with art; we are in denial, attempting to escape that which is so obvious.  To be aware  of the beast is to fear the beast is to be the beast.  That evil which we all fear in the ‘other side’ is merely a shadow, a distraction from what the true evil is.

We have so much ability, that even from our limitations beauty has the capacity to shine, but so too do we have the potential for darkness greater than what we can imagine.  I want to believe one thing, but when all logic shines light on an unthinkable truth, what can we do but deny reality, forget our choice and continue to live each day as if nothing had changed?

I fear that the greatest form of caring is apathy; we’re so much more fearful of the bad that could come of something than the amazing good that could come of changing, we choose to stagnate and hope that limbo is better than hell.

I refuse to be a commodity.

Back to Ashley.  We talk. For hours.  About what? The short and easy answer–although, truly no answer is ever short and rarely is it easy–is we talk about everything that isn’t mundane.  (Isn’t the idea of what is mundane just wonderfully subjective?  To the man I work with, NASCAR and sports statistics are fascinating and generate hours of discussion while I find those things utterly uninteresting. )  Aren’t I fabulous at slightly related tangents? Although I suppose, given that the majority of people reading this–if anyone–aren’t in regular contact with me and haven’t much of an idea of where I wanted to go with this.  You’ve no idea which stories are germane and which are superfluous.

Basically, we thought–in a moment of grandeur inspired by cheap wine and cannabis–that wouldn’t it be hilarious and profound to begin some sort of podcast/vlog/blog thing and share our thoughts with the world?  Surely, we aren’t the first to think the things we’ve thought and certainly we won’t be the last.  Isn’t every new idea about the soul and mind just different iterations of the same thought? (We all have different bibles.  Books that inspire us or speak to us on a profoundly philosophical and personal level.  Mine, as odd as it seems, has always been Jurassic Park. If you’ve only ever seen the movie, my choice isn’t immediately evident, but if you’ve read the book, then perhaps you understand.  If not, then eventually through my writings, you’ll figure it out.)  Thus was born, Ashleys’ Anonymous.  A clever pun in not one, but two ways; Alcoholic’s Anonymous being the most obvious and then the ever enigmatic and at times exceptionally disturbing Anonymous.  I’m sure if I weren’t so lazy I could come up with some sort of metaphor about how both puns are actually deep philosophical homages to the very truth about existence that both images conjure, but…like I said, too lazy.

I don’t know what Ashleys’ Anonmyous will be or even IF it will be, but the idea is there nonetheless and we both like it and if I share the idea externally, there’s always the chance that it will increase the motivation and therefore the chances of completion. After all, any opportunity to decrease world suck should be taken.

On an unrelated note: I’m sitting in a local cafe, sipping Darjeeling hot tea and writing on a borrowed laptop.  It’s the first trip I’ve made out of the house in over a month that didn’t involve a grungy work shirt and stained apron.  I have become a slave to my job in every sense of the world.  It’s taken my freedom, my happiness and in many ways tiny bits of my soul.  I find myself simultaneously (a) attempting to escape at any moment possible, leave in a flourish of prose and dust and (b) doing everything I can to ensure the success and happiness of a company I have no respect for and wish would disappear.  That’s the problem of working with people you love in a job you hate.  Anything negative and emotionally fulfilling would in fact be detrimental to someone else.  Certainly I could walk out during a stressful shift, make a point to management that if they can’t do their job properly there’s no way I can do mine and still retain my sanity, but doing so would place Rachel or Ashley in an even worse position.

I spend so much time complaining about work, it’s a wonder I have time to talk about anything else.  It’s gotten to the point where I really dislike what I’m turning in to.  I can’t continue to be the type of person who only has their job to look forward to and discuss.  That’s never been me and God-willing, it never will be. (Please hold two minutes while I pop outside to put more money in the meter.)

You know, I’ve always loved writing, but there’s something about the spoken word that the written will never have.

I really think that my blog has the potential to open up discussion on food insecurity and all the other issues that face our food system today.  And I really hope you’ll allow me that opportunity and forgive my fickle college student ways.  I can’t say it will be easy to get, ‘back on the horse’ as it were, but I’ll get there.  I can’t promise I’ll update with predictable regularity.  I’ll try, but at the end of the day, I’m still me and still terrible at commitment.

I want this blog to not only be a reflection of my knowledge and my journey to self awareness and activism, but I want to it be a dialogue as well.  I want people who hate what I’m doing to read this, I want them to tell me why.  So much of what we see, deal with and hear is polarizing.  While I have my moments, I try not to think of myself as a polarizing figure.  Yes, I’m incredibly liberal, but I wouldn’t have come to study food systems at a conservative land-grant college if I didn’t understand the need to understand all sides of an issue.

I won’t always be enlightened, I won’t always be smart.  Sometimes my posts and thoughts may be downright stupid and possibly offensive.  Call me out on it.  Open a discussion.  All I ask is you leave your talking points at the door.  I can spout rhetoric too.  (Often, I use it with family, because that’s what they do to me, and I’m not always the better person.)  I’m in a class today that made me realize we need an open discourse.  We can’t continue these pseudo informed discussions on things we don’t fully comprehend.  I should have been happy that the bias I supported was overwhelmingly supported by the professor, but I wasn’t and I’m not.  It’s an insult to our intelligence.  And it certainly helps nobody.

So once again, though I’m not incrediby reliavle and not always available, I hope you will contiue to follow me on this journy.

Love,
Ashalei Bee

Here’s a happy little list of the things which have happened since I last posted:

• I got the Regional Field Organizer position with the Real Food Challenge.  I’ll be going to Boston in July for leadership training.  You’ve no idea how excited this makes me.  When I first got the email saying I’d be receiving an interview I screamed and did a happy dance around my apartment.  When I got the email saying I’d gotten the job it was like that but ten times more awesome.
• I was accepted to Iowa State University.  Just think, in two years I’ll be an agronomist!  (Or agroecologist, more specifically.  I’ll be majoring in Agronomy but focusing on agroecology.) I get to drive to Ames on Monday to meet with my advisor and register for classes.
• Since starting this adventure I’ve lost 22 pounds!  The first 20 were all in April and the last 2 where the last two weeks.  Which considering I’ve been eating a lot of dairy(milk, butter, ice cream…comfort foods during finals.) is really really surprising.

This has little to do with food, but I really want to show everyone the most amazing rainbow.  My friend Jeff claims it ended right at the liquor store as all good rainbows should.

There were actually two rainbows, but my phone camera(I was at work at the time) wasn’t very good at picking up the second one.  I was lucky enough to get one decent photo of the double rainbow.

As you can see we have all the ingredients:

• Baby greens
• chicken
• green onions
• cappellini noodles
• feta
• white wine vinegar
• balsamic vinegar
• mushrooms
• rye flakes
• egg whites
• salt/pepper/thyme
• Onion
• Tomatoes
• Strained tomatoes
• Canola Oil
• baguette
• (I believe there are a few other ingredients we ended up adding that aren’t o this little dealy-bob, but I can’t remember what they were.)

