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There came a day in 1976 when I first heard that snap peas had been invented and that we—the editors at Organic Gardening magazine—were going to get pea seed to plant and sample.
I erected trellising in the garden and planted the peas on St. Patty’s Day, March 17, the traditional day for planting peas in USDA Climate Zone 6, where I was living while working at the magazine.
Those first peas showed promise, but they also had problems. First, they had so much hybrid vigor that they grew to the top of my six-foot trellis and then continued to grow for another two to three feet, flopping over themselves. While the pods were edible, they also had a string running down the concave side of the pod that had to be pulled off by hand. Years earlier, gardeners grew string beans that had a similar string running down one side. That’s why they were called string beans. But breeders had bred the strings out of them, and by 1976, string beans were known as snap beans, a name they bear even today. Same with peas. The first edible-podded peas that weren’t Asian snow peas had the string, but it was subsequently bred out of them. Breeders also increased their sweetness and tamed their vigor. Today we have bush snap peas that only grow two to three feet high, with no strings in the pods, and a wonderful sweetness. And you can eat these well-behaved snap peas in four different ways.
First, if the seeds are organic, meaning they are not treated with fungicides, you can sprout the pea seeds. Pea sprouts have a delightful, full pea flavor and make a fine addition to sandwiches and salads.
Second, you can harvest pods when the peas inside the pods grow so they
just touch one another—like regular garden or English peas. Then you just have to shell out the peas, discard the pods, gently give the peas a little cooking, and serve them as peas only.
Third, you can blanch them pods and all for a minute in boiling water and eat them that way, or simply crunch into the raw pods, mange-tout. Personally I like them raw, pods and all.
Fourth, if you grow them, you can harvest the little packets of folded leaves and tendrils at the tips of the growing vines and stir-fry or steam them as Asian-style pea shoots. But don’t take them all, because those packets will unfold to become flowering shoots that will give you snap peas.
Of course, do it all organically.
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As you know, we organic types have been trying to get the FDA to require foods containing GMOs to be labeled, so we can avoid putting GMOs into our bodies and our children’s bodies—so far without success. Now a California group is trying a different tack. It’s trying to get an initiative on the California ballot requiring GMO labels on all GMO-containing foods produced in California, and as you know, California produces a lot of the food that’s sold across America, so a successful ballot initiative will have wide-ranging effects. To get the measure on the ballot requires signatures—millions of them. So the group (www.labelgmos.org) has mounted a campaign to find volunteers who will collect signatures to get GMO labeling on the ballot. Visit the website or email them at newsletter@labelgmos.org for more details.
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America’s largest corporate dairy, a biotech firm, and the USDA are being accused of conspiring to corrupt rulemaking and pollute organics. An organics watchdog group is seeking an investigation and has filed ethics charges, according to its recent press release.
The press release is important enough to reprint here. It contains information every person interested in keeping the organic label strong should know. Here’s the release:
The Cornucopia Institute, an organic industry research and watchdog organization, announced it has formally requested the USDA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate corruption at its National Organic Program resulting in the use of illegal synthetics in organic food and then allowing powerful corporations to “game the system” for approval “after the fact.”
The controversy surrounds products developed by Martek Biosciences Corporation. Martek is part of a $12 billion Dutch-based conglomerate that recently petitioned USDA for approval of its genetically modified soil fungus and algae as nutritional supplements in organic food.
Martek’s formulated oils are processed with synthetic petrochemical solvents in a blend containing a myriad of other synthetic chemicals. Supplements derived from these oils, commonly marketed as DHA and ARA, are being added to milk, infant formula, and other organic foods by such companies as Dean Foods (Horizon), Abbott Laboratories (Similac) and Nurture, Inc. (Happy Baby).
“This is a long-standing controversy that the USDA seems to think is just going to go away,” said Mark A. Kastel, co-director of the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute.
