After writing about the ridiculous farm raids on backyard farmers, I noticed a post by fellow blogger El on Fast Grow The Weeds. Apparently, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is about to sign two cottage industry farm bills that allow home producers to make or package certain foods in their kitchens instead of having to use a commercial food operation. Baked goods, jam and jellies, candy, vinegar, dried fruit, herbs and mixes made in your kitchen could all be sold publicly provided they are properly labeled to reflect that they are homemade and identify all ingredients under guidelines provided by the state. An individual residence could make up to $15,000 gross annually from such sales. Michigan Rep. Pam Byrnes, D-Dist. 52, co-sponsored the bill package.

Specifics on House Bill 5280 (2009), (PA 112 of 2010)

Specifics on House Bill 5837 (2010), (PA 113 of 2010)

You can read about the Michigan Cottage Food Law at the Michigan Department of Agriculture website.

This makes me wonder about the history of legislation for dairy products. Why do cow/goat dairies have such stringent regulations? Looks like I have something to research.

Ok. I have to admit, while I enjoyed the Outstanding in the Field dinner, I was irked by a comment made where a speaker referred to someone alive and in the East Bay community as “the grandfather of urban farming.” This bewilders me. Urban farming…like any other small scale subsistence farming is not new. No one gets to claim inventing agriculture. Growing food and raising livestock has been a human practice for a really long time. We are talking for the last 10,000+ years. When our habitats became urbanized, which occurred in the Neolithic era, we grew our food within the city limits. As cities became more dense and technology introduced…we still grew our own food in the city. Today, in highly urban and dense cities around the world, people still raise livestock and grow their veggies- look to Beijing, China or Havana, Cuba.

Early cities like Machu Picchu, Persia’s Parsa, Mexico’s Tenochtitlan, and Egypt, to name a few, maintained a symbiotic relation with agriculture. All offer models of urban farming. And it’s not like this occurred in ancient times, was forgotten, then got picked up again at the turn of this new millennium. These places have maintained their practices. Urban farming is old people, really old. The grandmothers and grandfathers of this practice are not alive today. They’re certainly not from Alameda County.

If you aren’t buying that urban environments are ancient, as are their urban agricultural practices (I suggest reading up on the topic), let’s fast forward to industrialized nations. Agricultural practices have always been around even in those cities and continue to be practiced heavily in immigrant communities. My own grandparents kept squab, rabbits and veggies in the Mission District of San Francisco. Interestingly, we did not flaunt the fact because we did not want trouble. Ironically, in 2006, I knew of some folks that reported a gentleman named Jose for keeping chickens in Berkeley, CA. They felt it was dirty. He felt it was a great and cheap source of eggs and meat for his family.

I am beginning to think this whole urban farming thing may have some of the typical power struggles that seems to tinge other politicized activities, activities that garner attention, potential markets, and funding. Did you see the film The Garden? I strongly suggest it.

If you’d like to learn more about ethnic practices of urban agriculture read the delightful book The Earth Knows My Name: Food, Culture, and Sustainability in the Gardens of Ethnic America by Patricia Klindienst.

The beauty of practicing urban farming today is that we get to preserve, share, and celebrate deep wisdom on nurturing ourselves, our land, and each other. Plants, animals, and food tie into many cultural practice. They are common mediums used by everyone for millennia.

I had the excellent opportunity of participating in the dinner event Outstanding in the Field this holiday weekend. Their mission is to “re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”  For this most recent Bay Area dinner this translated into amazing chef Nicole LoBue creating a masterpiece of a dinner with my rabbits.

The weekend started with my processing the first litter I raised. I had a helper along the way with the care and handling (thanks Ellie!). Dressing the rabbits went exceedingly smooth and I discovered they are much faster to process than even chickens. Via Nicole’s magic, the rabbits were transformed into grilled rabbit confit with plum and preserved Meyer lemon, with greens’ they called “everyone’s greens.” This I am assuming meant they took the collective greens from the various urban farmers.

