The Uncertain Future of Food

Over the last few months, I've read some articles in the New York Times that have terrified me, articles that seemed to be straight out of a futuristic science fiction model. The tone of the news has changed and events that seemed to be far off in the future, worries about the world we would be passing on to our distant descendants, seem to be part of our present, or at least our old age and children's near future.

Photo from NYTimes article Food Supply Under Strain.

First there was the article about Chicago city planners changing the composition of the concrete and other building materials to accommodate the certainty of significant temperature increases in the next decade. Entitled a City Prepares for a Warm Long-Term Forecast, global warming was no longer a theory, but a certainty, a factor in city budgets.

Then there was a population article based on some alarming new statistics released by the UN predicting that the world population would reach 10 billion in 2100. Just sounds like a big number, until you realize that we only reached 7 billion in October and that only 12 years ago, the world population was 6 billion. In 1950, the world population was 2 billion. This growth will take place primarily in Africa and Asia; the African population could triple from 1 billion to 3.6 billion. Nigeria could grow from 162 million to 732 million and Malawi from 15 million to 129 million.

And finally there was this terrifying article in last weekend's Sunday times, a Warming Planet Struggles to Feed Itself, about the decline in agricultural progress and the resulting food shortages. Large regions of Mexico that used to enjoy great farming climates have become deserts thanks to global warming, and our seed technology is not yet able to compensate for these new conditions. Throw in the recent cataclysmic weather events, the new appetite in Asia for dairy and meat, and the prices of staple crops like corn and soybean have gone through the roof. In the last year alone, the rise in food prices have had drastic political impacts in countries such as Mexico, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Haiti. Worldwide hunger is growing, and many signs indicate it is only the beginning.

I believe in the importance of eating locally and organically as much as possible, but I no longer believe it is the simple answer to everything. I buy grass-fed beef and organic, hormone-free milk, but understand that this is not an affordable option for everyone. We're in the beginning of a worldwide food crisis, and continuing to work to improve environmental impacts of farming and keep the productivity of agriculture up is important, both organically and traditionally.

Only good can come out of engaging in a dialogue with farmers. The agricultural community is beginning to be very active in social media and is eager to reach out to consumers one on one. I'll be taking part in an #agchat Twitter discussion on Wednesday night at 9CT hosted by Cause Matters along with West of the Loop, Self Made Mom, and Honest and Truly. The following week, I will be taking my family on a trip to Iowa next week to visit corn, soybean, and dairy farms. In addition to being regulars at our farmer's market, these trips and discussions are enriching our awareness of the food we eat and providing an essential education for my kids.

Rich Dialogue at the Center for Food Integrity Conference, #CFI11

McDonald's Headquarters and Hamburger University are just a few miles from my house, around the corner from our nearest mall. I drive past it frequently, mostly to ferry my daughter to get the latest must-have (according to her) fashions from Justice, but I never thought I'd have a reason to actually enter the campus and walk the halls where chicken nugget dipping sauces are invented. This morning I did just that, to speak on a blogger panel to a large group of agricultural producers and food manufacturers organized by the Center for Food Integrity along with Sara from Self Made Mom, Emily from West of the Loop, and Michelle from Honest and Truly.

We had been given the list of attendees in advance of the event, and were braced for some hostile questions from groups representing pork producers, corn farms, soybean farms, and many other large agricultural players. After all, fast food and big farms often get a bad rap from mom bloggers, especially urban mom bloggers who shop at Whole Foods and farmers' markets. But the discussion was open and incredibly insightful for all involved, and I walked away feeling great from the dialogue.

Some of the most interesting questions included:

• Why do we blog? To have a voice, to educate, to share our passions with like-minded individuals, to be part of a global discussion.
• Where do we get our information about food production and how do we sort through the biases of various publications both online and offline? The New York Times is an important resource for us, as well at the New Yorker, trusted friends and blogs, and websites of different viewpoints. But we don't blindly just accept what we read. We go beyond the first page of Google search results to hear from multiple viewpoints and find our own middle road, our own version of the truth.
• What is our reach as bloggers? We shared some of our stats, explained blog readership, Twitter influence, and Facebook's viral power.
• Are we aware of the alarming growth of the world's population and how to meet it with food production? I spoke about how that, along with the growth in childhood obesity in America, keeps me up at night. We need to find food solutions that work for the entire world, not just people like me who can afford to choose to buy organic and grass-fed.
• What are the top worries when it comes to food production? The environment, population growth, pesticides, GMOs.
• Do we feel enough is being done to safeguard children with food allergies? Emily and Michelle spoke about how much they had to educate themselves to read labels and how all parents of allergy-suffering children must do that. The real gap is in the restaurant industry. Waitstaff simply must get better educated about allegies to better understand the consequences of a wrong answer.
• How do we shop for food in our urban neighborhoods and how that differs from rural food supplies? One farmer explained how he would need to drive 3 hours to get to a farmer's market. So different than our vision of bucolic farm life.
• How do we choose what hot topics to address on our blogs?
• Will blogging be around five years from now? I answered a resounding yes. There will always be a demand and a need for long form writing on the web, regardless of the popularity of Facebook, Twitter, tumblr and whatever new micro sites come along. The discussion as a result of blog posts may move to different platforms, but blogs in some form will remain an important part of social media.
• Outside of forums like these, how often do we really talk about food with our friends? Emily shared some typical discussions about supermarkets, recommended products, and cooking tips that occur daily on playgrounds, at playgroups, and at book groups with our friends.
• What's a good way for members of the agricultural world to engage with social media influencers in a positive way? We spoke about the importance of authenticity and transparency in leaving blog comments. Many attendees had blogs and I can't wait to discover them, as well as participate in #agchat on Twitter. We need to foster this dialogue.

But the question I was most excited about was whether we would be interested in visiting farms to see first hand how our food is produced. I had the opportunity to visit some corn farms and some dairies last year and those trips were the highlight of my blogging experiences. To get to ask farmers sometimes dumb, and other times tough questions about their struggles and their businesses was so fascinating. It only left me wanting to see and learn more first-hand. I would love to travel to see cattle farms, pork farms, and egg farms as well, to better understand the issues we face in food production.