After a formal legal complaint by Cornucopia and an investigative story by the Washington Post, the USDA announced in April, 2010, that it had “inappropriately” allowed Martek oils to be included in organic foods.
The scandal contributed to the removal of the previous director of the National Organic Program (NOP), who overruled her staff’s decision finding Martek supplements were illegal in organics, after she met with a prominent Washington lobbyist, William J. Friedman.
The former NOP director’s decision was reversed in April, 2010. But instead of immediately ordering the removal of these unapproved synthetics from organic food, the USDA delayed enforcement by 18 months.
“It’s unacceptable that these materials are still in organic food and that corporations think they can manipulate the system and get away with it,” said Kastel.
In December, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the expert panel set up by Congress to advise the USDA Secretary on organic matters, narrowly approved the Martek petitions for their patented versions of DHA and ARA. “All hell broke loose at the meeting in Savannah as the controversy grew extremely heated,” Kastel noted.
In its complaint to the OIG, Cornucopia alleges that Martek misrepresented their synthetic products and manipulated the vote by the NOSB. “Martek oils, marketed under the Life’s DHA™ brand and included in organic infant formula, milk and baby food, are processed with petrochemical solvents like hexane or isopropyl alcohol, both of which are explicitly banned in organic production,” stated Charlotte Vallaeys, Director of Farm and Food Policy at Cornucopia.
Although Martek told the board that they would discontinue the use of the controversial neurotoxic solvent n-hexane for DHA/ARA processing, they did not disclose what other synthetic solvents would be substituted. Federal organic standards prohibit the use of all synthetic petrochemical solvents, including isopropyl alcohol, which is currently used to extract DHA algal oil for use in products such as Horizon milk.
Martek again brought in William J. Friedman, with the powerful Washington law firm of Covington and Burling, to lead the approval process. Friedman appeared to deliberately mislead NOSB members into believing that the powdered form of Martek’s DHA oil was not covered in the petition for approval. “That’s not the petitioned material,” he stated. This particular product formulation uses microencapsulation (banned in organics) and includes a number of additional synthetic materials that have never been reviewed or approved for use in organics.
“Mr. Friedman’s statement thus appears patently false in an apparent attempt to intentionally mislead the NOSB. This apparent subterfuge led, in turn, to the NOSB’s failure to review other aspects of these materials which would have disqualified them, under law, for inclusion in organic food,” Cornucopia’s Kastel said.
In addition to the letter to the OIG, Cornucopia has requested the District of Columbia Bar to conduct a formal ethics investigation of Mr. Friedman’s conduct. “The dog and pony show put on by Martek and their largest customer, Dean Foods, was without precedent in the organic industry,” said Alexis Baden-Mayer, Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association, who was present in Savannah.
The only scientists who testified at the meeting on the DHA issue were all on Martek’s payroll, and focused on research showing benefits of consuming naturally occurring omega-3 fatty acids (such as those found in fish and breast milk), while ignoring the preponderance of published peer-reviewed research that shows that these health benefits are not gained from consuming Martek’s manufactured DHA additive.
Dean Foods, Martek’s largest customer, brought in a well-known web pediatrician, Dr. Alan Greene, who has acted as a public relations agent endorsing Horizon brand organic milk with the added Martek DHA oils.
Although Dr. Greene represented himself as a “consultant,” simply answering questions for Dean Foods, and stated he had previously worked for two other organic companies, he failed to disclose his multiple conflicts of interest in commenting on the benefits of Martek’s manufactured DHA supplements.
Dr. Greene has also accepted compensation from Mead Johnson, the largest conventional infant formula manufacturer, to promote Martek’s DHA oil in their products, and even has his own product line of nutritional supplements that include Martek DHA, marketed by Twinlabs with his name and photograph on the product package.
“It is unconscionable that a physician, who accepted money from a big drug company to promote synthetic DHA—which many believe promotes the use of baby formula at the expense of the nutrients in breast feeding—failed to disclose such a gross conflict of interest when he testified before the governmental body on certified organic standards,” said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy/PRWatch, which helps expose corporate PR tactics.