Fresh feta from the co-op.  Apparently if you buy it in it’s liquidy stuff, it’ll last longer.  It’s still in my fridge, but I’ve yet to eat any more since this day.

Close-up on the oh so delicious lettuce.  There were a few bad pieces which we threw out.

We tried a new brand of strained tomatoes.  They’re about 50 cents cheaper and the exact same thing.

In addition, they were pretty explicit that they’re product was as pure as possible, which I really liked.  Apparently, it’s a bad idea to put tomatoes in the refrigerator because they’ll actually start to get soft and rot.  However, if you just let them sit out they’ll stay fine.  I imagine this is common knowledge to a lot of people, but I only just recently learned this at the farmer’s market.  I never really realized how much I didn’t know about food when I started this project.  I do have to say, I’m enjoying the learning process.

This picture is really blurry and terrible(again, I’m still using my cell phone camera and I’m pretty terrible at it.)  I the left bowl is a mixture of egg-whites, white wine vinegar and pepper.  The tiny bowl has rye flakes and then obviously the plate contains chicken.  We soaked the chicken in the first bowl and then added the flakes.  The egg-whites make it so that the flakes stick to the chicken.  I learned this trick from my friend, Kelsey.

This isn’t my stove.  Kris’ parents have an epic stove that I really had no idea how to use.  It’s pretty advanced.  You can see the pasta being boiled, all the veggies we were going to add to the sauce which is on the right hand side.

And here is my first battle-wound of the year.  It doesn’t look quite as bad here, but I was cleaning a knife(because I’m a fan of cleaning as you cook, so that you have less to do at the end of a meal.) and somehow cut myself.  Got blood everywhere.  It actually didn’t bother me too bad, but the next day I opened the door to go in to my Anatomy lab and it re-opened and blood just kind of started gushing out.  I have a happy little scar from it now.

Our yummy, yummy salads.

The almost finished product!  We still have to put it in the oven for a few more minutes.  Let the cheese melt and the flavors cook together.

Alas!  The finished deliciousness!

We had a little set-up in his parent’s basement.  We got to eat the  yummiest chicken parmesean ever and watch “Wanted.

This is quite possibly the greatest beer.  Ever.  It doesn’t even taste like beer.  It just taste like a delicious bubble in my mouth.

I really appreciated that they had a little blurb about how their beer is made.

And that’s the end of our awesome dinner.

Implemented January 1, 1994, NAFTA successfully lifted all trade barriers between Canada, Mexico and the US.  In a world dominated by privatized markets and capitalism, this was considered a boon.  (Keep in mind, this was right around the time Jeffrey Sachs introduced the economic “Shock Doctrine” the countries in Latin America, effectively ruining their economies more than they already had been.  I’m not sure on the exact statistic but there was some crazy inflation going on in Argentina for instance.  I think it was an outrageous 1000% a minute.  You might want to fact-check me on that, however.  This is just from what little memory I have of my international relations class.)

NAFTA, I think in theory is a great idea.  It eliminated all trade barriers(tariff and otherwise).  This means, that in a more perfect society, perhaps, a small farmer or firm(business) should have an easier time trading with the member countries.  However, it also allowed for Multi-National Corporation(MNCs) to also overtake the market, effectively pushing out the smaller firms the treaty was–supposedly–supposed to help.

As I’ve mentioned before in previous entries, with the rise of NAFTA, prices for corn in Mexico fell by over 50% as US corn flooded the Mexican market.  This should be great, right?  The citizens of Mexico now have access to cheap US corn, and the citizens of the US now have access to even cheaper Mexican corn.  After all, that’s what economics is all about, constantly lowering the bottom line, making thins more efficient and cost-effective.  But take a moment to think about the farmers in Mexico who’s very livelihood has been taken for them.  What would you do if your income was very suddenly reduced by half, and by law(international law, no less) there is very you can do about it.  NAFTA in essence destroyed the local economies of Mexico.

Author, John Ross goes in to much better detail than me:

“If they build steel walls to keep our people from entering the United States, we will make walls of people to keep their products out of Mexico,” a grizzled leader of the militant farmers’ front El Barzon Popular growled into his bullhorn as the protestors spread out in the frigid dark to block the lanes of the bridge over the river the U.S. calls the Rio Grande and Mexico the Rio Bravo. But traffic was slow and few trailers were lined up to ferry the thousands of tons of U.S. agricultural products that pass over the Cordoba Las Americas into Mexico every day. Strung across the roadway, each protestor carried a letter of the alphabet in his or her hand but despite the palpable fear and loathing afoot out in the Mexican countryside as the tariffs plummet to nothing, the farmers could barely muster enough troops to spell out “Sin Maiz No Hay Pais – Y Tampoco Sin Frijol”, including the appropriate spacing between words (“Without Corn, There Is No Country – And Also Without Beans.”) Despite the midnight deadline, the immediate impacts of this premeditated apocalypse may be postponed for a while – at least until the spring planting when farmers have to calculate how many hectares they can afford to put under crops. Unlike the U.S., farm subsidies are a thing of the past here, stripped away years ago in the rush to NAFTA. Reduction to zero tariffs is not in fact a steep drop. 14 years of incremental decreases had wiped out 90% of all protectionist barriers by 2007 and U.S. corn growers were only shelling out 18% of the value of their exports to get their grain into Mexico. Moreover, NAFTA-driven dumping by lavishly subsidized U.S corn growers that allowed them to drop their loads in Mexico below cost and still make a boodle is being blunted by skyrocketing ethanol subsidies as maize climbs to record quotes on U.S. commodity markets – the grain hit an all-time record $177 USD a metric ton last spring but has begun to slide as storage capacity for ethanol corn is saturated and distribution lags far behind production. Meanwhile, the uptick in world corn prices ripples out in the global marketplace with tortillas topping out at nine pesos the kilo on New Year’s Day here – tortilla prices in Mexico have risen 126% under NAFTA from 1994 to 2007 despite – or because of – massive corn imports from the U.S. (44 million tons in the same period.) The tortilla remains the household measure for basic food prices in Mexico. According to the World Food & Agricultural Organization or FAO, the world has only 11 weeks of consumable corn reserves left, the lowest inventory since record keeping began. Corn prices will remain unstable until producers can sort out the relationship between food cropping and biofuels, the FAO cautioned in a recent report. Low reserves and high prices are a sure formula for social upheaval, underscores the U.N. organization, pointing out that grain riots broke out in Morocco, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Guinea, Mauritania, and Senegal last year. Despite the farmers’ New Years protest on the Cordoba Bridge, the truth of the matter is that formal notice of the death of Mexican agriculture is long overdue. The damage was done long before NAFTA (or the Treaty of Free Trade With North America – TLCAN – here in Mexico) was a gleam in Ronald Reagan’s eyeball. As Mexico decapitalized the “campo” following the 1982 default crisis, which allowed the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to annex the Mexican economy and initiate “structural readjustment” of the agricultural sector, the nation ceded its nutritional sovereignty to U.S. imports. The migration of impoverished subsistence farmers from southern Mexico that swelled the Mexico City misery belt in sprawling slums like Nezahualcoytl was the first concrete evidence of the evisceration of the “campo”, ventures Harvard professor John Womack in a recent e-mail. Womack is the author of the definitive biography of Emiliano Zapata, the incorruptible farmer-general who remains emblematic of the campesinos’ struggle for land. NAFTA-TLCAN, which, after all, is an integral part of the same scheme of “structural adjustments” to globalize Mexico’s agricultural sector and force dependence on export cropping, has only accelerated the stampede from the countryside and into the migration stream. By the trade treaty’s 10th anniversary in 2004, NAFTA-TLCAN had driven 1.2 million farmers off the land, according to a Carnegie Endowment evaluation of the pact’s impacts issued that year. Since each farm family averages out to six people, the total number of expulsees from the campo hovers around 6 million. In 1993, just before NAFTA-TLCAN became fact, Mexico’s Secretary of Agriculture contracted UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa to calculate the fallout amongst poor farmers. The researcher’s worst-case scenario was the diaspora of 10 million campesinos. Now, with the reduction of NAFTA-TLCAN tariffs to zero, that “goal” is just around the corner. Where do they go? During ex-president Vicente Fox’s six year term in office, 2.4 million Mexicans, 70% of them reportedly displaced farmers, migrated to the U.S. despite the formidable barriers erected by Washington to keep them out. U.S. anti-immigration pundits like Lou Dobbs and Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls that beat up on undocumented Mexican workers might do better to pin the tail on the correct donkey – the North American Free Trade Agreement. According to CONAPI, Mexico’s Council on Population, 29 million Mexicans and Mexican descendants now live in the United States, two million more than live out in the Mexican campo from which so many of them have fled. Ironically, those 27 million who remain on the land back home are sustained by the $22,000,000,000 USD in “remisas” that those who have gone north send back, Mexico’s second source of Yanqui dollars behind $100 barrel petroleum. Which is to say the Mexican agricultural sector is supported by those who have abandoned it. Since NAFTA-TLCAN kicked in January 1st 1994, the same night the Zapatistas rose in Chiapas to remind Washington just how desperately poor and unstable its new trading partner really was, four Mexican presidents – Carlos Salinas, Ernesto Zedillo, Vicente Fox, and now Felipe Calderon, apparently rendered dumb by Washington’s dominance, have turned a deaf ear to demands by farmers’ organizations to re-open the treaty-agreement’s agricultural chapters for renegotiation. Indeed, leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s insistence on renegotiating NAFTA-TLCAN was a nuts and bolts factor in the campaign to deny him the presidency. For Calderon, who was awarded high office amidst widespread fraud, NAFTA-TLCAN has been a net gain for Mexico’s farmers. The president and his cohorts like Agriculture Secretary (SAGARPA) Alberto Cardenas never tire of chanting the mantra that the trade pact has nearly tripled Mexican agricultural exports to the U.S. But what these neo-liberal mouthpieces forget to point out is that Mexico has run a $2,000,000,000 USD deficit in Ag exports to the U.S. every year since the late ’90s as U.S. imports overwhelm the Mexican market. Moreover, the Calderon-Cardenas happy stats disingenuously inflate the numbers – for example, Mexican beer on its way to transnational distributors who now invest heavily in breweries south of the border, accounts for 18% of $8.5 billion USD in Ag exports to the north through October 2007. Under NAFTA, beer is considered an agricultural export. Nor does the President and his cronies identify who it is that is actually benefiting from the NAFTA-TLCOM boom. According to the National Farmers Confederation or CNC, a creature of the once-ruling (71 years) PRI party and once gung-ho for the trade treaty, only 2% of all Mexican producers are sharing the largesse. The other 98%, including 3.5 million corn farmers, 85% of whom grow on five hectares or less (average U.S. corn spreads are 270 acres), have no access to the NAFTA-TLCAN market whatsoever. The big winners? About 20,000 corporate tomato growers, avocado and tropical fruit moguls, and specialty crop niche market sharpies (organic coffee -but organic anything) – plus, of course, the beer barons. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, two out of the three top chicken suppliers to Mexico are U.S. headquartered – Pilgrim’s Pride and Tyson. Mexico now imports 22% of its corn, 55% of its wheat (which went to zero tariff in 2003), and 72% of its rice from U.S. growers. Wal-Mart, with over 700 megastores and now the largest employer and retail food seller in the country, provides a ready-made distribution system for getting U.S. Ag products into Mexican homes. Wal-Mart, now Mexico’s leading tortilla seller, is the poster boy for the NAFTA-TLCAN credo of “convergence” – selling the same product in the same stores at the same price on all sides of the border. But if Mexico’s agricultural apocalypse has already come to pass, new ones are lighting up the radar screens. The zero tariff deadline will particularly play out on southern Mexico’s mid-level sugar growers, mostly “pequenos proprietarios” or “small land owners” and their huge workforces of underclass campesinos. In respect to the beloved “frijol”, although Cardenas’s SAGARPA insists that Mexicanos no longer eat beans and the inundation of U.S.-grown legumes will have little impact on diet, beans are an emblematic commodity which combined with maiz form a protein that has sustained the Mexican “raza” (race) since its birth. But the most lethal blow from zero tariffs will be a speeded-up abandonment of their plots by small corn farmers and their immersion in an already-swollen migration stream, a tale that does not presage a happy ending. Traditional migration routes to The Other Side are now shut down by U.S. militarization of the border, ICE raids in U.S. Mexican communities, and the anti-Mexican hysteria sweeping that northern neighbor as the presidential campaigns peak. With this safety valve shut off, rural youth have little option but to turn to drug cropping. “It’s the only sector where there is any profit,” writes National Autonomous University researcher Simon David Avila Pacheco. A hectare under poppy (“amapola”) yields 11 kilos of heroin worth about $3.5 million pesos. Marijuana, which is bulkier and harder to transport, brings in about $1.7 million pesos, ten times what a campesino will make with a legitimate crop. But even drug cropping runs the risk of confronting U.S. market forces – Uncle Sam’s land is swimming in cut-rate Afghani heroin, the bitter fruit of Washington’s war in that devastated country, and homegrown now accounts for the bulk of marijuana reserves in El Norte. Mexico produces no cocaine and is a “trampoline” for springboarding Colombian coke into the U.S. – NAFTA-TLCAN trade actually opened new routes for the transfer of the Colombian export across the border (the cartels went shopping for trucking firms in Juarez in late 1993.) Mexico does manufacture and export tons of methamphetamine or “speed” but that’s a non-agricultural item. Increased cropping of marijuana and amapola in the impoverished outback is guaranteed to increase militarization of the countryside. Calderon has sent 30,000 troops into the campo in a permanent war on drugs that cost 2000 Mexican lives in 2007 alone. Violence has been pandemic in the Mexican campo ever since the European Conquest. Massacres and bloody land battles like Acteal in Chiapas (49 killed) and Rio Frio in Oaxaca (29) are contemporary expressions of the eternal war for the land here. Mexico’s many guerrillas historically have incubated inside farmers’ movements and still do. The Calderon-Cardenas strategy of deliberate denial of the crisis in the countryside is a little like whistling past the graveyard. Secretary of Agriculture Alberto Cardenas, a former governor of Jalisco state, is an agro-tycoon from the central Mexican “Bajio”, a fertile swatch of land from which big growers reap fortunes in export agriculture. A holdover from the Fox administration (Fox too made his fortune in Bajio export agriculture), he is a stocky, pugnacious and not very bright man who represents the right wing of the right wing PAN party, the “Yunque”, a secretive Catholic cabal based in the Bajio from which Fox drew many of his cabinet members. So when he had to sell Mexicans on the “benefits” of zero tariffs, Cardenas came up with the brilliant gimmick of getting Lorena Ochoa, the world’s number one woman golfer and a Guadalajara native, to extol the health of the Mexican “campo” – an unfortunate play on words (a “campo de golf” is a golf course) – which has incited farmers’ organizations to schedule a national march on Mexico City this January 31st. For the Mexican underclass, “campos de golf” are the playgrounds of their “patrones” or bosses. 10 years ago, speculators secretly bought community land in Tepotzlan up in Zapata country in Morelos state to build a country club and golf course and began sucking up what little ground water the farmers still had left. Wild protests – the so-called “Golf War” – ensued. In the midst of flying rocks and burning construction machinery, a U.S. reporter asked the newly-elected mayor (the old one had sold out to the golfers) why the people were so agitated about a golf course. Lazaro Rodriguez paused, put his hand on the reporter’s shoulder, and stared him in the eye like he was a nincompoop from Mars. “John,” the exasperated mayor made it clear, “we don’t play golf here.” John Ross is the author of Murdered by Capitalism and ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible–Chronicles of Resistance 2000-2006. He can be reached at: johnross@igc.org Link to original source

