Posts Tagged ‘Food’

Posted on November 28, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

FRESH Recipes: Holiday Seitan Loaf w/ Mushroom Gravy

Eating Liberally’s gobbly-good holiday seitan loaf with mushroom gravy

By: Kerry Trueman
Kerry Trueman is co-founder of EatingLiberally.org, a netroots organization and website that promotes sustainable agriculture, and Retrovore.com, a website for farmers, gardeners, and eaters who favor conservation over consumption. She blogs about climate change, low-impact living and sustainable agriculture for the Huffington Post, AlterNet, the Green Fork, EatingLiberally, among other websites, and authored a chapter on ecological eating for Rodale’s Whole Green Catalog (September 2009).
To make the loaf:
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup cooked pinto beans
1 cup vegetable broth
1/3 cup yellow miso
2 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
2 cups vital wheat gluten
1/2 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon dried cilantro
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon rosemary
freshly ground salt and pepper to taste
Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan and sauté the onion and garlic till translucent. In a blender or food processor, combine the beans, broth, miso, and tamari. Add the onions and garlic and process till smooth.

Combine the wheat gluten, nutritional yeast, and seasonings in a large bowl and mix well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well (it’s easiest to use your hands.)

Shape the dough into three loaves and wrap in tinfoil. Place in a steamer for 40 minutes. This method of cooking yields a moist loaf; to brown and crisp them on top, place them in a loaf pan and bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for half an hour or so. You can also slice up the loaves and crisp them in a frying pan.

To make the gravy:

½ ounce dried mushrooms (shitakes or porcinis, ideally)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced or crushed
1 cup thinly sliced leeks
1 cup fresh shitake mushrooms, sliced
3 tablespoons whole wheat flour
1 12 ounce carton firm silken tofu
1 1/2 cups water
2 tablespoons yellow miso
3 tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
¼ cup nutritional yeast
freshly ground pepper and salt to taste

Soak the dried mushrooms in a ½ cup of hot water while you prepare the garlic, leeks, and fresh mushrooms.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan and sauté the leeks till translucent. Add the garlic and shitakes and sauté for another five minutes or so. Add the flour and stir, coating the leeks and mushrooms.

Place the dried mushrooms and their liquid in a food processor or blender. Add the tofu, the water, miso, tamari, nutritional yeast, and seasonings. Blend well, then add to the pan, stirring thoroughly. Whisk for several minutes, till the mixture thickens.

Place the gravy in the blender or food processor and process till smooth. Serve hot over slices of the seitan loaf.

Posted on November 17, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

You Are What You Eat!

By: Bill Couzens
Bill Couzens is the Founder of Less Cancer

In the work to raise awareness for unnecessary and preventable exposures that may contribute to health effects including cancer, food should be considered.  Consumers must move away from the practice of pulling foods off the shelf with little knowledge of what they and their families eating.

Scientists have documented many examples of environmental exposures that are known to increase cancer risk include: smoking, UV light, asbestos, some pesticides, hormones, metals, vinyl chloride, gasoline, and small particulates from automobile and coal-fired power plants, to name a few.

What about contaminants in food?

Dr Maryann Donovan from the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh’s Cancer Institute (CEO-UPCI) says that  “consumers do need to become more selective when shopping for all products but especially food.  Scientists at the CEO-UPCI have measured contaminants in canned food at levels that can cause biological effects in laboratory studies. There are a number of published studies showing that some ingredients in products that we use in our homes, schools and communities are toxic and some have been shown to cause cancer in laboratory studies. Examples of possible food contaminants can include pesticide residues or bisphenol A. (BPA), a component of the resin that lines some cans and can leach into food”.

BPA, for instance, can be found in many of the canned foods sold in the United States. The Environmental Working Group tested 97 canned foods and found detectable levels of BPA in more than half of them.  The highest concentrations were in canned meats, pasta and soups.  Although there is no evidence that the levels of BPA in canned food cause health effects in humans, BPA is one of many chemicals in the environment that acts like the hormone estrogen.  Because low levels of hormones can have profound effects, exposure to hormone-like chemicals, known as endocrine disruptors, is especially concerning.  Pregnant women and children may want to limit their consumption of canned foods to avoid this source of BPA exposure.

It is important to protect children.  By making better food choices we can reduce their exposure to a host of unhealthy ingredients and contaminants. It is important to remember that children are not small adults, rather, they are a developing version of an adult. Simply put, children are under construction. They are unfinished and their developing systems are quite fragile.   We know, for instance, that in children the brain continues to develop into their twenties, and this makes their brains potentially more vulnerable to toxicants. They also breathe much more rapidly, so they take in more toxins through their lungs.  For children, depending on the exposure, some of the first body systems to show negative health effects can be their neurological and respiratory systems.

