Tag Archives: organic food

Eating out: are our restaurant choices sustainable and responsible? Should we not be Eating in?

Michael Pollan is a man with a food conscience, and has written a number of books on the theme of sustainable food and healthy eating, promoting cooking at home, and eating out responsibly, if one must eat at a restaurant, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Admitting that he once was a McDonald’s fan, having one of their meals daily, and that their chicken nuggets are his son’s ‘Proustian smells and tastes of childhood‘, he would not touch their food anymore.  He is concerned that ‘we don’t cook, can’t cook, won’t cook‘, despite the flood of TV food shows and rise in cookbook sales, leading us to eat unhealthy food, which is not environmentally responsible. Even worse is that we don’t connect socially over home-cooked meals any more.  Pollan is a Professor in Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and was named in 2010 as one of TIME‘s 100 persons to ‘most affect our world‘.

Pollan’s book ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma‘ inspired Angus McIntosh, owner of Spier’s Farmer Angus meat and egg supply, to be environmentally responsible in the biodynamic rearing of his animals.  He gave me a copy of the book, to inspire me to spread the message when I visited his farm. The book is subtitled ‘The Search for a perfect meal in a fast-food world‘ and encapsulates Pollan’s criticism of fast food, which he calls an ‘industrial meal’, and of McDonald’s in particular. Pollan analysed the ‘nutritional’ content of McNuggets from a flyer, and found them to contain 38 ingredients, of which 13 are derived from corn, as well as synthetic ingredients made at petroleum refineries or chemical plants, allowing the food to be stored for longer.  Corn is the staple diet of cattle, yet ‘violates the biological or evolutionary logic of bovine digestion’, writes Pollan.  The omnivore’s alternative to industrial food is claimed ‘organic‘ food, sounding more ethical and sustainable. He concludes his book with a description of a meal he prepared from self-foraged ingredients, the ultimate way of eating but time-consuming to gather, including mushrooms, wild boar, fava beans, pâté, morels, bread (made using wild yeast), a garden salad, and a fruit tart for which the fruit was sourced from a public cherry tree, served with chamomile tea. Continue reading →

Organic food certification will benefit consumers!

Irresponsible claims of products being ‘organic’ should be eliminated if the National Draft Policy for Organic Production is passed in Parliament next year.  The Draft Policy is currently open to input from government departments and other stakeholders, and an ‘organic standard’ is being developed with the SA Bureau of Standards, reports the Sunday Times.

We have written previously about the false claims that restaurateur Giorgio Nava made about all the meat at Carne coming from his Karoo farm and being organic, and that there currently is no organic certification body in South Africa, leaving the consumer vulnerable to inappropriate claims.  Nava has since removed these claims from his menu and website.  Only the Consumer Protection Act and the Advertising Standards Authority currently protect consumers against false organic claims.

To obtain organic certification, farmers will have to be audited and certified annually, to vouch for the ‘integrity’ of the production process.  For its health benefits alone, organic farming and its certification should be encouraged and supported, but it would appear that it is a bureaucratic process and an expensive exercise to obtain organic certification, costing up to R 20000 per year.  Organic certification agencies will be set up to handle the certification.

To get around the expense of organic certification, smaller organic producers will seek to obtain group organic certification under one certificate, the proposed participatory guarantee system being in line with international practice.  The ‘co-operative’ of organic farmers would need to introduce an internal quality management system on their farms, for such a system.  Pick ‘n Pay and Woolworths use third-party certification agencies, applying international certification standards.

Organic food is healthier, in containing higher levels of anti-oxidants, Vitamins A and C, and unsaturated fats, says Professor Raymond Auerbach of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.  “Organic agriculture offers a real alternative to the way that we produce our foods, the way we mitigate and adapt to climate change, and it is a more sustainable way of operation, because an organic farmer is not dependent on fossil-fuel inputs such as expensive fertilisers and pesticides”, Professor Auerbach said.  He is hopeful that the new Draft Policy will see more organic farming training by the government.

Whilst more expensive, organic foods are increasingly purchased by health conscious, ethically concerned upper-end consumers, and the impending introduction of organic certification is welcomed.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage

Movie Review: ‘Food Inc.’ puts one off fast food (and most food) for life

The Oscar ‘Best Documentary’ nominated “Food Inc.” blames the fast food industry for having created a sick food production industry in the United States of America, which exploits poor workers, treats its animals inhumanely, causes global warming, and makes its consumers sick or kills them!  The movie makers say they are “hungry for change”!   (‘The Cove’ won the Oscar in this category)

Food Inc. is not for the squeamish, and is likely to make one vow to never buy any products from a standard supermarket (other than Woolworths, and even then one is not sure how their suppliers produce their foods) again, to only buy organic foods, where possible, to pay more for good quality food, and to NEVER go near a fast food outlet again.