As a result of today's discussion, it looks as though I may have the opportunity to do that in the Chicago area. If you'd like to join me, let me know and I'll be sure to pass you the details of the trips as and if they become available. We can look into chartering buses, or at the very least, carpooling, and if kids are involved, all the better. It's not enough to try to buy local, organic, and stay on top of relevant articles. I believe only good can come out of information sharing and that the more we know and understand about where our food comes from, the better equipped we will be to face the future.

Creminelli: a Beautiful and Inspiring Slow Food Success Story

When Jessi from Edelman and To Kiss the Cook invited me to a tasting of new products from Creminelli Fine Meats, I expected a feast of cured meats. I'd sampled and thoroughly enjoyed Creminelli's salamis before, and knew what a delicate and tasty product they produced. I fully expected to walk away sated, full, and happy. But I did not expect to walk away inspired and thrilled. The story of how a lovingly crafted artisan product was handed down from generation to generation and recently came to America, is one that gives me hope for the Slow Food movement and thrilled me.

Beautiful pic by Jenn from the Whole Kitchen

I could have listened to Cristiano Creminelli talk about prosciutto and salami for weeks in his charming Italian accent, hearing about how this father began training him to make salami as a young child. When Cristiano was 4 years old, his father took him to a slaughterhouse. I thought his story would then veer into some horrible anecdote about screaming pigs, but he explained that the pigs must be killed humanely in a serene environment or their flesh is ruined by blood vessels burst from stress. The pigs are treated to a few days in pasture and are killed calmly with a jolt of electricity. Instead Cristiano remembers the smell and color of the meat, and began his lifelong love of the well-fed and well-loved pigs.

The Creminelli family has been making cured meats in Italy since the 1600s and like his father before him, Cristiano began working in the family salumeria with his father. But he had always been drawn to America, and had always dreamed of coming here to live. He began making his dream come true by searching for the perfect American pig. He spend a full year going to farms across the country, interviewing farmers, asking them what their pigs ate and how much time they spent outside. After a year of searching, he finally found a few farms that produced beautiful pigs, some Berkshire, some Duroc, and even some wild boar from Texas. Then he began to build his American salumeria in Salt Lake City because of its dry climate.

It took Cristiano 18 months to convince the FDA that his products were safe to consume. He uses no nitrates and no artificial chemicals, and monitors each salami every two hours to make sure the quality remains top notch. Demand for his salamis grew rapidly and he quickly moved to a larger curing facility. Now Cristiano has decided to introduce America to the rest of the Creminelli line of cured meats: coppa, prosciutto cotto, mortadella, prosciutto crudo, and coppa cotta. Different cuts from different parts of the pig, each more buttery and intricately flavored than the next. My favorite was the mortadella and the prosciutto, both were so smooth and delicious that I could have eaten them all day, without being overwhelmed with salt or bitter aftertastes.

You'll be able to sample these new offerings from Creminelli soon at your local fine food market - in many Whole Foods across the country and smaller stores like the Marion Cheese Shop here in Oak Park. You can also go online to the Creminelli website to order packages of their dried salami directly.

And then, once you've got your own schmorgasbord of cured pork goodness, you too might be making a face like me, so torn as to which pretty pig part to sample first.
When Jessi

Planning a St Patricks' Day Menu

On St Patrick's Day, everyone seems to become Irish, but I don't have a single drop of Irish blood in me. My only tie to Ireland are my memories of a spectacular Irish tea with buttery scones and clotted cream at Dromoland Castle during a luxurious weekend trip with a high school friend's family one summer. I can remember biting into that crumbly scone and its fluffy cream and bright red strawberry jam as if it was yesterday, although thankfully, those difficult acne years are long behind me.

The fun of St Patty's Day is so contagious, with its naughty leprechauns and green beer, that I still like to prepare some fun foods for it, even with my complete lack of Irish blood. Because I have no family recipes to draw from, I turned to Foodily this year for inspiration.

Foodily has such a powerful search and so many recipes to draw from that I quickly found this Apricot Glazed Corned Beef and this decadent looking Irish Cream Pudding with Irish Cream Caramel Sauce by searching for Corned Beef and Irish Desserts. I'll round out the meal with one of my own favorite spring vegetable recipes: Roasted Baby Artichokes.

Planning my meal took me less than 5 minutes, just click, search, browse, done. I love that Foodily blends the best of original blogger recipes with those or Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray. When I'm planning a menu, I really feel like I'm drawing from the best food resources the web has to offer. If you haven't checked out Foodily yet, take a few minutes to do so. I'm honored to be spreading the word about this great new web food resource as a compensated Foodily brand ambassador. I also contribute to their blog; my latest piece is about forgotten foods.

I'd love to hear what you'll be making to celebrate St Patty's Day and hear how much you embrace all the fun!

Crafting Healthier Meals with the Collective Wisdom of the Blogosphere

The true power of the blogosphere lies in bringing people together to inspire each other. I get the greatest ideas for new dishes while chatting on Twitter or reading blog posts. Last Wednesday, the talented women of the Motherhood organized an online cooking class on Healthy Meal Makeovers and asked me, Rachel, and Renee to host. The class lasted an hour, and the inspiration flew fast and furious the entire time.



Here are a few of the tips and ideas shared by the incredible women who participated.

