Blessing the Hands that Feed Us (24 page)

That poop (or humanure, as it is called now) might save us inspired me to add to my food system to-do list. Item 7: Get organic matter out of the waste stream and landfills and put it back in the soil.

Scalability

When the
Fast Company
interviewer posed the question of whether local organic can scale up, Gene's view was that “it's going to happen incrementally . . . to imagine that we were going to change U.S. agriculture and keep it all in the hands of market gardeners, instead of production scale farmers, is not only a fatuous dream, it's an undesirable perspective from my view. . . . I think [change is] happening. But . . . we'll make sure this gets done right and done in a way that is really sustainable. . . . The conversation . . . should be about how we change the world for the better, how we deal with the world as we currently see it. Not about creating some impossible dream.

“And that's what's critical: the improvement. Whether we get to 100% organic is not the issue. It's whether we become a sustainable society.”

Gene was not saying that what is best for people and planet is impossible. He just said it will take time, and needs to be well thought through and “sold” to people at every link of the food chain. It won't be a case of either/or, or purist versus industrialist, but rather a process to change from the world as it presents itself to us now to the world we want.

I left with a lot to chew on, so to speak. As I drove back home I started to put together a framework I could swallow. I see now that the task of change is far more complex than a one-size-fits-all solution. Despite my own experiment I don't expect everyone on Whidbey to go 100 percent local. We'd scrape this place clean of food in short order.

As Gene points out, the pathways need to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. I can personally run radical experiments and propose radical shifts, but society and even nature don't work that way. They evolve over time. Our visionaries—prophets and revolutionaries—jolt us awake. But our innovators, engineers, architects, and educators actually build the future incrementally over time.

From the conversation with Gene and my own struggle to understand the bigger picture, a goal I could believe in started to coalesce.

I don't want to promote an end product; I want to map a path. That path would go all the way from our food psychology, culture, and preferences to growing some of our own to eating what our market gardeners grow to regional eating to a healthier global food system.

The map would make sense, be clear, feel empowering, and get people laughing as well as motivated.

Eventually I'd understand how truly complex this is, weaving sovereignty and security and affordability and availability and safety and sustainability and delight all into one fabric. But for now, I was just excited about the prospect of looking more closely at the entire world of food.

Clearly I needed to finish my 10-mile diet with integrity, start planning for my 50/50 February caper, and then see whatever lies beyond that next big mountain.

Now It's Your Turn

As you can tell, it took some considerable effort to reconcile myself to the limitations of local. Here are some tips and practices for your own adaptations in terms of cost, quantity, and kind of food.

Conscious Eating

Globally, the food-industrial complex pumps out more than twenty-seven hundred calories a day for every man, woman, and child
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—in the United States it's closer to four thousand
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—and yet, despite areas of malnutrition, 30 to 50 percent of the world's food goes to waste. It is way too easy to take food for granted, load up plates, and go from famished to bloated without even noticing “full.” Here are some tips that help prevent overeating:

80 Percent

Eat until you are 80 percent full. Okinawans are among the longest-lived people on the earth, and one of their secrets is
hara hachi bu,
the rule of eating until you are 80 percent full. If you are out of touch with full, you might need to slow down your eating until you actually feel that one more bite would be too much. Knowing full, you can feel 80 percent; for me that means I have to pause between bites to check in with my stomach.

One trick I use: I commit to leaving one bite on my plate. Aware of that last bite, I am mindful through the first dozen bites, the mind checking for whether I'm close to the end. Otherwise, I could find myself done before consciousness begins.

Shrink Your Plate Size

A recent study found that plate size affects how much we eat. In 1900 the average dinner plate was nine inches wide. By 1950 plates had grown to ten inches. Now they are closer to twelve inches. It's hard to judge proper portion size when the plate's so big. Our brains understand portion in terms of proportion—how much of the plate is filled, how big a serving spoon is used.

Learning this got me wondering . . . is the size of our girth related to the size of our dishes? In 1950, 9.7 percent of the U.S. population was obese and now it's 34 percent.

Does the lower relative cost of industrial food trick us into eating more? In 1950, we spent a third of our income on food. Now, according to the USDA,
5
overall Americans spend less than 10 percent of their income on food (though if you make less than twenty thousand dollars a year you join the global middle class, spending about 25 percent).

So now I use my big dinner plates for heaping salads and steamed greens. For the rest I use the next size down.

When I backslide into late-night “barefoot in front of open fridge with spoon in hand,” I can break the spell by taking out one of my three-inch saucers, heaping it high with six
almonds and twenty raisins, and paddling back to my office indulged.

Savor Your Food

Take pleasure in the flavors and see how long you can still taste your food before swallowing. Focus on how the mouthful tastes as you chew. The old fuddy-duddy rule of thumb is twenty chews for each bite. My trick: savor the flavor as long as possible. Interestingly, meat loses its flavor sooner than other whole foods—at least in my mouth.

Slow Down

Whether you want to savor your food or notice when you are full, slowing down helps. Two ways I do this are putting my fork down between bites (my generation was taught that as manners) and dining with friends with the intention of being leisurely.

Track Your Daily Bread

Write down everything you eat each day. Not to count calories but to be aware of your own hand-to-mouth habits. You could think of it as savoring your food a second time—when you review your eating day. Such tracking will naturally reveal unconscious eating.

