EAT HÄLSA

Have you ever walked into your local grocery store, feeling perfectly good about yourself, innocently picked up a good-looking apple, and then been assaulted by waves of environmental-existential guilt when you see “New Zealand” on the sticker? You imagine the thousands of miles that poor little apple has traveled and, even though it’s your very favorite kind of apple, you put it down and grab one from Chile or Washington, instead, because they’re at least somewhat closer. Well, take heart--it turns out that food miles (a term coined by a 1994 publication that describes the distance from where your food was grown to you) are not as important as you may think.

Source: http://www.enza.co.nz/products/fruit-varieties/apples/

Food miles are easy enough to measure and conceptualize, but like most one-dimensional scales, they don’t fully the capture the sustainability of your food. A whole lot more goes into getting food from, say, a lettuce seed to your salad bowl than just transporting it. This 2008 study of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the entire “lifecycles” of various foods (based on data from 1997) found that transportation accounted for an average of only 11% of GHG emissions. Where are all of those GHGs coming from, then, if not transportation? The vast majority (83%) of GHGs come from the production phase, despite the food traveling on average 1,020 miles to the final retailer and 4,200 miles total throughout its supply-chain journey.

Food systems are responsible for roughly a hefty 20% of global GHG emissions. In 2012, the single largest source (39.3%) of agriculture-related GHG emissions was soils, which release nitrous oxide (N2O) when they’re cleared or plowed or from the use of fertilizers and the breakdown of crop residues. Enteric fermentation by ruminants (i.e. cow farts) comes in a close second, producing an estimated 38.7% of agricultural emissions.

Source: http://grangeprimary.creativeblogs.net/2014/10/15/does-grass-taste-different-to-a-cow/

In other words, how your food is produced (efficiently or inefficiently, using a lot or a little fertilizer) and what kind of food you eat (plant vs. animal) likely matters more from an environmental perspective than where it came from. As this excellent BBC article puts it, “So, when you analyse the production of lamb or apples from New Zealand, which has a climate, soil and hydro-electric power source that allows low-carbon production of lamb and apples, it's quite possible for the transport emissions involved in shipping it to the UK to be far outweighed by the savings made at the farm.” There is, of course, still value to local food--the freshness, the connection to a local producer, the support to your local economy--but it needn’t feel like the be-all-end-all.

We’ll leave you with two takeaways for planet-friendly eating, and then get on to the fun part: a delicious Hälsa recipe! First, concentrate your local-eating efforts on what your region produces well when it is in season (this idea is much like the concept of comparative advantage in economics). While it’s possible to grow pretty much anything anywhere, it takes much more intensive inputs--think fertilizer, fuel, or energy to heat a greenhouse--to grow in ill-suited environments. Second, eat fewer animal products, especially red meat and dairy.

Source: http://www.revolutiongardens.com/join-our-csa/fall-harvest-share/

Savor the last of the season’s tomatoes and melons in this tasty (and super easy!) gazpacho:

WATERMELON GAZPACHO

1/2 whole medium watermelon, cubed

1 seedless cucumber, diced

1/4 jicama, diced

1/4 red onion, diced

1/2 red bell pepper, diced

1/4 jalapeno, seeds removed, diced

1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved

1/4 bunch of cilantro, roughly chopped

¼ bunch parsley, roughly chopped

juice from 1 lime

1 tablespoon sherry vinegar

1 clove garlic, smashed with the side of a knife

to taste:

ground cumin

ground coriander

salt

Chop fruit and veggies and combine in a large bowl with lime juice, sherry vinegar, and garlic. Sprinkle with a small pinch of salt, cumin, and coriander and toss to combine. Cover and set in the refrigerator to chill overnight.

Pulse fruit and veggie mixture in a food processor until the large chunks are broken up and consistency is like a chunky soup. Add more cumin, coriander, and salt to taste.

Serve chilled. Great with a topping of basil oil!

