Pantry Dangers: Are Canned Foods Silent Killers?

Canned foods are a modern day convenience that many busy households would be lost without.  Even our favorite organic options are available in simple packaging, ready to heat up and serve.  Canned convenience ensures a healthy, well-balanced meal on rushed weeknights and can cut recipe times in half - but recent reports have discovered that our favorite shortcuts in the kitchen may be causing more harm than they're worth.

BPA in Cans

The dangers of BPA (Bisphenol A) are already known - increased risks of cancer, reproductive abnormalities, and risks of other diseases including diabetes and heart problems.  Research has shown that many plastic containers can transfer the chemical into foods and drinks, allowing it to be ingested and enter the blood stream. 

Consumer Reports has conducted tests on canned foods for the presence of BPA as well - and the results are disturbing.  19 different brands of canned vegetables, soups, juices, and tuna were examined and almost all of the cans contained at least some amount of the dangerous chemical - including organic varieties, as well as cans labeled as 'BPA-free'.

The Dangers

While a 'safe level' of BPA hasn't been determined by the FDA, animal studies have shown ill effects in exposure to 2.4 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per day.  Experts suggest daily levels over .0024 micrograms based on weight could be dangerous to humans.

The average can of green beans from the tests conducted yielded an average of 123.5 parts per billion of BPA.  A 165-pound adult would ingest about 80 times the recommended 'safe level' of BPA from a single serving of these veggies - a level that could be detrimental to a child, especially children eating several servings of canned foods and juices per day.

What Can You Do?

Of course, fresh is always best for you, your family, and the planet.  Visit your local farmers' market or plant your own garden for fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables.  When you have to shop for packaged foods, there are steps you can take to minimize the risks:

• Opt for plastic-packaged food over cans.  Tests found lower levels of BPA in most plastic pouches and containers, with the exception of Chef-Boyardee's microwaveable containers with metal peel-off lids.
• Urge state and federal officials to enact legislation that eliminates the use of BPA in all products that come in contact with food.   
• Contact the companies that package your foods and  ask them to step up as leaders to protect the health of consumers.  Change.org has already started a petition to leading canned soup manufacturer, Campbell's, requesting their initiative in eliminating BPA in canned foods.

Images: Irish Typepad; Rosino

REAL FOOD IN SCHOOLS DAY

We think of Labor Day as a time to consider the working lives of adults, but this September 7th, why not do something active for the working lives of children? Slow Food and other local organizations are sponsoring a National Action Day to Get Real Food into Schools. In case you don't know it, the national school lunch system is in need of serious overhaul. Jan Poppendieck, whose prior work has been on emergency food, non-profits, government accountability, and hunger, has turned her attention to school lunches -- and while her new book, Free For All, isn't out until January, it shouldn't stop you from learning about the issues now and adding your voice -- and your potluck dish -- to the collective outcry. Here's a link to a recent interview with Poppendieck. And here's what University of California Press has to say about Poppendieck's book: "Drawing from extensive interviews with officials, workers, students, and activists, she discusses the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs and turns a critical eye on the "competitive foods" sold in cafeterias. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them? Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces--the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models--that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day" In the meantime, let's consider what you can do: When they re-convene this fall, Congress will decide whether to update the Child Nutrition Act, which is the law that determines what 30 million children eat at school every day. As many of you know, some of our national nutritional guidelines are shaped by political rather than health interests (remember that ketchup is considered a vegetable...). This national action claims that, "By giving schools the resources to serve real food, we can build a strong foundation for our children’s health. We can teach them healthy habits that will last them through life. We can make a down payment on health care e reform. We can do all of this--but only if we help our legislators connect the dots." The Call-to-Action on September 7th includes three good activities: 1. Attend an Eat-In in your community on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. On that day,people across America will come together for public potlucks that send a clear message to legislators: It’s time to provide our children with real food at school. Right now there are 239 potlucks planned in 49 states! Many of these are taking place outdoors and in public parks, in schools, and in private homes. Check out the map on the slow website to find one near you. If there's no potluck in your community, consider gathering your friends and family together, taking a photo and sending it along to us in order to show your support. We need to show legislators that there's a real movement for change, which means we need people from every corner of the country to help out. 2. Sign the Time for Lunch petition at . Help us get 20,000 signatures by September 7th by telling friends, family, coworkers, church, groups and everyone else you know to sign it, too. One of the best ways to do that is post a link to Facebook and share it with blogs, message boards and listservs. Spread the word! 3. Tell your legislators in Congress that it’s time to give schools the resources to serve real food. The petition and National Eat-In will build momentum, but legislators need to know that this is a priority in their districts. Contact your legislators by writing them a letter, making a phone call and inviting them to your Eat-In. The Slow website has all the resources you need to do this.. The Time for Lunch Platform explains the first steps Congress needs to take in order to get real food into schools. For more information, go to http://slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch.

