nutrition - The Environment Report

USDA Guidelines Questioned

Professor Paul Marantz says even a small error in the federal food guidelines can have a big public health impact. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Some people say the government is partly to blame for America’s obesity problem – because of the federal dietary guidelines. Julie Grant reports on efforts to improve how the government offers nutritional advise to Americans.

Transcript

You’ve probably seen those colorful food pyramids they put out, the ones that tell you how many servings to have of each kind of food each day. Those recommendations are used by schools, nursing homes, and the federal food stamp program to design menus.

Robert Post works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which puts out the food pyramid.

“IT’S THE CORNERSTONE FOR BUILDING HEALTHY EATING PATTERNS. CHOOSING THE RIGHT AMOUNTS OF FRUITS, VEGETABLES, GRAINS, MILK PRODUCTS, AS WELL AS PROTEIN SOURCES SUCH AS MEAT AND BEANS.”

Post says people need to know how to get all the nutrients they need, without over-indulging in foods they don’t need.
That’s why the guidelines also set specific limits on things like salt and fat.

But some researchers think the guidelines actually have the potential to cause harm.

Paul Marantz is professor of epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
He doesn’t think the guidelines should give specific recommendations about how much fat and salt people should eat.

“THOSE SEEM TO CARRY PRECISION THAT IMPLIES THAT WE HAVE A GREATER DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE THAN WE ACTUALLY DO, SO PICKING THESE NUMBERS AND REQUIRING THAT PEOPLE HUE TO THESE GUIDELINES IS A PROBLEM.”

Marantz says even a little bit of error in the food guidelines can have a big public health effects.

He and his colleagues wanted to find out the potential impact of past dietary guidelines.

They looked at 1995, when the nutritionists were telling people to avoid fat.

“MOST OF US REMEMBER IN THE OLD FOOD PYRAMID THAT MADE IT QUITE CLEAR THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO AVOID WAS FAT AND ONE COULD EAT GRAINS AND PASTA AND BREAT AND THE LIKE WITHOUT CONCERN.”

Marantz says Americans did eat more pasta and bread – that added lots of calories, and lots of weight.

His research, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found what Marantz calls a ‘strong correlation’ between the dietary guidelines against fat and obesity in Americans:

“CORRELATION IS BY NO MEANS CAUSATION. WE CANNOT INFER FROM THIS THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF DIETARY GUIDELINES THAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING THE EPIDEMIC OF OVERWEIGHT AND OBESITY. BUT THE CONNECTION IS STRONG.”

Marantz wants the government to give general advice for healthy eating, but not specific guidelines. He gives the example of sodium. Marantz says no one really knows how much salt is appropriate for each person. But there’s a push to put specific limits on sodium in the new guidelines.

Robert Post of the USDA says anything that gets into the 2010 recommendations will be based on what he calls the Gold Standard of scientific evidence. He says a committee of nutritional experts has been meeting for two years to create the new guidelines…

“WE CAN BE ASSURED THROUGH THIS VERY INTENSIVE REVIEW OF SCIENCE AND THE WEIGHT OF THE EVIDENCE IT PROVIDES THAT THE CURRENT ADVISE ON CARBOHYDRATES FOR EXAMPLE IS BASED ON THE LATEST RESEARCH.”

Post says any recommendations for fat and sodium will also be based on the preponderance of current science. The committee is expected to make its recommendations this summer, and new dietary guidelines should be published by the end of the year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Reforming School Food Systems

USDA undersecretary of food and nutrition, Kevin Concannon, says today former military generals are concerned because many 17-24 year olds aren’t healthy enough to qualify for military service. (Photo courtesy of the US Navy)

These are challenging times for people who run school lunch programs. A national TV show this spring took on the school food system, and now leaders in Washington are debating how much money the country should spend on childhood nutrition. Julie Grant reports.

Transcript

The national school lunch program started after World War II because the military was concerned. Many young men had been rejected from the draft because of childhood malnutrition.