Food choice presents an opportunity to make change and begin the process of providing healthy choices for your family, but especially for young children. One easy first step is to seek out your local farmers market so that you can buy fresh food that is minimally processed. For myself and my family I always buy local first and, when available, I buy certified organic. I do this because I want to reduce the unnecessary and preventable exposures to unhealthy ingredients like sugars, fats, preservatives; contaminants in canned food;  genetically modified (GM) foods; and foods containing antibiotic and pesticide residues. While farmers markets can be a safe alternative for tracking down healthier foods, shopping there can also be a fun family adventure!

Posted on November 17, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

Restaurant Composts Food Waste (VIDEO)

By: Rebecca Gerendasy
Co-founder of Cooking Up a Story and video journalist
Originally posted on Cooking Up A Story

I started composting at home almost 2 years ago. My plan was to build a few vegetable garden beds, start growing some of my own food, and go from there. For my small gardening endeavors in the past I’ve used fish emulsion, coffee grinds, and egg shells as my typical sources of ‘food’ for my food. But it was time to step it up a notch. I wanted organic matter to build my soil, so what better way than to create my own.

It was easy to do. Next to my sink I have a handy container to hold the grinds, eggshells, carrot tops, uneaten bread crusts, and more. At the end of the day I add those organic ingredients to the compost bin, throw in some grass clippings or fallen leafs (depending on season), give it a mix, and let nature take over. What really surprised me, after doing this a few weeks, was how the amount of garbage going into my city collection bin was drastically reduced – by nearly half!

That got me thinking… What about restaurants? What do they do with all their leftover, uneaten food? What if they composted it? What’s involved – is it that big of a deal? Why isn’t every food establishment doing this?

I visited restaurateur Kathleen Hagberg, owner of the bijou, café in Portland, Oregon, to get her perspective of why she composts and why others do not. She says doing by example is always important, and ultimately, for the folks at the bijou, “It’s as easy as throwing out the garbage.”

What makes it possible is the cooperation between city officials and local businesses to provide the local infrastructure. In 2005, Portland’s Office of Sustainability partnered with Oregon Metro to tackle the issue of the large amounts of food waste going to landfills. The result was Portland Composts!, a program designed to help restaurants and other food institutions learn how to easily incorporate a composting system into their business. In addition they connect interested parties with commercial waste haulers who collect and take the organic matter to a commercial composting facility in Washington.

Turning organic waste into a useful product, and at the same time helping to reduce carbon emissions provides an excellent example for other municipalities to follow. San Francisco recently made recycling and composting mandatory within the city limits.

Who’ll follow, I wonder?

Posted on November 16, 2009 - by ana

12 Things Kids Should Learn on their Own about Food

By: Orren Fox

Guest Blogger: Orren Fox is 12 years old and lives in NoBo (North of Boston). He goes to school where there is a greenhouse and a bee hive! Orren has 24 chickens and four ducks (three Call Ducks and one beautiful Mandarin). He is really interested in farming and the ethical treatment of animals. Orren would love to change the way egg layers and meat birds are raised. He says he has a lot to learn. He blogs and tweets about these issues.

There are all sorts of really interesting things to learn about food, actually I imagine you might not have really THOUGHT about food. Maybe someone hasn’t taught you about food. Most kids would rather think about other stuff.

But just for a minute, right now, stop and ask yourself – What did I have for breakfast? Ok now, think – Where did all those ingredients come from? Who made that bagel? What time did they have to get up? Where did that egg come from? Where did the chicken live and how did it live? If you knew the animal was poorly treated would that make a difference? Or not? Where did the orange juice travel from? Florida? California? Have you ever traveled to those states? Is it a long way from California or Florida to your house? How much gas did it use to ship the OJ that far?

All really interesting questions I think.
1. Vegetables taste great with butter and cheese

Honestly, what doesn’t. Even asparagus, really even asparagus. I know there are some people who will say butter and cheese aren’t healthy, but hey I’m a kid and actually I think these are true foods or “real foods.” They aren’t chemically made in a laboratory. They come from recipes not chemical compounds or lab experiments. Maybe that is too harsh. But I understand eggs and cheese, I know where they come from. I don’t know what SODIUM TRIPOLYPHOSPHATE is, so I Googled it (here is what Wikipedia says – Polyphosphates are moderately irritating to skin and mucous membrane because of their alkalinity). Hmm. Not really interested in eating that.

