Study Links Food Preservatives and Diseases

  • Nitrates and nitrites are found in a lot of foods - like bacon, hot dogs, and pepperoni - as food preservatives (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

A new study in the Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease finds a strong
link between some food preservatives
and an increased risk of death from
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A new study in the Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease finds a strong
link between some food preservatives
and an increased risk of death from
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Nitrates and nitrites are found in a lot of foods we eat: bacon, hot dogs, and even cheese and beer.

The chemicals aren’t there naturally – they’re added as preservatives. And they’re also used in fertilizers.

Dr. Suzanne de la Monte is the study’s lead author.

She says they found a strong connection between higher death rates from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes and the increases in our exposures to these chemicals in our food and water since the late 1960s.

“What we’ve identified says this is certainly something I would consider very very important. Are there other things? Probably.”

She says people could be genetically predisposed to these diseases.

But she says long term exposure to nitrates and nitrites could also be playing a role in two ways: whether we get these diseases and how severe they might end up being.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Peace Out, Plastic Bags

  • Whole foods Store Manager Sherry Wiseman, says her Cleveland store hasn’t had plastic bags since February and her customers have hardly noticed. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

It’s one of the eternal questions, ‘paper or
plastic?’ They’re both recyclable, but only paper
bags come from a renewable resource. And since only
1% of all the plastic bags on earth are actually
recycled, Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports some cities and
even one national company are wondering why we need
plastic bags at all:

Transcript

It’s one of the eternal questions, ‘paper or
plastic?’ They’re both recyclable, but only paper
bags come from a renewable resource. And since only
1% of all the plastic bags on earth are actually
recycled, Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports some cities and
even one national company are wondering why we need
plastic bags at all:

(garbage truck sounds)

Americans send around 100 billion plastic bags to landfills every
year, where they’re supposed to be compacted by bulldozers.

(sound of plastic bag in the wind)

That is, unless they catch the wind and transform into mini
parachutes.

Carmine Camillo is a spokesman for the national company Waste Management.

“The tree lines and fence lines can be littered with bags, until we get
a chance to get out there and clean them up.”

This happens so much around the world, it’s picked up the nickname ‘tree condoms’. Besides that,
they clog storm drains, and
eventually end up in waterways and oceans, where fish
mistake them for jellyfish.

The solution, it would seem, is to recycle them.

But shopper Mary Jo Wickliffe says that’s too much of a hassle.

“You unload your groceries and you go home and throw them away. That’s what I do with them.”

Since Wickliffe shops at the organic market Whole Foods she
says she’s been doing less of that. Because the
chain recently bagged the plastic.

Cleveland Store Manager Chery Wiseman says to stop offering plastic bags is a decision that goes against busines school 101.

“It costs us more money to buy our paper recyclable bags, but we
feel that’s worth it to keep the plastics out.”

Whole Foods’ paper bags are made from 100% recycled content and
shopper Bruce Kane says it’s about time plastic went out of
style.

“I notice that China has fines for stores that use plastics. I think it’s a
positive trend and I’m glad to see it coming to Whole Foods and coming to the
United States.”

The trendsetter in this country is San Francisco. It’s the only city to successfully ban plastic bags.

New York City, Annapolis, Maryland, New Haven,
Connecticut, Santa Monica, and Portland, are looking to shun plastic too. But the bruising the city of Oakland took might make them think twice.

A plastics industry group, called the Coalition to Support Plastic
Bag Recycling sued Oakland over its ban and won. It
claimed the city didn’t do its homework on alternatives such as compost-
able plastic bags or a recycling program.

Sharon Kanise is a spokeswoman for the plastics industry at the
American Chemistry Council.

“We certainly hope that the city of Oakland will work with the state of
California on recycling, because it
doesn’t belong in the roadways, it belongs in the recycling bin.”

Plastic bags are made from petroleum and natural gas, but
Kanise says their manufacture and transport uses 70% less
energy and produces half the carbon dioxide that making paper
bags does.

But for some, choosing between paper and plastic isn’t enough. A few people are starting to shop with reusable cloth bags. Some
stores sell them for about a dollar and Wal-Mart recently gave
away 1 million free to its customers.

But the concept of bringing
their own bags to the store is still foreign to some Wal-Mart
shoppers.

Customer 1: “It really doesn’t matter to me, but I’m going to need a
bigger bag than this.”