Kevin Concannon is undersecretary of food and nutrition at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He says today former military generals are getting concerned again. That’s because many 17-24 year olds aren’t healthy enough to serve.

“Twenty-seven percent of them in that age group are so overweight, they don’t qualify for military service.”

And part of the reason so many have gone from being malnourished from not enough food, to malnourished from too much junk food, is the school meals program.

Everyone from first lady Michelle Obama to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is pushing for improvements in the foods served in schools. Chef Oliver spent three months in Huntington, West Virginia for his program Food Revolution – because it was dubbed the unhealthiest city in America.

In this scene, he started by working in an elementary school cafeteria – and goes with one of the workers to check out the freezer.

“The freezer was just an aladdin’s cave of processed crap….So this is pizza for breakfast, and then they have it for lunch tomorrow?”

“I would not ever feed that to my kids, ever.”

“I’m not getting a good feeling about this…”

“Do you honestly think that we could go from raw state every day?”

“Yes.”

In his efforts to improve the food in this one school district, we see how many barriers there are to doing something as simple as getting kids to eat vegetables and fruits.

There’s resistance from cafeteria workers, the school administrators, the parents, and the kids.

When Oliver serves roasted chicken instead of chicken nuggets, most of it ends up in the trash. And when the schools do start using his menus, more and more parents send their kids in with brown bag lunches – many filled with candy and potato chips.

Kevin Concannon at the USDA says the government cannot do anything about the lunches parents send with their kids. But it can do something about the food served by schools. And he says there is a big push right now to serve healthier foods.

“The direction we’re going in is more fruits, more vegetables, less fat, less sugar, less sodium.”

But, there’s a catch:

“Better, healthier foods cost more.”

So President Obama is proposing adding 10-billion dollars to school food programs over the next decade. The Senate is looking at adding a little less than half that – 4.5 billion. Either way, Concannon says it’s more money than has ever been added to the program.

“It’s no longer a political climate of ‘I’m OK, if you’re OK.’ I think it’s more a realization that this affects health costs, this affects national security, and many of these health conditions are preventable if we get people to eat healthier and to exercise.”

Chef Jamie Oliver agrees more money is needed to provide healthier foods in schools. But right now, he says the government is part of the problem. It offers schools cheap processed food for almost nothing.

“The donated food that you get that is so cheap that you can’t resist it. And it’s from the government. The government is saying ‘We want change.’ ‘Here, why don’t you have some really lovely, cheap processed food.”

The USDA says the government food being sold to schools has improved over the years. But many people say it hasn’t improved enough to ensure that most U.S. students are offered nutritious meals every day.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Overestimating the Organic Label

The "organic" label means that food's grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but Lee says some shoppers think it means "healthy" in other ways.(Photo courtesy of Mica M CC-BY-SA)

Researchers have known for a while that food labels, such as “low in fat,” can mislead dieters into thinking they’re eating healthy. Shawn Allee reports the “organic” label could lead dieters astray, too.

Transcript

Researchers have known for a while that food labels, such as “low in fat,” can mislead dieters into thinking they’re eating healthy.

Shawn Allee reports the “organic” label could lead dieters astray, too.

Cornell University ran an experiment to look at how people think about food made with organic ingredients.

One researcher was Jenny Lee.

Lee gave people cookies – some were labeled organic, some not.

Then people guessed the calorie count.

“We found that those who ate cookies with the organic label rated those cookies to be lower in calories than those who ate cookies without the organic label.”

Actually, they were exactly the same cookies: organic Oreos.

The “organic” label means that food’s grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but Lee says some shoppers think it means “healthy” in other ways.

“You have to be a little suspicious about what the label’s actually claiming and not to draw any other inferences.”