Educate yo’self

1. If you read the Francis Moore Lappe classic Diet for a Small Planet . . . 

                               Diet for a Hot Planet by Anne Lappe

https://books.google.com/books/about/Diet_for_a_Hot_Planet.html?id=PlugAwAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover

“In 1971, Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet sparked a revolution in how we think about hunger, alerting millions to the hidden environmental and social impacts of our food choices. Now, nearly four decades later, her daughter, Anna Lappé, picks up the conversation. In her new book, the younger Lappé exposes another hidden cost of our food system: the climate crisis.” (from http://smallplanet.org/books/diet-for-a-hot-planet)

2. If you’re a local food aficionado . . . 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver,                 Steven L. Hopp, Camille Kingsolver, Richard A. Houser

https://books.google.com/books/about/Animal_Vegetable_Miracle.html?id=YUzwlDHiHPQC&source=kp_cover 

“The family’s year long experience leads them through a season of planting, pulling weeds, expanding their kitchen skills, harvesting their own animals, joining the effort to save heritage crops from extinction, and learning the time-honored rural art of unloading excess zucchini. Barbara Kingsolver’s engaging narrative is enriched by husband Steven Hopp’s in-depth reports on the science and industry of food, and daughter Camille’s youthful perspective on cooking and food culture. [This book] makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life, and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.” (from http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/book.htm)

3. If you like picture books . . . 

 Eat, Drink, Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics by Marion Nestle

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/02/eat-drink-vote-cartoons/2703123/ 

“In Eat Drink Vote, Marion Nestle, described by Michael Pollan in Forbes as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama), combines her engaging text with over 250 political cartoons and comic strips . . . Eat Drink Vote helps readers to understand how diverse factors influence their food choices and nutrition. These include agricultural policy, FDA regulations, food distribution, labeling, marketing, food safety, and now, increasingly, the burgeoning food movement.” (from http://www.eatdrinkvote.com/)

4. If you don’t know a foodshed from a woodshed . . . 

    Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America by Douglas                                                             Gayeton

http://www.harpercollins.com/9780062267634/local

“Combining visuals with insights and a lexicon of more than 200 agricultural terms and principles explained by today’s most innovative thought leaders, Local showcases and explores how to create a food system that benefits the environment and the people living in it. The book includes photographs and interviews from today’s foremost practitioners in food and farming, including Alice Waters, Wes Jackson, Carl Safina, Temple Grandin, Paul Stamets, Patrick Holden, Barton Seaver, Vandana Shiva, Dr. Elaine Ingham, and Joel Salatin, as well as farmers, fishermen, and dairy producers across the United States.” (from http://lexiconofsustainability.com/local-the-book/)

5. If you’re a history buff . . . 

Empires of Food: Feast, Famine, and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by                                   Andrew Rimas and Evan Fraser

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Empires-of-Food/Andrew-Rimas/9781439110133

An excerpt from the book: “Local food is thrifty with energy and buffered from faraway disasters. Global food is economically efficient and, even more importantly, it puts mangoes and salmon on our dinner tables. We need the global system so that the regions can specialize -- to a degree. International trade prevents inefficient uses of land, since it's cheaper for people to buy what they can't grow effectively themselves. This combination of global and local, a nested bio-regional system for want of a more sonorous term, is the best way we have of sustaining our modern food empire.” (quoted from http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/7-must-read-new-books-for-sustainable-eating.html)

6. If you want to know where the food movement is going next . . . 

    The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Third_Plate.html?id=eezRoQEACAAJ&source=kp_cover

“The Third Plate is grounded in the history of American cuisine over the last two centuries. Traditionally, we have dined on the ‘first plate,’ a classic meal centered on a large cut of meat with few vegetables. Thankfully, that’s become largely passé. The farm-to-table movement has championed the ‘second plate’—where the meat is from free-range animals and the vegetables are locally-sourced.  It’s better tasting, and better for the planet, but the second plate's architecture is identical to the first. It, too, is damaging–disrupting the ecological balances of the planet, causing soil depletion and nutrient loss–and in the end it isn’t a sustainable way to farm or eat. The solution, explains Barber, lies in the ‘third plate’: an integrated system of vegetable, grain, and livestock production that is fully supported—in fact, dictated—by what we choose to cook for dinner. The Third Plate is where good farming and good food intersect.” (from http://www.thethirdplate.com/)

