The Food Chain

Fred Provenza, Emeritus Professor of Behavioral Ecology,  Utah State University & Author of Nourishment: What animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom

(Food Nutrition and Labeling)

The supply chain that feeds our food chain now extends across the country and around the world.  Given what we see happening across our country, and around the world, we simply must ask:  

Can we go back home again with food?

I just returned from attending Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, which bills itself as the having the largest collection of natural, organic and conscious food products available anywhere.

It took me 6 hours to hike the 7 or 8 football field-sized exhibition rooms filled with various foods and supplements.  Most all of the foods were available for tasting, and the 60,000 foodies in attendance were eating away at them.

But I was on a mission and so did not stop to taste many of those samples – only a few.  The first was some granola infused with Earl Gray Tea.  I guess the idea was to wake myself up and get fed in one bite!

My mission at the Natural Foods Expo, was to find natural foods that had a good story to tell.  Though I did find a few good stories, I did not find many natural foods.  What I did find were what seemed to be thousands of ultra-processed foods in brightly colored packages.  

 

Michael Olson’s “natural” foods are the plants one forages or the animals one hunts in nature.  Next in line are the real foods, grown from real soil, by real farmers.  Last in line are ultra-processed foods grown with the industrial technologies of energy-intensive agriculture – and they are the foods that come with in brightly-colored packages with lots of promises. 

Given that the supply chain that now feeds our food chain extends across the country and around the world, and given what we see in the news of our country and the world, we simply must pause to ask:

Can we go back home again with food?

Connect:  www.metrofarm.com

 

 

John Marzluff, Emeritus Professor of Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Author of In Company of Meadowlarks

(Environmental Degradation and the Vanishing of Song birds)

 

Meadowlarks are the canaries of the prairie.  Where one hears their song, its safe to go out onto the prairie.  But where the meadlark’s song is no longer heard, there is danger on the prairie.  And so we ask:  

Can people get enough to eat if canaries sing?

Having grown up on that narrow slice of geography that lies between the peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the grasslands of the high prairie, I learned at a very early age to take joy at the song of the meadowlark. 

  The yellow-breasted robin-sized bird’s song could be heard from a great distance, when conditions allowed, and whenever I heard that song it would bring a moment of great joy to whatever I happened to be doing at the time.  I would often try to whistle the song right back, though it did take a wet whistle to even come close.

However, the song of the meadowlark is becoming increasingly rare for the same reason buffalo no longer eat the prairie grasses in any significant number.  People and their agriculture have moved onto the prairie, and meadowlarks ­– and many of their feathered kindred – have been forced to move out, thus portending that “silent spring” Rachel Carson promised. And so the canary of the prairie leads us to ask:

Can people grow enough food for themselves and allow birds to sing?

 

Contact:  www.metrofarm.com

 

John Marzluff, Emeritus Professor of Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Author of In the Company of Crows and Ravens

(Animal Nutrition and Environment)

Yellowstone Park in winter is a cruel place for the wildlife that can no longer endure its cold, snow and hunger.  And yet what is cruel for some can be a blessing for the corvids of Yellowstone’s winter   And so we ask:  

Can anyone love the black birds of Yellowstone’s white winter?

There was a stretch of years when wife Marlene and I would sneak off to Cooke City, Montana, for some cross country skiing.  In winter, Cooke is a snowbound little town at the very end of the only open road through Yellowstone Park. 

Though Cooke City is well known among snowmobilers for its access to the stunningly beautiful high country, snowmobilers and cross-country skiers are not of a kind.  Our aim, as skiers, was Yellowstone’s Lamar River Valley, which is, thankfully, off limits to the noisy, smelly snowmobiles.

The Lamar Valley is the wintering grounds for many of Yellowstone’s animal populations.  And our cross country skis allowed us to fly over the surface of snow packs the animals had to plow their way through.  We were not the only ones flying about the Lamar with such abandon.  So, too, were the corvids – Yellowstone’s black birds on white snow.

Yellowstone’s winter is a cruel time for the animals that can no longer survive the cold, snow and lack of food.  But from what we saw, while flying over the snowpacked landscape, was that winter was treating crows and ravens with lots of opportunity to feast, and their feasting often sounded as raucous as an out-of-bounds wedding celebration. 

From watching their feasting, and from watching them watch us as we flew across the landscape, we came to see corvids as being winners of Yellowstone’s season of losing.  And we wondered:

Can anyone love the black birds of Yellowstone’s white winter?

Fred Provenza, Emeritus Professor of Behavioral Ecology at Utah State University, Author of Nourtishment:  What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom

(Animal and Human Natural Nutrition)

One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them.

Carnivore, herbivore or omnivore?

Back in the day…  Way back in the day… We were all hunters and gatherers.  That is to say, we hunted down and gathered up whatever nature had to offer, when nature wanted to offer it.

Then we got smart, and figured out how to manage the growth and development of plants.  That cleverness allowed us to corral plants and animals, and live in cities.

Today we hunt and gather foods grown and packaged thousands of miles away.  And we don’t even need mother nature nor her unpredictable offerings.  Today we can just swing by a convenience store, grab a plastic bag of something that tastes good, and walk out the door.

Given all this extra time we now have, we have the opportunity to decide how we should go about this business of eating, and often our discussion become very heated.  Those heated discussions lead us to ask…

Carnivore, herbivore or omnivore?

Fred Provenza, Author, Nourishment:  What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom

(Animal & Human Environmental Nutrition)

Animals learn what to eat, and what not to eat, from their mothers – before they are born.  It is a taste they pick up in utero, as the mother eats her way across the landscape.  If such is the case, we wonder: 

What tastes are American mothers teaching their children to desire?