Lee says people need to think about what they expect from food labeled “organic,” since organic products are becoming common in mainstream grocery stores.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Part 2: Choices in the Cafeteria

The Shaker Heights School District in Ohio now serves smoothies, salads, even sushi. But students say they still prefer ice cream and french fries. (Photo by Julie Grant)

When we hear about kids and obesity,
a lot of people point the finger at
schools. Most kids today eat about
half their meals at school, and many
cafeterias are filled with junk food.
In the second half of our school lunch
series, Julie Grant reports that some
districts are trying to improve what
they serve – but there are a lot of
challenges:

Transcript

(sound of a school cafeteria)

The food available in school in Shaker Heights, Ohio looked a lot different a few years ago. They used to sell lots of pop and French fries. Today, we’re standing at what’s called the Nutri-Bar. Students can buy salads, sandwiches, even sushi.

“Fresh, healthy and portable. That’s the motto of the Nutri-Bar. This has been a big hit with our students.”

Peggy Caldwell is spokesperson for the school district. She says a group of parents started worrying about national obesity and diabetes rates among children and pushed for the change.

“They want us to provide healthy choices. They want us to provide nutritious meals. They understand that students learn best if they are healthy and well fed.”

Parents worked with the district to improve the food available in the schools.

(school bell)

“And, here they come.”

It’s lunchtime. Students are packing into the cafeteria.

(sound of a blender)

A few girls order fruit smoothies at the snack bar.

(sound of students in line)

But the line is much longer for the hot meals. Cheeseburgers and pizza are always on the menu. Today’s special: chicken strips and mashed potatoes. That might sound like a lot of fat and salt, but Caldwell says it’s actually pretty healthy.

“The chicken strips are baked now, they’re not fried. The potatoes are baked or, if they’re mashed potatoes, they’re made with low fat milk. There’s less sodium. They may look the same, but they’re better for you than they used to be.”

Caldwell says they’re starting to make pizza with whole wheat crust and the pasta is all whole grain.

But serving healthier food has cost the district. They had to buy ovens so they could bake. They have to pay more for labor to chop vegetables and make smoothies. And the food, itself, costs more. Fruits and vegetables come at a higher price than those processed foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt.

Especially in schools. Schools can actually get 15% to 20% of their food for free through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Janey Thornton is undersecretary for food and nutrition at the USDA. She says when farmers have too much of, say, blueberries or green beans or ham, the USDA buys those commodities for schools.

“If we have an abundance of blueberries – in order to stabilize the market, to keep prices near where they should be, then those products are purchased by the federal government.”

Then the government offers those blueberries for free to schools. That sounds might sound like a win-win – helping farmers and schools. But lots of times those berries are processed into unhealthy things – like glazed blueberry snack pies – before they get to schools.

Peggy Caldwell says the government food presents a challenge. Schools can’t afford to turn down free food. But it’s often high in salt and fat, and at odds with her district’s efforts to provide healthy lunches.

“It’s not always consistent with the nutritional guidelines. It can be a challenge for a staff to use in a way and in quantities that really meet the health requirements we’re trying to meet for our students.”

Some critics have gone so far as to call the schools garbage disposals for un-sellable farm commodities. Janey Thornton with the USDA scoffs at that suggestion.

“I would love to have that garbage disposal in my home, in my freezer if that were the case.”

Thornton worked 25 years in school nutrition at a local district before coming to the USDA. She says the ground meat has gotten leaner, the canned fruit is now healthfully packed in a very light syrup.

(sound of a cafeteria)

For those that disagree, debating the federal government might seem like a huge undertaking. But there maybe even tougher tasks for schools encouraging healthful eating, like Shaker Heights.

Grant: “What are you having for lunch?”

