politics

 Yes, that was the actual topic of a panel I attended last night

 Get ready for a foodie fight at the Museum of the City of New York this Friday, March 25th, as an all-star panel of food writers, restaurateurs, and farmers battle over the efficacy of the locavore and sustainability movements. At the table are Peter Hoffman, chef and owner of the farm-to-table, locavore proselytizing, beekeeping Savoy restaurant in SoHo; Gabrielle Langholtz, editor of Edible Manhattan; James E. McWilliams, author of Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly; David Owen, author of Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability; and Jennifer Small, owner and farmer of the Flying Pigs Farm. The group will debate the environmental and social costs and benefits of revamping the city's food culture in the contemporary age.
 

All during the panel all I could think about is that I hope these people aren't influencing policy much because most of them don't know that much about economics. At least most of them were willing to admit that, but James E. McWilliams continued to be a weasel. I mentioned him first on my Locavore-Animal Rights Cold War post. Since then, The Atlantic has given him a platform to spew his ill-informed opinions about food (he's a "food historian"). He plays himself as an advocate of low carbon footprint food and says he opposes the locavore movement because it's inefficient in that direction. In the beginning of the panel he says "any imported plant food will have a lower impact than any local animal product." Uh huh. How do you know that? He admitted later in the panel that there is really no way to know the truth of a food's environmental impact. But many economic analyses show that local meat has a lower environmental impact than most imported plant foods, including that done in Meat: A Benign Extravagance. 

The truth is that McWilliams doesn't give a damn about environmental impact. All he cares about is that people don't use animals at all. During the panel he said his utopist vision was highly industrialized biotech fruit and vegetable farms. 

Any time anyone put forth evidence that local meat was a good food, he had something dumb to say, like that "well if everyone can't do it it's not a good model." That's a weird argument that I've written about before. It's almost like his knowledge of economics comes from Sim City. But at least in Sim City he might have learned that when a resource becomes truly scarce the price increases, thus forestalling his magic fantasy dystopia where everyone is destroying the world to have pastured pork. 

Also in his fantasy land is the idea that without CAFOs or farm subsidies our meat would cost $35 a lb. New Zealand got rid of its subsidies and now has pastured meat that's cheap enough to be exported. 

Animal rights activists hate the local food movement because it threatens its propaganda. PETA and its ilk rely on videos of animals being beaten in industrial operations and simplified "meat is bad for the environment" stats. The local food movement comes along and let's people see that its animals are treated well. It lets locavores into the slaughter process, showing them that while it's not fun, it's not like in those videos. 

Then it comes up to light that animal rights activists aren't angry about meat because it's bad for the environment or because the animals are beaten. They are against animals being used by humans in any way, whether for life-saving medical research or for milk. They don't like having to admit it because it reveals their philosophy for its ultimate anti-humanism. And it reveals that they aren't really interested in the true environmental impact of meat unless it supports their philosophy. 

Between moving, work, school, and the very very sad state of my inbox, I haven't had much time to post. 

I haven't had much time for anything, which is why I've been eating out quite a bit. I've had a bit of a sea change recently because I found out that my staple eating out food, Chipotle, isn't so great. It just reminds me that you have to question things you love after awhile or you'll get burned. First I found out via Diane from Balanced Bites that Chipotle uses soy oil. I hadn't looked at their site for awhile, so I guess I hadn't noticed. And since carnitas has SO MUCH natural fat WTF are they using soy oil for? It makes me very afraid that for "health" reasons they are skimming off the pork fat and replacing it with soy oil or something awful like that. 

Also, it turns out the meat is sourced less carefully than I thought. A few years ago I heard some Chipotle executives speak at a conference and I thought they were pioneers at sourcing well, but according to Nate Appleman, their new spokesman "The chain uses local and organic ingredients when practical and meat from animals raised without antibiotics or added hormones."

What does "when practical" mean? And without antibiotics or added hormones is a sad low standard. It's like saying "we raise these animals without tormenting them with daily sessions of Justin Bieber's greatest hits." 

Once I started getting disillusioned with Chipotle, I started thinking...why bother? NYC is full of nice restaurants using pastured lard, duck fat, and other good foods, but to be honest I don't live or work near those restaurants. So if Chipotle is not that great, why not patronize the local Thai joint that uses a mixture of olive and canola oil? I even found that after talking with the owner, I could get some dishes made with just coconut fat. Supporting a local business + delicious food = win. After moving I kind of went on a bonanza of doing this and honestly I feel great. Maybe it's because coconut is so dominant in many of the local cuisines (which include Thai and Filipino)? Maybe my gut is fully healed? Maybe conventional meat isn't so evil? (though I definitely want to get more local/grass-fed meat on the market). Either way, it's amazing to be eating out and having great digestion too. I'm really enjoying exploring all the cuisines of the world, which is a major benefit of living here. Whenever I can, I ask these local restaurants about what fat they use. If people ask, perhaps they'll change. The local Thai joint even brags about having wheat free food now. Trans fats are banned here, so the only ones I worry might be used are corn or safflower oil. 