Researchers believe that humans have been using plants as medicine for over 1,650,000 years.  Birds, fish, insects, and other mammals are also known to self-medicate with plants when experiencing illness. 

In the last hundred years or so, we humans began industrializing our food chain, and now we no longer rely on plants to be our principal source of medicine.  And why should we?  After all, the grocers’ shelves are filled with potions and notions that claim to be able to cure just about every malady.  And so today we are free to roam the range all day, without having to eat a single plant.  

But then, we wonder:  Are we missing something by turning our backs on plants?  Is there some kind of magic that occurs when earth, sky and water come together to present us with a plant?  And we wonder: 

What tastes are American mothers teaching their children to desire?

 

Zen Honeycutt, Founder & Executive Director of Moms Across America / Author of Unstoppable: Transforming Sickness and Struggle Into Triumph, Empowerment and a Celebration of Community

 

Over 80 million Americans, including over one-third of the nation’s children and adolescents, eat fast food every day. And some eat it multiple times a day! This leads us to ask:

Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food

Over 80 million Americans, including over one-third of the nation’s children and adolescents, eat fast food every day. And some eat it multiple times a day! This leads us to ask:

Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food?

Welcome to the 1354th edition of the Food Chain Radio Show... Or hey... Perhaps you’re among our friends down there in Valparaiso, who are tuned in to the Food Chain podcast at metrofarm.com or on Spotify... .

Well, whoever you are, and wherever you are, welcome aboard, I am Michael Olson, your host for this hour of What’s-Eating-What...

FOLKS...
Those who hike the backcountry of the Montana Rockies know to never corner a

mama grizzly with her cubs in tow. It’s best to give her a half hour notice that you’re coming – bang on a pan, ring a bell or sing a John Denver song with as much enthusiasm as you can muster.

The same could be said for most moms. If they perceive you to be a threat to their children, you might find your head becoming a landing pad for her cast iron skillet.

One very modern way to threaten the safety of children is to load up their fast food with harmful chemicals with names moms can’t pronounce. Of course, not all moms would consider those chemical additives to be a threat. In fact, many moms eat the fast foods themselves, and are willing to put up with the additives for the sake of convenience – or maybe they just don’t know the chemicals are in the fast food!

One mom knows, and she is as angry as the mother grizzly you never want to corner. Why is she so angry? Because she has discovered what is in the food served to children in 8 out of 10 of the nation’s most popular fast chains. And she leads us to ask:

Can America’s moms chase the dangerous chemicals out of fast food?

Contact:  www.metrofarm.com

 

Dr. Michael Greger, Author, How Not To Age  

(Diet, Nutrition, Aging)

We have been searching for that proverbial fountain of youth for as long as we have been capable of searching.  Though we have searched in many places, and spent many fortunes doing so, we still grow old.  This leads us to ask: 

Can we maintain what we have, so we can retain what we want?

As we grow old, we begin resisting the fact that we are growing old.  And so we begin our resistance by searching for a fountain of youth in a package.   

According to one industry group, 60 percent of those above the age of 65 buy products that promise to maintain one’s youth, so one can retain one’s youthfulness.   Solve the problem, sell the product.

However, few if any, anti-aging products do what they promise to do.  As described in Dr. Michael Greger book How Not To Age, many of these products exploit scientific breakthroughs to package fraudulent anti-aging products. 

For example, nineteenth-century advances in magnetism led to ads asserting, “[t]here need not be a sick person in America . . . if our Magneto-Conservative Underwear would become a part of the wardrobe of every lady and gentleman,” Less comically, more tragically, public interest in Marie Curie’s work led to a range of radioactive products said to “revitalize” and “energize.” As one Wall Street Journal headline read, “The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off.”16

Today, we can see these so-called “scienceploitation” cures being sold on almost every street corner, but as the headline in Scientific American reads, there is “No Truth to the Fountain of Youth.

And so today we pause to ask:

Can we eat to maintain and retain the youthfulness what we want?

Contact:  www.metrofarm.com

 

 

 

Allen Moy, Executive Director, Pacific Coast Farmers Market Association  

(California's Certified Farmers Markets)

 

They say, in the United States food travels an average of 1,500 miles from where it is grown to where it is eaten. That leads us to ask: 

Can city dwellers close the distance to their food?

We begin with Michael Olson’s Second Law of the Food Chain:  The farther we go from the source of our food, the less control we have over what’s in our food.

If, as is said, the average food in the United States travels 1,500 miles from where it is grown to where it is eaten, then we city people simply do not have much control over what is in our food.

Let’s consider, by way of example, shopping for some garlic, which can easily be found for sale in most every city grocery store.   Approximately one-third of all garlic now being sold in the United States was grown by farmers over 5,000 miles away.  The reason so much of the garlic we eat comes from so far away is that it costs less to grow it there, and ship it here.

When we shop for garlic, and see that the garlic that came from far away costs much less than the garlic that was grown here, we have to wonder – being ever the food skeptics – what is in the garlic that makes it so cheap?

We do have the intentions of those distant farmers who are growing our garlic.  We also have all kinds of certifiers and inspectors with their rules and regulations that stand between those farmers and us. 

How much can those garlic farmers care about the people who will be eating their garlic 5,000 miles away?  What if those farmers decide that it would cost less to dry the garlic over a coal burning fire, even though the smoke from that fire would contaminate the garlic with mercury?  If the coal-burning fire could save time and money, and make the garlic less expensive, and more competitive, would it not be a tempting production shortcut?

How much can all those food safety guardians with all their rules and regulations really protect against all the money that can be made with distance?

Those of us who live in the city have two choices when shopping for food.  We can buy the cheap food that comes from far away, or we can find ways to close the distance to our food.  And so we ask:

Where can city people find food with its farmer’s face on it?