Student: “Ice cream. Chocolate. Soft serve. It’s really good.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Community Supported Farms Cropping Up

The Sippel Family Farm has over 120 varieties of 40 crops for their shareholders. (Photo courtesy of Ben and Lisa Sippel)
Shareholders are encouraged to visit the Sippel farm to see how their produce is grown. (Photo courtesy of Ben and Lisa Sippel)
Ben Sippel says agriculture should be sustainable ecologically and economically. (Photo courtesy of Ben and Lisa Sippel)

Late summer is the time residents of the
agriculture belt see an abundance of locally-grown
produce. Farmers’ markets in urban areas and farm
stands along rural roads bring growers and buyers
face to face. A fairly new idea in farming is geared
toward turning this seasonal connection between
farmers and consumers into a year-round
relationship. Christina Morgan reports:

Transcript

Ben and Lisa Sippel are among a few hundred families
in the US who approach working the land differently
from other farmers. Like any farming, their days are long during the growing season, the work is hard and the weather is the big variable. Unlike most farmers, the
Sippels receive money from consumers before the first
seeds are planted.

These consumers pay up front for a share of the year’s
crop, and the Sippels supply them with produce for 30
weeks. That is how Community Supported Agriculture
works. Lisa Sippel describes it as an adventure:

“We’re both very happy here and can’t imagine doing anything
else.”

Ben Sippel is more pragmatic:

“A little bit of romance is a good thing for sustainable agriculture, a
heavy dose of reality is also a good thing for agriculture.”

Ben Sippel is on a mission. He majored in
Environmental Studies and Geography in college. After
hearing about all the problems facing agriculture, he
set out in search of solutions. In Sippel’s view,
agriculture must be sustainable in 3 ways:

“We feel strongly that sustainable agriculture has to be sustainable ecologically, basically respecting the
eco-system that is our farm, but it also has to be sustainable
economically. You can rotate crops, you can not use chemicals, you can do all this stuff, but if you can’t
afford to do it or you have to get money from an outside source to continue doing it,
then the sustainable system if you will is flawed.”

Sippel believes social sustainability is just as important
as ecological and economic sustainability. He says
farming should allow families to take an occasional
vacation, set aside money for retirement and pay their
children a fair wage for work they do. Sippel says
farmers too often end up selling their land to finance
their later years. That land might also go out of farming and into development. Ben and Lisa Sippel want to make sure their son Charlie, born in February, has a chance to continue working their farm if he chooses.

While the typical farmer plants and harvests a henful of crops, the Sippels plant 120 varieties of 40 crops. They harvest at least three times per week so they can deliver to
their 175 subscribers. Harvests and deliveries go on for 30 weeks each year.

Looking over the acres of carefully cultivated produce and peering into greenhouses where hundreds of tomato, pepper and other plants flourish in the ground, it’s easy to imagine how exhausting and isolating this work is. But standing with Ben Sippel at a farmers’ market where he visits with subscribers and carefully measures out this week’s produce, it’s equally easy to see the connection between grower and consumer.

These consumers are sharing the risks of
food production. But in return, they know how and
where their food is grown. They’re encouraged to visit the farm. They know if the produce is organic.
And they know Ben Sippel is aware of the impact his
farm has on the environment. This year, shareholders
paid 560 dollars for their produce from the Sipple
Family Farm. Shareholder Andy Ingraham Dwyer puts
that in perspective:

“It’s a little more expensive, but I honestly think that expense is worth it, so long as I can actually look the farmer in the eye when I’m taking it from him. That means a whole lot to me.”

Ben Sippel says closer ties to consumers are an important part
of overall sustainability. In turn, some of the subscribers are
happy to find a local grower, so they don’t have to contribute
to the burning of fuel to ship food from other states or other
countries. Isiah Harris says buying local produce saves energy,
and he thinks it also means better food for his table:

“Oh yeah, it’s right out of the ground. I mean, some of this stuff was probably picked this morning. The nutrition is going to stay in tact a lot better when it’s not shipped so far.”

Ben Sippel says some people come to realize that the weather on the farm as a direct impact on the produce they receive:

“On their computer desktops, they have our zip code in to check the weather, they know where the farm is and they’ll look at the weather on the local news and they’ll say, ‘We didn’t get rain but it looked like you got rain, did you get rain?'”

Community Supported Agriculture is complex hard work — with benefits. Consumers receive fresh, quality food and a
better understanding of what goes into growing that food.
Farmers Ben and Lisa Sipple have a chance to get to know
their customers and the freedom to seek solutions for some of
the many problems facing agriculture.