For some lucky reason, several urban farm purveyors sat at the same table. I had the delight of speaking with Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Galloway from Little City Gardens whose products were featured in the Little City Gardens salad of greens, cucumbers, fava flowers, borage and goat cheese from one of the Pineheaven Farm (an goat farm in Monclair). Next to me were Kevin Bayuk and Ben who provided the duck eggs for the crazy good duck egg, frilled porcini, nasturtium custard.

And across the table was a woman named Lisa who interned with Donkey and Goat Winery and incidentally helped make the 2009 Isabel’s Cuvee, Grenache Rose we had with our first course.

And natch, Novella was there. Her Ghost Town Farm produce made its way into several dishes including a heavenly dessert of grilled figs with berries and green coriander chantilly. Damn that was good.

There was an interesting viewing in the winery from the Edible City series. In preparation for our dinner, this clip featured Jim Montgomery processing a rabbit. The summer night was a typical crisp night, so cold in fact that the organizers moved the tour bus alongside the table to block the Arctic wind.

Aside from the wind chill factor the event seemed a success with lively conversation, great food and connection to how the food was produced.

Transition is in the air. Looking to the gorgeous metaphor offered by Shreve Stockton at Honey Rock Dawn. “In every curve there’s a moment that feels out of control. A common reflex stemming from fear, from the feeling of loosing control, is to squeeze the brakes in the center of the curve. Yet if fear is allowed in, trouble often follows. The key to riding curves is in the acceleration, not the breaking. We are meant to join forces with the momentum. A slight, steady increase in speed helps maintain the desired course. Curves ask us to lean into the abyss, to understand that letting go a little is what carries us through. Mastery comes from trusting enough to look beyond where you can see.”

In the spirit of gliding through the curves gracefully, I am focusing on all the love and gardens growing around me. But first, check out this stunning mushroom knife the amazing Lauren Lyle gifted to me for graduation. No more stealing kitchen knives and hoping I don’t slip on the hiking trails.

Speaking of Lauren, I never posted about what I did with the hunks of pork I obtained from TLC Ranch. Some have yet to be cooked but the lovely loin was transformed into a tasty roasted loin accompanied by polenta made flocculant with lots of stirring and butter. At this point, I think Lauren could feed me dog poo and I’d be convinced it was the best dog poo I’ve ever eaten in my life, master chef that she is.

Also been spending lots of time with Stefani. She is such a whirl of hummingbird energy. Its only been by luck that I’ve ever spent time with her. She hosted a coop tour this weekend with apparently ~400 attendees arriving in a steady stream, by bike no less.

You have to go to her blog Sicilian Sisters Grow Some Food for the full story. I’m going to be an “apprentice” in Stefani’s massive backyard production farm this Spring/Summer.

I will also be giving a friendly hand to others who are eager to feed their family fresh beautiful home grown food. In fact, Saturday was spent digging some root bound agapanthas and a tree stump out of the way of a large garden bed.

Oh and let me not forget. A big thanks to Brad Burger, the manger of the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market. Brad allowed me and another volunteer organizer (thanks Diana) for Retire Ronald to talk to market goers and invite them to sign a petition asking McDonalds to stop targeting children with their marketing. The signed petitions are going to the Micky D’s shareholder meeting May 20th to demonstrate the level of community support nationally asking to retire the clown. If you haven’t signed click here to do it now. Ran into Bryant Terry and his lovely fiance, Jidan, there. Cool people. Great weekend. Excellent community.