7. If you want a deep look at the American food system and food policy . . . 

       Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in                                               America by Wenonah Hauter

https://books.google.com/books/about/Foodopoly.html?id=LnOkNbVFu5kC

“Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, also runs an organic family farm that provides healthy vegetables to over 500 families as part of a Washington DC-area CSA program. Despite this commitment to the local food movement, Hauter believes that localism is not sufficient to solve America’s food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at the deeper problem: the massive consolidation and corporate control of food production, which prevents farmers from raising diverse crops and limits the choices that people can possibly make in the grocery store. In the end, Hauter illustrates how solving the food crisis will require a complete structural shift, a grassroots movement to reshape our agricultural system from seed to table—a change that is about politics, not just personal choice.” (from http://civileats.com/2012/12/27/best-food-and-agriculture-books-of-2012/)

8. If you love cooking . . . 

       Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

http://www.amazon.com/Cooked-A-Natural-History-Transformation/dp/0143125338 

“In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. . . . Each section of Cooked tracks Pollan’s effort to master a single classic recipe using one of the four elements. . . . The reader learns alongside Pollan, but the lessons move beyond the practical to become an investigation of how cooking involves us in a web of social and ecological relationships. Cooking, above all, connects us.” (from http://www.amazon.com/Cooked-A-Natural-History-Transformation/dp/1594204217)

9. If you’re not afraid of tackling the big issues . . . 

                The Real Cost of Cheap Food by Michael Carolan

http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Cost-Cheap-Food/dp/1849713219 

“This challenging but accessible book critically examines the dominant food regime on its own terms, by seriously asking whether we can afford cheap food and exploring what exactly cheap food affords us. . . . The author makes a compelling case for why today's global food system produces just the opposite of what it promises. The food produced under this regime is in fact exceedingly expensive. Thus meat production and consumption are inefficient uses of resources and contribute to climate change; the use of pesticides in industrial-scale agriculture may produce cheap food, but there are hidden costs to environmental protection, human health and biodiversity conservation. Many of these costs will be paid for by future generations – cheap food today may mean expensive food tomorrow.” (from http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Cost-Cheap-Food/dp/1849713219)

10. If you didn’t get enough in our series on food waste . . . 

                        American Wasteland by Jonathan Bloom

http://www.amazon.com/American-Wasteland-America-Throws-Nearly/dp/0738213640

“What Tom Vanderbilt did for traffic and Brian Wansink did for mindless eating, Jonathan Bloom does for food waste. The topic couldn’t be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it’s time to reexamine our culture of excess. Working at both a local grocery store and a major fast food chain and volunteering with a food recovery group, Bloom also interviews experts—from Brian Wansink to Alice Waters to Nobel Prize–winning economist Amartya Sen—and digs up not only why and how we waste, but, more importantly, what we can do to change our ways.” (from http://www.amazon.com/American-Wasteland-America-Throws-Nearly/dp/0738213640/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1370718095&sr=1-1)

Heirloom food crops and one man’s journey to revive a dying cuisine

Photo credit: Natalie Vandenburgh

Anyone who has walked through a farmers market in the summer is probably familiar with the term “heirloom,” most likely in association with polychromatic tomatoes. But virtually all crops have heirloom varieties. These are the plants that farmers grew decades or centuries ago, passing them on from generation to generation and trading them with neighbors.

Another term for these traditional cultivars is “landraces,” which captures their close ties to the particular place where they are grown. Heirlooms may perform particularly well in a specific region and have a cultural significance to the people who grow and eat them.

Landrace crops show a lot of variation not only aesthetically but also genetically. Today, genetic diversity around the world is dwindling as commercial crops become increasingly dominant. National Geographic reports that only about 100 of the 7,000 apple varieties grown in 1800 remain today. Heirlooms are an important, but threatened source of diversity.

Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/food-variety-graphic

Why is diversity so important? For one thing, crop pests and diseases are much more likely to cause devastating losses when diversity is low because they could wipe out all of the vulnerable population. Landraces can act as a bank of genetic information for plant breeders to draw upon when looking for disease resistance or some other trait. Groups like the Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa work to ensure that as many heirloom crop varieties as possible are documented and kept viable through seed storage.