Sorry, I tend to be quote heavy.  But as I’ve said before, I’m not an expert, and I’m very much still in the learning process and I’m at a point where I feel if someone is able to better express an idea I’m trying to convey, that I should use their words. (Obviously not plagiarizing, since I make sure I do all I can to cite them.)  As the year goes on, the quotes will decrease as my own knowledge expands.  We’re learning together here.

A wise man once said, “Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” Glib as it may be, this twist on a traditional allegory was said by Karl Marx.  He, like many other was able to see the inherent flaws in the capitalist system.  Economic globalization is without a doubt driven by capitalism and Marx’s comment addresses merely one of the many flawed views of the current economic system.  There are several explanations for these shortcomings and possible solutions to effectively fix them.  There are three man problems with the economic globalization of a free market economy; it keeps wages down, exacerbates and increases the North-South gap, and weakens the power of the state.  There are many potential solutions to the problems cause; the four discussed here are as follows: recognizing the failure of the WTO and eliminating the Bretton-Woods system as it exists today, applying the principle of subsidiarity, investing in zero-waste production and employing full cost accounting of large corporations.

Proponents of the current system claim that it’s given jobs to those that normally wouldn’t have had them and increased the world’s GDP as a whole.  However, in reality globalization has reduced the rate of output, productivity and investment growth while stagnating real wage growth in developing countries.  The average real interest rates in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan have risen  from .4% in the late 1970s to 4.6% as of 1995[1] and the recent Fed cuts in interest rates only further illustrate the impact of these rises in interest rates.  This increase in interest rates lead to what is known in economics as the crowding out effect.  Business no longer want to invest in a particular market because it is too costly for them This increase reflects the increase in inflation which is currently rising at a fairly rapid pace in the industrialized nations.  Even in capitalistic terms, this is a bad thing.  The argument that wages are increases fails to take into account that wages aren’t increases at the same rate as inflation.

The more industrial North has set minimum wages to counter the impact of inflation.  However, the global South has not because as it is, any injection of capital into their economies is viewed as positive.  After all, it increases their GDP per capita.  This lack of price floor encourages business, yes, but at the exploitation of workers.  Generally speaking, in economic terms, a price floor(in this case minimum wage) is considered backwards because it invariably leads to shortages.  Indeed, the very things that guarantee a livable wage in the US and Europe is viewed merely as profit loss and “bad” economics by many companies.  In the end, this cuts into corporate profit and in order to avoid these “unneeded” fixed costs, companies outsource to places where there are no minimum wages.

Ironically, while many capitalists and large firms claim they give jobs to citizens of poorer countries who may not otherwise have had jobs, they also attempt to influence the creation of laws made against the creation of unions—unions typically ensure livable wages and working conditions.  Per capital incomes have in fact fallen over the past 20 years, not risen.  Almost half of the world lives in abject poverty—less than $2 a day. [1]   Some 20% live under $1 a day and in Sierra Leone, where the main commodity id diamonds, the average wage is less than 50 cents a day. [2]  This is good for companies because they are able to maximize profits and minimize costs, a central part of capitalistic economics.

However, this stagnation of wages brings up the second shortcoming of economic globalization; the exacerbation and increase of the North-South gap.  The ratio of poor to rich nations has increased from 30:1 in 1960 to 82:1 in 1995. [3]  It is imperative that the global south is not forgotten when looking at the recent developments in technology and commerce.  The increase of the gap has been brought about by corporate lead organizations like the WTO(formerly GATT), the World Bank and the IMF.

In the 1980s, under the context of aiding the struggling Latin American counties, the IMF lead a series of loan programs and introduced what is known as “shock therapy”(Sometimes with the aid of Jefferey Sachs, who’s shock therapy in eastern Europe had actually helped boost the economies left floundering by their previous command system), or suddenly privatizing much of the previously publicly owned businesses and opening up a completely free market system. A notable example is Jamaica; before their dealings with the IMF their dollar was worth well more than the USD, but only a decade later it’d been reduced to the value of two American cents. [4] In Argentina, hyperinflation occurred at a rate of almost 1000% a minute. [5]  Keynesian economics would argue that these countries were merely finding their equilibrium and that in a capitalist society there are inevitably winner and losers and it’s up to a  country to allocate it’s resourced to win.  It’s a zero-sum game.   A fine way to view lives.