Cornucopia’s complaint to the OIG also included evidence documenting that three corporate-backed members of the NOSB, who voted in favor of this petition, had undeclared conflicts of interest. Two of the board members work for Earthbound Farms, a giant produce distributor that also compensated Dr. Greene during 2011. A third member of the NOSB board works for General Mills which partnered with Martek, starting in 2009, on the technology to microencapsulate their DHA and ARA oils.
Adding fuel to the controversy, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just announced the end of its investigation into Dean Foods’ advertising campaign for Horizon DHA supplemented milk. The FTC is forcing the dairy giant to alter claims in its advertising concerning “brain development or function, cognitive development or function, intelligence, and learning abilities in children over the age of two.” This action resulted from a complaint filed by The Cornucopia Institute based on its research of the fraudulent and misleading health claims.
Although the FDA has dismissed complaints about the safety of Martek products in infant formula, reports persist from parents and healthcare providers of infants who experience serious gastrointestinal symptoms from consuming Martek’s DHA and ARA oils in infant formula, raising serious public health questions about the marketing of these products.
The Cornucopia Institute has sent a formal briefing paper on these matters to all members of the National Organic Standards Board. “We are asking the NOSB to reopen their deliberations and consider rescinding their approval of Martek nutritional oils,” Kastel added. “If the board fails to act now, protecting the integrity of organics, it risks changing the working definition of the organic seal and degrading its value in the eyes of consumers.”
jeffcox @ February 5, 2012
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Have you noticed that more and more products at the organic markets are simply the same kind of processed foods you can buy at the conventional supermarkets, only made from organic ingredients? Mmm—organic pizzas, frozen dinners, snack crackers and chips; heavy on the organic fats, organic sugars, and organic sea salt. How long before we find organic Hot Pockets, donuts, and Twinkies?
Granted that processed foods made with organic ingredients don’t carry the typical load of agricultural chemicals, or any of the hundreds of chemicals used to flavorize, texturize, emulsify, preserve, and color the conventional products. But they are still processed foods, drained of their life force, less than whole, mere mouth fun instead of delicious-and-nutritious, and usually with a lot of fat, sugar, and salt.
Now, I’m all for occasional mouth fun. One of my local organic supermarkets offers a scoop of ice cream in any flavor of your choice, served in an eat-all cone, for $1. Maybe once every month or so, I’ll indulge. Everything in moderation, right? Including moderation. But that kind of thing doesn’t replace good whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and even a decent sandwich. When was the last time you had an apple and a carrot, with maybe a bit of good cheese, for lunch? They’re whole, they’re filling, and they are good for you.
One of the reasons we eat organic is to enhance our health. Heavily processed foods, even if they are organic, don’t help in that department.
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The environmental press reports that in addition to continued reports of Colony Collapse Disorder — a still mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies disappear, leaving not even their dead bodies behind — bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.
Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they’re absorbed by the plant’s vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen. Virtually all of today’s genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics. The chemical industry alleges that bees don’t like to collect corn pollen, but new research shows that not only do bees indeed forage in corn, but they also have multiple other routes of exposure to neonics.
A Purdue University study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, found high levels of clothianidin in planter exhaust spewed during the spring sowing of treated corn seed. It also found neonics in the soil of unplanted fields near those planted with Bt corn, on dandelions growing near those fields, in dead bees found near hive entrances, and in pollen stored in the hives.
Bees, of course, pollinate many of our most important food crops, such as apples and other fruit trees, squashes, as well as annuals that support beneficial insects in the rural ecosystem. Without them we are in trouble.
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Speaking of Bt corn—corn into which a gene from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, which produces a caterpillar toxin, has been spliced using genetic modification techniques—people around the world are beginning to catch on to Monsanto’s plan to corner the world market on seeds.