• Many agreed with me that diet was a dirty word. Rachel added that for her, it's about moderation and small changes, not drastic diets.
• Renee shared a great resource for quick meal inspiration called ReadySetEat and pointed out that an entire section of it is dedicated to healthy meals.
• To help kids choose healthier snacks, Ilina suggested edamame or eggplant hummus because kids love things they can dip and spread. She doctors up store-bought hummus with a squeeze of lemon juice, fresh cracked pepper, oregano, and a drizzle of olive oil.Other participants shared links to popcorn trail mix and Tricia's homemade granola bars.
• Head over to the Motherhood to see the long and exciting list of healthy appetizer recipes participants shared. I'm planning on making these baked sweet potato chips and these zucchini nachos.
• I loved Debbie's suggestions to add more vegetables in meals by mixing canned pumpkin in with browned ground turkey for taco night and adding in shredded carrots to tomato sauce on pizza or pasta, and moistening meatloaf with shredded zucchini.
• I'm very tempted to try these healthy entrees: black bean and pineapple enchiladas, sweet turkey and quinoa meatballs, and chicken tortilla soup.
• And finally we dug into healthy desserts, many starring fruit, but also using alternative sugars, or just small quantities plated beautifully. I shared my clementine sorbet topped with meringue, my make ahead chocolate souffle, and simple grilled peaches.
• I can't wait to try this one-ingredient banana ice cream.
  

Although the class is now closed, you can still read the transcript at the Motherhood.

Foodily, the New Online Hub for Foodies

Ever noticed how the Google results for recipe searches are dominated by the big boys like AllRecipes, Epicurious, and the Food Network? The well-written and beautifully shot recipes posted by bloggers get buried below these behemoths with their huge page rank. But thanks to the launch of Foodily.com, there's a new way to search for recipes on the web that will help showcase the original work of food bloggers while giving readers a great tool to inspire their cooking.

I'm such a believer in the mission of the Foodily website that I signed on as one their ambassadors. The Foodily Beta launched earlier this month and was quickly hailed as the Facebook of Food. The site is populated with over one hundred thousand recipes, including 50 from yours truly. It is continually adding to its database by crawling web posts for hrecipe tags (HTML code that points to recipes). Foodily search is flexible and easy to use, easily letting you specify ingredients to include or exclude, as well as dietary restrictions such as gluten-free. So if you're looking for a gluten-free peach pie dessert but are allergic to almonds, you don't need to waste your time drooling over the wrong recipe.

I also love how Foodily has incorporated Facebook, so that you can see what recipes your friends have liked. It's like having a virtual cooking club, making the world wide web a little more personal. If you're having some friends for dinner and you're using Foodily for inspiration, you can even share your chosen menu with your guests on Facebook as part of your news feed or by creating a Facebook event.

But don't just take my word for it. Head on over to Foodily to take a look around. I can't wait to see what you like! Even the Foodily tagline is adorable:

Surprising New Trends at the Winter Fancy Food Show

As the escalator slowly brought me down into the gluttonous mayhem that it was the Fancy Food Show, I geared up to eat chocolate, a lot of chocolate. During the summer Fancy Food Show in New York in May, I sampled close to a hundred different types of chocolates, filled with bacon, pop rocks, and exotic cayenne peppers. It was overwhelming, yet absolutely wonderful to simply suspend all care of calories and waistline and just give in to the orgy of tasting.

Spending a little QT with one of my favorite foodie friends, Jane Maynard.

I emailed my friend Jane, author of the gorgeous blog This Week for Dinner, months before the show, promising a mountain of chocolate and recipe inspiration for our blogs if she came with me.  Didn't you hear that you gain less weight if you're eating in good company?

I loved these Comptoir du Cacao pralines at the last show too.  Grab them at Zabars!

Although Jane and I did consume Olympic, Michael Phelps-worthy, waistline-straining quantities of chocolate, including the full range of the Guittard line and these delicious pralines from Comptoir du Cacao, chocolate was not the star of the show this time.

And so what were these surprising, non-chocolate trends?

1. Caramels. I know that the whole salty caramel concept already seems way overdone, but caramels were the unquestioned stars of the Fancy Food Show. Exhibitors went well beyond dusting chewy caramel squares with a few grains of sea salt. There were goat milk caramels, caramels coupled with 15-year old Bourbons, caramels topped with ancho chili powder, caramels stuffed with smoked peanuts and bits of bacon, chocolate caramel fudge sauces, soft caramels infused with the taste of local honey, and confiture de lait, a decadent French take on Dulce de Leche. The versatility of caramel was unbelievable.
2. Cured Meats. Even though Marc Bittman makes a compelling argument to cut back on meat consumption, the food world's love of meat does not seem to be decreasing. Every few booths, there would be a cluster of people, talking excitedly, and if you elbowed your way into their circle, you would inevitably find a pig's leg. Prosciutto and other cured meats were everywhere at the show, and the buzz around those products was electric. Evidence that 2011 is sure to be the year of charcuterie can also be seen by Michael Ruhlman's new book and a growing blogger movement called #Charcutepalooza on Twitter featuring a different cured meat each month this year.
3. Tea. The hottest booth at the Fancy Food Show was, without question, the Republic of Tea booth. It definitely had something to do with the free tea brewing mugs they were giving out, but there was more to the excitement around tea than a freebie. Twinings also had a big booth and a lot of people interested in hearing about their new vanilla Chai and red velvet flavors. As far as I was concerned, the most exciting new tea product was the cacao tea by a new company called Tisano. More on that below.

With so much food offered to you, it's hard to keep your head, but when you walk away, you know that only the most unique products stay top of mind. Here were my favorite products of the show:

• Droga Confections - Michelle Crochet used to be a buyer for Williams Sonoma. Now she is a caramel magician. Working out of a shared kitchen in San Francisco, she crafts soft honey caramels and rocky road candies. All of her confections are made out of natural ingredients, and you can really taste the difference in the marshmallow, peanuts, and most of all in the caramel. Each bite of her dark chocolate covered honey caramels is a revelation of flavor layers: first the sharp yet smooth dark chocolate, a little crunch of sea salt, and then you settle into the creamy and unusual sweetness of a honey caramel. It's as though you are communing with all the carefully selected ingredients that go into her candies. Michelle calls her goodies droga because of their addictive qualities. She's not kidding. I have one caramel left from the sample she gave me and I'm guarding it with my life. Some of her products are available in San Francisco stores and on Foodzie.