Eat, Drink, and Get REAL: First Annual Oakland Eat Real Fest Hits the Streets

The San Francisco Street Food Festival last Saturday was only a sample of the excitement in store for real food fans this weekend as the first annual Eat Real Festival gets underway this weekend in Oakland.  Food, beer, music, and contests are planned for a 3-day celebration that encourages a healthy and sustainable alternative to our typical fast food lifestyles.

When and Where

The festivities begin this Friday, August 28, at 4:00 and will continue through the weekend with full days of food and fun events on Saturday and Sunday.  Jack London Square in Oakland, CA is the center of all the action.  Detailed directions can be found here.

Why Eat Real?

Chemicals and additives found in most of the foods we choose are contributing to mounting health problems, obesity, and an overall unhealthy society.  Natural and organic options can change that, while also improving our environment as well as local economies.  The Eat Real Festival shows just how easy it can be to make healthier choices by preparing 'fast food' with natural, sustainable ingredients whenever possible.  

Participating vendors have agreed to use at least one local ingredient and the festival supports more than 200 local and regional businesses.  Not only are you making a healthier choice for yourself and the environment by Eating Real, you're also putting money back into the local economy!

What's Happening?

The festival kicks off Friday at 4 with an ice cream extravaganza.  The Bay Area's best creameries will offer a taste of some of the best frozen creations around, featuring nearly a dozen local businesses.  Other first day events include:

• Edible Pursuit: A creative game of fun food trivia;
• Foraging and Canning: Gain canning tips from local experts, swap canned goodies with other guests, and show off your own skills in the Yes I Canned contest - including a kids' canning category;
• Live Jazz from Ever Jazz and Anton Schwartz

Saturday and Sunday, it's all about the food.  Indulge your taste buds with nearly 50 local food carts and trucks, serving up everything from tacos and BBQ to coffee and sweets, or stop by the Good-to-Go market for fresh produce and homemade fares from dozens of Bay Area farmers.

Watch local butchers compete in the butchery contest on Saturday or learn from some of the area's leading chefs in cooking demonstrations throughout the weekend, including kid-friendly demos each day.  Live music performances are available on the music stage while the Curbside Cinema offers an outdoor movie experience Friday and Saturday night.

Don't miss the Beer Shed - featuring the best microbrews available.  The Beer Shed will be open throughout the festival and requires tickets that may be purchased in advance for $20 or at the event for $25.  Check out a PDF version of the Eat Real Festival schedule here.

Costs and More Info

Admission is free and includes free access to all the demonstrations, workshops, music, and movies.  Street vendors will offer their fares at reasonable prices, ranging from $1 to $5.  Beer shed tickets ($20 to $25) include 8 tastings, as well as a souvenir glass.  Festival proceeds will benefit local charities, including La Cocina, People's Grocery, and Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

The Eat Real Festival has also arranged several Keeping it Real Dinners, pairing premier Bay Area restaurants with local, nonprofit organizations to create mouthwatering menus that assist the growth of sustainable local foods.  Visit the Eat Real Fest website for more information about the weekend's events, to buy tickets, or for details on volunteering. 

 Images via Eat Real, Sam's Chowderhouse, Cole Canyon Farms

Slow and Indigenous

Slow Food, one of the premiere global green food groups, has evolved over time. Its origins in Italy and the exclusivity of some conviviums have led to charges of food elitism, while others suggest that the emphasis on artisanal traditions ignores the fact that industrial food is still a necessity and draws energy and attention away from reforming the problems with commercial food systems. Tom Philipott, Grist's wonderful food and agriculture writer, sums it up successfully:

"For all the buzz surrounding farmers' markets and CSAs, for all the popularity of Slow Food USA and its burgeoning local convivia (chapters), the vast majority of people in the U.S. remain priced out of the trend -- and many of them are unaware of the alternatives to industrial food...In a nation that has seen median wages stagnate for 30 years even as real estate and health-care costs ratchet up, it's no easy thing to ask low-income people to pay more for their food. At the same time, we can't rightfully ask small-scale organic farmers growing for nearby markets to charge less for their produce. They're competing against a highly consolidated, lavishly subsidized industrial food system -- and few of them are doing much better than just scraping by."

Geoff Andrews' book, The Slow Food Story: Politics and Pleasure, focuses on how Slow Food has grown into an international movement, such that its politics has matured, linking preservation with transformation, emphasizing tradition but challenging the status quo. Andrews points out that Slow Food is equally global and local, such that the specific geographic area where a chapter meets affects their approach. Indeed, we can say that Slow International has worked hard to embrace global food traditions and empower local food producers of all socio-economic backgrounds. The latest iteration of their mission is "Good, Clean, Fair," where good emphasizes the taste of the food, clean emphasizes local sustainable production, and fair means social justice for producers and consumers alike.