Customer 2: “It’s easier just to throw these out and come back to
the store with nothing in our hands.“

Customer 3: “Well, it’s just becoming popular, so I’ll start to.”

Whether it’s paper, plastic, or cloth, each can be environmentally-friendly, if
consumers go to the extra effort. But if people keep throwing them away, local governments might attempt to
reduce plastic bag use. A move the plastics industry will certainly
contest.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Food Prices on the Rise

  • Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Transcript

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Retail food prices usually increase 3% per year. But over the last year the
cost of flour, cheese, bread, meat, oil, and produce is up – by more than
double the average.

The United Nations has predicted prices will stabilize in the long term. But
that consumers worldwide will face at least 10 more years of rapidly rising
food prices.

Commodity prices for corn, wheat, soybeans and other staples have been
skyrocketing over the past year – to more than double 2006 prices.
The higher costs are due in part to weather affecting crops, and growing
demand in China and India.

Economists also point toward the increased use of grains for ethanol and
other biofuels, putting pressure on food prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Food Deserts in the City (Part 1)

  • The Chene-Ferry market was once a bustling center of commerce in this Detroit neighborhood. It closed in the 1970s. There are no major chain grocery stores to serve the community, so many people shop for food at liquor and convenience stores. (Photo by Marla Collum)

Most of us don’t have to think too much if we
want fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods. We
drive to the supermarket or farmers’ market and find
whatever we’re looking to buy. But for many people
living in the inner city, it can be tough to find
fresh foods. Julie Grant reports that can lead to
health problems:

Transcript

Most of us don’t have to think too much if we
want fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods. We
drive to the supermarket or farmers’ market and find
whatever we’re looking to buy. But for many people
living in the inner city, it can be tough to find
fresh foods. Julie Grant reports that can lead to
health problems:



Neighbors having been counting down the days for this store to
open. The bright lights, the shiny floors, 217,000-square feet
of retail and grocery. This Wal-Mart Supercenter offers produce
bins overflowing with dark leafy kale, imported plantains, and a
rainbow of green, yellow and red apples. Mother of two Dionne
Smith says she’s glad it’s here:


“I was looking at the prices. I mean because I was looking at this. In a regular store that’s
like 2 dollars 79 cents. Here it’s a dollar-fifty. So it’s
pretty good.”


“You’re looking at the Velveeta Mac n’ Cheese?”


“Mmm hmm.”


This Wal-mart is located on the south edge of Cleveland. It’s
part of the first new shopping center in the city limits in
decades. But it’s close to the suburbs. Not an easy trip from most
of the low income neighborhoods to the northeast – places where
it’s tough to find fresh foods.


In this poorer area, a lot of people who come to see dietitian
Cheri Collier have problems with diabetes, heart disease and
obesity. Collier says the health center opened adjacent to a
supermarket a few years ago. She planned to show people
firsthand how to improve their diets:


“I was very excited about the idea of having grocery store nearby.
Because I felt it was easier to teach people how to shop by having live
models. Taking you into the grocery store, showing which aisles have the appropriate foods, how to pick food labels, how to shop based on
what’s available for you in the area that you’re living.”


But it didn’t work out. Just six months after the health center
opened, the supermarket closed.


Today Collier looks around at what’s left on the food landscape near her health center:


“We got a couple of beverage stores, check cashing stores. Might
have beverages or food, and snacks in there. We’ve got
McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, KFC. Those are the main
things we see right away… Lot of stuff you can get that’s
quick. And you have United Convenient Market, has a lot of convenience-type foods. Some snacks, and some alcohol of course, and some pops and beverages. The two grocery stores we had in the area
are closed down.”


Collier takes us to what’s now called the “grocery store” in this
neighborhood. You can buy milk here. And cereal. Juice. But
there is no produce aisle. No fresh fruits or vegetables. Only
canned vegetables. No fresh meat. Collier picks up a can of
something called “potted meat” – and says this is the kind of
food that can lead to her clients’ health problems:


“It has chicken. Pork skin. And that’s my concern because that
skin is high in fat and that’s what giving them a lot of extra
cholesterol and saturated fat. So not only a person may think
they’re getting chicken, they’re actually getting chicken with pork
fat all over it. So it’s not the healthiest option.”