Ok, so last week got away from me and I meant to share with you ways in which you too can take action to turn the tide of obesity in the United States. As mentioned, check out the Value [the] Meal campaign Retire Ronald.This campaign is asking McDonald’s to:

1. Stop using their marketing to undermine parents and manipulate youth

2. Stop interfering with public policy for better health

3. Develop healthy products, not “healthier” but healthy…nutritionally defunct salads and apple slices dipped in caramel don’t count

If you’d like to take action now, sign a petition asking McDonald’s to stop using the clown to manipulate young minds into wanting their junk food. Contact the Retire Ronald organizers at: retireronald@stop corporateabuse.com to schedule a house meeting in your location so you can share the effort with your community. Give to the campaign to help keep it going! This effort takes staff and resources to implement. I’ve met two organizers behind the campaign and can tell you they are highly organized, extremely well spoken, and can get the job done! When I donated, it was toward their skilled advocacy as well with confidence in Corporate Accountability International’s great track record with success.

If you have a shred of doubt that the marketing of McDonald’s truly uses insidious manipulation tactics to target kids- check out the book Kidfluence where the author discusses “Pester Power” and “Nag Influence.” There is also apparently a Kidfluence documentary.

Another blogger out there shared a great idea that’s been floating around! Junk Food Taxation, check it out.

Down with the Clown: Why Ronald McDonald Has No Business Talking to Children

Alternet, April 12, 2010 by Raj Patel.

“Here I am kids. Hey, isn’t watching TV fun? Especially when you got delicious McDonald’s hamburgers. I know we’re going to be friends too cause I like to do everything boys and girls like to do. Especially when it comes to eating those delicious McDonald’s hamburgers.”

It’s easy both to wince at how crass this sounds, and to overlook its audacity. With entire TV channels premised on direct marketing to children, it seems impossible that there might have been a time where kids were considered anything other than shorter, louder, more pestering versions of adult consumers. But it wasn’t always thus. It took a canny cabal of admen to tap the pockets of a newly affluent generation of youngsters. They wanted to redefine the frontiers of what advertising in television age could be. And they succeeded.

Today, the McDonald’s corporation boasts that their frontman is more recognizable than Santa Claus. He’s the champion of a $32 billion brand. With a wink and a smile, Ronald has charged into neighborhoods around and inside schools, targeting children with a range of unhealthy food, plumbing every depth to keep his parent company’s arches golden and bright in the minds of impressionable young eaters.

McDonald’s and other fast food corporations shelter behind the fact that their advertising is ‘free speech,’ as protected by the First Amendment and that, in any case, the corporations clearly declare their commercial intentions. So, for instance, when children go to Ronald.com to play McD-themed games they’ll see in small white letters on a pale background at the top right the words “Hey kids.This is advertising!” This isn’t terribly helpful. Although children may know that something is advertising, they are unlikely to understand what, exactly that means.

Michele Simon, a lawyer and author of Appetite for Profit, tells it straight: “McDonald’s knows that vulnerable children are the perfect advertising audience, since they don’t even know they’re being marketed to.” She suspects that for the group brave enough, and with deep enough pockets, there’s a huge and successful lawsuit to be brought against McDonald’s (and against all advertising against children) for deceptive practices. She’s backed up by the medical profession: the American Academy of Pediatrics says that “advertising directed toward children is inherently deceptive and exploits children under eight years of age.” In other words, the very idea of advertising to children is a fraud. Children are simply unable to generate and entertain rational opinions about goods and services, which cuts away the argument that advertising is just a more entertaining version of truth-telling. When it comes to children, advertising is far closer to brainwashing.

Parents are being hoodwinked too. One of the reasons that kids are permitted by pestered parents to enter a McDonald’s is the possibility that they might choose a healthy meal when they’re there. As Wendi Gosliner, a Researcher at the Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley observes, “not one of the 24 Happy Meal combinations offered contains the foods and nutrients children need to meet the Dietary Guidelines. Now, they’re promoting processed fresh apples dipped in caramel sauce and sweetened milk as ‘healthy’ choices. Well, these meals and these choices are hurting our children’s health.”

There’s a bigger picture story here too. Ronald isn’t just a clown. He’s not just a pioneer in the marketing of food to children: he’s also an architect. Without him, the food system we have today would look very different. Here and around the world, the way food is grown, subsidized, processed and eaten has been fashioned by the needs of the McDonald’s corporation.

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More on unhealthy marketing to kids, click here.