According to an article published this month in the journal Nature Biotechnology, Monsanto is facing biopiracy charges in India. In an unprecedented decision, India’s National Biodiversity Authority (NBA), a government agency, declared legal action against Monsanto (and its collaborators) for using local eggplant varieties to develop a genetically engineered version of eggplant that carries the Bt gene–but without prior approval of the competent authorities, which is considered an act of biopiracy in that country. Let’s see how far the government of India can get against Monsanto.
In the United States, Monsanto has been challenged by many environmental and family farm organizations for introducing Bt corn and other GMO seeds into the environment, contaminating nearby organic crops. According to the Public Patent Foundation, Monsanto has one of the most aggressive patent assertion agendas in history. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s family farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. The farmers’ violation? They let their crops be contaminated with Monsanto’s GMO frankengenes, and that’s a patent violation. It’s like a guy walking up to you on your own property, punching you in the nose, then suing you for getting your blood on his suit.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s response has been to approve genetically modified alfalfa and soybeans as well as corn, and to name a Monsanto executive to head up our nation’s food safety program.
Good luck, India.
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As long as we’re talking about Monsanto and its frankenseeds, Anthony Gucciardi reports in L’Osservatore Romano that on January 5, 2012, a prominent member of the Vatican spoke out against genetically modified crops. Cardinal Peter Turkson said that genetically modified crops are a “new form of slavery,” and went on to discuss the impact that they have on both the environment and the economy. Farmers have risen up against Monsanto and genetically modified seeds, with Monsanto’s control of seed sales forcing thousands of farmers into debt worldwide. In India, Monsanto has ruined the lives of so many farmers that the prevalence of their suicides has led a large farming area to be called the “suicide belt of India,” the article states.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S.A., our Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration still won’t require big corporate food producers to disclose on their labels whether their any of their ingredients are genetically modified. Such disclosures are required in Canada, Europe, and Australia—but not in “the greatest country in the world.”
jeffcox @ January 29, 2012
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From midsummer to late fall, it’s easy to eat local. The summer fields and orchards are full of locally grown vegetables, seeds, nuts, and fruits. But what about the other seven months of the year, from December to June? How can one eat locally when nothing is growing?
Remember that when a food is in season in your area, it is at its best quality and its lowest price. If it’s a wild food, like wild berries, it is not only at its peak quality, it’s free. So when foods are in season locally, that’s the time to stock up for the off months.
If you grow a garden, think about planting enough to see you through the off months. Here are 10 tips for extending summer’s bounty through the whole year. Many involve a freezer. If you don’t have a freezer, consider buying one. It will pay you back many times over. Buy one that self-defrosts. Defrosting a freezer yourself is a time-consuming, messy business. Take it from someone who knows.
1) When spring garden peas are in season, don’t open their pods, but blanch them for one minute in boiling water, then freeze the pods in plastic freezer bags—enough for a meal in each bag. When you want to use them, place the bag in a bowl of hot tap water on your kitchen counter about an hour before dinner. By dinnertime, they will have thawed. The pods will have turned to mush. Discard them. The peas inside will be perfect. Heat them gently on the stove top and serve.
2) In August, buy lots of summer-ripe, delicious tomatoes. Make tomato sauce from them. Set a large pot of water to boil on the stove, then put batches of tomatoes into the boiling water for about two minutes. The skins will then be easy to slip off. Put the skinned tomatoes into another large pot and cook down into sauce. Can the sauce. Make enough for one quart a week for seven months—about 30 quarts. Or, even easier, Freeze whole tomatoes in freezer bags and thaw them for sauce or ingredients as needed in the off months.
3) Grow or buy thick-skinned winter squash, such as Butternut, Acorn, or Hubbard, in the fall when they are plentiful and cheap. Lay newspapers on the floor of a cold room like a garage or outbuilding and place the squash on them so the squash don’t touch each other. Most of the squash will keep through the winter, getting sweeter as they get older. Discard any that soften.