Collier tries to educate her clients about the high fat and salt
content in potted meats, processed boxed foods, and even many
canned vegetables. She says people on limited incomes buy these
foods because that’s what’s available:


“Someone just said earlier, ‘Because I’m in the neighborhood
and I can get to that store and get what I need.’ So to them it’s
like, I can get more of these and still have money left over to
buy something else I want.”


That’s one reason why stores sell cheap processed foods in poor
inner city neighborhoods, while the supermarkets with fresh foods
close down.


Getting quality produce often depends on the wealth of your neighborhood. Researchers have found that again and again. Dr.
Ana Diez-Roux is with the University of Michigan:


“It’s like a vicious cycle. Stores offer what people want to
buy, but people can only buy what the stores offer. So it
becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.”


And Diez-Roux says without supermarkets or other ways to get
fresh produce and meats, certain people will face more health
problems:


“In particular, healthy food options are less available in poor
and minority neighborhoods then they are in wealthy and white
neighborhoods.”


Diez-Roux says that’s one reason poor neighborhoods have higher rates
of diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. She says
public policy is starting to address this problem in two ways: by
educating consumers and providing incentives to stores to carry
healthier foods in poor neighborhoods.


But progress is slow. Eating habits are hard to change. And
stores don’t want to stock perishables that don’t sell.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Food Deserts in the City (Part 2)

  • For many inner-city neighborhoods, access to fresh produce is difficult if not impossible because there are no supermarkets. Farmers' markets attempt to fill the gap, but they're not as convenient as supermarkets. (Photo by Pat Blochowiak)

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:

Transcript

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:


When family physician Patricia Blochowiak moved to this
neighborhood six years ago, she didn’t anticipate a problem
finding fresh foods:


“I had thought that since I had a grocery store within walking
distance of my house that I’d be able to get my groceries there.
And it isn’t the case.”


Blochowiak is afraid she’d be sued if she said what she really
thinks about the quality of fruits and vegetables in her
neighborhood grocery store.


JG:”You don’t want to say what you thought? You’re shaking your head no.”


“No.”


So the neighborhood doctor started driving to a nearby farm
market to buy her vegetables. The market building has been on
this corner for 75 years in East Cleveland. This area was once
home to millionaires and to the world’s first industrial park.
These days much of it looks dilapidated, abandoned. But
Blochowiak says she can get free-range eggs, cauliflower from the
next county over, and apples from third generation family
farmers. It’s great for her. But she says a lot of other people
can’t get here:


“It’s very disappointing. You really see first-hand, that those of us
with cars, we can get where we want to go. But those without
cars have a difficult time. So you have to take several buses, or
you have to find a friend who can drive you, or you have to walk
long distances, and for people with a lot of small children, for the
elderly, it just doesn’t work.”


Dr. Blochowiak is president of the Cleveland Academy of Family
Physicians. She says people, especially children, need fresh
foods to perform at their best. But like in inner-cities across
the nation, it’s tough to find and buy fresh fruits and
vegetables.



Even here, at her farm market, farmers can only provide
vegetables in certain seasons. Walking by the market,
Blochowiak runs into an old friend. William Muhammad tries to provide produce year-round:


“Yeah, it is difficult. It’s very difficult to get produce.
Normally, I always have a stand in the wintertime. I have pies
now, but I always have another stand in the winter with produce.”



In the off-season, Muhammed buys produce from a wholesaler and
sells it here at the farm market. But as more retail groceries
close, the wholesalers are also closing:


“It’s difficult to get anything. All you can do is buy where you
can. It’s too difficult for me.”


Grant: “So what do you do?”


“Right now, I don’t know what to do yet. Next month, I’ll see
what I could work up.”


One thing they’re trying to do near the farm market is grow their
own food. Blochowiak has worked on a community garden nearby in
hopes of providing more fresh produce to the neighborhood.


But there’s concern here that such efforts are barely tipping the
scales. They’re not a dependable, accessible source of fruits
and vegetables for most people. Kevin Scheuring sells spices at
the market. He says a lot of people forego fresh fruits and
vegetables and opt for mac and cheese or canned food from the
convenience store because getting fresh food in the inner city is
such a tough row to hoe:



“Not that they wouldn’t make a better choice if it was easier.
Again, you’ve got to get on a bus with a bunch of groceries and
go really far away and haul stuff, especially in the winter. Or
you can just go – ehh – maybe tomorrow and just go down the
street and buy a can of beans or something. And call it a day.”