For the Environment Report, I’m Christina Morgan.

Influence and the Food Pyramid

The USDA's food pyramid. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:

Transcript

The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds
of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is
not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a
big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:

You’ve heard of the food pyramid, right?

“I can see the picture of the food pyramid… I think it’s how much of each type of food you’re
supposed to eat.”

“The food pyramid is like non-existent
in my day-to-day reality.”

“Yeah, I didn’t really understand what the point of the food pyramid was.”

The pyramid is a visual tool that the United States
Department of Agriculture created in the 1990s to help
people know what to eat. The USDA has advised
people about nutrition for a long time.

Throughout the past century, nutritional advice was
generally a message to eat more food and a wider
variety of food, and eventually people did eat more
food… too much food. And overeating and chronic
diseases became a problem.

In the late 1960s and early 70s, the
message about nutrition changed. The government said
scale back. Eat less. And this caused an uproar, and it
still does:

“Food companies are upset about it because they don’t
want the government telling people to eat less of the
products they manufacture.”

That’s Marion Nestle. She’s a professor of Nutrition,
Food Studies, and Public Health at New York
University. She also wrote the book “Food Politics:”

“This is health conflicting with business interests
basically, and since food companies, among other
corporations, fund election campaigns, elected leaders
need to listen to them. And since elected leaders control
what goes on in federal agencies, federal agencies need
to listen to elected leaders. That’s how our political
system works.”

Here’s what happens from that trickle down effect:
Corporations influence the food pyramid. So, the
pyramid’s wording of what and how much you should
eat gets watered-down and un-specific, so as not to
offend the food companies.

Here’s Nestle again:

“We don’t have an independent voice in the government
advising the public about diet and health because
if the government were to advise the public
about diet and health, it would have to tell people to eat
less junk food. And it can’t do that… Because the companies
that produce the junk food wouldn’t stand for it.”

It’s not only junk food companies that freak out about
what the government says you should eat. The meat
industry threw a fit when the pyramid was going to be
released in 1991.

The pyramid said those awful, hurtful words about
meat: “Eat less.”

So the USDA yanked the pyramid, tweaked it ever so
slightly, and re-released it the next year. The food
industry made a lot of squawk about the pyramid. You
have to wonder what kind of pressure that had on the
USDA.

Jackie Haven is a USDA nutritionist:

“I really, there’s really nothing I have to say on that
issue. I don’t feel we had pressure from anybody and…
Can we move to something else?

Okay, so, she wouldn’t say much.

But you have to wonder if the USDA had a conflict of
interest here. Their key job is to promote agriculture in
the marketplace. And yet they tell us what we should eat.

Marion Nestle says the USDA does have a conflict of
interest:

“Its main function
is to sell more products not less. It’s the fox guarding
the chicken… certainly not the place
where you have independent advice about what to eat.

The USDA created the new “mypyramid.gov” in 2005.
They’ve dubbed it an “interactive food guidance
system.” About the only way you can get to it is online.

You punch in your age, weight, and height. You also
type in how physically active you are each day. Then it
spits out a personalized plan.

My My Pyramid plan said that every day I should eat about 7
ounces of grains, 3 cups veggies, 2 cups fruit, 3 cups of
milk, and 6 ounces of meat and beans. I don’t know
how to translate that information. I mean, I don’t really measure my
apples in cups. And three cups of milk?

The new My Pyramid’s wording is delicate. It says things like “Most meat and poultry choices
should be lean or lowfat.” “Include” this,
“Choose” that. Not very specific suggestions.

Marion Nestle says there’s no evidence that the public
understands the original pyramid. She says even fewer
people understand the new My Pyramid. The food
pyramid has always been controversial. Its stated
purpose is to help us eat healthier.

The political reality is that pressure from the food
industry makes it very difficult for the pyramid to clearly say
what is really best for our health.

