Chews Wise

Chewy Nuggets

What’s for Dinner? - Michael Ruhlman has an interesting thread at his blog on staple meals - what people actually cook for dinner. The variety among people who responded (177 comments and counting) is pretty astounding, with a lot of ethnic food -- more than I would have predicted.

Let’s Do the Math - An engaging post at Ethicurean points to a study that the majority of greenhouse gas emissions occur “during the production of food, not from transportation.” Eating locally is equivalent to driving 1,000 fewer miles a year. But switching out of red meat - for just one day a week - to a vegetarian meal equals 1,160 fewer miles driven per year.

Out of Softshell Crabs - Senators want to declare the Chesapeake blue claw crab a disaster, triggering $20 million in emergency aid for the fisherman. The bay suffers from hypoxia stimulated by agriculture and urban water run-off - essentially choking oxygen out of sea life.

Sustainable Sushi? - I took a quick look at Gourmet.com at the rising tide of sustainable fish in Japan, of all places. They still love their bluefin tuna and whale, but sustainable fish is slowly gaining ground (beachhead?) in supermarkets.
- Samuel Fromartz

Moved To Help Flooded Farmers?

If the pictures, stories and videos coming out of Iowa and other battered states move you to action, here's one place to check out - Farm Aid's Family Farm Disaster Fund.

Farm Aid's web site says it is helping family farmers through this disaster by:

• Providing emergency funds for families to allow them to buy food and cover family living expenses.
  
• Supporting emergency hotlines.
  
• Providing legal and financial counseling to farmers in danger of losing their farms.

To be sure, many organizations are at work -- but Farm Aid has a particular focus.

Chipotle Goes Loco for Local

Chipotle, the fast-food chain that has been making strides with sustainable meat, is now ramping up local foods with a promise to source at least 25 percent of one produce item from small and midsize farms within 200 miles.

The company is getting a lot of publicity with the move, but it's not alone. Bon Appetit Management Co., the less well-known food service company that runs more than 500 cafeterias for places like Oracle, Yahoo, Seattle Art Museum, and my alma mater, Reed College, sources about 40 percent of all its supplies locally (though that may include bread from a local bakery).

All of this is great news for local farmers, whose biggest challenge now is meeting the robust demand. And it also creates a challenge for upstart food distributors which will feed the markets with local farm fare.

Let a thousand new local businesses and farms bloom.

- Samuel Fromartz

Supermarkets Fail Greenpeace Test on Fish

Greenpeace rated supermarkets for the sustainability of the fish they sell.

All failed.

As Greenpeace explains:

To date, many environmentalists have asked individual consumers to shift their seafood purchases to reduce effects on overexploited species.  These have proved complicated, bewildering and often ineffective. 

By asking supermarkets to take an active role in preserving overfished species, Greenpeace is enlisting the aid of informed seafood professionals whose decisions send strong signal back through the supply chain.

The larger point -- that supermarkets and others should raise their game when it comes to fish - is incontrovertible. If we want to eat fish in the future, we've got to be smarter about the fish we eat now.

But a couple of issues: first, half of all seafood is sold in restaurants rather than at home, and secondly, as Greenpeace points out, there is massive confusion about "red list" fish. Its own list, for example, contains fish that have been certified as sustainable (such as New Zealand hoki and Alaskan pollack) by the Marine Stewardship Council. This only leads consumers to throw up their hands in confusion.

As for the ratings, Whole Foods rated the highest, but it still got a "failing" grade from Greenpeace.

- Samuel Fromartz 

Mackey Interview, Part 2

In the second installment of the interview with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, the focus is on humane meat, sustainable seafood and local food. The first part of the interview can be found here.

Fromartz: There has been a bit of buzz about your humane meat program, which institutes a five-star rating system based on the humane practices of the livestock producers. When will it roll out?

Mackey: We'll roll it out this summer. It got delayed because we were doing it under the Whole Foods-funded Animal Compassion Foundation but we're now shifting it to a third party, the Global Animal Partnership. We think from a credibility standpoint, third party certification is better. Organic is third party, Fair Trade is third party and we think that will have more credibility with our customer base. But this summer, you will start to see the one-through-five rating. (One being the most basic rating and five, the highest, with background here and here).

