June 2006

GREETINGS

We now have a decision to make about our July potluck, since discussion of the subject at the May potluck left things still up in the air. We decided to leave all the other June through November dates as already reported, but for July, Jody and David are offering their South Milwaukee home and yard for a holiday picnic. The question is, should we have a regular potluck on Sunday, July 2 and then a holiday picnic on the Fourth two days later, or just one potluck for the month – and if just one, should it be on Sunday the 2d or on Tuesday the 4^th? This decision must be made as soon as possible, i.e., at this Sunday’s June potluck, so come to the potluck and/or contact us at chuckgyver@ispwest.com or at (414) 962-2703 (Louise and Chuck) or (414) 764-7262 (Jody and David).

As will be reported in the connections section, the North American Vegetarian Society’s big annual Vegetarian Summerfest is coming up, and since MARV is a NAVS affiliate group, there is again an opportunity for some MARV member or family member to go for a reduced fee as our group’s representative. If you were thinking of going anyway and would like to represent us and report back to us, contact me, Louise (phone number above) or come to the June potluck where there will be some brochures as well as the application blank to be a group rep. My paltry excuse this time for pushing my deadline is that I was getting my garden in! This must be done by Memorial Day weekend, and all that rain we had messed up my timing. Couldn’t help it. Won’t happen again.

M.A.R.V. ACTIVITIES

Sunday, June 4, 5 PM, regular potluck at the Friends’ Meeting House, 3224 N. Gordon Pl. in Riverwest (from Humboldt Blvd., go east on Auer a few short blocks to the parking lot).

Theme is fat-free food. Subsequent regular potlucks will be sometime on the 4^th of July weekend/ holiday, Aug. 6, Sept. 3, Oct. 1, and Nov. 5.

Other Veg-Friendly Potlucks

I have not heard about a macrobiotic potluck for June, but try calling Pat O’Neill at (414) 964-9759.

Phone the Cloughertys at (414) 355-7383 to find out if there will be a raw foods potluck in June at their Brown Deer home.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

This is from the Introduction to Michael Pollan’s new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemna:

“’Eating is an agricultural act,’ as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world – and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction.”

NEWS

This month’s mad cow disease news focuses on Japan and the U.S. Throughout the past month, Wisconsin State Farmer has followed the story of U.S. meat interests lobbying for a repeal of Japan’s ban on U.S. beef, a ban which arose from discoveries of mad cow disease here and the concern that eating infected beef can cause the related human disease. There were plans for a U.S. team to meet with Japanese officials, and the possibility of a new Japanese decision on the subject due in June. The punchline to the whole thing, though, came with the May 19 report of Japan confirming its 26^th case of mad cow disease (compared to 3 in the U.S.) The Japanese point, though, is that they test every cow killed for meat, while the U.S. tests only about 1000 per day, a small fraction of the number slaughtered. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns opined (on what basis?) that there are only about 4 to 7 mad cows in the U.S. now. A Beef Safety Summit in Jacksonville included seminars on e. coli., foot-and-mouth disease, mad cow disease, bird flu, multi-drug-resistant salmonella – and for some odd reason, consumer food safety perceptions.

In other Bad Animal Food news, bird flu continued to garner many headlines. Romania started culling poultry in its capital after suspicious bird deaths there, and Japan suspended poultry imports from Britain due to British wild bird flu cases, although no human or British domestic poultry cases were reported from these countries. Meanwhile, Wis. State Farmer reported on increased security at U.S. chicken, turkey, and egg operations – although since these tend to be confinement operations, it’s hard to see how even visiting wild birds could cause a problem, let alone visiting humans. There was the good news that flocks of migratory birds returning to Europe from Africa do not appear to have carried the bird flu back with them. Yet there was some concern about human bird flu cases in Indonesia, where several members of an extended family all became ill, then turned out to have each been infected separately from bird manure, but where the father of one of the victims then also became ill without clear exposure to birds; W.H.O. experts are investigating the situation, which is worrisome because human-to-human exposure is the only way that bird flu could become a human epidemic.

There were several news items about organic animal foods. One was that the greatest increase in organic food sales was in organic meats (!) – the choice of people who worry about hormones and pesticides but don’t want to go veg. Another was the announcement that Wal-Mart, which already sells some organic-labeled milk, is planning to greatly increase its organic produce; the concern is that what they sell as organic might start watering down the standards (even further). This in turn reflects increasing publicity lately about how some organic animal products are not very different from nonorganic factory farms; Dean/Horizon Dairy and Aurora Organic Dairy of Colorado have been particularly named in this regard, but some organic-labelled chicken are also “free-range” more in language than reality. If you do eat dairy and want to know more, the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute’s web site is www.cornucopia.org. Perhaps it is indeed time to look beyond the organic label to such questions as what kind of farm raised my food, and how far did it travel – this last being the focus of a Sierra Club report that calculated the ecological impact of importing food items over thousands of miles (as most now are, even though many can be grown regionally). But you don’t have to be worrying about organics to have other worries about dairy: a NY Times Science section article reported that American women who eat dairy products have a five times higher risk of giving birth to fraternal twins than would be normal.