One interesting place to look at how Slow is addressing these issues is in their support of foods of indigenous people. Winona LaDuke, writer, activist, and founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, claims that most of the foods in the Slow Food Ark of Taste, whereever they have migrated globally and culturally, are foods that were first used by Native Americans. Her own work on preserving wild rice and local biodiversity brought her the International Slow Food Award for the Defense of Biodiversity a few years ago. Slow Food is now focusing more of their support and funding for saving varieties like White Flint and Chapalote corn (also called Pinole Maiz, the first corn species to enter the US from Central America) and Iroquois corn, or Tuscarora, another heirloom variety. The Institute of the American Indian Arts, a four-year Tribal Arts and Land Grant College in Santa Fe, New Mexico has worked with Slow Food on heritage seed preservation. The Special Program on Native Foods/Culinary Arts Project helps revitalize the cultural knowledge and methods of growing and preparing food integral to Native American life.

You can order indigenous food products from the White Earth Conservancy online catalogue, including maple candy, granola, hominy, strawberry and raspberry teas, buffalo sausage, and of course, wild rice. To grow your own indigenous corn, see High Mowing Seeds.

Something Fishy in Genoa: Slow Fish 2009

Sometimes trying to achieve sustainability, we have to conserve, reduce, and suspend practices that deplete resources. But sustainability should also be about taking pleasure in the world’s bounty. Taking care of the sea and its resources can also mean an awareness of what bounties are seasonable, abundant, local, and of course, delicious. Leave it to Slow Food to provide the tasting, learning, and viewing opportunities this April 17th – 20th in Genoa, Italy, the site for fourth annual Slow Fish Festival. According to the organization, “Slow Fish 2009 doesn’t want to celebrate a lost world. Instead we want to strongly and clearly emphasize the seriousness of the situation so that no one can claim ignorance.” Workshops at the Genova Fairgrounds include instruction on eating seafood seasonally, such as sea urchins in summer and dolphinfish in winter. Food events include explorations of Italian fish soups, smoked fish and artisanal beer, European oysters, and seaweed delicacies. Meet fisherman from Lira, Slovenia, Cabras, the Oristano Lagoons, and Orbitello. Film screenings include Cry Sea, by Cafi Mohamud and Luca Cusani, which won an honorable mention at last year’s Slow Food on Film festival. Other films include Silent Snow, a short documentary about a village in the Antarctic ; Cooking in the Danger Zone , a BBC program on whale hunting; and classic documentaries from the Cineteca di Bologna archive dealing with the fishing industry in post-war Italy, Street food is a big part of Slow Fish 2009. You can wander the streets around the fairgrounds and sample traditional Italian dishes using local and lesser-known species like palamita (Atlantic bonito), blue whiting or scabbardfish. Other offerings range from pizza, panini, and focaccia to arancini, lampredotto (tripe) and fried olives all’ascolano. While you are wandering you can listen to Trallelero groups, a traditional folk music, and other musical offerings from the Liguria region of Italy. And last but not least, no Slow Food event would be complete without wine tasting, Around 1,000 different wines will be available, including those featured in the Vini d’Italia 2009 wine guide produced by Slow Food and Gambero Rosso.

Follow the Food

As promised, in the hopes of staying well informed on green issues, here are some of the food-related websites and blogs I follow on a regular basis.  You won't find too many of the yummy recipe or travel and eat blogs here -- there are plenty of them, that's for sure.  I do tend to read these the way I read novels -- for escapism rather than real cooking -- although I can attest to the good and functional recipes on Gluten-Free Girl,  No Gluten Required, and Chocolate and Zucchini.  The Accidental Hedonist is definitely not organic, but the recipes are so interesting, you can translate them into sustainble gems easily enough,.  I've also got a fascination with Japanese bento lunch boxes (more on that another day...) and always check one or two blog to see what the bento folks are making this week.

But on to the real work of thinking about sustainability, food, and news.  First and foremost, the person whose writing always teaches me something new --- and debunks any food industry myths I might be inclined to believe -- is the incomparable Marion Nestle.  Her work as a nutritionist, food policy analyst, and tireless public advocate combine at her site, Food Politics.

The Sustainable Table is also a great news source, especially for different locales around the US.  I particularly like the main site for shopping information and unique insights that are not time-dependent. Local Harvest provides a great directory of what's happening in specific regions.  The blog at Yale's Sustainable Food Project also is worth checking every so often, as it offers a great combination of research and practice. In the same vein, Slow Food's main site has exciting programs and news. 

With a more hard-edged news focus, Sustainable Food News is aimed at professionals in the organic food service industry, but it's a great place to learn about new trends.  One of the most under-appreciated source of news is our government: the USDA's newsroom is full of interesting summaries of new research, trends in agriculture and food production, and consumer behavior. If you're willing to sort through even more factual data, try ScienceDaily's site.   The Organic Consumer's Association always has good food activism information.  For up-to-date information on sustainable seafood, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's site.

Just remember: sometimes the most interesting information comes from sources that don't have beautiful photographs of vegetables and cakes...