more melamine

…On a more concrete note, melamine not only has widespread industrial applications, but is also used to buttress the foundation of American agriculture.

Fertilizer companies commonly add melamine to their products because it helps control the rate at which nitrogen seeps into soil, thereby allowing the farmer to get more nutrient bang for the fertilizer buck. But the government doesn’t regulate how much melamine is applied to the soil. This melamine accumulates as salt crystals in the ground, tainting the soil through which American food sucks up American nutrients.

A related area of agricultural concern is animal feed. Chinese eggs seized last month in Hong Kong, for instance, contained elevated levels of melamine because of the melamine-laden wheat gluten used in the feed for the chickens that produced the eggs.

To think American consumers are immune to this unscrupulous behavior is to ignore the Byzantine reality of the global gluten trade. Tracking the flow of wheat gluten around the world, much less evaluating its quality, is like trying to contain a drop of dye in a churning whirlpool.

More ominous, the United States imports most of its wheat gluten. Last year, for instance, the F.D.A. reported that millions of Americans had eaten chicken fattened on feed with melamine-tainted gluten imported from China. Around the same time, Tyson Foods slaughtered and processed hogs that had eaten melamine-contaminated feed. The government decided not to recall the meat.

Only a week earlier, however, the F.D.A. had announced that thousands of cats and dogs had died from melamine-laden pet food. This high-profile pet scandal did not prove to be a spur to reform so much as a red herring. Our attention was diverted to Fido and away from the animals we happen to kill and eat rather than spoil.

via The New York Times:

Our Homegrown Melamine Problem by James E McWilliams

Last Sunday’s NYTimes magazine was dedicated to examining issues around the international rising cost of (cheap) food and it’s consequences: obesity at home, and malnutrition abroad. There are a series of interesting articles about the broad topic,  everything from a letter from Michael Pollan to “Mr.President-Elect” about food policy,an article about the complexities, politics and implications of  “Vietnamese catfish”,  and a piece by Mark Bittman, who ruminates on a question I have been thinking a lot about recently: “Why Take Food Seriously?”. My favorite article so far is the interactive piece called Inside the Fridge of a Foodie, where “five food leaders talk about the eating habits that fuel their professional pursuits.” There’s also a related piece, Food Fighters, that showcases seven young food justice advocates.

In all, the articles are extremely timely and approach the issue of food justice from some unique perspectives. Definitely worth checking out.

see you there?

click for more info

Composting

I have always wanted to compost our kitchen scraps, but I think the last time I asked my parents a few years ago if we could have a pile, they said no because they thought it would attract bugs.

This morning, as I was slicing the strawberries that Torrey and I picked at the CSA yesterday, I told my mom I wanted to start a small compost pile. She said “yeah, inside or outside?”. I was expecting her to at least be hesitant about the project, so I was pleasantly surprised. I told her that I wanted to do one outside, and she told me that she was going to buy one of the composting bins that the city sells, but never got around to it.

So this afternoon I have been doing some research about the best way to go about composting in urban areas. I have this book–withhold smirks please–called Country Wisdom and Know-how, which is a compilation of everything you ever wanted to know about how to live off the land. It details everything from raising chickens, growing tea herbs, making homemade yogurt, owning felines and the uses of lemon balm. This thing is like 400 pages long. It’s a good guide and a fun read, but the one frustrating thing about the book is that while it provides information on a number of interesting subjects, it doesn’t really go into enough depth about them. For instance, the section about composting shows the different types of containers and structures you can compost in, how to build them, and their pros and cons. Great. But it doesn’t really go into much detail about how to compost; what can be put into the bin and what can’t, how things should be layered in the bin etc.