• Taste #5 Umami Paste - The Umami Effect is a fancy foodie concept, an elusive fifth taste to complement sweet, salty, bitter, and sour that can most easily be described as savoriness. It sounds fancy, something you would only experience at a 5-star restaurant, but you can experience Umami when biting into a warm McDonald's Quarter Pounder. Laura Santtini, author of the new cookbook Easy Tasty Italian, decided to bottle umami into a tube to make it something available to home cooks. She promises that a teaspoon of the stuff will turn the blandest chicken breast into something truly exciting. I haven't played with it yet to test its power, but a taste of the paste itself did fill my mouth with that yum feeling of deep food satisfaction. I can't wait to get my hands on a tube to put it through its paces. I love the concept. 

• CC Made Caramel Sauces - Cassandra Chen and Emily Hou are cousins who are really taking caramel to the highest quality level. I'm waiting impatiently to wow dinner guests with very grown up sundaes when their line of caramel sauces (sea salt, citrus, and chocolate) become available in the next few weeks. They were out of this world on their own and with the suggested toppings of smoked sea salt, grated citrus, and cayenne pepper. For now, you can buy their elegant caramel popcorn and semi-hard mini caramels on their website in exciting flavors like bitter sea salt and pistachio.

• Chocolate Tea from Tisano - When I was handed a cup of chocolate tea. I expected a weak brew with a faint taste of chocolate or a highly chemical flavor but I was blow away by the intense and well-rounded chocolate flavor of the tea. The tea is brewed from the fibrous shell of organic cacao beans, a bi-product of cacao production. Chocolate Tea from Tisano has no calories or fat and is filled with anti-oxidants. Tisano sources their cacao directly from Venezuelan farmers. It's almost too good to be true, except it's for real. You can purchase a can directly from Tisano, some of the bigger tea companies were also sampling chocolate tea, but none of them tasted anything like this. 

• Herbal Water - The lovely people at the Herbal Water booth told me that some restaurants charge up to $9 for a bottle of sparkling Herbal Water. I think that if I saw it on the menu, I might even pay that much. These light and refreshing blends of herbs (Ginger Lemon Peel, Lemongrass Mint Vanilla, and Cinnamon Orange Peel) that are infused in the water are really something special, without any chemical aftertaste or cloying sweetness that you get in many flavored waters.You can find Herbal Water at Whole Foods.

• Coppa from Olli Salumeria Americana - I spent a few delicious minutes with the boys from Olli Salumeria who just kept on carving from their beautiful pig haunch, explaining the different cuts of charcuterie they brought with them. My favorite by far was coppa, made from the neck of the pig, a decadently rich cold cut, silky like foie gras and toro. Pounce on it if you see it on a menu or in a fancy food shop meat case. Olli Meats are beginning to be sold in more places nationwide. I just spotted them at Fox and Obel in Chicago.

The location of the show (summer on the East Coast and winter in San Francisco) must affect the types of products exhibited somewhat, I do think that the excitement around the hot trends of the Fancy Food Show will translate to what we'll be eating off of dessert menus and supermarket shelves this year.
 

Is this the Beginning of Healthier School Lunches?

I just posted a couple of new articles on nutrition in schools over at Technorati Women, which I edit. 
The first article was about chocolate milk in schools. Here is a revised version of my other article about the school nutrition bill Congress passed yesterday.  

Image of Green Lunch Tray Designed by Students of Piney Branch Elementary in MD

Our new school in Chicago has no cafeteria. When I first learned that I would be making brown bag lunches for my kids every day, I was bummed. I'll admit it. Then I realized that my children's lunch options would actually be improving as a result of not having the hot lunch.

The last two schools my kids attended had cafeterias. Although the amount of choices available was different, both offered incredibly unhealthy foods most days: a rotating roster of yellow foods like chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and even French toast sticks. And in Ohio, as if the menu offerings weren't bad enough, kids could bring in change to purchase Doritos, Oreos, and Pringles from the snack moms. That money went to the PTO.

Those were the lunch options in well-funded school districts. I can't even begin to imagine how awful the menu would be at poorer schools.

Yesterday, the House passed the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act, a piece of legislation aimed at cleaning up school lunches. And along with parents all over America, I felt hope for the first time in a long time.

The bill does a few things:

• Gives the secretary of agriculture the power to set new nutrition standards for foods sold in schools, including items in vending machines. Soon we'll see more fruits, vegetables, and whole grain offerings.
• Increases (by six cents a meal!) the federal reimbursement for school lunches to help cover the costs of new nutrition requirements. It also allows the 100,000 children on Medicaid to qualify for free meals automatically without the need of extra forms and approvals. Unfortunately, this was funded by taking money out of the food stamp budget.
• Encourages the sourcing of school food from local farms.

We'll have to see how the bill translates into what's served up on our kids' trays in years to come. But at least it's a step in the right direction.

My Thanksgiving Interview with Michael Chiarello

A couple of days ago, I had the chance to talk turkey with Chef Michael Chiarello, Cooking Channel chef and owner of the Napa Valley Restaurant Bottega. Thanks to the wonders of technology, he sat in his gorgeous kitchen in Napa while I sat in mine in Chicago, and we chatted.

Michael was charming and gracious, just as he is on his Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello Food Network show. He shared some great tips on how to roast turkey, how to make a killer pan sauce, and how to make a big, healthy vat of soup with the leftovers.



This video is just six minutes long, just enough time to give you a peek inside Michael Chiarello's dreamy kitchen, and give you some great ideas for Thanksgiving.

Memories of Food, Love, and Travel

Travel is a riot of experiences. You're flooded with new tastes, smells, colors, sights, and sounds everywhere you turn. It's overwhelming. It's exhilarating. It's when I feel most alive.

Beautiful Blue Belize from the sky.

I crave travel. I love that sense of excitement when I zip the suitcase shut and wheel it out the front door, knowing that I'll be changed somehow when I return home with it. When I'm traveling, I try to capture all the memories with my camera or my Flip video, but all those pixels usually get lost in the memory of my computer, with the exception of a couple of good shots.

Just arrived at Maruba Jungle Resort.

The travel memories that really stay with me, long after the pictures are downloaded, are the tastes from great meals. The foreign foods that woke my senses linger, stirring new and surprising cravings. Then when I seek out those foods near home, I re-experience the joys of travel, one bite at a time.