Scheuring says a lot people want to do better for themselves and
their families, but it’s just becoming too difficult to get to
the few remaining places that do sell fresh food in the inner-cities.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Does Fair Trade Coffee Work?

Coffee beans can be pretty confusing these days.
At times it can seem like a political, even a
moral decision. You might want to buy those pricey specialty beans,
but now the supermarket also carries beans labeled Fair Trade
Certified. That might seem like the nicer thing to do for the farm
workers – and the environment. Julie Grant takes a look at those
claims:

Transcript

Coffee beans can be pretty confusing these days. At times it can seem like a political, even a
moral decision. You might want to buy those pricey specialty beans,
but now the supermarket also carries beans labeled Fair Trade
Certified. That might seem like the nicer thing to do for the farm
workers – and the environment. Julie Grant takes a look at those
claims:


Ahhh… it smells great in here. The owner of this coffee shop travels
the world in search of the best coffees. Linda Smithers has gone to
places such as South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia to
visit farms and to taste coffee. She imports her favorites and roasts
them at her store.


And she has high expectations. Smithers wants to make sure that if
you’re paying a few dollars for a specialty coffee, it’s a satisfying
personal experience:


“And coffee should be able to do that for you. It should bring you
closer to you, and closer to the farmer. You should feel like you know
the farmer. And you feel passion and an intimacy with that farmer.”


I should probably have mentioned, Smithers really loves coffee.
She says the best coffees are grown on farms that are good to the
coffee trees, the local water, and the workers:


“Happy workers, safe workers, produce better coffee. They just do. I
see it every time I go to a farm. I see it when a worker enjoys what
they’re doing and feel they’re getting a fair price. They’re just like us. You
would not enjoy working and at the end of the day being given 20 cents.
You wouldn’t be happy with that. You wouldn’t work in a pleasant
way. And you wouldn’t pay attention to picking the ripe beans rather than the unripened beans.”


The Fair Trade label claims it’s found one way to help keep coffee
farmers happy and safe. The Fair Trade certification is supposed to be
a guarantee that farm co-operatives will get at least $1.21 for a pound
of beans. When coffee prices are low, that can be twice what other
farmers are paid. Fair Trade also promises farm workers have safe
conditions and are paid a living wage.


Michigan State University Professor Dan Jaffee wanted to know if the
Fair Trade system was doing what it set out to do:


“The Fair Trade movement claimed to be able to help bring them out of
poverty, improve their farming practices, make them more sustainable
and just generally improve conditions a lot, and I was interested in
finding out whether that was the case.”


Jaffee spent a few years in Oaxaca, Mexico studying two farming
communities. Some coffee farmers were part of Fair Trade
cooperatives, some decided against it. He’s just published a book called
Brewing Justice to report his findings. Jaffee says families
that joined Fair Trade were more food secure when the market price of
coffee fell:


“That is, they have food shortages much less of the time. They have
significantly greater access to animal protein, foods like milk and
meat and cheese in their diet. And they’re essentially able to feed
their children much more of the time than their neighbors, who were
really, at the time the coffee prices were at their low point at the
time I was doing my research in 2001, 2002, 2003, who were definitely
showing signs of malnutrition and there was a significant problem with malnutrition
in these communities.”


Fair Trade is still only a small fraction of the coffee market, but
its share of customers is growing, and the big players are taking
notice. Nestle is marketing Fair Trade products in the UK, and you can
find the Fair Trade seal at your neighborhood Starbucks. Only 3.7%
of Starbucks coffee is Fair Trade certified, but Jaffee says
that small percentage still makes Starbucks the single largest buyer of
Fair Trade coffee in the US.


Smaller coffee shop owners, such as Linda Smithers, also
buys some Fair Trade coffee. But Smithers doesn’t think guaranteeing a
specific price is the best way to encourage farms to grow the best
coffee:


“You’re given a price regardless of the quality. I have a problem
with that. I do not think that’s a sustainable agricultural model.
Remember, I’m a coffee person. I’m not a cause person, I’m
a coffee person. And to me, sustainable is: the product must be
outstanding and have good sociological and ecological practices, then
get a fair price.”


Smithers believes farms that treat workers and the environment well
naturally have the best tasting coffee and will always get a fair
price in the specialty coffee market.


