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.
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.
More people want to get locally grown food. Restaurants are picking up on the trend, but there's a shortage of farmers growing local produce. (Photo by Lester Graham)
One of the hot trends expected in restaurants this year is
the use of locally-grown, seasonal foods. But finding those
products can be challenging for chefs, even in the middle of
farm country. Julie Grant tells the story of one restaurant
that’s closing after years of seeking out local meats and
vegetables:
Transcript
One of the hot trends expected in restaurants this year is
the use of locally-grown, seasonal foods. But finding those
products can be challenging for chefs, even in the middle of
farm country. Julie Grant tells the story of one restaurant
that’s closing after years of seeking out local meats and
vegetables:
All Parker Bosley ever wanted was food that tasted good.
He’s a chef and he wanted his food to be satisfying, but
when he got into the restaurant business more than twenty
years ago he thought something was wrong with the food he
was cooking:
“I thought, there’s something wrong with this business in that
I don’t think my food was that great, even though I’m cooking very well.”
Bosley decided the problem was that he wasn’t starting with
good enough ingredients, and that mediocre ingredients
couldn’t create great-tasting food:
“And I thought about it, and I thought, I don’t have real chickens,
I don’t have good tomatoes, I don’t have good lettuce, and so forth…
it’s coming through a commercial source, so I thought, something’s wrong here.
I used to have wonderful chickens and wonderful tomatoes and strawberries when I was
growing up on a farm in Ohio…what happened to that?”
Bosley is probably Cleveland most highly-renown gourmet, but he decided
to put on his boots and headed home to the farm. Well, it wasn’t exactly his farm, but
he started driving around unnamed country roads. He was looking for small farms and road-side stands.
He’d use the chickens, eggs, tomatoes he brought back to
create dishes at his restaurant, and he liked the results:
“Once I got started and into that and realized, I was right, I was correct
your food cannot be better then the food with
which you begin.”
Bosley built his reputation, his restaurants, and his menu by
building relationships with farmers. And now nearly every
ingredient in almost every dish – from the squash and bacon
soup with hazelnuts, the mixed greens with goat cheese and
honey-thyme dressing, and even the beef medallions with
mushrooms and wine sauce – they all come from local farms.
Parker’s restaurant has been recognized more than once by Gourmet magazine as one of the top 50 in the country, but
it’s not always easy to gather those ingredients. Sometimes
farmers just don’t have as much as the restaurant needs.
Jeff Jaskiel is Bosley’s business partner:
“We have our little qualifier in our menu, if you read it, it says ‘Sorry, we’re out
of this tonight.’ And we’ve gone through periods where we don’t have chicken on the menu for three
or four days and if you go to a restaurant and couldn’t find chicken on the menu, people would think you’re
a little bit strange.”
So, they get a lot of complaints:
“‘Why are you out of this?’ The later tables come in at 9, 9:30 and we’re out of three or four things
and they’re a little bit disappointed and we were only able to get so much in this week and I think they
try to understand and they do come back so I guess what we’re doing still means something to them.”
It’s starting to mean enough to enough people that the
National Restaurant Association expects local, seasonal
foods to be one of the hottest trends in restaurants this
year.
Lots of restaurants in New York or California already identify
exactly where each ingredient on the menu comes from, what
farm it came from, and how it was produced. But as his long-time passion
becomes hot, Parker’s restaurant is closing.
(Sound of talking)
Today Bosley is standing in the wind and cold, but it’s
still sunny outside. He’s at one of Cleveland’s newly budding farm
markets. It’s set up in the parking lot of a new outdoor
shopping mall and it’s near a new upscale neighborhood. There are
about 20 stands, with things like heritage chickens and turkeys, cheese from grass-fed cows,
and lots with apples. All the products come from nearby farms. Bosley’s call for
local produce was a big part of creating what’s now a
network of markets like this throughout the region:
“I’m doing a lot more than just making good food and maybe buying direct from a farmer. I am
doing the right thing for the environment, I am doing the right thing for rural
communities, I am doing the right thing for urban communities. I never start out, oh, I want to
be an environmentalist, and I’m going to out and hug trees and save the countryside. I just
want good food, which, if you pursue it correctly, you will be
an environmentalist.”