For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Raw Pet Food Junkies

Some vets claim commercial pet food has never been good for pets like Woody (pictured), even before the tainted food scare. (Photo by Alexandra Murphy)
(Photo by Alexandra Murphy)

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:

Transcript

“This is Woody.”

You’d never guess that Woody is 11 to look at her. The mid-sized
mixed breed is as spry as a puppy. And as hungry as one, too, since we
rudely showed up at her dinner time. But Woody’s owner, Alexandra
Murphy says this is a good time to get a peek at Woody’s menu.

“Today, for breakfast she got two chicken wings, and she got a couple
of chicken gizzards. She’s going to have that for dinner and before she goes to bed tonight she’s going to have two
to three ounces of ground up veggies.”

Murphy says she’s a “raw feeder.” That means her dog Woody and 11-year-old cat, TJ, only eat raw meat and veggies. No kibble food from a
bag for these guys:

“Okay, I start with vegetables that I like. I like broccoli a lot because
nutritionally, it’s a very dense food.”

Murphy says she began feeding raw about seven
years ago after a doing a lot of research. And after getting a lot of
flack from fellow pet owners and skeptical veterinarians:

“I’m looking to give them something that is as close to what their species would get in nature.
I know my dog’s not a wolf. But I also know that pet food has only been made for the last fifty years. They
didn’t go through such a drastic change, that all of a sudden all of
this real food is going to make them sick.”

(Sound of prepping food and Murphy explaining)

Murphy is certainly not alone in her passion for holistic feeding.
There’s almost a cult following of pet owners who spend hours grinding
or cooking their own pet food. And there are some vets out there who
whole-heartily support them.

Cynthia Lankenau is a holistic veterinarian. Lankenau says commercial
foods have never been good for pets – even before the tainted food
scare. She says dogs and cats simply can’t digest grain very well.
But grain is the main ingredient in most commercial pet foods. So, why
do most vets still promote them? For starters, Lankenau says it was a
major pet food-maker that taught nutrition at her vet school:

“Yeah, just about any vet that graduates is truly, honestly, strongly
believing that that’s the best nutrition that’s available. But we were
brainwashed.”

But some vets are breaking free of traditional training. Jim Albert is
a small animal veterinarian and a vet for the Buffalo, New York zoo.
Albert’s still not sure how he feels about raw meat diets for pets. But
Albert admits that the nutritional requirements are quite similar, no
matter the size of the canine or the cat.

“Small animals have small canine teeth for a reason, dogs and
cats. And those were typically used to apprehend and hold prey, so I
guess you could make the argument that meat should certainly constitute
a percentage of their diet.”

Albert concedes there are plenty of good options out there. And
there’s good reason for people to be exploring those options. Albert
says he’s treated half a dozen pets that became very sick from tainted
commercial foods. And he says that has even some of his busiest
clients are trading in their processed food and making their own in
food processors.

“It certainly wasn’t feasible for a lot of our clients in the past, but
I think they’re taking these kind of matters into their own hands.”

Back in Alexandra Murphy’s kitchen it’s pretty obvious how much work
homemade pet food can be. Murphy says her pets are worth it. But she
admits making homemade pet food isn’t for everyone:

“Although I love doing this, I would say to someone, if you’re the
kind of person who says, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to have to do this,
can I cut this corner, can I cut that corner,’ you may not be cut out
for it. Because if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t be doing it at
all.”

She says one of the best ways to find out is to find a good mentor.
And they are out there. You can find them by calling a local holistic
vet. Or, go online and you’ll find packs of natural feeders who love
to share their philosophies… and their recipes.