Some conservative economists agree with her. They say the Fair Trade movement
will only continue to grow if looks beyond the socially-conscious crowd and continues
to improve the taste and consistency. That’s what people eyeing those gourmet coffee beans
want.


Smithers says Fair Trade has already been a success in that it’s put
issues of working conditions and the environment on the table…
and she could sit and drink a cup and talk about that for hours.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Locavores Sprout New Way of Eating

  • Holley duMond's daughter Zoe enjoys a local harvest. (Photo courtesy of Holley duMond)

Eating grapes and green beans in winter isn’t all that
novel. We’re used to buying whatever we feel like all year
round. But some people are rejecting what’s convenient.
They’re going on a diet that means they can’t get what they
need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca
Williams explains:

Transcript

Eating grapes and green beans in winter isn’t all that novel. We’re used to
buying whatever we feel like all year round. But some people are rejecting
what’s convenient. They’re going on a diet that means they can’t get what
they need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams explains:


When the snow flies, most of us will trudge to the store in heavy coats.
But Holley duMond will just be walking out to her freezer.


(Sound of footsteps and freezer opening)


“These are our fruits, we eat a ton of blueberries throughout the winter.
And all of that is ratatouille and then there’s corn. And then underneath here is the
beginning of our meat stores for the winter, but that will fill up to the
top.”


Holley duMond has her hands full. She and her husband have busy jobs and a
3 year old daughter. They also have a basement full of mason jars. As the
Michigan harvests come in, they spend four days a week buying locally-grown
cherries and sweet corn and squashes, and chopping and cooking and canning.


duMond says yeah, sometimes people call them crazy. But she’s proud that
even in the winter, her family gets half of their diet from local sources.


Holley duMond says at first, she just felt local food would be fresher and
healthier. Then, she says she learned how far most food travels. Some
recent studies say your average piece of produce travels 1500 miles from
field to store. duMond says she worries about the environmental costs of
shipping lettuce from California, or apples from New Zealand or China.


“We do believe that every dollar that we spend is a vote, and so I think politically
we’re helping to change some of the bigger systems that we just don’t like
and don’t appreciate.”


duMond says for her family, it’s been a gradual shift. They eat local meat
and produce but they still drink coffee and eat chocolate that’s shipped in
from far away.


But some local eaters make food buying sound like an Olympic contest. James
Mackinnon and his partner Alisa Smith spent a year on what they call the
100-Mile Diet.


“We were absolutely 100% hardcore about it by the end. In our house and
crossing our plates, by the end of last year there was absolutely nothing
that hadn’t been produced from within 100 miles.”


And that means every meal, every glass of wine, every spice, except for
salt. The couple started their experiment during a long cold spring in
their Vancouver apartment. Their first attempts didn’t exactly work out.
They ate potatoes and turnips and kale. They lost 15 pounds in six weeks.
They pulled all-nighters canning hundreds of pounds of vegetables.


But Mackinnon says things really started to turn around. Their 100-mile
diet grew rich on trout and salmon, fuzzy melon, wild mushrooms and
pumpkin-flower honey.


“A whole year of eating unprocessed foods made from scratch, picked at their
seasonal peak. We felt fantastic for the entire year. The year of the 100-Mile Diet was almost certainly the most diverse diet I’ve ever eaten.”


Mackinnon says he found nearby farmers growing delicious rare varieties of
tomatoes and apples that wouldn’t be economical for supermarkets to sell.


The ranks of local eaters are growing. A similar group of 100-mile eaters
sprung up independently in San Francisco. They call themselves “locavores,” as in local
and omnivore.


And there are the 80 thousand members of Slow Food, a movement to defend traditional
foods and ways of cooking. They’re all firing back against one-stop shopping, but these
people say being truly devoted to local food is like an extra part-time job.


That’s because our food systems are not designed to be local. Rich Pirog
heads up the marketing and food systems program at the Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture. He says after World War II, farmers were
encouraged to expand and specialize in just a couple of products such as
corn and soybeans:


“We’ve seen our food system become more specialized, food is traveling
farther distances, and as we have moved into the last two decades, we’ve
seen that shift to be even more global.”