Beyond their environmental importance, heirlooms have immense cultural and culinary value. Commercial crop varieties are typically bred for high yields; consistent size, shape, and maturation time; and shelf life, and prioritizing yield necessitates a sacrifice in plant vigor and flavor. Heirlooms, on the other hand, were bred to be dependable, hardy (at least in their region of origin), flavorful, and (in some cases) beautiful.

Chioggia beets sport vibrant stripes. Photo credit: Natalie Vandenburgh.

If you’ve ever eaten the falafel at Hälsa, you’ve eaten an heirloom, in the form of Native fine blue cornmeal from Anson Mills of South Carolina. Anson Mills grew out of the desire to honor and revive the Carolina Rice Kitchen, a rice-centric cuisine that developed out of the convergence of Venetians, Africans, and Native Americans on the rice farms of Carolina and Georgia back in colonial days. In recent decades, as Southern chefs became increasingly interested in traditional cuisine, Anson Mills founder Glenn Roberts noticed that they lacked the proper ingredients to do it justice, and he set out on a quest to recover the nearly extinct crops of their ancestors. Anson Mills seeks to follow in the footsteps of the Southern seedsmen of the nineteenth century who “sought to impose the maximal beneficial effect of terroir on their ingredients.”

Anson Mills grows, mills, and sells a range of heirloom grain products, including corn, rice, wheat, rye, oats, buckwheat, farro, field peas, and benne (sesame). We at Hälsa choose to source from Anson Mills not only because their products are unparalleled in quality, but also because we admire their values and ethos.

Anson Mills’ website includes a profusion of beautiful and unique recipes using their products, including these quick corn grits. Source: http://www.ansonmills.com/recipes/458?recipes_by=grain

A certified organic farm, they are committed to sustainability in their farming, using practices like thoughtful crop rotations and low- or no-till planting to maximize fertility and minimize the need for off-farm inputs. They believe so much in preserving the agricultural heritage of the Carolina Rice Kitchen that they support the study of Antebellum and Colonial farm journals to document and learn from their methods. Finally, they don’t keep the fruits of their efforts to themselves. Through their own activities and through their help founding the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, they spread knowledge and historically significant seeds to like-minded farmers.

It’s time to look beyond the heirloom tomato! Next time you are at the farmers market, keep an eye out for other heirloom plants, and stop into Hälsa for a taste of heirloom cornmeal in our falafel (You can order other Anson Mills products online if you want to dive deeper into heirloom grains.) Heirlooms offer more than just a pretty face--through them, you can join in a centuries-long agricultural and culinary legacy.

Nine ways you can reduce food waste

Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at how two very different organizations, the Capital Area Food Bank and MISFIT Juicery, reduce food waste, the former as a non-profit and the latter as a socially-oriented business. (For a refresher on what food waste looks like in the world today, check out this infographic.) We’ve established that food waste is a problem and that efforts are being made to curtail it, so now the big question is: what can you do about it? In the final installment of our series on food waste, we’re going to talk about nine ways you can reduce your food waste. 

1. Change your shopping habits. As much as buying in bulk can be smart in terms of economy, it often leads to wasted food, especially when purchasing highly perishable things, like fresh fruits and vegetables. Consider foregoing those giant boxes of berries and spinach at stores like Costco and instead sticking to non-perishable or long-keeping bulk goods, like cans of beans, peanut butter, or frozen meat or veggies. While buying produce in large quantities can seem like--and sometime truly is--a great deal, if you end up throwing half of it away, was it really worth it?

Source: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20399696,00.html

2. Be especially cognizant when buying boxed or bagged salad greens. British grocery chain Tesco found that as much as 68 percent of bagged salad is thrown out rather than eaten. Part of shrinking those figures is up to the grocery stores, which Tesco has recognized by changing the way they promote bagged salad greens, including ending specials like two-for-ones on large bags of salad. (In that same news release, Tesco revealed that about 40 percent of apples, a little less than 50 percent of bakery goods, 25 percent of grapes, and 20 percent of bananas are wasted.)