Bosley’s 68 now and he sees the next phase of his career in
encouraging more farmers to grow gourmet mushrooms, make
goat cheese, or build greenhouses so that there’s lettuce other
produce available for the growing market of chefs and other
people who want good local food year round.
Frank Baffi's barn in southern Michigan (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come with consequences:
Transcript
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland.
There are fewer farmers raising pigs, cows and chickens these days.
But the amount of meat being produced in the U.S. continues to increase.
So livestock farms haven’t exactly disappeared. They’ve just gotten bigger.
In the third part of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Mark Brush reports these big operations have kept food costs down, but those cheap prices come
with consequences:
When you picture a typical farm, chances are you probably think of a farm just like Frank
Baffi’s.
(Sound of farm)
He grows corn and oats on his land. He’s got chickens, a couple of horses, two ducks,
about 30 beef cows. And in this fading red barn, he’s got pigs:
(Sound of claps)
“Hey Pig! C’mon! Get up!”
(Sound of pigs)
In fact, the pigs have been the most profitable thing he’s raised on this farm. Baffi says
he used to sell more than fifty thousand dollars worth of pigs every year. It was enough
to make a living on.
(Sound of pigs)
But as time went on, selling pigs became less profitable. In the 1980s, his expenses went
up and the price he could get for his pigs went down. Baffi says he was faced with a
decision. It was the same decision that many small livestock farmers faced at the time:
“I think it was a whole trend that if you weren’t big you had to get out. It was if you had
20 cows it was you gotta be milkin’ 30, or if you were milking 30 it was oh, you gotta be
milkin’ 100. The reason they weren’t making any money is that they’re not making
enough money for what they sell.”
Frank Baffi blames the drop in prices on the increase in global trade. He says US
producers started to compete with operations overseas, where expenses can often be
cheaper. To keep up, producers in the US got more efficient, and as they did so, prices
continued to drop. Baffi says he tried to get bigger, but he just didn’t have enough
money.
But just down the road there’s a pig farm that is making a profit. Frank Baffi’s neighbor
is Bruce Barton. His dad started the family in the hog business in the 1950s. Barton says
early on his Dad could see what was coming:
“He pretty much expanded because he could see that small farmers were struggling to
survive and ya know we had buy the feed in larger lots you sell your hogs in larger lots.
There was going to be less margin for each hog. You just had to have more, more of
them.”
The Bartons raised about 11 pigs when the started out. Now they raise about 100,000.
That may seem like a lot, but their operation is small compared to those that raise over a
million hogs a year.
The size of these big farms trouble many environmentalists. These farms are forced to
deal with large volumes of manure. On average one pig can generate close to two tons of
manure a year. Multiply that by one million and you get the picture. Smaller farms can
spread the manure as fertilizer on their land without much problem and large farms can
use the manure too. It’s just that they need a lot of land to spread the manure on. If they
put too much on a field, it can pollute streams and drinking water wells, and researchers
say, these farms are only going to get bigger.
Jim MacDonald researches farming trends for the US Department of Agriculture. He
says small farmers can make a go of it if they’re able to find a niche market, like
producing organic meat and milk. But MacDonald says the demand for these niche
products is still tiny compared to the demand for things like chicken nuggets and hot
dogs:
“The overall trend so far, I think, continues to be towards larger operations producing
what we might call generic or commodity like products and their prices continue to fall.”
Prices are falling because these farms continue to get bigger and more efficient. That
means fewer and fewer people are farming. So the idyllic picture we have of the small
farmer is fading.