Pirog says chances are, your supermarket apples are more likely to come from
China than your local orchard. He says pushing back against the global food
system is no easy feat, but he doesn’t think most locavores want to cut off
global trade:


“But what they’re advocating is, I would say, is an incremental approach where
in season we provide more of the food that we are able to grow.”


Pirog says reviving 10 to 20 percent of local food sources could boost local
economies.


So, locavores near you are canning food instead of buying cans because they
think it might just be better tasting and it might be better for the earth.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

LOCAVORES SPROUT NEW WAY OF EATING (Short Version)

There’s a trend among some food buyers. People are
signing up for a diet that means they can’t get what they need
from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams
explains:

Transcript

There’s a trend among some food buyers. People are signing up for a diet
that means they can’t get what they need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca
Williams explains:


These people are setting out to eat only foods that are grown and produced
near their homes. A lot of times that means tropical fruit, chocolate and
coffee are off limits.


Writers James Mackinnon and Alisa Smith went on what they call the 100-Mile
Diet for an entire year. The couple wanted to challenge themselves to eat a
diet more friendly to the environment.


“Are we doing greater environmental good by eating out-of-season organic
apples from New Zealand in the winter? I would argue that that’s not a
compromise we need to make.”


Mackinnon says he worries about wasting energy by transporting food from far
away.


Farm researchers at Iowa State University say there are two opposing trends
at work. There are more people demanding locally grown food, but at the
same time, imports of produce from countries such as China continue to grow
steadily.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Returning Quality Food to Urban Areas

  • Chene Street, on Detroit's east side, was once a thriving retail corridor. Now, it's a decimated stretch of crumbling and burned-out buildings. (Photo by Marla Collum)

Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city
neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience
and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around
the grocery store problem – and help revitalize a neighborhood:

Transcript

Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around the grocery store problem and help revitalize a neighborhood:


(Sound of traffic)


Up and down this street as far as the eye can see are crumbling and burned-out buildings. This used to be a thriving business district. It’s where Vlasic Pickle, White Owl Cigar, and Lay’s Potato Chips grew into national brands. Today, the most evident sign of commerce is the prostitutes walking the street. Smack in the middle of this is Peacemaker’s International. It’s a storefront church where Ralph King is a member.


“Now if you look at it you see that there’s no commercial activity, no grocery stores within a mile of here. And our concern was that people had to eat.”


There are about seven liquor stores for every grocery store here on the east side of Detroit. Some people can drive to the well-stocked supermarkets in the suburbs, but many families don’t have cars, and King says the city busses are spotty.


“So they’re buying food at convenience stores or gas stations. And quite frankly, it just doesn’t seem a good fit that a community has to live off gas station food.”


That means processed, high-starch, high-fat diets that lead to illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Those are all problems that disproportionately hit African Americans, and public health researchers say those higher rates of illnesses are linked to the food availability problems in poor black communities.


Amy Schulz is with the University of Michigan, and she’s studied the lack of grocery stores in high-poverty neighborhoods.


“What we found, in addition to the economic dimension was that Detroit, neighborhoods like the east side that are disproportionately African American are doubly disadvantaged in a sense. Residents in those communities have to drive longer, farther distances to access a grocery store than residents of a comparable economic community with a more diverse racial composition.”


In other words, if you’re poor and white, you have a better chance of living near a grocery store than if you’re poor and black. Ralph King and the folks in this neighborhood want to get around that problem. So about three years ago, they decided to try and reopen a nearby farmer’s market. They turned to Michigan State University Extension for help. Mike Score is an extension agent.


“I thought it would just be the process of organizing some people, helping them buy some produce wholesale, setting up in the neighborhood, selling the food, and generating a net income that could be reinvested. And I was really wrong.”


The farmer’s market was a flop. Score says produce vendors set up in the neighborhood, but the fruits and vegetables sat all day, unsold. He says the problem was they were using the wrong currency. Most people in this neighborhood have very little cash on hand, and they need to use their food stamp cards to shop for groceries.


So, Score helped develop a plan for a neighborhood buyers’ club that can negotiate low prices by ordering in bulk. His business plan also calls for job training for people in the neighborhood.


“It’s going to give people who are chronically unemployed but who have some entrepreneurial skills access to food at a lower cost, and that enables them to think about starting restaurant businesses or smaller retail businesses. So that’s an important part of this project: in addition to getting people groceries, it also creates some job opportunities.”