The unalloyed Good Food News again belongs to the plant foods. Both Delicious Living and the Outpost Exchange featured peppers this month (although they will not be in season here until July at least). DL focused on sweet peppers, full of vitamin C and, in the case of red and orange ones, beta-carotene (vitamin A’s precursor). And they’re sweet. OE looked at hot peppers, which have both those vitamins plus varying degrees of capsaicin, the hot anti-inflammatory stuff that is used in many topical arthritis remedies. OE then went on to feature other vegetables often found in Mexican cuisine. Corn is high in protein, folacin, vitamins B and C. and fiber; tomatoes of course are rich in potassium, vitamin C, and the cancer-protective carotenoid lycopene; cilantro is a dark green leaf and is also rumored to aid digestion; avocado provides 25 essential nutrients including B vitamins, vitamin E, fiber, potassium, folic acid and good monounsaturated fat; limes are a vitamin C source; beans have protein, fiber, iron, and folic acid; and mangoes have beta-carotene, vitamin C, fiber, and potassium.

A Delicious Living item listed five “antioxident powerhouses,” naming spinach, walnuts, cloves, and white tea, as well as a fruit called acai (Amazon palmberry). A longer article praised some of the less-well-used green leafy vegetables, pointing out that these more bitter greens like dandelion, watercress, arugula, nettles, and chickweed stimulate digestive juices and thus maximize both digestive function and elimination, as well as providing all the nutritional goodies of all dark green leafy vegetables (good plant protein, beta-carotene, fiber, folic acid, vitamin C, iron, and calcium, plus vision-saving antioxidents).

Prevention reminds us that red leaf lettuce is even healthier than dark green lettuce due to higher beta-carotene content. The magazine also reported on a new Swedish study which found the flavonoids in tea to help drop rates of ovarian cancer. Another of its items listed heart-smart fiber choices: whole grains help with weight control, blood pressure, and homo-cysteine; fruits help with tummy fat and blood pressure; vegetables help blood pressure and homocysteine; and nuts and seeds help control weight, tummy fat, and blood sugar. A different item reported on a Swiss study that found dark chocolate to increase artery flexibility and decrease bloodclot-forming activity in the circulatory systems of smokers (whose bad habit puts them at higher risk for heart trouble). And yet another item pointed out that phytosterols in large doses can help lower cholesterol, and that even eating normal amounts of them in food should be helpful; the foods listed as having high contents of these nutrients were sesame seeds, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, and pistachios. Prevention also mentioned a UC-San Diego study which found that high levels of vitamin D help cut colon, ovarian, and breast cancer rates, although, being Prevention, the magazine listed low-fat milk and fish as vitamin D sources instead of getting reasonable amounts of sunlight on your skin.

CONNECTIONS

As mentioned above, the North American Vegetarian Society, a national umbrella group of which MARV is an affiliate, holds a huge annual Vegetarian Summerfest each year. This year it will again be at the Conference Center at Pitt-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, July 5 through Sunday the 9^th; people can go for the full five days or just for the weekend (Friday evening through Sunday). All meals are vegan and the roster of speakers reads like a who’s who of the vegetarian and animal rights movements. There is an offer of about one-fifth off the registration fee for one group representative, if anyone is interested. Call me (Louise) or go directly to NAVS at vegfest@telenet.net or vegetariansummerfest.org.

FARM (the group that sponsors the Great American Meat-Out) is holding its annual Animal Rights national conference in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 10-14. Contact them at (888) 275-3276 or www.ARConference.org.

Look for the “Farm Fresh Atlas of Southeast Wisconsin 2006,” which lists farmers’ markets, farm stands, U-Pick operations, and so on (though they seem to have missed some of the CSAs). Patronizing such businesses is a good way to help small farmers stay in business – the only antidote currently available to industrial-scale agribusiness.

One of its listings is the Milwaukee Public Market, to which Chuck and I recently ventured and were very positively impressed. It’s

DIALOG

The food fights are still going on regarding what children should have available at school, and who should decide.

One recent news story told of the plans of a bipartisan group in Congress to introduce a bill that would stop schools from selling fatty foods and sugary drinks including soda. Probably in a move to try to cut their losses the country’s top three soft-drink companies announced that they would voluntarily start removing sodas and similar drinks from school cafeterias and vending machines. In a probably-inevitable backlash, a NY Times Science section article recently protested that this is all a wrong-headed and scientifically unsound panic reaction that will only make fat and sugar foods more appealing to kids, and promote anorexia.