Interview: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey

By Samuel Fromartz

John Mackey, the outspoken CEO of Whole Foods Markets, has been at the center of the natural and organic food business for three decades. But he had stopped talking to the media and shut down his blog because of an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into his anonymous posts on a Yahoo message board. 

Once the SEC ended its investigation without taking action last month, Mackey began talking again. "I feel like I've been liberated," he told me. In a wide ranging interview, he talked about the Wild Oats deal, rising food prices, the company's soon-to-be-launched humane meat ratings system, and the prospects for sustainable seafood.

The interview, conducted by phone in late May, has been edited and condensed. It will run in two installments.

Fromartz: Well you're finished with the SEC, but the FTC is still trying to block your deal to acquire Wild Oats.

Mackey: The FTC is still appealing the court decision made last August (which was in Whole Foods' favor), which is unfortunate because the merger's done. We paid all the shareholders, we sold off the Henry stores, we integrated Wild Oats into our system, we’ve shut down several stores, changed the name of many of the stores – so the eggs are scrambled and mostly eaten.

Fromartz: Ignoring the FTC for the minute, was it a good deal in retrospect?

Mackey: It's a difficult question. Because if I could go back in time, we wouldn't have done the Wild Oats acquisition. We spent tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, we've been investigated, it's been highly disruptive. I didn't realize it would cause so much grief.

But if you're saying has it been a good deal aside from that, well, it's very early in the process. And we have to invest money before we get returns on it. We always say it takes about two years to integrate a company we acquire and with Oats we're about 8 months into the process. I'd say we're pretty happy so far but can't say with an absolute certainty until the 24 months have passed. But moral is very high and we've seen a lot of good sales increases.

Should I Order the Salmon?

Saturday night, my husband and I decided to check-out a new tapas restaurant near our home. By the time we were seated, our 8-year-old son was famished, and wasn’t shy about letting me know it. A procession of sangrias and small plates arrived -- fried manchego cheese, watercress salad, house cured salt cod, and seared duck breast. But Cal was hankering for fish. Not just any fish -- he wanted the salmon, and kept pointing his small finger to it on the menu, punctuating it with “Please, Mom?”

Last summer we vacationed in Tofino, on the western edge of Vancouver Island in Canada. We hired a guide and spent an afternoon fishing. Cal pulled in a small chinook, and we grilled it that evening for dinner. In his mind, all salmon come from pristine waters that are occupied by spouting grey whales and whiskery sea otters. But when I asked the waitress what kind of salmon it was, she looked puzzled. Apparently, she doesn’t get asked the question. Ever. It took a trip to the kitchen for her to come back with the unsurprising answer: farmed-raised Atlantic salmon.

Let me preface this with this statement: I absolutely know better.

But when a hungry kid is tugging on your t-shirt, it’s hard to explain that farmed-raised salmon is not the same kind of salmon he was dreaming about. So true confession? I gave in, and in a few greedy mouthfuls he had polished the plate, while my own appetite diminished and a load of guilt set in. I tried not to think about the sea lice.

Monday’s op-ed by Taras Grescoe talked about salmon specifically. He does a good job on explaining why salmon, farmed or wild, is something that he’ll now go without. I know some other food writers who’ve given up tuna entirely, or who’ve chosen to steer clear of foie gras, but food is something we cover as reporters. There’s no ignorance-is-bliss here. We are often more aware of issues surrounding the food we eat than much of the general public. I understand that no other protein on our plate is as complex as fish, but I made the wrong decision.

I don’t know if Grescoe’s conversation will be heard by people who aren’t inherently interested in the topic in the first place. With food issues, there’s a lot of preaching to the choir. In this case, I heard Grescoe’s lament loud and clear, and will use it as a reminder to explain to Cal that fish can be slippery, and that next time? He's getting the chimichurri chicken instead.
– Clare Leschin-Hoar

Image source: Feeding system on salmon farm, Salmon Farm Protest Group/Marine Photobank