Two years ago, I went on a second honeymoon with my husband to Belize. We'd never traveled to Central America before, and we stayed in little boutique hotels where we really got to know the staff and other guests. We got mud massages in the jungle, walked barefoot in the sand, and went spear fishing for reef lobster. It was like paradise, so much more intimate and romantic than our first honeymoon at impersonal luxury resorts in Hawaii.

The best Huevos Rancheros I've ever had.

Out of all the meals of that vacation, it's the breakfasts that we still crave and talk about with nostalgia. Nothing fancy: a couple of eggs over easy, a little salsa, a spoonful of steaming beans, a fresh tortillas to soak it all up, and a few slivers of papaya to finish on a sweet note. All those flavors so early in the morning, some spicy, some tangy, some sweet, were a wild awakening to my senses, such a drastic departure from my usual cereal or toast. It was the perfect breakfast to have in paradise.

I've tried to recreate it, but it's never come close to that perfection. If this post gave you the craving for Huevos Rancheros, I suggest you head on over to SimplyRecipes for Elise's mother's recipe.

I'm waiting for my third honeymoon to have that perfect breakfast again.


This post was inspired by the DVD release of Eat Pray Love, a great movie that really speaks to the senses and the love of wanderlust. I'll be co-hosting a Traveling Mom Twitter (#TMOM) party next Monday, November 22, at 9EST on the topic of Food, Travel and Relationships.  I hope you'll join me and my fellow hosts and tell us about some of your most memorable traveling food moments. 

Please RSVP for the Twitter party and join us!

I received compensation for my participation in this campaign to call attention to the DVD release.

A Few Things You Might Not Know about Milk

Dairy lover. Butter fiend. Milk addict. Friend of cheese. Yogurt connoisseur.

Go ahead. Call me names. They're all true.

I am a dairy lover, deeply committed to my glass of chilled milk at bedtime and my 5 o'clock plate of cheese bites. And don't get me started on the silken feel of Greek yogurt. I will get tears in my eyes as I rave about yogurt as the perfect snack.

Yes, I'm a dairy-lover, but before last week, when the California Dairy Advisory Board invited me to tour two California dairies with 12 other bloggers, I didn't know much about milk production in America. One was a mega dairy with 2800 cows. The other was smaller, with 900 cows. One injected their cows with rBST, the other didn't. Neither produced organic milk.

Let me tell you what I saw and learned.

A beautiful Jersey cow pushing her way in to the front of the line to get milked.

Jerseys vs. Holsteins.

• There are two principal breeds of cows used for milking in America: Jerseys and Holsteins. This seems to be as divisive an issue as Team Jacob vs Team Edward or even Team Angelina and Team Rachel. Dairies are passionately loyal to the cows they raise. 
• Jersey cow dairy owners will brag that their cows produce a richer milk that's perfect for cheese (5% milk fat vs. 3.6% for Holsteins), and that their cows are much better looking. (It's true, it's hard to resist the long lashes of a brown Jersey cow). 
• Holstein owners will tell you that their cows produce more milk, period, and that they are great milking cows. And, let's face it, their black and white pattern is what we picture when we think of a cow.

Cows Are Pregnant for Most of their Milking Cycle.

• Milk production and cow pregnancy are closely related. I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me earlier, as a mother of 3, but cows need to give birth in order to produce milk. 
• Cows are milked for 10 months out of the year. Their milking cycle begins the day they give birth to a calf. 
• Three months later, they begin insemination and are milked while pregnant for the next 7 months. 
• Cows get their maternity leave before giving birth, enjoying their last two months of pregnancy in peace, before going back to milking right after giving birth.
• The dairymen we spoke to used sex semen to inseminate the cows, semen that had been processed to increase the number of female cows (heifers). If cows did not conceive after a few rounds of artificial insemination, they are put together with a (lucky) bull to reproduce the old fashioned way.

Cows spend 8 minutes on rotary milker twice a day.

Cows Produce a Lot of Milk

• Cows are milked twice, and sometimes three times a day. It's important to make sure they don't get too engorged, or the pressure could make their teats more vulnerable to mastitis and infection.
• The teats are inspected and cleaned prior to milking. Any cow with signs of infection is removed and taken to a medical area for treatment.
• On large dairies, cows step onto an 80-cow rotary milking machine which takes 8 minutes to milk a cow. The cows were so eager to get on the rotary that they were pushing to get to the front of the line. Then they stood calmly as the apparatus was attached to their udders and walked off happily when they reached the end of their spin. 
• Milk production varies with the season: 48 to 50 lbs of milk per cow in winter and fall and up to 65 lbs in spring and summer.

Truck where cow feed is mixed to ensure each bite is nutritious and balanced.

Eating Grass Is So Yesterday.

• The cows on the two dairies we visited did not eat grass. Ever. 
• Instead, they ate a carefully calibrated mixture of hay and over a dozen possible protein and fat sources including cottonseed, rolled corn, corn distillers (a bi-product of ethanol production), corn sillage, sunflower pellets, and soybeans. It was amazing to see that these cows eat many corn bi-products I learned about on the Iowa Corn Trip and that our food supply is so intertwined.
• Most dairies have a dietitian on staff to optimize the cows' nutrition while keeping costs low. As the prices of commodities fluctuate, so do the ingredients in the feed. The cows' diets also vary depending on where cows are in their lactating cycle and pregnancy.

Less Cows, More Milk. The Shrinking Dairy Carbon Footprint.

• The US is now producing twice the milk it did in the 1940s with half the cows. In 1944, there were 25.6 million cows in the US. Today there are 9.3 million cows in the US. Yet the total milk production in the US is now up by 59%.
• When asked, the farmers we met said this drastic improvement in milk production is much more due to better genetics and better nutrition, than the use of rBST.

Dairy manager demonstrating how milk is tested for antibiotics.

Hormones in Milk? Of Course!