4) Grow or buy onions and garlic with the tops still on. Braid these and hang them in a cool, dark place. Sweet onions like Maui, Vidalia, and Walla Walla won’t store well, but yellow onions with tight necks, and garlic, will last through the winter.
5) Summer stone fruits like peaches, nectarines, cherries, apricots, pluots, and others have remarkably short seasons. In the late spring or summer when they are at the farmers’ markets, buy plenty. Preserve their summer-fresh flavor this way: make a syrup of spring water, lemon juice, and honey. To one gallon of water add a cup of lemon juice and a cup of honey and stir until dissolved. Cut stone fruits in half and remove pits. Peaches and nectarines can be cut into slices, but other stone fruits are best frozen as halves. Place a serving’s worth of fruit in a pint or quart freezer bag and add enough of the freezing syrup to just cover. Close the bag, excluding air, and twist-tie shut. Freeze. To thaw, place a bag in a bowl of hot tap water for an hour. Don’t reheat or add more hot water. The fruit will be almost as good as in the summer.
6) When either wild or farmed berries are in season, buy plenty for the winter months. These include red and black raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, huckleberries, or, if you live in the far north, salmonberries, cloudberries, and watermelonberries. Place them in a single layer on cookie sheets and freeze. When they’re frozen, put them into freezer bags, twist-tie shut, and place them back in the freezer. This keeps them from making a large frozen clump. Add berries to your frozen stone fruits for fabulous winter desserts.
7) Make peach nectar for the holidays. Make an inch-thick layer of sugar in the bottom of a crock. Put in a single layer of whole peaches—no stacking. Cover these peaches with another layer of sugar, then add another single layer of peaches, until you almost reach the top. Finish with a layer of sugar. Cover the crock with a cloth and secure it tightly so no fruit flies can enter. Place the crock in the back of a closet. Around the end of December, bring out the crock and ladle the liquid you’ll find into a funnel set on a gallon plastic jug, preferably one that held water. When the jug is nearly full, leave an inch or two of headspace for expansion and freeze the jug. When it’s frozen, put it in a large bowl, cut away the plastic, and, using an ice pick, break the frozen parts away, catching the remaining liquid in the bowl. It’s this liquid that’s the peach nectar and it is delicious.
8) Grow or buy a large supply of hard root vegetables like potatoes, beets, turnips, rutabagas, and carrots when they’re cheap and in season. Place these in mixed single layers in a clean plastic garbage can, layered with dry peat moss, and store the can in a cold basement, garage, or storage shed. They’ll keep fine all winter.
9) Grow or buy lots of culinary herbs when they are in season. Chervil, for instance, has a lovely anise flavor but is hard to find except for its short season in late spring. Tie up bunches of these herbs with string, making a loop at the string’s end. Place each bunch of herbs in a large paper bag and tie off the bags with the stem ends of the herbs and the string with the loop protruding. Hang these bags in a warm, dry, dark place such as an attic. When the stems break with a snap, the herbs will be dry. Crumble them by crunching the bags with your fingers. The crumbled dried herbs will fall into the bags and you can gather them and store them in marked jars for off season use.
10) Fill jars with de-pitted summer stone fruits and fill the jars with vodka. After a few months, you’ll have fruit flavored vodkas for making mixed drinks to tide you through the rest of the year.
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According to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks corporate lobbying practices, Monsanto spent more than $5.1 million in 2011 lobbying the federal government. In 2010, Monsanto spent over $8 million, and in 2009, over $8.6 million. Monsanto’s largest lobbying year was in 2008, when it spent nearly $9 million lobbying the federal government and your elected lawmakers.
And what did all these millions buy? Well, its patents on its genetically modified organisms are safe. GMO alfalfa and sugar beets just got the go-ahead. A Monsanto exec is in charge of U.S. food safety. And there doesn’t appear to be any serious regulation of GMOs in sight. And, oh yes, you still can’t find out from food labels whether there are GMOs in your food. Monsanto won’t hear of it.
jeffcox @ January 23, 2012