(Sound of Frank’s farm up)
Last year, Frank Baffi lost more than a thousand dollars on his farm. He mainly relies on
his social security check for his income. A row of empty metal crates line his barn:
“This is where I’d have pigs and this is where they would have their babies. There
probably all used up but I just haven’t had the heart to tear them out. Because I always
thought that I could at least get back to where I was. And the way it looks, you know, the
profitability of this thing, it don’t look like I’m going to go there.”
So the choices you make at the grocery store influence how farms are changing. It’s only
normal: most of us pick the cheaper product. But some people who live near these large
facilities say consumers don’t know the full cost of their choices.
A bill that would pre-empt states’ rights to label food is making its way through Congress. Most of the states’ Attorneys General have signed a petition opposing the law. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A bill that would pre-empt states’ rights to label food is making its way
through Congress. Most of the states’ Attorneys General have signed a
petition opposing the law. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
The sponsor, Michigan Republican Mike Rogers, says the National
Uniformity for Food Act is an appropriate extension of national
standards protecting food. But if it becomes law it will prohibit states
from telling people about chemicals or additives approved by the FDA,
but likely to be of concern when you buy your groceries.
For example, in California any food that contains chemicals known to
cause cancer or birth defects is required to carry a label saying so.
Another additive – recently approved by the FDA – is carbon monoxide
to help keep the meat looking red. Labels warning about that would not
be allowed under the proposal.
37 state attorneys general have signed a petition opposing the law, saying
the states should be allowed to warn against such chemicals. Opponents
say the bill puts special interests in the food industry before public’s right
to know what’s in their food.
A deer wasting away from Chronic Wasting Disease. (Photo courtesy of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources.)
An elk infected with Chronic Wasting Disease. (Photo courtesy of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.)
A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials and hunters for years. But now it seems the disease could be more dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials
and hunters for years, but now it seems the disease could be more
dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Christina Shockley reports:
Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, affects the brain tissue of deer and
elk. Sponge-like holes form in the brains of sick animals. The deer
begin to waste away, become weak, and then die.
Since CWD was discovered in Colorado nearly forty years ago, wild deer
in nine other states have tested positive for the disease. Little is known
about CWD – including how to stop it.
What scientists do know is that the infectious proteins-called prions –
thought to cause CWD are found in the brain and spinal cord areas of
infected animals, but officials still don’t have the answer to the big
question.
Judd Aiken is a professor of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin.
“The ultimate question is whether venison from infected animals, CWD infected
deer, poses a risk to humans. Clearly the first question that needed to be
asked and addressed was whether there was infectivity in muscle.”
Recent findings say there is.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky injected muscle from an
infected deer into the brains of genetically altered mice. The mice
displayed signs of CWD. This is the first time the infectious proteins
blamed for CWD have been found in deer meat.
The finding raises questions about whether eating venison is safe.
Researchers including Aiken say the study is important, but has limits.
For example, he says it doesn’t replicate what would happen in real life.
Plus, he says it’s probably unlikely humans can even get CWD. He says
studies suggest it’s difficult for the disease to jump to other species. Still,
he urges caution. Hunters should get the meat tested before they eat deer
from an area where CWD has been found.
“I, in no way, can advocate the consumption of infected deer, and indeed,
I would suggest due to the limitations of the CW tests, I don’t advocate
the consumption of deer obtained from a CWD endemic area.”
Even if the test comes back negative, Aiken says a negative result isn’t
always accurate, and infected animals in the beginning stages of the
disease can look and act normal.
(Sound of sporting goods store)
John White is a deer hunter from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He’s in the
hunting section of a nearby sporting goods store. White isn’t too
concerned about Chronic Wasting Disease.
“Not a whole lot of people are worried about it. I mean, when it first
came out, some people were a little leery about it and didn’t want to hunt
that year, but they kinda got over it. I’m not really worried about it being
in the meat at all, because by the time the test comes back I’ll probably
have the deer eaten already and then it’s already too late.”
State wildlife officials say… that’s not a good idea. They recommend that
if you hunt deer in areas where the disease has been found, get the deer
tested before eating it. That message hasn’t changed… since learning the
prions could be in the meat. Some argue… it should change.