Actually most veggies that you grow yourself or that come from your neighborhood farm taste completely different than those from the buckets in the supermarket. I actually think the veggies in the supermarket don’t really taste like much. A carrot that was harvested yesterday tastes very different from one that was harvested a few weeks ago, then spent the next few days on a truck, then the next few days sitting in the supermarket. I think the flavor must just drain out of everything as time passes. Also in the supermarket there are very few types of veggies or fruits. Very rarely would you see a Green Zebra or a Brandywine, and those are just tomato variations! Each of these variations tastes completely different, we are only really offered one or two types of tomatoes at the supermarket. These two types of tomatoes are the kinds that travel well and that are easiest to ripen or harvest. I actually don’t like the kind in the supermarket, I like Brandywines. They are sweeter.

I think kids might like veggies if they could choose the varieties they like, but they can’t because the choice is so small. I wouldn’t eat tomatoes if I could only eat the kind in the supermarket.

2. Food taste better when you grow it yourself

Food tastes better because your work is in it. I am an impatient gardener, so for me the food tastes great because I have had to wait for it to go from seeds to seedlings to flowers to fruit to ripe fruit. Somehow that makes it taste like you did it. So i guess there is a little bit of pride in those vegetables.
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Posted on November 11, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

Avoiding Factory Farm Foods: An Eater’s Guide

By: Nicollete Hahn Niman
Author of Righteous Porkchop

Most people share at least the following traits: they want to be healthy; they like animals; and they value clean air and water. Yet relatively few Americans connect those concerns with their food. As more people start making the link (especially if they’ve seen graphic video footage of industrial animal operations), many decide it’s time to stop eating foods from factory farms. This is a guide for doing just that.

I’ve been a vegetarian for more than twenty years. Unlike the fits and starts described in Jonathan Safran Foer’s autobiographical book Eating Animals, the day I decided to quit eating meat was the last time I ever did. I remember that dinner well. It was my mother’s tuna fish casserole, and actually quite tasty. But while I chose to stop eating meat, I never adopted the view that it was morally wrong, and, consequently, didn’t become one of those vegetarians who spends her spare time plumbing the depths of meat industry literature looking for bits of information to shock my friends and family into giving up meat.

Nine years ago, I had just started working as an environmental lawyer for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. when he approached me about leading a national campaign to reform the livestock and poultry sector. He said that industrialized animal production had become one of the nation’s worst polluters of water and air, and he wanted to aggressively attack the problem.

Initially, realizing that Bobby was asking me to work full-time on poop, I hesitated. It was not the glamorous job I’d envisioned when moving to New York to work for him. But then I visited towns in Missouri and North Carolina that had been overrun by factory-style production of hogs, chickens and turkeys. I witnessed biblical-scale plagues of pollution and stench; I spoke with people whose lives had been ruined when an industrial hog or poultry operation was erected next door; and I heard the details of how the animals were raised. My reticence vanished and I jumped at the chance to work on cleansing the earth of the animal factory menace.

I loved the job and threw myself into it, body and soul. But there was one problem: I could no longer deny the shady past of my own food. Every day, I was putting stuff into my mouth that undeniably came from factory farms. I was a vegetarian, yes, but consumed plenty of eggs, milk, yogurt, butter and cheese. And much of the factory farm data and stories I was gathering from all over the country was about egg and dairy operations. My unease grew with each passing day.

To avoid the products of factory farms, I became something of a food detective. My groceries were the subjects of my investigations. Where were they coming from and how they were produced? I roamed grocery store aisles carefully reading product labels, but there was little to no information about the conditions in which the animals were raised. I wrote letters to food companies with questions about what they fed their animals, but the letters went unanswered. The food system’s lack of transparency was frustrating. Eventually, I mostly gave up on supermarkets and began exploring new ways to get at the good food I was seeking. Although the task was daunting, my goal was simple: I wanted all my food to come from places I would enjoy visiting.

Three years later, I was still fighting factory farms but had moved across the country from New York to California. Surprising myself (and others), I had married a cattle rancher and meat company head, Bill Niman. Bill is no ordinary meat guy. He’s spent his entire adult life slowly and painfully building a viable alternative to factory farms, the natural meat company Niman Ranch. Over the past six years, I’ve worked here on our ranch in Northern California and continued researching factory farming. And I’m still hunting down the foods of non-industrial, traditional farms.

My book Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms, released earlier this year, tells the tale of my journey through the meat system and from East Coast vegetarian lawyer to West Coast rancher. In a chapter called “Finding the Right Foods,” I also share what I’ve learned about how to avoid food from factory farms and how to get the good stuff.

General advice:
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