It’s been a struggle to get the program off the ground. It took a long time to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a machine to read peoples’ food stamp cards. People have stolen some of the project’s meager resources, but Mike Score and Ralph King say they’ll stick with it until families in this neighborhood can put decent food on their tables. And they say they hope it can be a model that other low-income communities around the country can use.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Heirloom Seeds Preserved in Gardens

  • The produce we see in stores today are bred for uniformity in color and size. Heirloom seeds grow vegetables that look different, and those who grow them say they taste better too. (Photo by Deon Staffelbach)

Planting a seed has a pretty obvious purpose: once you put it in the ground, if you’re lucky, a few weeks later something pretty or useful pops up. But for some people, seeds are a lot more than that. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:

Transcript

Planting a seed has a pretty obvious purpose: once you put it
in the ground, if you’re lucky, a few weeks later something pretty
or useful pops up. But for some people, seeds are a lot more than
that. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:


Greenfield Village is a historical village that’s part of the Henry Ford
Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The village has one of those “living history”
farms where people do things like shearing sheep and chopping wood, while
dressed in 19th century clothing.


They try hard to make the farm authentic,
and part of this has to do with the seeds they plant — they’re the very same
kinds that 19th century farms in this part of the country would have used.
They’re called heirloom seeds. Jim Johnson is the manager of special
programs at Greenfield Village. He says that the vegetables that heirloom
seeds produce aren’t what people are used to seeing.


“They’re lumpy and bumpy and sometimes have a strange look to them, but some of these varieties have a taste that cannot be compared to the things you can find on the supermarket shelves today. Most of the things you can find today in the standard produce section, they’re grown to be uniform, they look appealing to the eye, but typically they don’t have a very good taste and have been around for a while.”


Johnson says that it’s important to use seeds that are authentic. That’s
because what people plant, can show a lot more about them than just what
they eat. Laura Delind is an anthropologist at Michigan State University;
she says that even the names of seeds, can say a lot about a group. She
points to a seed grown by traditional farmers in Africa, that has a much
more telling name than what you’d see on a seed packet at your local
hardware store.


“It grew at a time when a majority of other beans didn’t. And what I found compelling is the seed was called ‘So the Grandparents Can Survive.’ Inherent in the seeds is a whole set of social relationships, responsibilities, cultural understandings, and a collective wisdom about how to manage, live well in a particular place.”


Delind says that in the U.S. we’ve lost a lot of this. But for many people, growing heirlooms isn’t just a thing of the past or something that people do in far-off countries.


Heirloom gardening has become more popular in recent years. In part that’s
because of the taste. It’s also because people have become more concerned
about commercially developed seeds, which are sometimes genetically
modified. Royer Held offers classes about heirloom seeds. He says that
planting, saving and sharing heirloom seeds, are important for a lot of
reasons, especially now when the food we eat comes from fewer and fewer
places.


“People are giving up the cultivation of these varieties they’ve maintained over centuries and millenia. We’re basically at risk of losing a lot of very unique agricultural material. And what we’re trying to do here in Ann Arbor is to encourage the gardening community here to take on as their personal responsibility the maintenance of these varieties.”


Although Royer Held is a long-time gardener, he can’t say that he’d given
that much thought to spreading the word about heirlooms until a couple of
winters ago. When bad weather kept him inside, he passed the time reading.
In one book he found that that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, kept
supplies of lots of heirloom seeds that weren’t widely available.


He requested several kinds of potato seeds from the agency. When they arrived
he and his friend Marcella Troutman planted them along with some other
heirloom seeds. They saved the seeds and cuttings from the new plants, and
now they’re making these available as well as trying to get people used to
the idea of saving their own seeds. She says that people can be a little
intimidated by the idea.


“They almost think it’s not going to be as good as having bought seeds in a packet from a reputable seed company.”


She hopes that in time, people will get over this. Royer Held adds that saving seeds and sharing them with your friends are all part of what makes gardening rewarding.


“If you grow heirlooms, you should save the seeds, because it’s only by saving the seeds that you can allow the plants to grow and develop and adapt to particular growing conditions. And if you do, save enough for your friends because they might want some too. And if they take time, they’ll probably wind up liking them better, which gets us back to why we all garden.”


They hope that in the end, people will get comfortable enough to start creating and sharing their own varieties.


For the GLRC, I’m Nora Flaherty.

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