3. Be conscious of and intentional about how much food you buy (menu-planning is a huge help here). A great first step in figuring out how much food to buy is determining how much food you actually eat. For a few days or a week, keep track of all the food that you throw away. You may find that you’re consistently throwing out the same food or type of food on a regular basis, and you can begin to change your shopping and eating habits accordingly.

Source: http://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/resources/consumers.htm

4. Think of creative ways to use up the foods that you consistently toss out. For example, if you find that you never manage to finish even a small box of strawberries before they start to turn hairy, freeze some of them right away to blend into smoothies or cook into sauces later, or use them in ways you might not normally, like savory preparations.

5. Store foods properly. The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) offers a list of helpful tips for storing refrigerated foods. Highlights include getting refrigerated food from the store into your fridge within two hours (or one hour in weather above 90͒--hello DC summer), making sure your fridge is set to 40͒ or below, and keeping meat on the bottom shelf to reduce drippage.

Source: http://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/resources/consumers.htm

6. Try out FreshPaper. This product, created by a young inventor inspired by her grandmother’s tea that prevented her from getting sick in India, employs organic spices to slow bacterial and fungal growth and enzymatic over-ripening. The biodegradable, compostable slips of paper (sort of like little dryer sheets) can keep a whole fridge drawer or bag of greens good for 2-4 times longer than normal.  

7. Get creative with what you cook to throw away less. Peel the tough outer skin off broccoli and it is delicious tossed in a stir fry, shaved into a salad, or roasted in the oven with some garlic, salt, and pepper. Use carrot tops to make pesto, or add radish tops to a pan of sauteed greens. Drizzle stale bread chunks with olive oil, salt, and pepper and turn them into (dangerously addictive) croutons. We’ve all heard to save vegetable scraps to make stock (which Hälsa does in our kitchen!), but how many of us actually do it our everyday lives? Check out this post from The Kitchn to find veggies to save, veggies to avoid, and recipes for stock.

Source: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2012/05/spicy-stir-fried-broccoli-stems-recipe.html

8. Cultivate a healthy (but reasonable) sense of skepticism about the “expiration” dates printed on foods. In reality, they may or may not actually have to do with food safety. A National Resources Defense Council press release about a 2013 study of package dates and food waste explains, “[The] FDA does not require food companies to place any date labels on food products, leaving the information entirely at the discretion of the manufacturer. The only product for which a date is federally regulated is infant formula.” In other words, the confusing array of sell by, use by, and best before dates almost certainly have more to do with informing grocers and maintaining peak quality (and by extension, consumer satisfaction) than with keeping you from falling ill.

9. Shrink your dinnerware! Using very large plates will subconsciously encourage you to fill them to an aesthetically pleasing level, encouraging excessively large servings and waste.

Source: http://ensia.com/infographics/how-one-small-change-could-reduce-your-food-waste/

As a consumer, it’s easy to feel that buying a small rather than a large box of spinach won’t make any difference in the colossal epidemic of food waste. If all of us make small changes like that, though, all of those micro changes in demand would eventually add up to macro shifts in supply. Awareness is the first step, so bravo for showing an interest and educating yourself about food waste. Now spread the word, and we can all start to work toward a less wasteful world.

How two Georgetown students turned one man (the food system’s) waste into another’s treasure (juice)

In the second installment of our series on food waste, we are excited to profile MISFIT Juicery. Last week, we looked at how the Capital Area Food Bank, a nonprofit organization, contributes to reducing the tremendous amount of food wasted every day by taking excess or unwanted food and redistributing it to people experiencing hunger. Now we’ll show you how a business does the same thing from a very different angle: using off-color/misshapen/otherwise ugly or excess produce to make juices.

Produce isn’t always pretty. Photo credit: MISFIT Juicery Instagram (@misfitjuicery).

Founders Ann Yang and Philip Wong created MISFIT through an extraordinary confluence of personal passions, complementary skillsets, inspirational and supportive mentors, and cultural movements—plus a splash of seed funding from the two pitch competitions (the sweetgreen social innovation competition and the Hoya Challenge [Social Innovation track]) they won. Ann and Phil, both undergrads at Georgetown University at the time and longtime friends, took an entrepreneurship class called Launching the Venture in the spring of 2014. Determined to take on food waste, they decided that they didn’t want to duplicate or compete with any of the many nonprofits working with food in DC. They turned their focus to social entrepreneurship, driving both change and profits, and the idea of MISFIT Juicery was born.