It brings me to the point that while I think lard/tallow/duck fat are great for me, they probably aren't a public health solution. If I went to a health conference and said restaurants should use them, I'd be laughed at. But high-oleic seed oils ARE definitely better for you and perhaps not even bad for you. They are possible to produce cheaply and are considered highly by almost every conventional standard. Imagine if they replaced soy and corn at restaurants and in schools? That would be a solution that would benefit everyone. 

Instead we have public health programs that encourage things like eating low-fat and "moving more." I was somewhat amused when I read that Rush Limbaugh said Michelle Obama had gotten fat from eating ribs. It's quite clear that Michelle is not fat and I wonder if Rush got the right conclusion

Michelle My Belle, minus the husband, took the kids out to Vail on a ski vacation, and they were spotted eating and they were feasting on ribs, ribs that were 1,575 calories per serving with 141 grams of fat per serving. Now I'm sure some of you members of the new castrati: "This is typical of what you do Mr. Limbaugh, you take an isolated, once in a lifetime experience, and try to say that she's a hypocrite." She is a hypocrite. Leaders are supposed to be leaders. If we're supposed to go out and eat nothing -- if we're supposed to eat roots, and berries and tree bark and so show us how. And if it's supposed to make us fit, if it's supposed to make us healthier, show us how.

 Hmm, I'd venture that she's healthy because she doesn't follow the government's advice- because she's eating ribs rather than tofu. Wouldn't that be hilarious. Kind of like how her kids don't attend government schools perhaps? Meanwhile, Rush is losing weight by restricting his calories, which may have caused a recent bout with chest pains. Maybe he should just eat ribs and stop worrying about calories? 

Some of you asked if I could re-post my list of meat priorities I did on paleohacks. Here's how I chose my meat:

1. My first choice will always be grass-fed local meat from farmers I know. 

2. Generic grass-fed beef or lamb, wild fish. 

3. Organic beef or lamb because of highly favorable fat content.

4. Pastured poultry or pork. 

5. Halal beef or lamb(or goat) is more likely to be grass-fed because it's often imported from New Zealand. In addition, some Hispanic restaurants import their meat, particularly Argentine places. New Zealand and Australia pasture most of their ruminants. 

6. Natural beef or lamb. Natural is kind of vague, but it's better than nothing I guess.

7. Feedlot beef or lamb. Spends at least some of its life on pasture. 

7. Natural chicken = really just a factory farmed mass of soy.

Things I won't eat: farmed salmon, CAFO pork

Notice I will eat a wide variety of meat. For me, not being hungry and being nourished is more important than anything. I'm not the kind of person who will order a plate of greens in the absence of perfect meat. 

It's funny because when I eat out, the places that make me feel the worst are the healthy places. Ugh, I think hell is other people's idea of healthy. Like my office cafe, which stocks such healthy options as low-fat strawberry shortcake yogurt, those sugar-packed Odwalla smoothies, Special K, and Vitamin Water. I would definitely get really sick if I ate those things, but I feel awesome after going to the local Argentine place for a skirt steak and plantains. Another offender for me is BBQ places. At first I thought it was the meat that was bad for me, but then I realized that the sauces at most BBQ restaurants is full of total crap. Sugar + meat = bad. 

People often ask me why I'm still so rankled by veganism despite having given it up long ago. Unfortunately it's not veganism that gets me fired up, but more troubling political issues at the animal rights heart of the vegan movement. Not long after I stopped being vegan,  I got involved with agriculture. I saw the makings of a cold war between the locavores and the animal rights groups and became troubled by it. Animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the United States and PETA pull in substantial amounts of donations and therefore exert some political clout. They get these donations by pretending to go after factory farms, but in reality small farms are also in the crosshairs. They don't admit this much and publicly don't want to admit it because the general public tends to be sympathetic to small farms.

This year, a history professor, James McWilliams, came out with an anti-locavore book called Just Food. Laughably, I saw some "conservative" outlets endorse the book, probably because of the anti-elite sentiment so tragically beloved by Palinites and their ilk. They probably didn't read it, since the ultimate point of that book is that locavores are stupid because really it's not Chilean strawberries, but meat, that is at the root of all problems. Despite not being an economist*, McWilliams frames his arguments as being all about economic rationality. But I saw right through it from the beginning and it's quite obvious from his recent animal rights posts at the Atlantic that his real beef with locavores is their use of animals. Notice that's not on the jacket of his book.