• One of my chief concerns before going on this trip was about the presence of hormones and antibiotics in milk, and their connection to early puberty. 
• I've been buying organic milk for my family for years, out of conviction that organic milk contained less hormones and would not lead to early puberty for my kids. But studies show that the rise in early onset of puberty is probably tied to our higher protein diets and obesity problems. The Milk Board website reports that US milk consumption declined from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, at precisely the same time that the average age of puberty declined. 
• I learned that there are hormones in cows' milk, just like there are hormones in the breast milk we produce. 

There Are No Antibiotics in Milk.

• We asked the farmers and their veterinarians dozens of questions about antibiotics. Everyone told us without a second's hesitation that sick cows are isolated and not milked when they are given antibiotics. They are not returned to the milking rotation until all antibiotics are out of their system.
• We were also shown where the milk is tested for antibiotics prior to leaving the dairy, and told that the milk is tested again at the processing plant. If antibiotics are found in milk, the entire truck is destroyed, and the dairy has to pay a fine and compensate the other dairies included in that delivery.  The tests look for all antibiotics given to the cows, not just a sample.
• As a result of the trip, I am now fully confident that non-organic milk is free of antibiotics.

A Few Thoughts on rBST 

• I will continue to purchase organic milk for my family because of my concerns about rBST.
• What is rBST? rBST is a synthetic version of natural bovine growth hormone (known as BGH or BST - Bovine somatotropin), a hormone cows produce on their own. Some farmers choose to inject their cows with rBST, an extra dose of a synthetic form of BST hormone to stimulate milk production.
• Who makes rBST? rBST until 2008 was manufactured by Monsanto, and sold as Posilac. They then sold the business to Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals.
• rBST and cancer: Studies have shown that rBST milk contains increased levels of the cancer-causing hormone IFG-1, is of lower nutritional quality, and has increased levels somatic cell count (higher levels of pus in milk). 
• rBST banned around the world: rBST usage is banned in Canada, the European Union, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. The European Union stated that rBST substantially increased health problems with cows, including foot problems, mastitis, and injection site reactions. In 1999, Canada prohibited the use of rBST because it presented a health threat to animals.
• the FDA and rBST: Since 1993, when the FDA approved rBST for use on cows, they have insisted that it shows no significant difference from the milk of untreated cows. They have warned dairies who advertised their milk as "hormone-free" or "rBST-free." Monsanto and local governments have joined the FDA in efforts to remove the mention of rBST and hormones on milk cartons, claiming it confused customers and caused unnecessary fear. Public opposition and demand for information on rBST has grown. An Ohio ban on hormone-free labelling was overturned in October and a similar ban in Pennsylvania was overturned in 2008. Hormone-free labelling is still banned in Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, and Oklahoma.
• We spoke about rBST at length during our tour of the Charles Ahlem Dairy. We were told that it is not technically a foreign substance because cows already produce it on their own. We were also told that only about 40% of cows at the dairy receive rBST injections, if they need them. And they don't receive them all the time, only at certain points of their lactation cycle. The dairy manager assured us that he did not see any increase in cow illnesses as a result of the injections, and that keeping cows healthy is in the dairy's best interest. He added, "We treat our cows like professional athletes. We would not do anything to harm them."
• A 2007 USDA Dairy Survey estimated rBGH use at 15.2% of operations and 17.2% of cows.

A one-month old baby calf drinks milk and eats feed.

Cows and their calves are separated at birth 

• On the dairies we toured, the calves were removed from their mothers as soon as the cows had licked the placenta off of them. 
• Every effort is made to keep the calf from suckling at his mother's teat, potentially infecting it. 
• Instead, the cows are milked for their colostrum which is kept separate from the regular milk supply and fed to the calves by bottle, along with a carefully monitored feed.

Jersey cows return to their water beds after a spin on the rotary milker.

California Cows Are Living Large

• Although the cows we saw did not graze in pasture, their living conditions were exemplary.
• They spent most of their time in spacious, open-air barns with fans and water beds to relax on. Keeping cows cool is critical as they do not have sweat glands.
• The walking paths to and from the milking stations were padded to minimize impact. 

It may not look like much, but this ground water monitor keeps us safe from run-off.

Concern for the Environment

• At both dairies, the farmers proudly demonstrated their environmental processes.
• We heard about lined ponds where the cow waste is channeled.
• We learned about how the manure is recycled as fertilizer.
• We saw ground water monitors.
• Farming is a family business, and both dairies were highly motivated to keep their farms from polluting the land they wanted to pass on to their children.

I am so glad that I went on the #CAMilkMom tour and am grateful that the California Milk Advisory Board paid for my flight, hotel, meals, and a $200 babysitting allowance while on the trip. Although what I learned did not alter any of my beliefs on rBST, and did not convince me to stop purchasing organic milk, I was greatly impressed with the efficiency of the farms and the level of care for the environment and the cows by the farmers. Our world population continues to grow, and our farmers have made tremendous improvements to meet demand and keep prices affordable. But as consumers, we need to stay informed, and make sure that technological improvements don't come at too great a cost for quality and safety.

Saving Time and Money on Grocery Shopping without Entering the Supermarket

Do you ever find yourself walking up and down supermarket aisles, hopelessly bored, wondering how you got there? Do you long to be freed from the tyranny of grocery shopping? I did, until yesterday.

If you'd been walking down our street yesterday around 5PM, you would have heard the sounds of cheering and clomping on our wooden porch. If you walked up to see what in the world was going on, you would have spotted Juliette and I dancing like possessed witches around a tower of cardboard boxes.

You might have thought that we were keeping the Halloween fun going, dancing off our Halloween candy sugar high, but you would have been wrong. We were celebrating our Peapod grocery delivery.  

Joy! No Grocery Shopping Today!

Yes, I know, it doesn't take much to get us excited. But I actually think that Peapod grocery delivery is exciting, definitely front-porch dance-worthy.

Any service that allows me to avoid spending a painful hour going up and down fluorescent-lit aisles hunting for bleach, paper towels, and flour is definitely worth celebrating. And that one hour estimate is a kid-free hour. If I have to shop with one (or, God forbid, more than one) of my kids, the experience becomes a very public display of my poor parenting skills as my shouts to my wild children echo throughout the supermarket.