It comes as no surprise then that with the increase in the power of the WTO and World Bank,—both as stated before primarily run by the corporate elite—with the positive propaganda associated with economic globalization—books like “The World is Flat emphasize the connectedness of our societies, while ignoring the human cost of economic policies in place.–create the idea that is beneficial, inevitable and above the power of the state to prevent.  This belief that states have no control over the evolution of the economy brings to light the weakening status of states as leaders of the international community.  Instead, multinational corporations are quickly replacing them as heads of the economy.  In fact, the WTO actually prohibits nations from passing into law tariffs and taxes on imports for the sake of protecting domestic industries.  If a country does enact a tariff or taxes, other nations are given the right to create reciprocal economic policies that have the potential to destroy the original nation’s economy.[6] It is a combination of these problems and many more that illustrate that something must be done to curb the impact and eventual limitation of economic globalization.

For any real change to occur, nations must first recognize that the Bretton-Woods system’s (BWS) goals are incompatible with that of the general public.  They—the WTO, World Bank and IMF—embrace an ideology that denies a country’s right to pursue economic policies that are consistent with the interests of the elective by—as stated earlier—prohibiting tariffs and import taxes.

When it comes to helping third world countries, the Bretton-Woods institutions radically reduce their ability to request and receive special and differential treatment.  It is preposterous to assume a third world country hoping to  increase it’s standard of living would be able to pay the same interest rates as more developed nations.  Oddly and seemingly backwards, they oftentimes must pay an even higher interest rate than their more wealthy neighbors.

Recognizing the failure of the system would allows for it’s disbandment and perhaps a more qualified replacement.  Creating a new institution with the aims of citizens and farmers’ interest in mind and not corporate profit would not only help close the gap between North and South but help local communities grow.

The next logical step after decommissioning the Bretton-Woods system would be to start applying the principle of subsidiarity, which is the idea that anything that can be produced at the local level should.  If Mexico can produce corn, it doesn’t make sense for them to import it from the US.  In fact, doing so is dangers to local farmers.  When Mexico did import US corn exports, the prices for Mexican corn fell by an astounding 48%.  Wile this may seem good for the pocket book, it makes it so farmers and the localities that depend on them fall into economic depressions. [5]

Limiting trade to only those things that can be locally produced boosts both the local ecnomy and the international community by allowing for read demand—not corporate led demand—and has the potential to limit shortages.  Doing this requires that countries be allowed to levy import taxes and tariffs and create subsidies on domestic markets—an act currently disallowed. As such many local businesses die out everyday.

The third solution to economic globalization deals with the environment.  Thus far the environmental implications have not been discussed.  This by no means means it is any less important, quite the contrary, actually.  Current production techniques by large manufacturers are actually detrimental to the environment.  “Most stocks of commercially harvest fish have collapsed or are collapsing from over-fishing.  The earth’s lungs, the forests shrink annually in land mass equal to the combined area of England, Wales and Scotland. [6]  More species die everyday than ever before and CO2 levels are rising, leaving cities like Los Angeles and Beijing with serious smog problems. [7]

One potentially productive and profit increasing way to curb the effects of production is to invest in zero-waste management.  Currently, most production only used around 20 or 25% of the total resources it consumes, leaving 75% of the resources as waste.  To fix this, Gunter Pauli created the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives(ZERI).  ZERI’s goal is to cause virtually no pollution or resource depletion and they do so by using what is called the closed loop system.

The closed loop system involves things as simple as doing “management-intensive torational grazing”which requires animals be kept on the move so that no single area of grass is over eaten, mimicking the natural behavior of animals.  In California, rice farmers annually flood their fields to mimic actual wetlands and increasing future productivity.[6]

Paul Hawkins, a member of ZERI, describes a typical ZERI farm as follows:

Three times each day sewage and plant effluents are washed out, and then used to flush nearby pigpens into a “biodigester,” thus eliminating any breeding of flies, while also producing a clean human environment for the pigs.  Caustic soda from the wash-down neutralized the acidic manure.  Meanwhile, the solid waste and spent grains are used to cultivate mushrooms.  Not only does this help produce a new valuable crop, but the cultivation process converts the ligno-cellulose into carbohydrates, increasing the economic value of spent grains.  Part of the residue is then fed to pigs, and part is held back for earthworm farming, an eventual source of protein for the pigs.  Meanwhile, the biodigester creates methane gas that will help diminish the fuel costs of the brewery , while the partially mineralized water released from the biodigester is used to grow algae that can also be fed to livestock.  From the algae basins, that water goes to f ishponds.   Because of the high level nutrients in this rich water, there is no longer a need to buy fish food, later, water from these fishponds can be used to irrigate crops.

Farms are easily able to become self-sufficient and this closed-loop system allows to them so effectively allocate their scarce resources that they need never worry about depletion  of current resources.

Frighteningly, because the current resource depletion creates capital and increases GDP, it’s considered by most to be a good thing.  It looks as if societies are growing.  However, as stated before, there is no way that the current process is sustainable.  These negative externalities, such as smog, oil spillage, contaminated drinking water, etc; caused by current production methods will only increase if firms aren’t held accountable.  This means that it falls on the shoulders of the general public, often in the form of new taxes to clean up the mess left behind.  In 2000, President Bush signed a bill  that announced that the US would no longer require corporations to pay for cleanup.[6]

If the world is to become both ecologically and economically sustainable, it needs to require full cost accounting of large corporations.  Making corporations pay for their waste is a great incentive to stop waste, and after all, that’s what economics is all about, incentives.  As it is, corporations have no incentive to curb their harmful production techniques because they create wealth and little to no harm to the company itself.  Taxing companies for polluting is a great way to start.  At first they might just carrying the tax down to the customer and ignore any changes needed to be made, but at the right price, taxing them would be a tremendous incentive to stop what they’re doing and find a new, perhaps even more profitable way of production.

The changes mentioned here are large and can take years to create positive effects, but the smallest of changes have the potential to make the biggest effects.  It is increasingly apparent that the economic globalization of the world economy is damaging to both the economy and environment.  Recognizing the failure of the WTO and eliminating the BWS, using this principle of subsidiarity, using the zero-waste system and making companies accountable for their actions are just four of hundreds of powerful and effective ways to curb the negative implications that are caused by economic globalization.

Works Cited

[1]  “The Threat of Globalization” article from New Politics By Edward S. Herman written in the winter of 1999

[2] “Progressive Globalism: Challenging the Audacity of Capital” from Month Review by William K. Tabb written in February of 1999.