Photo credit: MISFIT Juicery Instagram (@misfitjuicery).

It wasn’t until that summer, when they both found themselves in Rwanda (Ann as a GU Impacts Fellow working with Thinkimpact and Phil through the Davis Projects for Peace Grant) that the idea of MISFIT became a serious plan. Living in Africa proved to be a formative experience for both of them, stripping away the nonessentials and allowing them to evaluate what mattered most. They decided to pretend that MISFIT was a reality and see how they felt, and ultimately they agreed that not giving MISFIT a shot just wasn’t an option. When they returned to the States in the fall, they got started.

MISFIT juices debuted in November at the opening of the new Corp (an important Georgetown student group) salad restaurant, the Hilltoss. Soon, the juices were sold at all of the Corp venues on Georgetown’s campus. Somehow, Ann and Phil managed both to run MISFIT and not fail all of their fall finals, and in the spring, they landed their first off-campus account: yours truly at Hälsa :) Today, they are sold at twenty-one locations, and they recently hired their first employees.

The MISFIT team (from left to right: intern Mehvish Jamal, Philip Wong, Ann Yang, and intern Arjun Gupta) with Charles Puglia (center), sommelier at Blue Hill at Stone Barns.

Ann and Phil credit much of their success to the many mentors (especially Alyssa Lovegrove, the instructor of their Launching the Venture class), friends, interns, and sources of inspiration who helped make MISFIT a reality. Undeterred by the inevitable challenges of entrepreneurship, Ann and Phil have taken its lessons in stride. Ann described entrepreneurship as a practice of vulnerability, in which one must place one’s hard work at the world’s mercy every day. Phil characterized startups as “agile” and explained that he enjoyed being able to create the business’s ethos.

An “ugly” carrot can still become tasty juice.  Photo credit: MISFIT Juicery Instagram (@misfitjuicery).

MISFIT’s mission is to prevent food waste while changing consumers’ perceptions about produce. They source excess or imperfect produce, like dimpled apples or a wonky beets, that don’t fit stores’ or consumers’ visual standards (issues which have nothing to do with taste or nutritive value, by the way) and turn these “misfits” into cold-pressed juice. People are too often perpetrators of “produce prejudice,” as their website calls it, unwilling to eat perfectly good but not conventionally “perfect” produce. By transforming it into a delicious and in-demand product, MISFIT both creates a use for it and encourages consumers to reexamine their own shopping and eating habits.

MISFIT also advances sustainability by keeping flavors as seasonal as possible so that they can source most of their produce from the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Exactly how the flavors will rotate seasonally will change and evolve along with the business. But one thing is for sure: energetic, driven, and hardly the types to rest on their laurels, you can expect to see much more from Ann, Phil, and MISFIT Juicery in the future.

For the next few weeks, we are going to focus broadly on the topic of food waste. Today, we’ll take a look at what food waste is and the magnitude of the problem. Then we’ll spotlight ways that two local organizations--one a nonprofit (the Capital Area Food Bank) and one a business (Misfit Juicery)--are tackling food waste and how you can do so in your own life.

Source: Move for Hunger, https://moveforhunger.org/massachusetts-takes-on-big-business-to-ban-food-waste/

To begin: what exactly is food waste? In the most obvious sense, it is food that could have been eaten that for one reason or another was not. In a more technical sense, uneaten food falls into two categories: food waste and food loss. Food waste happens on the consumer end when excess or spoiled food is discarded. Food loss occurs on the producer end due to crop failure, pest infestation, or spoilage in transport or storage. Because people are more affluent and infrastructure is more sophisticated, food waste is a bigger problem in more developed countries. In less developed countries, where technology is less advanced and fewer people can afford abundant food, food loss accounts for more lost calories. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the terms interchangeably in this post.

The amount of food wasted or lost in the world every year is staggering. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2011 Global Food Losses and Food Waste report found that roughly one third, or 1.3 billion tons, of all food produced globally is lost or wasted annually. In “A Five-Step Plan to Feed the World,” Jonathan Foley reports that this figure could be as high as 50% on a weight basis and 25% on a caloric basis.

