November 2007

GREETINGS

Thank you to everyone who saw our call for volunteers last month and responded to it! We now do have enough volunteers to hold our great PreThanksgiving Feast this year, and the event is ON.

Phone 414-962-2703 with registration questions. Phone Jody at 414-764-7262 to coordinate regarding what dish you plan to bring, if you plan to bring one.

M.A.R.V. ACTIVITIES

Sunday, Nov. 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). Remember to set clocks back the night before!

Theme will be East Indian food.

The next regular potluck will be December 2. Theme will be red-and-green potluck.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“Every Meatless Meal Can Help:

-Reduce the risk of….heart disease, strokes, and cancers while cutting exposure to food-borne pathogens;

-Provide a viable answer to feeding the world’s hungry through more efficient use of….crops;

-Save animals from suffering in factory-farm conditions and from….slaughter;

-Conserve vital but limited freshwater, fertile topsoil, and other precious resources;

-Preserve irreplaceable ecosystems such as rainforests and other wildlife habitats;

-Decrease greenhouse gases that are accelerating global warming;

-Mitigate the ever-expanding environmental pollution of animal agriculture.”

Other veg-friendly potlucks

I believe that there will not be a macrobiotic potluck in November.

NEWS

The last few weeks have been a bang-up time for food recalls. Last issue’s breaking news about a hamburger recall finally ballooned to a recall of 21.7 million pounds of Topps and some Shoprite frozen hamburgers; the recall came after at least 30 people became ill from e. coli between early July and the end of September. There was also a warning of a possible link between salmonella and Banquet pot pies, forcing ConAgra to stop production of them. And Organic Pastures raw cream with code dates between Sept. 14 through 21 was the subject of a listeria warning. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is studying how Japan’s government protects its citizens from dangers in food imported from China. Maybe they’ll learn how to protect us from food made here too…

On the other hand, a food-related panic in London, in which people passing a Thai restaurant experienced burning in their throats, prompting the fire department to send a chemical response team looking for terrorists, turned out to be merely caused by the cooking up of a big batch of really hot chili peppers for hot chili paste. There were no arrests.

Bird flu worries put a damper on the spirits of hunters returning from Canada to the U.S., when customs agents seized over 4,000 birds from them after reports of a bird flu outbreak at a Saskatchewan chicken farm. In another continuing food saga, New York City reintroduced a rewritten rule to require chain restaurants to publish calorie information where it could be seen at the time of the purchase decision. And the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), disgusted that the USDA merely wrist-slapped Aurora organic (i.e., industrial-“organic”) Dairy, is starting a class-action lawsuit in 27 states due to Aurora’s alleged cheating.

Water scarcity is becoming an issue; at the moment, the southeastern U.S. is in a real drought, forcing the governor of Georgia to start announcing serious conservation efforts.

And some bad things are not even animal foods. Prevention magazine pointed out that if you don’t avoid sugar for health reasons, you should give it a miss because it makes your skin age….

On a different note, the honeybee crisis was the subject of an Organic Gardening magazine cover story. After confirming that this top pollinator is in trouble, the reasons for the problem were examined; the verdict was that probably a combination of stresses are affecting honeybees all at once, including several different diseases and parasites all present together, plus a new class of agricultural insecticides applied to crops and home gardens (for killing grubs in lawns, for example), plus chemicals used to kill mites in beehives themselves, plus bad weather which could lower pollen counts, and even a lack of genetic diversity. The article then went on to point out that, while honeybees (which were brought here from Europe) have a big problem, there are many native bee species that are perfectly capable of pollinating our crops and gardens, and some that are actually better than honeybees at doing so. Gardeners are advised to help native bees thrive by growing many different pollen-producing flowers all through the season, leaving some bare ground in the garden for ground-nesting native bees, and offer a water source for them.

Meanwhile, in many ways, plant foods are still good for you.