[3] “The Polarized World of Globalization (A Response to Friedman’s Flat Earth Hypothesis)” written by Vandana Shiv in May of 2005

[4] “Life and Debt” a documentary on Jamaica and the IMF produced in 2001

[5] “Commanding Heights” a PBS documentary produced in 2002

[6] “Alternatives to Globalization” a book written by John Cavanagh and Jerry Mander, published in 2004

[7] “They Say the Fundamentals of the Economy are Sound” an article in Adbusters by Tom Green written in April of 2008

Of course, not everyone pursues the same aspect of the movement, nor should they.  It takes a great variety of people and an even greater knowledge of all the parts of the system.  We need chefs and lunch ladies to bring change to their restaurants and schools.  We need journalists to bring the issues to the public.  We need economists to analyze the impact of our system on global and local economies.  Leaders to lead by example.  Farmers and companies to make the very basic changes needed in their production methods.  Grocery stores to carry the new food.  Nutritionists to analyze the health impacts of our current systems, anthrolopolgists to put everything in a human perspective.  And people with knowledge of global sociology to put it all into a global perspective.

So, in all of this, where I am I, Ashley Swank?  It’s a good and incredibly valid question and I’m sure many of you have been wondering just what my role in the real food movement is.  As many of you know, I’m transferring(given they finally mail back my acceptance letter) to Iowa State University and I plan on majoring in Agroecology and International Agriculture with a minor in economics.  Everytime I tell someone this, I always get a few crossed eyes, so to simplify, I’ll share a few definitions for you:

Agroecology:
(From Wikipedia)

The term agroecology can be used in multiple ways, as a science, as a movement and as a practice^[1]. Broadly stated, it is the study of the role of agriculture in the world. Agroecology provides an interdisciplinary framework with which to study the activity of agriculture. In this framework, agriculture does not exist as an isolated entity, but as part of an ecology of contexts. Agroecology draws upon basic ecological principles for its conceptual framework.

Agroecologists study a variety of agroecosystems, and the field of agroecology is not associated with any one particular method of farming, whether it be organic, conventional, intensive or extensive. Furthermore, it is not defined by certain management practices, such as the use of natural enemies in place of insecticides, or polyculture in place of monoculture.

Additionally, agroecologists do not unanimously oppose technology or inputs in agriculture but instead assess how, when, and if technology can be used in conjunction with natural, social and human assets^[2]. Agroecology proposes a context- or site-specific manner of studying agroecosystems, and as such, it recognizes that there is no universal formula or recipe for the success and maximum well-being of an agroecosystem.

Instead, agroecologists may study questions related to the four system properties of agroecosystems: productivity, stability, sustainability and equitability^[3]. As opposed to disciplines that are concerned with only one or some of these properties, agroecologists see all four properties as interconnected and integral to the success of an agroecosystem. Recognizing that these properties are found on varying spatial scales, agroecologists do not limit themselves to the study of agroecosystems at any one scale: farm, community, or global.

Agroecologists study these four properties through an interdisciplinary lens, using natural sciences to understand elements of agroecosystems such as soil properties and plant-insect interactions, as well as using social sciences to understand the effects of farming practices on rural communities, economic constraints to developing new production methods, or cultural factors determining farming practices.

For more information, you can view the wikipedia page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agroecology

International Agriculture
(From iastate.edu)

The international agriculture program provides opportunities to develop knowledge and skills related to the factors that interact to impact agricultural and environmental issues, production, processes, distribution and utilization worldwide. The program puts emphasis on international experience through structured internships and study abroad. The international agriculture program is appropriate for students seeking positions that require knowledge and experience related to global agricultural issues and their impact on local, regional, national and international policies and practices. Students preparing for careers in the following areas will benefit from the international agriculture program; governmental and non-governmental development agencies, agribusinesses, educational institutions, and non-profit assistance agencies. Outcomes from participation in this program include developing an awareness for the role of international agriculture in the career development process, analyzing international agricultural issues and policies, acquiring skills for solving problems in international development and agribusiness and experiencing real situations and gaining perspectives about agriculture in a global setting.

Secondary Major

International agriculture is an undergraduate secondary major that may be taken only in conjunction with a primary major in an agriculture and life sciences curriculum. Students choosing international agriculture will strengthen their career placement with a business or agency involved in international activities. Technical knowledge of a primary major discipline will be strengthened by a global awareness of agriculture and life sciences. A secondary major in international agriculture will give students practical insight into the role of agriculture in a world of increasing food and fiber needs. It is ideal for those who wish to broaden their international perspective or prepare for international work in agriculture. The secondary major includes an emphasis on international internship or study abroad and/or foreign languages, and selection of appropriate courses (from an approved list) to meet the needs and interests of the student.

Courses for the secondary major include Agron 342; six credits of study abroad, travel, or language courses or any combination thereof; and six credits in selected international agriculture courses in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Fifteen credits of the secondary major cannot be used to meet requirements of the major or any other college or university requirement.

 Economics
I figure most of you know what this is, but for the sake of being thorough, I’ll add it here.

Economics is the study of what individuals, institutions, and economic systems do, or should do, as they deal with the problem of satisfying virtually unlimited wants with scarce resources. Economics deals with choices and optimization, typically embedded in a market system where the notion of equilibrium is essential and where prices play a crucial role. Economics provides a logical and ordered way of looking at a wide variety of issues, and the principles of economics are finding growing applicability in a number of fields. An  understanding of economic concepts can provide substantial personal and social benefits.

Again, that was from iastate.edu.

So, in terms of my interests, I want to–in the future–study and work on how institutions like the WTO, IMF and World Bank; and how global trade treaties affect international and local agriculture.  Anyone that knows anything about NAFTA for instance, knows that this one treaty completely collapsed the corn crop in Mexico. 

So, I’m kind of done with sitting in front of the computer(I’ve been here for a few hours writing this, working on the cost spreadsheets and doing various assignments) so I’m going to end this blog entry here.  I plan on spending the next entry discussing how certain global trade policies affect agriculture and why I want to change them.  Obviously, since this is something I’m dedicating my life to, it’s a lot more complicated than a few blog entries, but isn’t that what this is for?  Hehe.

I think what I’m going to start doing is after each meal and snack, I’ll tweet what I’ve made or bought, so that way there’s kind of a stream keeping track of what I’ve eaten.  And, my tweets are already integrated into the side-bar of this website, so it should work out really well.

Since Sunday, I haven’t really cooked any big meals.  Mostly snacking on various fruits and nuts all day and sitting down with some pasta with thyme, salt, pepper and some of the cheese I bought in Kalona.  Speaking of Kalona!  On Monday, after my 8am class, Kody and I headed out to Kalona.  For those of you not familiar with the geography in Iowa and around Iowa City, Kalona is an Amish community about thirty minutes outside of Iowa City.  And who better to see about real food than the Amish, who because of their religion can only eat whole foods that they’ve made themselves.