This working paper from the World Resources Institute breaks down the details of food loss and waste into a series of helpful graphics showing what is wasted and how much is wasted in different regions.

Source: Lipinski, et al, 2013. http://www.unep.org/pdf/WRI-reducing_food_loss_and_waste.pdf

Pound for pound, fruits and vegetables account for the largest portion of all lost/wasted food because of their high water content (check out this article about the landfills full of lettuce in California), but by that same logic they do not account for many lost calories. Cereals represent the main source—53 percent—of uneaten calories. Meat, milk, and fish and seafood represent the three smallest sources of waste on a caloric basis, probably because they are so highly valued.

Source: Lipinski, et al, 2013. http://www.unep.org/pdf/WRI-reducing_food_loss_and_waste.pdf

So what does a food bank have to do with food waste? A lot, it turns out. The Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) distributes 42 million pounds (that’s like 100 blue whales!) of food to people in need every year, much of which might have otherwise gone to a landfill.

The model of a food bank is to take food donations--whether from your local food drive or from Giant--sort the food, and distribute it to partners like soup kitchens, senior centers, and food pantries to get it to the people who need it. When I visited the beautiful, new (circa 2012) facility a few weeks ago, it felt a little like Santa’s workshop--if the elves were cheerful volunteers sorting an endless mountain of food rolling along a long conveyor belt in an IKEA-sized warehouse.

Photo credit: Morgan H. West

Food banks play a pivotal role in reducing food waste by providing a means for grocery stores to get rid of excess food while also giving back to their communities. If a grocer overestimates how many apples they are going to need, for example, and knows they will not be able to sell them before they go bad, they can give them to the food bank rather than paying a waste hauler to pick them up and dump them in a landfill to release greenhouse gases as they rot. For the everyday person, dropping off those unwanted but perfectly good stray cans of tuna or boxes of cereal at CAFB or a food drive is a great way to get rid of food wisely.

Many DC, Virginia, and Maryland residents are no stranger to hunger. In fact, DC has the second highest rate of child food insecurity in the country. The food that CAFB collects is desperately needed by thousands of people in the DC area. CAFB is about so much more than collecting and redistributing food, though. They also place a strong emphasis on nutrition and education. Paradoxically, food insecurity is often linked to being overweight because unhealthy food is cheap. In the 2014 Food in America survey, 70 percent of households served by CAFB reported “purchasing inexpensive, unhealthy” food as the common coping strategy to hunger, 22 percent had a family member with diabetes, and 48 had a family member with high blood pressure.

Photo credit: Natalie Vandenburgh

Fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, peanut butter, and other high fiber, low sugar, low sodium foods are CAFB’s donation priorities. One third of the food that CAFB distributes is fresh produce--in 2015, they purchased more pounds of greens (kale and collards) than any other type of produce. Lack of access is not the only hurdle to overcome, though; many people who want to eat healthfully are impeded by a lack knowledge or by an unsupportive culture or environment. CAFB seeks to create change by providing nutritious food and then empowering people with the skills and know-how to make it a source of pleasure as well as health. They provide an online recipe database packed with healthy and delicious meals formulated to be very affordable, as well as a produce guide to educate people about (potentially unfamiliar) fruits and veggies. Their warehouse site is also home to a beautiful urban demonstration garden.

Photo credit: Natalie Vandenburgh

Happily, it’s working. Willie Clark of Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist said “CAFB has given us a framework, and logic, for giving food. With their help, we’re not just pushing out food—we’re giving recipes and talking about health.” Muriel Francis of Redeemed Christian Church of God New Wine Assembly remarked, “Our clients love the recipes provided by CAFB. They’re realizing they need to dial back on the fried fish, the fatback. A lot of clients have said that they actually feel better.” We can definitely get behind that. 

As CAFB’s motto states, “Together we can solve hunger.” If you want to get involved, CAFB is always accepting donations of food and funds and welcomes volunteers of all stripes, so there are lots of ways to contribute.

Next week, we’ll spotlight the awesome local startup that is Misfit Juicery. Until then . . .  