John Stauber is with a government watchdog group in Wisconsin, and
is co-author of “Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?”
He says officials are keeping quiet about the risk of CWD so they don’t
lose revenue from hunting licenses.
A large portion of state conservation agency budgets are dependent on
fees from hunting licenses. He says all deer that die should be tested for
the disease. Stauber also says CWD is a major human health concern.
“The biggest risk might not be the people who would die from
eating venison, but rather, the people who would die from the
contamination of the blood supply. This is a problem that would unfold
not in days or months or years, but even over decades.”
Stauber says it’s just a matter of time before Chronic Wasting Disease
spreads to people… he says some might even have the disease already,
and not know it.
But researchers like Judd Aiken from the University of Wisconsin say
people shouldn’t over-react.
“People should be concerned, but I don’t want people to panic, either. If
you think you may have consumed venison from infected animals, I don’t
think it’s likely that you’ll ever develop a human prion disease.”
But, Aiken says there’s too much we don’t know about the disease, and
since studies can take years to complete, we might be in the dark for a
while longer.
New research shows the infectious material believed to cause Chronic Wasting Disease can be found in the meat of infected deer. Previously, it was thought that only the brain and central nervous system areas of deer or elk carried the fatal disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
Transcript
New research shows the infectious material believed to cause Chronic
Wasting Disease can be found in the meat of infected animals.
Previously, it was thought that only the brain and central nervous system
areas of deer or elk carried the fatal disease. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:
The authors of the study at the University of Kentucky say anyone
handling or eating deer infected with CWD may be inadvertently
exposed to the disease.
The research shows that for the first time the mutated proteins – called
prions – can be present in deer muscle.
Officials in states with CWD in wild deer say their message to hunters
won’t change:
Get deer tested for CWD, and don’t eat deer that test positive.
Jim Kazmierczak is Wisconsin’s State Public Health veterinarian.
“What this demonstrates is that the CWD agent does occur in deer
muscle. What it does not address is the question of human
susceptibility to Chronic Wasting Disease.”
Kazmierczak says it’s still unclear how – or if – Chronic Wasting Disease
could be transmitted to humans.
Burning trash smells bad and it can create the conditions
necessary to produce dioxin. If livestock are exposed to that dioxin, it
can get into the meat and milk we consume, creating health risks. (Photo
courtesy of the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance)
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the curb. But not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
Transcript
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the
curb, but not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn
their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
(Sound of garbage trucks)
It’s not been that long ago that people everywhere but in the largest cities
burned their trash in a barrel or pit in the backyard. That’s not as often
the case these days. Garbage trucks make their appointed rounds in
cities, small towns, and in some rural areas, but they don’t pick up
Everywhere, or if they do offer service, it’s much more expensive
because the pick-up is so far out in the country.
Roger Booth lives in a rural area in southwestern Illinois. He says
garbage pick-up is not an option for him.
“Well, we burn it and then bury the ashes and things. We don’t have a
good way to dispose of it any other method. The cost of having pick up
arranged is prohibitive.”
He burns his garbage in the backyard. Booth separates bottles and tin
cans from the rest of the garbage so that he doesn’t end up with broken
glass and rusty cans scattered around.
A lot of people don’t do that much. They burn everything in a barrel and
then dump the ashes and scrap in a gully… or just burn everything in a
gully or ditch. Booth says that’s the way most folks take care of the
garbage in the area. No one talks about the smoke or fumes put off by
the burning.
“I haven’t ever thought much about that. So, I don’t suppose that I have
any real concerns at this moment. I don’t think I’m doing anything
different than most people.”
And that’s what many people who burn their garbage say.
A survey conducted by the Zenith Research Group found that people in
areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota who didn’t have regular garbage
collection believe burning is a viable option to get rid of their household
and yard waste. Nearly 45-percent of them indicated it was
“convenient,” which the researchers interpreted to mean that even if
garbage pick-up were available, the residents might find more convenient
to keep burning their garbage.