Because we were only able to stay for about two hours–I had to get back to Iowa City for my Anatomy and Physiology class–we didn’t do much besides shop.  Once we finally found the correct Kalona(I guess there’s the Amish community and then four miles down the road is a more settled section of Kalona) we found a bulk foods store.  Which, much to our dissapointment was basically like a normal grocery stores sans electricity.  Basically, the durable, overly processed foods.  There was obviouly nothing there that we wanted, but we felt awkward going in since there were probably only four other people in the whole store besides us, and not buying anything, so we found a blood glucose level sensor for $5.25.  I don’t have diabetes and neither does my friend, but it was only $5 and we figured it’d be fun to see how “healthy” or “unhealthy” we were.  Fun fact, mine was 81 and his was 90.  Which, at 10am and having not eaten since the night before, I think is pretty decent.  Especially since after eating lunch today, mine raised to 167.  I’m not an expert on this sort of thing, so I really couldn’t tell you what these numbers mean, if anything, but I’m thinking about maybe incorporating the readings in to my daily postings on twitter.

We did end up finding the “real” store we’d been told about by my co-worker Bob.  It was a bulk foods store of things made by the Amish community.  I bought a TON of raisins for like $3.  Dried bananas, which actually weren’t very good at all and ended up pawning off on my friends who were happy to eat them. (We’re learning that I have pretty terrible taste.  I mixed a red and white wine together and enjoyed the flavor, which I hear is probably the worst flavor ever and a terrible thing to do according to my friends who are big wine fans.)  I also bought a tiny loaf of banana bread, which had a really funky taste to it.  My roommates tried it and they agreed.  So, that was a big dissapointment.  However, it makes me want to make my own banana bread, which I might do for the Potluck next weekend.  All together, everything came to about $14.  I can’t remember what else I bought, that’ll be covered when I put the receipt into the spreadsheet like I said earlier.

Finally, we went to the best part of Kalona, the cheese house.  You can actually do tours and fun stuff like that, but this was just kind of a shopping trip, and we didn’t have time, so the tour is being saved for a later date.  In fact, if anyone is itnerested, I’d be up for getting a group of people and just having a really cheesey day!

As you walk in, there are windows which show you how they make the–oh my good, so delicious–cheese curds they’re famous for.


I was really impressed by how clean everything was!  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I know having come from a background in the service industry that you can clean everything several times a day and some things are just always going to look dirty, but it’s obvious they take a lot of care in making sure everything is pristine here.

Some of their cheeses were on sale.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I ended up getting any of the cheese that were on sale, but I did get 69 cents worth of some odd sheeps milk cheese.  I only got a teeny-tiny bit of it because when I sampled it, it was really strong and I wasn’t quite sure if I liked it or not.  I also bought white chedder, aged chedder, aged gouda and one other cheese…oh yeah!  DUH! I got a pound of the FRESH–and by fresh I mean, they had just finished making it and I witnessed them packaging it before they gave it to me–cheese curds!  I love the squeakiness of fresh cheese curds.  You can’t eat them without smiling.  Of course, I took some to my mom, who I knows loves them to have a bit and then on Tuesday we had a grill-out party where I brought the remaining cheese and every loved it.

Here are a couple more pictures of the cheese house I managed to take before I was hypnotized by the cheese:

The ladies that were working the counter were really nice and obviously loved their jobs.  And I mean, who wouldn’t?  They get to make and eat some of the greatest cheese in Iowa!

I’ll admit that I was a little bit silly and every time I saw a horse and buggy I got super excited.  However, asking the Amish gentlmen at the store where the “real” grocery store(the bulk foods one I was looking for) was a bit awkward because the only information I had about it was that it was all local food and it was in Kalona.  Which, is pretty vague.

On Tuesday–the best holiday ever?–we had a grill-out party to celebrate.  My friends were kind enough to use local grass-fed beef from the co-op as well as the normal fareway meat and I made a GIANT fruit salad.  Best fruit salad ever.  It lasted three days even with over ten people eating it on Tuesday night.  Someone made asparagus(which was amazing, I want to know how they baked it) and another person made some potatoes.  All in all it was a great cook-out, augmented of course with “The Simpsons” DVD from when the Simpsons was still funn and intelligent.  A nice change from “Family Guy” which is what we normally watch.

Anywho, I think that’s all for this entry.  Like I said in my last blog, I had a lot of goals for this week, and hopefully I’ll be able to post a new entry tomorrow with updates about everything.  Have a great day, even if it is super rainy and gross out!

On the Agenda for this week:

• Phone interview with David Schwartz for the Real Food Challenge. (I applied to be Midwest Regional Organizer)  Even if I don’t end up getting the position, that I got the interview is super exciting and super amazing.  Of course when I got the email, I screamed in excitement, did a happy dance and called my mom.  I’m silly, I know.
• Cargill has a wetmill in Iowa City and I’m going to try to get in contact with them and see if I can’t get a tour.  I know the producers of “King Korn” tried to get a tour and were denied, but I’m hoping if I say that I’m going into Agriculture at ISU and want to see first hand how our industry works, if they won’t let me in.
• Do another lemonade stand to get more people to come to the Potluck.
• I’m compilling a little bit of information on GMOs and replying to Olive Garden’s outlandish statement that science has proven the safety of GMOs.
• Begin a weekly campaign where I email restaurants and try to get them involved in the real food movement or just see their stances on GMOs and organics.

Oh man, I can’t even remember what I’ve eaten these last couple of days.    I think I’ve been living off bread and cheese like a pauper since I haven’t really had time–okay, well that’s a lie.  I need to organize my time a little bit better than I am.  After all, last night I was incredibly, incredibly exhasted, but I still convinced myself to walk to the c0-op and grab some ingredients for chicken parmesean.  But yeah, the past few days have been like a real food version of a ramen noodle diet.  I had some issues with my car getting towed and not making any money at work.  (It’s hard to buy anything when you’re only making $14 a day.)  I could go on a rant about how shitty people are when it comes to tipping their servers.  I really don’t think people realize we get paid less than $4 an hour and all of our tips are taxed and often we have to give 10-20% of what we make to bussers and food runners.

At any rate–
Last night I really really wanted some chicken parmesean.  I think part of it was I just wanted to cook the chicken I’ve had in my freezer for about a week.  Which, can I say the chicken was incredibly cheap?  It was like $2.50 for a pound of it.  I’m not sure what part of the chicken it was, the label did say, but I didn’t really look at it before I tossed it out.  There was a bone or two in it, but I just pulled those out after I let it soak in egg-whites and white wine vinegar.

So yeah, I went to the co-op and bought some champagne, capellinni noodles, strained tomatoes, and rye flakes.  My grandma usually uses corn flakes for her chicken parmesean, but obviously I can’t use those in mine and since I love rye bread, I figured rye flakes would be tastey.  Guess what? They were!

Apparently, I need to stop using my cell phone for a camera since even though I took a picture of everything I bought, I guess it didn’t save which is really frustrating.  I did get a picture of how I made the chicken crispy:

In the green bowl are eggwhites and white wine vinegar.  I let the chicken soak in there for about 15 minutes.  The eggwhites help keep the flakes on the chicken so when it bakes, it’s nice and crispy.  In the blue bowl are flour and rye flakes that I coverd the chicken in.  And of course, the last bowl is the chicken that I just defrosted.  It still had skin on it.  I stood there for a few minutes debating on whether or not I should leave the skin, because I know if cooked right, the skin tastes pretty amaing.  However, I know the limit of my cooking skills and took off the skin and the bones.