Robert Renner is the movie director and co-writer of the script, and used the work of investigative ‘Fast Food Nation’ reporter Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan, author of ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’, to highlight the problems in the USA food industry.

The movie starts with the supermarket shelves overflowing with brands that give the farm-like feel in their logo’s and pack designs (the “Farmer Brown”-type treatment), but this seems to be a fraudulent depiction of the production of meat products, 80 % of which is in the hands of 4 or 5 production and packaging companies slaughtering 10 billion animals annually.   Chicken production has been altered over time, and a chicken is ready for slaughter in 45 days, compared to double that time in the past, and has bigger breasts to meet market demands.  The big meat producers buy up the farmer’s production, and encourage the farmers to expand the size of their operation all the time, thereby pushing the farmers to get into debt with their banks.  This gives the meat companies power over their supplier farms, to dictate to them how to grow their chickens, and how they are slaughtered.  So, for example, chickens are raised in overpopulated windowless chicken houses, which means that the chickens can barely walk, and do not resist when they are put into containers to be taken to the food factories.   Similarly, pigs and cows are on top of each other on farms, are raised on corn instead of grass, and their skin is covered in faeces.  This leads to undesirable e.Coli and semonella which can contaminate the meat, which is then sold in supermarkets or processed into hamburger patties.

The mother of young Kevin, whose son died from E.coli which was in her son’s hamburger at a fast food outlet, becomes a food “advocate”, lobbying the USA government that food producers who are regularly having to recall their food products from supermarkets or fast food outlets should be closed down.  This is in the face of economic pressure on American politicians to permit such producers to continue producing cheap food.

The corn production industry appears equally corrupt and 45 % of corn produced is genetically engineered.  Corn is purchased below production cost by meat-producing farmers, to keep the cost of meat low.   Corn is a surprise ingredient in numerous supermarket products such as ketchup, chips and other snacks, cola drinks, canned soup and more.   Tomatoes have been genetically engineered to not go bad so quickly, says the movie.   Up to 75 % of the processed supermarket foods one eats in the USA contain genetically engineered ingredients, which can lead to cancer, allergies and problems with toxins.

The fast food industry in the USA has grown dramatically since the drive-ins were started in the 1950’s, and thereafter the McDonalds were started and expanded internationally.   For many families, the low cost of fast food is a more affordable means of feeding a family than is buying healthy fruit and vegetables.  One family is interviewed, and the husband’s diabetes medication takes a big chunk of the family’s disposable money for their food purchases, forcing them to find the cheapest food to feed the family.   A group of scholars is shown, and each of them know more than one person with diabetes.

The result is that more and more Americans are becoming sick, and even die, as did young Kevin, and Americans are becoming more obese.   76 million Americans have become sick from eating contaminated meat, 32 500 have been hospitalised, and 5 000 have died.    Food labelling regulations in the USA do not demand that genetically engineered products are specified on food labels.   The FDA and USDA are criticised for being weak in not protecting the lives and health of the American population.

The documentary spends quite some time on Monsanto, a powerful company which has produced genetically engineered soya beans.  The company does not allow farmers to clean their beans to replant them, forcing all farmers to buy them from Monsanto.   The company sends investigators to farms, and sues farmers who do not follow this directive. The farmers have no protection from the company, and most farmers cannot stand up to its financial and legal power.

The movie shows how much pressure is placed on farmers to tow the food producers’ line, in that filming in chicken houses was not allowed, and all the food companies declined to be interviewed for the movie.  Cameras were smuggled into some of the production sites via staff, to provide footage for the movie.

Viewers are asked to get involved, to lobby for better controls over the food production industry, to eat at home (and therefore not buy fast food), to eat together as a family, to lobby for fair conditions for workers in food production companies (many are illegal workers from Mexico, who are arrested regularly, while their employers are not), to grow one’s own vegetables and fruit, to eat only seasonal foods, to not drink sweetened beverages, to pressurise restaurants to specify the calorie count of each dish, to lobby for schools to not sell junk food or sweetened beverages, to support farmers’ markets, and to do “meatless Mondays”.  The movie ends off on a positive note, interviewing a farmer who supplies an organic yoghurt to Wal-Mart.  Initially he was opposed to supplying a national food chain, but realised that Wal-Mart is bowing to customer pressure, and they flag organic products in the store, which the farmer says is a good thing.

Food, Inc, Cinema Nouveau, V&A Waterfront and Cavendish, Cape Town. www.foodincmovie.com

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com