Continuing on the topic of reversing the tide of obesity in the U.S. and protecting the health of families and children, please meet Value [the] Meal the mothership of Retire Ronald. Value [the] Meal is a Corporate Accountability International initiative holding the fast food industry accountable for a range of abuses that are making our children sick. The hardworking staff behind Value [the] Meal have assembled a compelling body of evidence demonstrating the fact that the fast food industry has prioritized short-term financial windfalls over the health of kids.

For instance, studies clearly show that the closer a fast food franchise is to schools, the higher the rates of health conditions like obesity.^1,2 Value [the] Meal launched a mapping project to demonstrate the proximity of McDonald’s and other fast food chains to schools in three major cities. You can view the map by clicking here.

The summary of their findings from the mapping project are:

National

A recent study found that neighborhoods with a high school were 30 percent more likely to have a fast food outlet within walking distance.

A recent study found increased levels of obesity at secondary schools located within 1/10 of fast food restaurants.

Chicago

In Chicago, nearly 80 percent of schools are within a ½ mile of fast food. What’s more, McDonald’s and other fast food giants have systematically located in or near schools, to make their franchises the breakfast, lunch and after-school destination for our kids.

Approximately 10 percent of Chicago secondary schools are within 1/10 of a mile of fast food, this means tens of thousands of Chicago kids are at an increased risk of obesity.

Additionally, 91 percent of all of the McDonald’s in the City of Chicago are within ½ mile of a school – well within walking distance.

These data suggest that this proximity is more than just happenstance.

Boston

The data for Boston show that – although it is a smaller city – it is right on track proportionally for the amount of fast food restaurants within walking distance to fast food restaurants.

Three of Boston high schools are within 1/10 mile of a fast food restaurant.

Additionally, over 30% of all Boston schools that we mapped are within ½ of a mile of fast food establishments. This is still easily within walking distance.

Bay Area

The data for the Bay Area, which includes Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco shows that 25 schools are within 1/10 of a mile from a fast food restaurant.

There are 53 high schools in the Bay Area that are within a ½ mile of fast food restaurants. This is a short walking distance for high schoolers and gives them easy access to fast food before, during and after school.

Over 90% of Bay Area schools are within walking distance (1 mile) from a fast food restaurant.

Obesity rates have doubled in California since 1990.  Around 30% of school children in California are overweight or obese.

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¹Currie, J., DellaVigna, S., Moretti, E., Pathania, V. (2009). The Effects of Fast Food Restaurants On Obesity and Weight Gain. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper 14721. Retrieved 4.27.10. http://www.nber.org/papers/w14721.

²Davis, B., Carpenter, C. (2009). Proximity of Fast-Food Restaurants to Schools and Adolescent Obesity. American Journal of Public Health. 99(3):505–510.

This past weekend I held a well attended house meeting on the Retire Ronald campaign. I was moved by the show of support with a group of twenty friends, neighbors and family coming together to learn ways to stop corporate abuse of food. This is an issue near and dear to my heart. My father and my brother suffer from severe Type 2 Diabetes. A cousin passed away in 2005 after leg amputation from complications with Type 2 Diabetes. My brother is now suffering from neuropathy in his limbs which have led to lesions on his feet that won’t heal.

My brother started working at McDonalds when he was 16. He ate their food for several years until at age 20, he had a series of life threatening seizures due to the onset of Type 2 Diabetes.

I am appalled by the obesity epidemic affecting our nation…affecting our children. The earth mama in me that wants to feed everyone food, good loving healthy food, is pissed at the devastating outcome of government support of industrial agriculture and lax regulation of marketing tactics that target youth.

I have therefore decided to dedicate the next week of posts to the issue of obesity, diet related disease, needed action and how to get involved.

The Issue:

There is a national epidemic of obesity. More than one in six U.S. children is obese.[1]

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) blames obesity in children on improper nutrition, time in front of the television, and lack of physical activity. They warn that childhood obesity can continue into adulthood and possibly lead to an earlier onset of medical problems such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, reproductive health complications, and arthritis.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), poor nutrition affects the behavior of children, their school attendance and performance, as well as their overall development.