This was really exciting.  I got the tiny little one person bottle of champagne for $3.99.  It was really fruity and yummy.  If you’re curious about my choice to drink wine, it stems from the fact that though it goes through a process, I consider it unprocessed.  The people who produce wine tend to be purists and the best wine is always the that is as natural as possible.  This doesn’t mean that all their practices are ecofriendly, but I trust the co-ops selection of products since they do strive to be as environmentally conscious as possible.  Also, cheese and wine are two of my favorite things so figuring out how to incorporate them into this project is a big deal to me.

For the sauce, I used strained tomatoes to make the marinara sauce.  I addes some onion, salt, garlic and thyme to it and it was DELICIOUS. It was just the right amount of everything to give it a nice flavor.  The end result looked something like this:

I was full after this, but I wanted to eat more because it was so yummy.
There was even plenty left for leftovers, which I ate for Brunch today.

It wasn’t a perfect chicken parmesean, but I was proud of myself and it tasted pretty damn great.  And it all only cost $9.90.  And it lasted me two meals, so definitely a good deal.

GMOs.

I’m a bit leary about using wikipedia as a source, but they have a really good, concise definition of GMOs that I find really helpful in explaining what they are.

A genetically modified organism (GMO) or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA is then transferred into an organism, giving it modified or novel genes. Transgenic organisms, a subset of GMOs, are organisms which have inserted DNA that originated in a different species. Some GMOs contain no DNA from other species and are therefore not transgenic but cisgenic.

Let’s start with the bare and if I might be so bold, frightening facts:

What in the US is genetically modified?  Is any of it?

• Soy           91%
• Corn       73%
• Cotton     87%
• Canola     80% (Canada)

As most of you already know, since I’ve said it before, most of the food we eat from restaurants and supermarkets is derived from either corn or soy.  This means, that if what you eat comes in a package or isn’t “raw” then you’re pretty much guaranteed it’s been genetically modified.  In fact, the only way to ensure that it’s not modified is to shop exclusively organic and even then, there’s no guarantee because so many organic vegetarian products contain soy that has been modified because there’s no regulation of the industry.  It’s not even required that we label GMOs.  I have an aquaintance at the Maharishi University of Management that I met last year at the Real Food Summit who is working on a campagin to label GMOs.  I’ve even seen a few articles about Fairfield and his project.

The Institute for Responsible Technology has a really good explination of exactly how we create GMOs.  It’s actually in the form of a powerpoint presentation that they’ve posted on their website and encourage people to use it to get the information out there.

To understand what Genetically Modified Organisms or GMOs are, let’s first review what DNA is. Within the tissues of the plant are cells. Within the cell is the nucleus. Within that are chromosomes composed of the DNA molecule, which in turn is made up of a sequence of base pairs. A simplistic description is that sequence of the genes in the DNA determine the sequence in the RNA, which then determines the sequence of the building blocks of proteins, called amino acids. These proteins can determine a particular trait or characteristic.

Using genetic engineering, scientists take genes from bacteria, viruses or other sources and force them into the DNA of a plant. There are 5 steps. First they isolate the gene that they want to insert and then change it so that it works in plants. They prepare plant cells to be inserted. Insertion is often done using a gene gun, where they coat tiny particles of gold or tungsten with genes and then shoot them into a plate of cells. Alternatively, they can use bacteria to infect plants with the foreign gene. Once the gene gets into the DNA of the plant cell, the cell is cloned (using tissue culture) into a full plant. All but one of these steps contain scientific uncertainties and risks for health and the environment.

Let’ say scientists want to create a corn plant that produces its own pesticide. They typically take a gene from bacteria that produces its own pesticide. The bacteria are called Bt for Bacillus Thuringiensis and the pesticidal toxin it creates is called Bt-toxin. If you take the pesticide-producing Bt gene from the bacterium and put that inside corn by itself it wouldn’t work. Plant DNA is normally designed to turn genes on and off as needed by the cell. But there is no corn on earth that has ever had this BT gene before the advent of genetic engineering. The corn plant does not know how to turn it on. So scientists attach a promoter, usually taken from a virus, which acts as an “on” switch. It turns the gene on 24/7. This BT gene is not under the control of the DNA. It is under the control of this inserted viral promoter.

On the other side of the gene, scientists attach a stop signal or termination signal, which tells the cell, “The gene ends here. Stop reading.”

Scientists make millions of copies of the transgene, which are either shot into millions of cells or infected into the cell by bacteria. The hope is that some of the genes make it into the DNA of some of those cells. They can’t tell which of the genes make it into the DNA. So, they do the following: Before they multiply and insert the gene construct, they add an antibiotic resistant marker gene. This new gene creates a protein that protects the cell from a specific antibiotic.

Next, they dowse that plate of cells with antibiotics. It kills off most of the cells except the very few where the transgene made it into the DNA—where the antibiotic resistant gene is functioning. Thus, the surviving cells are antibiotic resistant.

The surviving cells are cloned into GM plants. Each cell of each plant now contains the gene that produces the Bt-toxin. It also contains the antibiotic resistant gene, which is now in our food. FDA scientists who evaluated the use of the antibiotic resistant gene were appalled with the idea.

Documents made public from a lawsuit revealed that the FDA division of anti-infective drugs wrote in all capital letters, “IT WOULD BE A SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD TO INTRODUCE A GENE THAT CODES FOR ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE INTO THE NORMAL FLORA OF THE GENERAL POPULATION.” They were concerned that the antibiotic resistant marker gene might transfer to disease-creating bacteria in the gut or in soil, rendering the bacteria invincible to antibiotics. There are already antibiotic resistant super-diseases due to the overuse of antibiotics, but the FDA scientists were concerned that this use in GM foods could make the problem much worse. This wasn’t the only concern among the FDA scientists. [For source documents with FDA quotes, go to www.biointegrity.org.)

Monsanto does this with relish.  Think round up ready plants, soy, cotton.  They are fabulous at patenting seeds and then sueing farmers once “their” seeds end up by chance in a farmer’s plot.  It’s ridiculous and terrible and it needs to be stopped.  If you’ve ever watched “Food Inc” or “The Future of Food” or even “King Korn” you’ve seen the farmers first hand.  Generations of seeds ruined and replaced with Monsanto’s seeds because you know after a field has been contaminated, they have to buy Monsanto and they have to buy every year because Monsanto’s plants are all clones of a first hybrid and aren’t able to reproduce.

There are a few good websites where you can find companies that refuse to use GMOs in their products.  This is one of my favorites: http://www.nongmoproject.org/consumers/search-participating-products/

At any rate, I could obviously keep going, but I have a few things I need to get done, and I plan on updating again soon.