While some cities and more densely populated areas have restricted
backyard burning… state governments in all but a handful of states in
New England and the state of California have been reluctant to put a lot
of restrictions on burning barrels.
But backyard burning can be more than just a stinky nuisance. Burning
garbage can bring together all the conditions necessary to produce
dioxin. Dioxin is a catch-all term that includes several toxic compounds.
The extent of their impact on human health is not completely know, but
they’re considered to be very dangerous to human health in the tiniest
amounts.
Since most of the backyard burning is done in rural areas, livestock are
exposed to dioxin and it gets into the meat and milk that we consume.
John Giesy is with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at
Michigan State University. He says as people burn garbage, the dioxins
are emitted in the fumes and smoke…
“So, when they fall out onto the ground or onto the grass, then animals
eat those plants and it becomes part of their diet, and ultimately it’s
accumulated into the animal and it’s stored as fat. Now, particularly with
dairy cattle, one of the concerns about being exposed to dioxins is that
then when they’re producing milk, milk has fat it in, it has butter fat in it,
and the dioxins go along with that.”
So, every time we drink milk, snack on cheese, or eat a hamburger, we
risk getting a small dose of dioxin. Beyond that, vegetables from a
farmer’s garden, if not properly washed, could be coated with dioxins,
and even a miniscule amount of dioxin is risky.
John Giesy says chemical manufacturing plants and other sources of
man-made dioxin have been cleaned up. Now, backyard burning is the
biggest source of dioxins produced by humans.
“So, now as we continue to strive to reduce the amount of dioxins in the
environment and in our food, this is one place where we can make an
impact.”
“That’s the concern. That’s the concern, is that it’s the largest remaining
source of produced dioxin.”
Dan Hopkins is with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says,
collectively, backyard burning produces 50 times the amount of dioxin as
all the large and medium sized incinerators across the nation combined.
That’s because the incinerators burn hot enough to destroy dioxins and
have pollution control devices to limit emissions. Backyard burning
doesn’t get nearly that hot and the smoke and fumes spread unchecked.
The EPA wants communities to take the problem of backyard burning
seriously. It wants state and local governments to do more to make
people aware that backyard burning is contaminating our food and
encourage them to find other ways to get rid of their garbage.
“(It) probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, but by exchanging
successful efforts that other communities have had, we should be able to
help communities fashion approaches that have a high probability of
success.”
But public education efforts are expensive, and often they don’t reach the
people who most need to hear them. The EPA is not optimistic that it
will see everyone stop burning their garbage. It’s not even a goal. The
agency is just hoping enough people will find other ways to get rid of
their trash that the overall dioxin level in food is reduced.
Wildlife officials are working to stop the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease. The disease is contagious among deer and elk and attacks the brains of infected animals. Officials are trying to keep deer and elk hunters from driving carcasses across state lines. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:
Transcript
Wildlife officials are working to stop the spread of Chronic Wasting disease.
The disease is contagious among deer and elk and attacks the brains of infected
animals. Officials are trying to keep deer and elk hunters from driving carcasses
across state lines. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:
So far chronic wasting disease, or CWD, has been found in wild deer in Wisconsin,
Illinois, and New York. Thomas Courchaine hopes to keep it that way.
He’s with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He says hunters
returning from neighboring states often bring in whole deer carcasses for meat
processing or taxidermy. Courchaine says by law people can only bring in de-boned meat, antlers
or hides:
“We ran into a problem last year, a lot of Wisconsin folks bringing deer up to be processed into
Michigan. And this is a Michigan law, it’s in our digest, but if a person hunts in Wisconsin there’s
not a good way for him to realize it’s against the law unless he takes the time and effort to call
people in Michigan.”
Courchaine says violators could pay up to 500 dollars and spend up to 90 days in jail. CWD has
not yet been found to be contagious to humans, but officials warn against eating infected meat.
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.
Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)