For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Growers Cover Up Local Produce

If the hydroponics trend continues, strawberries could be available locally everywhere. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Growing strawberries the hydroponics way. (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)
The hydroponics system Kelly Bowerman uses to grow his strawberries. (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

It’s the middle of winter and you’re craving some fresh,
juicy strawberries. Go to your local grocery store and
you’ll find lots of packaged strawberries shipped from the
west coast or down south. For locally grown strawberries,
you have to wait till June if you live in the Midwest. But
that’s starting to change. Jennifer Guerra has the story:

Transcript

I like strawberries. A lot. There’s strawberry rhubarb pie
for starters, strawberry and spinach salad, strawberry
shortcake. But I’ve been on this kick lately of trying to
buy only locally-grown produce, which is admittedly hard to do when you
live in the Midwest, especially with strawberries. Most of
the year, they’re shipped in from Florida and California,
but there is one place in Michigan were you can still pick
strawberries as late as October.

(Guerra:) “The redder the better…that’s too green”

It’s snowing out. I’ve got on the winter coat, the hat, the gloves,
and I’m picking strawberries with Kelly Bowerman.

(Guerra:) “So, which one is this?”

(Bowerman:) “This is a tribute. We have aroma, diamante, and
tribute. Aroma is a nice big berry, diamante’s even a bigger berry,
but it just don’t turn red, it’s oranged-colored, and tribute is smaller with a lot more
flavor.”

(Guerra:) “Alright, let’s get all three. Let’s get a
variety.”

Bowerman calls his strawberries three finger berries, which
he says are roughly the same size as the ones shipped in
from California

(Bowerman and Guerra try strawberries)

And frankly, the strawberries better taste
good, seeing as how Bowerman spent 60,000 dollars on them.

Well, not on the actual berries themselves, but on the
hydroponics system he uses to grow the berries. With
hydroponics, he still grows his strawberries outside, but
instead of planting them in the ground, the runners sit in
pots above the ground in a solution of warm water and
minerals. And since there’s no soil, the strawberries can
grow from June to October without the roots freezing over at
the first sign of cold weather. Still, there’s only so much
a hydroponics system can do on its own:

“He’s gonna find out that people want strawberries at
Christmastime, and so the next step will be to put a
greenhouse over that system and then we have 12 months.”

Merle Jensen is a professor of plant science at the
University of Arizona and he knows his hydroponics. He
knows growers all across the country who’ve started moving
their hydroponics systems inside greenhouses so they can
artificially light the crops. That way, they can produce
year round. But wait, there’s more:

“All of our leafy vegetables – high value fruits like
strawberries – will all be under cover in the next 5 years.
I’m sure of that. It’s a rapid expansion, not only in the
United States, but we see it in Canada, Mexico. So, this is the wave
of the future.”

A future that Jensen swears will taste delicious:

“You know what? I can say that because we can control the
nutrition, the salinity within the root system such that we can
program that product to have more acid and more sugars and better
flavor, and we can do that through hydroponics at will. And local growing is
becoming bigger and bigger all the time. It’s just got an
image of being better.”

Of course in the Midwest, “local” is still pretty relative.
Our Michigan farmer, Kelly Bowerman, says he gets people
from up to 50 miles away to pick his strawberries:

“One guy bought $28 worth of strawberries, and he said that ain’t
no big deal cause it cost me $40 worth of gas to
get here and back.”

And he’ll have to continue putting in that kind of travel
time if he wants to eat locally grown strawberries in the
middle of winter. Unless of course Jensen’s right and
hydroponic greenhouse systems really are the wave of the
future. If so, it might not be too long before Bowerman’s
strawberries show up year round at your supermarket.

Oh, and by the way, I liked the tribute strawberries the
best. They were my favorite.

For the Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

SCHOOL CAFETERIAS EMBRACE LOCAL FOOD (Part 1)

Many schools are finding that food that comes from cans... (Photo by Davide Guglielmo)
Aren't as good for the tastebuds or health of the students as locally-grown foods. (Photo by Daniel Wildman)

More and more schools, universities and other institutions with cafeterias are by-passing processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better, and they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

More and more schools, universities, and other institutions with cafeterias are bypassing the processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better. And they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

(Sound of cafeteria)

In this cafeteria, there are displays on the wall asking, “What is local food?” and answering, “Foods grown and raised where you are.” Well, that makes sense, but there’s more.