Did I mention that I hate grocery shopping? It seems strange to admit, almost like a foodie confession, but it's true. I hate grocery shopping with a passion. I hate it almost as much as I love mingling with local farmers at our farmers' market on Saturday mornings. The two are completely different experiences, probably a symptom of the many things wrong in today's food production.

Yesterday was my first Peapod shopping experience, and it will be the first of many. This post wasn't sponsored in any way. It was just born out of my rapture over finally being freed from the extreme dullness of supermarket shopping. Feel free to drop by our porch next Monday for a repeat dance performance.

Packaging for Peapod Produce

If you've never tried Peapod, here's a step by step review of the process:

• Easy to Navigate Website: The Peapod website is easy to navigate. The cart is on the right hand side and visible through the entire order. No check-out surprises await you. The cart total and savings total are updated as you add each item in your basket. 
• Encourages Saving: Before adding the items on my shopping list, I spent 5 minutes going through the specials and adding those items to my cart. When in the supermarket, I never have time to go through the circulars, and if I do, I can't find those items in the store. Online, it was so much easier to take advantage of the savings. And thanks to the easy navigation, I wasn't tempted to throw in random extras like the latest Ben & Jerry's flavor or Super Pink Princess cereal, saving me more money.
• Delivery Times: I should have locked in a delivery time as soon as I started shopping. I will next time. Instead I waited until I was done with my cart to pick a window. I had the option to choose attended delivery or unattended and select long or short windows. Delivery is free for the first 60 days you join Peapod (for orders over $100), I imagine that the cost varies after that depending on which delivery option you choose. Next time I shop, I'll set up a small basket to lock in a delivery and will add to it as I go along the week.
• No More Return Trips to the Store: Normally, I end up making at least 2 quick trips back to the supermarket to get items I forgot. I was able to add to my basket up until midnight the day before my delivery. Love this feature. Going forward, I'm just going to keep a running grocery list straight on the Peapod website.
• Coupons: I'm not organized enough to be a coupon clipper. But If I were, the delivery guy would take them and credit my account.
• Delivery: My order came 30 minutes after the beginning of my 4-6PM window. As instructed, the driver did not ring the doorbell and left the groceries on the porch.
• Quality: Everything in the boxes was in plastic bags, as I would have brought them home from the store if I forgot my reusable grocery bags. All the produce was in good quality with the exception of one apple that was bruised. Customer service credited my account without any questions.

Spreading Inspiration One Food Blog at a Time

If I had to sum up in one word the reason why I've been writing this blog for three years, it would be easy. INSPIRATION.

I write to inspire others to cook, to read, and to see the beauty in everyday life. At school pick-up on Friday, my friend Rowena told me that she had my butternut squash soup. Nothing makes me happier than hearing that something I wrote about inspired someone to fill their own kitchen with the smells of homemade cooking.

Just as I seek to inspire others, there are so many that inspire me with their blog posts, their pictures, and their ideas. So beginning this week, I will be sharing a few of the blog posts that made me think, drool, or dream, in the hope that they too, will inspire you.

Tricia's Chicken Curry Wraps with Cashews, Pineapple, and Raisins

• Once a Month Mom. If you'd like to become a little more efficient in the kitchen, you have to check out Tricia's Once a Month Cooking blog. Tricia has built a vibrant community there and shares some delicious recipes to fill your freezer and have ready quickly during busy nights. Her blog is also filled with great slice and dice tips like how to make your own bread crumbs. Her chicken curry wraps with cashews, raisins and pineapple will make you look forward to lunch all day. 

Isn't This Beet and Apple Salad Just Beautiful?

• This Mama Cooks on a Diet. When I'm looking for a little inspiration to be healthier, I head over to Anne Marie's This Mama Cooks on a Diet Blog. She is always sharing innovative recipes that bring the fun back to health food. I can't wait to whip up a batch of Pumpkin Seed Dried Cherry Trail Mix or jazz up a boring weekday lunch with this Healthy Citrus Beet and Apple Salad.

Jennie's Butternut Squash, Ricotta, and Bacon Muffins

• In Jennie's Kitchen. When I'm looking to get inspired to do some serious cooking, I turn to the woman who is probably the definition of inspiration in Wikipedia: Jennifer Perillo. Jennie wakes up early every day to whip up deliciously original recipes like these butternut squash, ricotta, and bacon streusel topped muffins. She makes most mothers look lazy, and would be easy to hate if she weren't so nice and so generous with her baked goods. I read her blog with a wooden spoon in hand because I know she will inspire me to get cooking, right away. I can't wait to whip up her creamed corn this Thanksgiving.

I'll be back next week with more inspiring foodie blogs to make your mouths water. And if you have any suggestions of recipes you'd like me to highlight, feel free to leave them in the comments. I hope you enjoy reading Tricia, Anne-Marie, and Jennie as much as I do.

Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloin to Woo Picky Food Snobs

Are your kids generally open to trying new things at the dinner table? At dinner time, my kids lose all trust in me, approaching the table with betrayal in their eyes, as if I'm trying to poison them, clearly still reeling from that sweet potato with turkey baby food jar I tried to feed them when they were toddlers.

I'm a huge fan of pork, specifically pork tenderloin, as a cheap, tasty and easy dinner solution. A pork tenderloin is cheaper than chicken breasts or steak, and requires a lot less fuss to get on the table. Just pop it into the oven with a little sauce or seasoning and 30 minutes or so later, dinner is ready.

CSA produce is clearly poison, right?

But my kids are not exactly sold on the concept of pork, the other white meat.

Last night, when they came to the table, and found the unfamiliar meat sitting on a platter, they frowned, moaned and complained, "What is that? What new yucky thing did you make for us tonight Mom? Why couldn't you make us a nice filet mignon or some sous vide lamb chops?" I kid you not. I couldn't make this stuff up. This is what my foodie snob kids request. Any day now they're going to add truffles and foie gras to their shopping list demands, along with Spongebob Mac & Cheese and Oreo Cakesters.