UCSF Researcher, Robert Lustig, observes that childhood obesity is not a matter of choice for the individual but rather that, “young children, [for] whom obesity is rampant, are not responsible for their food choices and are incapable of accepting personal responsibility.”[2]

It is not enough to ask for the individual to change their behavior (i.e. eat your vegetables and exercise). A comprehensive, coordinated strategy is needed. Policy interventions that make healthy dietary and activity choices easier are likely to achieve the greatest benefits.

Changing our food environment can improve nutrition and reduce obesity through a three-prong strategy: altering relative food prices, shifting our exposure to food, and improving the image of healthy food while making unhealthy food less attractive.[3]

I have chosen to support the Retire Ronald campaign because the campaign specifically addresses the fact that the character Ronald McDonald is one of the most recognized and effective icons in marketing to children and sets them up for a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits and ultimately chronic disease.

Consider this, no marketing icon has done more to drive demand for products that fundamentally alter and devastate our food system.

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[1] Frieden, T., W. Dietz, and J. Collins. (2010). Reducing Childhood Obesity Through Policy Change: Acting Now To Prevent Obesity. Health Affairs. 29(3), 357-363.

[2] Lustig, R. H. (2006). Childhood obesity: behavioral aberration or biochemical drive? Reinterpreting the first law of thermodynamics. Nature Clinical Practice Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2(8), 447-458.

[3] Frieden, T., W. Dietz, and J. Collins. (2010). Reducing Childhood Obesity Through Policy Change: Acting Now To Prevent Obesity. Health Affairs. 29(3), 357-363.

Check out the Terra Verde radio program on issues of urban agriculture, food security, and environmental justice with innovative programs in Oakland and around the country. Hell to the yeah.

This Letter to the Editor Appeared in the Fall/Winter 2008 Edible East Bay

Dear Edible East Bay:

I am writing in response to your recent article on freeganis, “The Diver’s Diet” by Matthew Green.

Thank you for providing a perspective on a lesser known reuse culture. I appreciate the attempt of individuals in our community to make better use of a deeply flawed food system. While an opposing perspective was included from business owners, I would like to include in the dialogue a perspective from those of us that have lived, or are living, in poverty.

The practice of freeganism brings attention to the appalling waste intrinsic to our current food system. While Green touches upon the fact that it is not the amount but the distribution of the food that leads to hunger, his article goes no deeper in helping the reader understand the larger system of poverty that leads to hunger for those that don’t have. Green’s article also does not acknowledge that by bringing attention to the accessibility of “free food,” freegans are increasing the inaccessibility of even discarded food for the hungry and homeless. This is clearly an unintended consequence, yet when people of a privileged class start commodifying a resource that had previously been left to the poor, it leads to gentrification of poverty.

Rummaging through the garbage for food and other resources is a stigmatized behavior associated with only the most deeply impoverished. Creating a subculture where a previously taboo behavior is “cool” is a form of tourism in the realm of poverty. Sociologist George Ritzer calls this McTourism. The individuals that are going on this vacation are not poor, they do not truly want to be poor or even perceived as poor. There is a significant difference between a middle-class urban hipster dressing and acting poor and the realities of living within a stigmatized community. In fact, there appears to be a correlation between freeganism and the use of other cultural symbols associated with lower classes (i.e. poverty props) to appear more urban, street smart, and politically savvy.

While I can appreciate the act of freegansim as a criticism of the waste our food system produces, it bears noting that it also obscures real poverty and loses focus on the crucial change needed. If we are seeking to create alternative urban systems to improve our cities and strengthen our communities and our environment, we need to look to the system of poverty. Rather than gentrifying poverty, lets eliminate the abysmal inequalities that lead to it.

Sincerely,

Esperanza Pallana

Oakland resident and urban farmer