I’m not sure why the Outpost Exchange chose to revisit the soy controversy at this time, but the verdict was that, used appropriately, soy is good stuff. There’s no doubt that soy is a fine source of protein, magnesium, potassium, calcium, manganese, fiber, and B vitamins. Whether its isoflavones are helpful or hurtful has been the issue. A current review of the research suggests that soy may not have much effect on cardiovascular health, though it does have modest use in helping reduce cholesterol levels. But it is definitely clear that when soy foods are substituted for high-cholesterol meat and dairy, they can lower blood cholesterol and reduce risk of metabolic syndrome (which makes one more prone to heart disease and strokes). Also, isoflavones seem to make arteries more flexible, while the question of whether and how soy affects breast cancer risk is still highly confused. Possible negatives that have been established are that isolated isoflavones have not been proven safe, and that excess soy consumption can affect the thyroid function of people who already have a thyroid problem. Get enough iodine, which you should do anyway: use iodized salt. (Dr. Weil, in his column in Prevention, addressed the issue of underactive thyroid, and suggested that people with this problem should go easy on cruciferous vegetables and peanuts as well as on soy – but did not ban these foods altogether.) Fermented soy products are definitely good, but so are other minimally processed soy foods like tofu, soy nuts, and edamame. Bottom line seems to be, don’t go overboard, but a reasonable amount of soy in the diet is a good thing.

Another food that is still getting good press is chocolate, the darker the better. However, adding milk to chocolate seems to interfere with the health benefits, alas. Organic and fair trade chocolate are increasingly available, and should be chosen for taste, health, and environmental and social responsibility.

A Prevention article which discussed pelvic pain included dietary recommendations. And one of these was that endometriosis can be relieved by eliminating red meats and dairy products that contain hormones from the diet.

Prevention also suggested adding lemon juice to the diet in order to boost vitamin C, which helps heart health as well as boosting the immune system and strengthening tendons, ligaments, bones, and blood vessels. (Other good vitamin C sources are other citrus fruits, cabbage-family vegetables, potatoes and sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and dark green leafy vegetables.) Another good veggie in season is winter squash, high in immune-system-boosting beta-carotene (= vitamin A) and vitamins C and E. Potatoes are in season, high in protein, potassium, and vitamin C. And broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are all good late fall and winter crops, full of vitamin C and cancer-fighting sulforafane; purple ones have useful flavonoids as well, and broccoli counts as a dark green leafy. And Prevention also named apples as one of the healthiest fruits you can eat, full of antioxidents (especially the skins), vitamin C, and soluble fiber.

THE VEGGIE TABLE

I take as a motto, “Never assume anything,” so I feel properly humbled when I find that I’ve assumed something mistakenly. And this is what I found I had done when friends dragged Chuck and me to The Pasta Tree on Farwell Ave. I had avoided the place on the assumption that the pasta would be white flour only, which I try to avoid – but in fact they give you a choice of white, spinach, or whole wheat pasta. And the whole wheat pasta was very good.

The cuisine is, naturally, Italian pasta foods with a variety of sauces and stuffings. Vegan offerings are quite limited, although the tomato vegetable sauce over spaghetti that Chuck and I both ordered was delicious. There were quite a few lacto-vegetarian selections, however, including ones with various specialty pastas, and one could certainly ask whether they could withhold the butter from the spaghetti with pine nut sauce. I guess that they might, for the menu displays definite hints of a veg-friendly mindset: there are a number of dishes where cheese or butter is the only animal food, and a “vegetarian chef salad” appears on the lunch menu. And the food was very good (as was the wine and beer; tea, coffee, soda, and bottled water are also available). Deserts vary daily; the mousse that our party shared was exquisite.

DIALOG

Alert! Alert! We reported last month that the new USDA rule to require pasteurization of raw almonds was temporarily suspended. The most recent news, however, is that it is now in effect. So if you buy U.S. almonds labeled raw, they have actually been either cooked or treated with propylene oxide, a really nasty (probably carcinogenic) chemical.

If you don’t like this (and it is an unbearable burden for small farmers as well as not healthy for anyone), you should contact the acting Secretary of Agriculture, Chuck Connor, and ask that the rule be suspended for 6 months while the public comment period is re-opened. To do this, go to Alert: USDA Says Foods Labeled as 'Raw' Can Be Pasteurized.

OCA reports that a new Cornell survey found that eating very small amounts of low-fat animal foods is better for the environment than an all vegan diet which tries to raise vegetables in certain places. This was based on the most efficient use of all agricultural land, and on the idea that land unsuited for row-cropping (such as very steep slopes) could be most efficiently used as pasture for animals. The researchers did note that most omnivores among us eat three or more times as much meat as would be efficient. OCA invites readers to take a quick poll so they can find out how many readers are vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore. Go to: organicconsumers.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=447