Carnivore Bella kissing a lamb chop made in the Sous Vide Demo unit.

I had anticipated their reaction, and I was ready to address it with the help of my other favorite pork product: bacon. Like some sort of picky food specialist, I coated the tenderloin with bacon, shallots, and breadcrumbs. Every bite was tender, juicy, and topped with a delicious bacon-y crunch. I was sorely tempted to lick the plate, just like my kids were doing.

With a little bacon help, I am nothing short of invincible.

In the picky eater war, Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloins are almost like not playing fair.

Bacon Crusted Pork Tenderloin
Serves 4 to 6 
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes


Ingredients:
2 1 pound pork tenderloins
1/2 cup of panko bread crumbs
6 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
2 shallots, chopped finely

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, begin sauteing the bacon. 30 seconds later, once the bacon has rendered a little fat, add the shallots. Saute until the shallots are soft and the bacon is lightly browned.
3. Remove from heat and toss in the bread crumbs, stirring thoroughly to absorb all the decadent bacon grease.
4. Roll the tenderloins in the seasoned bread crumbs, one at a time. Place them side by side in a large Pyrex pan. Scrape the remaining breadcrumbs on top.
5. Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes, until an internal meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. Begin testing at 20 minutes to make sure you don't overcook the tenderloin. There are few things more dry and chewy than an overcooked pork tenderloin.
6. Slice and serve, generously spooning the toasted bread crumbs on top.

Being Brought to the Table on the High Fructose Corn Syrup Debate

When I agreed to go on the Iowa Corn Tour, I knew that I was making a controversial decision. The Corn Grower's Association was in the midst of a major social media campaign targeted to mommy bloggers to address the concerns over high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). They had reached out to bloggers at the Type A Mom Conference as a sponsor. They had hired the social media consulting firm Mom Central to organize a mommy blogger brunch. Our trip through the Iowa Corn Grower's Association was just the last initiative as part of that campaign to improve the image of corn farmers and high fructose corn syrup.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I jumped at the chance to go on the trip. I was eager for the opportunity to learn more about corn production, to see the process, and for access to the right individuals to get my questions answered. The other six women invited on the trip (Allison, Laurie, Lisa, Shanda, Susan, and Tanya) all voiced similar reasons for coming on the trip: concern about what we were reading in the press, and the desire to learn more, to better feed our kids. Both food bloggers and more traditional mom bloggers were represented on the trip, carefully selected by the Center for Food Integrity. In communications preceding the trip, Roxi Beck referred to a few posts from each of our blogs, sometimes going back over a year in our archives, really taking the time to get to know us individually. This was no quick selection using Alexa rankings or ShePosts lists.

I learned a lot on the trip, and I learned even more doing research on high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified corn, and farm subsidies as a result of the trip. I certainly achieved my goal of increasing my awareness and knowledge of these issues, and arming myself to better feed my kids. I'm so glad I went, even though the debate over the relationship between mom bloggers and the Corn Growers' Association continues to rage in the blogosphere.

As soon as mom bloggers began posting that HFCS is the same as sugar, repeating some of the information released at the various events, the blogosphere erupted in protest with posts by Jessica Gottlieb, Liz at Mom 101, and PhD in Parenting to name a few. Blog posts are being written, mud is being slung, and allegations of blogging without integrity are being made. Tempers are running high, and with good cause. Our nutrition is at stake. We're surrounded by crises: the world population keeps increasing, the ice caps are melting, the climate is growing warmer and more extreme, and obesity in America is at an all-time high. We need someone to blame, and the corn industry with its high fructose corn syrup is an attractive culprit. We want some answers, some changes to be made, some hope for the future, for our children. And we'd like them to be a little less drastic than Marc Bittman's "Eat less meat" or Michael Pollans' "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

The media runs articles on the dangers of high fructose corn syrup, and that begins to look like the solution to the obesity issue in America. Parents begin to look for products without HFCS, products filled with cane sugar like the new Hunt's ketchup mentioned in this Slash Food article, or even worse, filled with some new manufactured sweetener with a simple non-threatening name so they can tell themselves, "Oh, this says no HFCS, must be fine for my family!" And then we're right back where we started, with people eating too much sugar-laden junk.

You shouldn't avoid HFCS because it's worse for you than sugar. That debate was concluded in a NY Times article quoting well-respected scientists like Dr. Marion Nestle saying that there is no biochemical difference between corn syrup and sugar. But there are other reasons that you might choose to avoid HFCS:

• Avoid it, as Michael Pollan suggests, because it is a marker of a food that's been highly processed.
• Avoid it because you fear genetically modified ingredients, and close to 90% of all seed corn, from which HFCS is produced, is made with GMO seeds.
• Avoid it because you are fundamentally opposed to finding sugar where you don't expect it: in bread, in crackers, in ketchup.

But instead of avoiding HFCS, why not simply read the nutrition labels on the food you purchase at the supermarket? Familiarize yourself with what's high in sugar, what's high in sodium, what's high in fat, nd explain it to your kids before passing them an apple or a carrot instead. Only by reading the nutrition labels instead of seeking out one or two bad ingredients can we hope to solve the obesity problem in America.

I don't believe the Corn Growers' Association is trying to take advantage of mom bloggers with their social media initiatives. They're trying to fix an image problem, an effort that experts like Dr. Marion Nestle agree is valid. I actually think that by pushing forward their own agenda, by bringing mom bloggers and their readers into the national nutrition debate, they're actually helping educate moms on nutrition, and stimulating discussion of a crucial topic.

When choosing to address the HFCS image problem, the Corn Grower's Association chose to focus on social media, and in so doing they asked moms to the table and brought them into this vital discussion. They could have just as easily chosen print or TV and simply talked at us instead of talking with us. I think that's worth celebrating. We're being asked to participate in a national discussion about nutrition, being invited to share our concerns about what we feed our kids. Thanks to social media, we're being given more power as mothers than we've ever had before. It's up to us to use that power to educate ourselves so we can make the right choices when voting, shopping, and eating.