“Then when you get into the lines…”

Sociology professor Howard Sacks is director of Kenyon College.

“We have these menus that talk about all the things that are being served here and it tells exactly where they come from. So the pasta alfredo with tomato and basil features noodles produced by Mrs. Miller’s noodles in Fredericksburg, Ohio, and the cream is by the Broughton Dairy in Marietta, Ohio. As you can see this is about thirty lines long and it shows about thirty different local producers.”

As recently as the late 1990’s, only a handful of colleges and universities had programs to buy locally-produced foods for their cafeterias. Today, more than two hundred are looking for local farmers for their produce, dairy, and meat products. Most of those schools, such as Kenyon, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin among the nation’s most expensive and elite.

But even some struggling public school districts are making it a priority to buy local foods. Ray Denniston is Food Services director of the Johnson City School District in the Catskills region of New York. He says a few years ago they served produce that had been shipped from California or Mexico, or they just opened cans.

“So your fruits and vegetables, kids weren’t taking them; it wasn’t a quality item. I’m not going to say we didn’t worry about it, but it got less attention then the other items on the trays. And now that’s changed. So, instead of getting a canned green bean, which I might as well put sawdust out there as far as nutrients, instead of that, now we would have fresh broccoli.”

Denniston used to sit in his office and look at price quotes from food distributors. Now he visits farms and negotiates the best prices for local products he can find in season. He says the change started with a few tomatoes.

“When I first met with Frank, the farmer, he stopped down and dropped off just some tomatoes. And the staff had some, we had some in the cooler and we brought some out and we cut them and there was a taste thing, and they said, ‘Don’t ever get any others but his.’ I mean, they were just so much sweeter, juicier, wonderful tomatoes and then it just kept going.”

Then came the rich green colored broccoli. It was a big change from what they offered their kids before.

Other schools say students love the taste of milk from local farms that don’t give their cows antibiotics. Johnson says cafeteria workers are excited by the fresher vegetables and meats. They like talking with the students about the food, and they like cooking again. Many schools don’t even have kitchens anymore; they only have heating trays for pre-packaged foods.

Deb Bruns is with the California Department of Education. She says those heated meals often don’t taste very good and she says they send the wrong message to kids.

“…that lunch is a time to grab something processed and hurry through it and get out to recess, and it doesn’t matter what we tell them in the classroom about nutrition if we’re not modeling that in their dining experience then we’re just missing such an opportunity to really teach them where their food comes from.”

Many schools start these programs because of nutrition and obesity concerns. By serving fresh, local food, the nutrition lessons continue when the kids line up in the cafeteria. Some schools say prices from local farms are actually lower then national distributors, but they often end up spending more money on fruits and vegetables. That’s because – believe it or not – kids are eating more broccoli, apples, and tomatoes.

For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

Study Finds Food Less Nutritious

Vegetables are a great way to get vitamins and minerals. But studies show techniques for faster-growing and bigger vegetables could be producing plants that actually have less of these health benefits. (photo by Justin Richards)

Vegetables are less nutritious than they were 50 years ago. That’s according to a new study that tested 43 different garden crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

Vegetables are less nutritious than they were 50 years ago. That’s the finding of a new study that tested 43 different garden crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Researchers analyzed U.S. Department of Agriculture nutrition data from the past 50 years. They found that levels of several vitamins and minerals decreased by as much as 38% in garden crops over the time period. Don Davis is the lead author of the study. He’s with the University of Texas Biochemical Institute. He says the decline could be the result of decades of breeding plants to produce more and bigger vegetables.

“There’s emerging evidence that when you genetically select for higher yields, you get a plant that grows bigger and faster but it isn’t necessarily able to produce nutrients or uptake minerals from the soil at the same faster rate.”

Davis says despite the fact that vegetables have fewer nutrients in them, he says they’re still the most efficient way to get vitamins and minerals into your system.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

Tag: nutrition

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