Can one be locavore and disavow all use of domestic animals? Yes, there are a few small farms practicing veganic agriculture (it's telling that one of this method's main advocates has written a book now called Meat: A Benign Extravagance), but they are few and far between. Because they are so unusual, there is little data on how productive they actually are. Much of the fertilizer used on farms comes from animals and if you want low-impact pest control, hunting is a good way to do it. Not to mention the dietary challenge of being vegan and local in very cold climates.

Animal rights groups also rely on videos of cruelty on farms to win converts. These become less effective on people who have actually been to farms. Animal rights groups rely on people being disconnected from farming and from agrarian traditions. But unfortunately for them, these are being revived. Things have been coming to a head recently with animal rights groups attacking backyard chicken-keepers and DIY turkey slaughter. I love it when people show their true colors— that it's not Smithfield farms they are after, but all farms that use animals**. Often the strategy is to divert: when you talk about soy, parrot back that most soy goes into livestock feed. It isn't until activists are cornered that they admit their true agenda, which is to eliminate all domesticated animal use from lab rats to riding horses to pet dogs to the turkey on your table.

It scares me because I feel that agrarian traditions are beset on both sides by conservatives*** who want their right to munch on their McTroglodyte burgers without worrying about what that means and the leftist movement to make such traditions difficult/illegal, either intentionally in the case of animal-rights activists or unintentionally in the case of the average land-alienated urban liberal.

Why should we care? In my view it's because every good farm is so valuable in preserving the health of humans, animals, and the land holistically. What does it take to make people understand this? 

I've been interested in following the reaction towards A Vegan No More, a post by a woman who left veganism for health reasons:

While my original choice to be a vegan stemmed from the always noble impulse to do the right thing and be as compassionate as possible, it was a mistake and a choice I should never have made. If I had done my research and actually asked the hard questions from the beginning instead of letting the graphic images of factory farms guide me, I would have saved myself 3 years of misguided efforts as well as the deterioration of my physical and emotional health.

What can we do to prevent this? I think engaging people in producing food is the answer. It's a real threat for animal rightists and they know it.

Danish backyard chickens

*nearly every Animal Rightist on the internet fancies themselves an agricultural economist and parrots the simplistic and de-localized idea that animal agriculture is inefficient.

**This isn't to omit the outright terrorism that animal rightists inflict on scientists

*** I shudder to use that word to describe people who obviously care very little for conserving anything

Let's get this clear: The Humane Society of The United States is an organization devoted to animal rights. Animal rights does not mean being nice to animals, it means eliminating ALL animal use from pets, to pork, to scientific animal testing that saves millions of lives. Unfortunately, many people associate The Humane Society with being nice to kittens rather than outlawing all meat consumption. While I don't agree with everything they post, Humane Watch has done a great job demystifying HSUS's true intentions.

But many people are still fleeced. Maybe it's just me, but if you want to support small family cattle or other meat farms, why would you ally with a group whose ultimate goal is their elimination? HSUS is being rather sneaky, much to the ire of more honest AR groups, and has participated in "animal welfare" campaigns, but that doesn't change their animal rights agenda.

That was clear last week in NYC when AR groups confronted a backyard chicken keeper at a food event. It's hard to peg an organization that has "sanctuary" or "mercy" in its name. Unlike PETA, such organizations do have a generally positive reputation. But they showed their true colors by bashing small scale farmers and advocating world veganism. I love on the blog post how the Mercy For Animals guy says he is concerned about male chicks and the transportation of laying hens. Get real, even if those things stopped, these organizations would campaign against eggs. The truth is that these organizations and their agenda are very much threatened by nice small farms. When consumers visit these farms they know that not all animal product consumption is anything like what's portrayed in AR propaganda videos.

I think it is kind of silly how people think egg production is better than meat production though. In my experience, grassfed meat production is more respectful of an animal's true nature than egg production is. Chicken farmers typically order their chickens from these factory hatcheries and slaughter their layers at the end of the season. Most free-range chickens don't really range that much. Contrast that with cattle, who are often bred on-farm and often range over several acres. The benefit with chickens is that they are cheap, easy to keep, and are quite efficient at feed converters, though for us paleos they aren't the greatest food because they are almost always fed grain.

As everyone knows, I am a passionate advocate for small farms, but I think allying with organizations like HSUS to punish factory farms is NOT the way. I think that improving the infrastructure for local meat farmers and educating people about the health benefits of grassfed meat is the way to go. I'm pretty disappointed with Chipotle for supporting HSUS's efforts in Ohio for more food fascism. I sometimes used to eat there, as it's a pretty decent and consistent paleo option, but I think I will boycott. Whole Foods got a lot of hate from the local meat movement for pushing a vegan agenda in their stores, but at least they weren't trying to push for laws. Stocking your shelves with The China Study is distasteful, but on a different level than passing regulations that make life hard for your opponents.