Try a Whole-Foods Lent

Like my friend Suzanne, you could engage in a whole-foods Lent—forty days of nothing packaged, prepared, or processed. After a few days of calculating what she'd eaten and a few more negotiating with the butcher to sell her meat wrapped in paper rather than shrink-wrapped, she did fine. The Lenten practice was less about her preferences and more about how whole-foods eaters interface with a highly-processed-foods culture.

Change Your Relationship to Meat

Vegetarians argue for no-meat diets on the grounds of personal and environmental health, longevity, and cruelty-free eating. Many others argue for meat eating: Atkins, Paleo, Abascal, and Weston Price diets have meat as a key element. My 10-mile diet showed me a middle ground based on learning what it takes to pasture-raise animals and an understanding of how livestock is part of most well-managed small farms. Pastured animals fertilize pastures as they graze; provide manure for biodynamic preparations; and feed family, friends, and communities milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and flesh. Choosing to eat only locally grown pastured animals will naturally slow down your meat consumption. The supply isn't endless and the price is appropriate to the work invested and the dignity of the animal.

Here are some explorations and practices around the issue of meat:

MEAT AS A TREAT

Track how much meat you eat in a normal week. Be honest. Don't skimp because you're watching. Get that hot grocery store chicken if you love it. Order ahi tuna. Grab a Whopper. Whatever is part of your weekly meat routine.

10 PERCENT RULE

Use the 10 percent rule to moderate that. If you eat 40 ounces of meat a week, for example, go for 36. If that seems plenty, drop it to 32 ounces. Keep it up, slowly, until you cut into your true appetite for meat. Then add an ounce and stabilize there. As I've said, I started at about 45 ounces and now eat about 20. I eat an occasional juicy steak for my inner carnivore, though I now find I'll box half the restaurant portion and make it last a few days.

MEATLESS MONDAY

The Meatless Monday campaign was designed to help people eschew chewing meat one day a week. It's like the old Catholic fish on Friday—a habit in service to a set of beliefs. It's a choice that affects many things at once: weight, health, justice, sustainability, climate disruption, rainforest preservation, and your grandchildren's future. If you were told you could take a pill that would have all these effects, you'd do it. Less meat is no bitter pill.

SUNDAY DINNER

Roll back the clock to an era when we ate a Sunday roast that became Monday sandwiches and Tuesday spaghetti sauce and Wednesday tacos and Thursday soup, followed by a couple of days of macaroni and cheese, leading to another extraordinary Sunday dinner.

EAT HALF

Set aside half your meat at the beginning of a restaurant meal. Bring your own container or ask for ones made of compostable material. Voilà! Another meal.

DO IT YOURSELF

Participate in slaughtering and butchering an animal at least once in your life. If you've never done it, you'll have a searing experience, making meat either unpalatable or holy or primal.

The No-Meat Mantra

Say again and again: “Nuts and seeds [beans, sesame, pumpkin, sunflower] are protein; nuts and seeds are protein” until the grip of the cultural indoctrination about animal products being the only source of protein is gone. In fact, most vegetables are high in amino acids.

All of these both objectively run less meat through your body and interrupt your behavior patterns so that you can rechoose how much you need or want to eat.

Hint!

Relocalizing your food is easier if you try to eat whole foods—that is, foods with only one ingredient, like any fruit or vegetable, plain meat or fish, whole grains, beans, nuts, and plain dairy.

Try These Recipes

After all the talk of chicken, it's time for a delicious recipe from Patrick Boin of The Braeburn, for chicken served up with his essential ingredient: integrity. But first here's one of Georgie Smith's traditional central Whidbey farming community recipes.

Farmer Georgie Smith is carrying on the heritage of her four-generation family farm, Willowood Farm of Ebey's Prairie. Her great-grandfather settled here in the late 1800s and farmed the rich prairie soil of Central Whidbey. Over the years the farm grew grains, peas, iris bulbs, sheep, winter squash, cattle, and a great love of the land and the farm. Farmer Georgie today grows twelve acres of mixed fresh market vegetables, selling to local Whidbey Island farmers' markets and to restaurants in Island, Skagit, and King counties that are committed to using local foods. Farmer Georgie works hand in hand with her father (he is in charge of all the equipment!) and has high hopes that her two young daughters will one day carry on in her farming footsteps.

Nutty Renee's Red Kuri Soup

Named in honor of my mother, Renee, who came up with this recipe featuring the rich, hazelnut-reminiscent flavor of red kuri winter squash. Peanut butter brings out the creamy sweetness of the squash, but be careful to not overdo it as the peanut can also easily overpower the delicate flavors.

2 cups red kuri squash from a 2-pound squash, roasted

2 cups chicken stock

1 tablespoon olive oil

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cup pine nuts

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cup finely chopped onion

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cup milk

1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper

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cup (no more) quality peanut butter (like Adams)

Baby spinach leaves or arugula, for garnish

Cut the red kuri squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and roast it until it's soft. Roasting the squash is important as it partially caramelizes the vegetable, which is great for the flavors. Let it cool and then scoop out the flesh. In a food processor, add the chicken stock and squash and puree until smooth.

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil, then sauté the pine nuts and onion until soft. Let cool and then chop coarsely (in the food processor if possible). Transfer back to the pot, add the squash, and simmer the entire mixture.

Fifteen minutes before serving, add the milk, pepper, and peanut butter and stir well. Do not boil after this step.