Post Hiatus Thoughts, Farm Bill Infatuation, World Ag Expo

I haven't been around on-line for several days, motivated primarily by the profound disgust and existential angst I've been feeling since the historical beef recall reported last week.  This feeling of desolation has only been deepened by the realization yesterday that 60 Minutes will re-air their coverage of colony collapse disorder on tonight's episode, which while good on the surface only underscores that news on the sustainability of our food system is still only barely on the periphery of American popular thought.  I mean, colony collapse disorder is either a significant concern or critical to our nation's food supply, and most of the country is completely unaware of it, despite being fully schooled on the potential career consequences of Lindsey Lohan posing as Marilyn Monroe.  Look, for instance, to any of the presidential candidates' platform statements and you'll be hard pressed to find anything related to food security, sustainability, and the need for more organic and local food supports.  So I took a break and took a deep breath.  Today I'm back, because while it may seem sometimes that everybody is talking about these issues, the reality of the situation is that we are in a very small minority, and the message needs to be heard.

No, there is no Farm Bill yet.  Hard to believe we've been blogging about the 2007 Farm Bill since last spring and we still find ourselves wondering if and when it will ever be passed into law.  On Wednesday last week Dan Owens at Blog for Rural America updated the current status including the jaw-dropping late-breaking news that there are efforts underway in Washington to make this current bill under debate a 10-year bill instead of the normal 5-year version.  Which would mean that if significant reform doesn't occur in this version (which I for one doesn't expect is even a remote possibility at this point) it will be a decade before we have another chance at improving our national agricultural policies.  Do you think this is because the powers that be are threatened by our paltry blogging efforts around agricultural reform in this country?  Or because they had to work so hard this past year and found that effort distracting from the normal lobbyist dinners and campaign finance efforts?  Ugh!  Keith Good chimed in yesterday at Farm Policy pointing out that if something concrete doesn't happen soon, the current extension of the 2002 Farm Bill will expire (beware the Ides of March!) and the legislation will revert back to its original version, circa 1949.  This in an environment where there doesn't seem to be a resolution in sight. 

Speaking of issues both Agricultural and Ethical. . . Amanda Rose shares an entertaining and informational post at The Ethicurean about a recent visit to World Ag Expo which she describes as "the largest proportion of climate change naysayers gathered in one place since Dick Cheney walked into an empty room."  As you would expect what is readily visible at a conference of this nature are the many techno-scientific solutions being touted to all of the problems with our food system, from E Coli to food security.  As you also may have guessed, companies like Monsanto have a corner on the market for those solutions.

We call that Cognitive Dissonance.  Being people with kids, we are sensitive to the impact of dining in restaurants with those under the age of ten.  Being people in Memphis, we are ever-appreciative of the public service provided by Stacey Greenberg, who writes about such challenges at her blog Dining With Monkeys.  While most of her posts are humorous narratives about visiting different establishments and how that experience intermingles with the almost predictable need for a potty-break, a recent post, about a meal at grocer Wild Oats (recently acquired by Whole Foods) notes a tricky little problem for businesses trying to be sensitive to the environmental impact of their practices:  how doing the "right thing" in some cases can point to how wrong practices are in others.  From her blog post:  "First off, Whole Foods (who is the soon-to-be if not already the owner of Wild Oats) has vowed to ban plastic bags in all of their stores by Earth Day 2008. I think that is awesome. Plastic bags totally blow.  Warren and I were proudly sporting our very own reusable bags to carry our groceries home. So, it was a little annoying that in attempting to eat dinner at the Wild Oats deli, we had accumulated a shit ton of plastic. Granted, Wild Oats has in-store recycling bins (also awesome), but they only accept #1 & #2 plastics, which the majority of our containers were not."  Good call, Stacey.  And glad you were able to avoid the potty-break on this visit, at least.

Someday I'm going to use this knowledge.  Nathalie Jordi writes at Plenty this week about the escapist pleasure of reading agrarian magazines, even if the information one gleans from these publications is not particularly applicable to most of the participants in western society.  From her article:  "These magazines have pretty much zero applicability to my personal day-to-day life, and yet I really get a kick out of reading them. They swell my admiration for the brave souls out there actually breeding llamas, erecting hoophouses, and converting oil into biodiesel, underscoring how much effort goes into the lifestyle they’ve chosen. Would that there were more of them and fewer crippled, exhausted cows turned into children’s lunchmeat."  Right on.

We would like to officially wish our friend The Slow Cook a belated yet happy one-year blogging birthday.  Over at Edible Nation you can watch a short film of Deborah Kane, editor of Edible Portland magazine, interviewing uber-foodie Michael Pollan, which begins with on odd discussion of butter substitutes and "nutritionism," which Pollan (and a growing number of others) credits with the downfall of the American diet.  Lissa at Slender Branches writes about how it took giving up television altogether to find PBS, and how valuable that rediscovery has been in returning a guilty pleasure without the constant barrage of advertisements.  Finally, Sharon Astyk, who started blogging here and recently relocated there has found a new and, we hope final home, at sharonastyk.com.  We'll keep you informed of any further changes in her blog-o-rific status.

photo courtesy The Flooz at flickr and shared under a ccreative commons license.

Comments

[Ed Bruske]

We all feel your pain in the existential angst department. If you haven't already, read Katk's post on this very subject at Eating Liberally. It might soothe your soul.

http://www.eatingliberally.org/story__how_to_set_the_world_on_fire_without_burning_out_feb_21_2008_id843

[Collectibles]

Nice post

[foodlover]

An easy way to separate egg yolks from whites is to break into your hand and let the white slip through slightly parted fingers. You may find it easier to break into a cup first............

www.letsgoeat.co.uk.

[David]

I found some good recipes you may be interested in at

http://www.letsgoeat.co.uk

Check out the bacon and egg ice cream, it sounds disgusting, but looks yummy.

It is a Heston Bloomenthal creatation.