A primer on the magic of beneficial bacteria

Alcohol, sourdough bread, chocolate, kombucha, tea, yogurt, cheese, coffee, many hot sauces, kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, soy sauce . . . What do they all have in common? Other than being some of the most delicious things in life, they are all fermented products. Fermentation is a process in which bacteria or yeast break down the sugars in foods into different molecules, resulting in a diverse range of flavors. Fermentation not only adds flavor—whether the gentle kick in your kombucha or the funk in blue cheese—it also extends shelf life, allowing food to last for anywhere from several weeks to several months without refrigeration because the “good” bacteria keep out the “bad.” When you eat fermented foods like kimchi, kraut, and kombucha that have not been heated to stop the fermentation process, you get benefits, like improved digestion, from the live bacteria they contain.

Making homemade kimchi. (Photo credit: Natalie Vandenburgh)

Fermented products containing live cultures help create health benefits by populating the large intestine with a population of beneficial bacteria. Any introductory nutrition textbook will tell you that bacteria are responsible for digesting certain components of the human diet and for synthesizing some vitamins, but researchers are just now starting to learn all of the ways that the unique set of bacteria that make up each person’s gut microbiome affect their health. These tiny organisms could play a role everything from the immune system to mental health to obesity.

The different kinds of microorganisms responsible for making a range of fermented products. (Source: http://academic.pgcc.edu/~kroberts/Lecture /Chapter%205/05-23_ProductsOfFerment_L.jpg)

Fermentation comes in a range of flavors. There’s wild fermentation, in which bacteria in the environment are allowed to populate a food, resulting in flavors unique to the specific place it was made. Wild fermentation tends to take longer than fermentation with a starter because you aren’t starting with a pre-established population of bacteria. So how come long-forgotten vegetables in your fridge don’t turn into kraut on their own? “Fermentation revivalist” Sandor Katz, who literally wrote the book on fermentation (including Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation) explains on his blog that the big secret to getting good bacteria and not mold is submerging the vegetable or fruit in liquid, often brine (salt and heat both speed the fermentation process).

Wild fermentation can be the same thing as lactofermentation—lactofermentation just refers to the fact that the main bacteria present is lactobacillus. Lactofermentation can be wild or can involve a starter, like making yogurt by putting a spoonful of yogurt in a jug of milk. The “lacto” part has nothing to do with lactose except that this bacteria was first discovered in cheese and yogurt. But you can have lactofermented pickles and lacto (AKA sour) beer.

Fermenting strawberry wine. (Photo credit: Simon A. Eugster, source: https://c ommons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Strawberry_wine_fermentation.jpg)

Making sour beer involves another kind of fermentation, as well (or else you’d just be drinking sour, whey-like liquid)--yeast fermentation. This is the fermentation employed in beer and wine making, and it uses yeast, a single-celled fungus, to turn glucose (sugar) into ethanol (alcohol). You can read more about the history of yeast fermentation, the fruits of which humankind has been enjoying for thousands of years, here.

Speaking of enjoying the fruits of yeast fermentation, we are excited to tell you that we’re now serving wine and beer at Hälsa! We chose our beers and wines thoughtfully, aiming to support companies invested in sustainability and philanthropy. Several of the breweries we will source beer from are local, and all of our wines are organic or biodynamic. 

One brewery on our menu is Hardywood Park Craft Brewery in Richmond, Virginia. Thanks to the Dominion Green Power program, 99% of the brewery’s power comes from wind energy (with the remaining 1% coming from other renewable sources). They work to minimize water wastage at the brewery, use their spent grain for compost and animal feed, and use 100% recycled packaging. Besides their commitment to environmental sustainability, they also have a strong philanthropic program. Since 2014, they have been donating $2 for every barrel of beer produced to nonprofit organizations in the areas where their beer is sold.

Source: http://www.greenkitchenstories.com/golden-sauerkraut-wild-fermentation/ 

Making kraut is a great, easy way to try out fermentation. Check out Green Kitchen Stories’ beautiful and informative recipe for Golden Sauerkraut and experience the healing, satisfying taste of your own homemade fermented veggies.