Farmbrarian

Author Simon Fairlie aggressively tackles the sensitive topic of eating animals in his new book Meat: A Benign Extravagance (out Feb. 8). His explicit purpose is to evaluate the sustainability of raising livestock–or the long-term ability to feed the human population while maintaining as much of the natural ecosystem as possible. Dietary health and morality, he rightly suggests, are topics for other books.

Meat examines the many facets of the debate at great length. For example, Fairlie examines the oft cited statistic that each kilogram of beef we eat required 100,000 liters of water. After consideration from every possible angle, he determines that this figure is “wildly inaccurate” for the majority of cattle around the world. Other topics covered include: land requirements for livestock versus plants, the natural place for animals in an ecosystem, vegan agriculture, the interesting alliance between the meat and vegetable oil industries, greenhouse gas contributions of eating animal products (very thorough), and permaculture.

Fairlie himself spent several years as a vegetarian, but now eats meat. He has considerable and varying farming experience and presents the arguments as objectively as can be expected (no one can be perfectly objective, which he acknowledges). In many cases he points out when pro-vegan or pro-meat writers make misleading statements, present statistics steeped in partial-truth, or repeat “facts” without proper groundwork. In the end he pushes for a “default livestock” agricultural system where animals fit into the picture without consuming considerable resources that could be directly consumed by humans. For example, grazing cattle on steep, natural grassland that can’t readily be farmed. Or feeding food scraps or excess harvest to pigs, which can be eaten in leaner times. In effect, a pig acts as a caloric savings account (piggy-bank?) that can be accessed later. The “default livestock” system represents a lower level of meat consumption than the current Western average, but specific types of meat eating is supported nonetheless.

Meat is written from an English perspective, even addressing the question of whether Britain could feed itself. This has no real bearing on the book, however, because many situations are evaluated, and his conclusions apply well around the world. To say the least, reading this book was an educational experience. Many other books have addressed this topic, but none so thoroughly as Fairlie’s work. This is a tremendous reference, albeit a thick one, that should be perused by all.

On Amazon or at your local library.

Thanks to Chelsea Green for providing a review copy of the book.

You might also like: The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith and Diet For a Hot Planet by Anna Lappe.

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The United States has some amazing and very diverse food traditions. Perhaps you’re interested in “Mississippi Mullet Salad,” also referred to as “Biloxi Bacon” (certainly more appetizing by that name). And sure, Boston has its baked beans recipe (it is Bean Town after all), but are you aware of “Nebraska Baked Beans”?

Author Mark Kurlansky pulls off a truly intriguing and unique project in his book The Food of a Younger Land. Kurlansky poured through the lost files of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) – a Great Depression era, New Deal program that hired thousands of writers across the country to piece together a thorough look at how Americans ate. The project was called America Eats. Sadly, it was interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and subsequent  focus on World War II and was never finished.

Ultimately, The Food of a Younger Land is a patchwork of recipes and food stories from the America Eats project. Each of America’s many, many food traditions is worthy of being remembered, if for no other reason than the curiosity of history. Kurlansky has provided a great service by assembling this book. After all, you never know when you might like to try “Indian Persimmon Pudding,” or “Georgia Possum and Taters.”

You might also like: Twain’s Feast: Searching For America’s Lost Foods In the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens by Andrew Beahrs

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Epigenetics, nutrigenomics and other complicated means of studying how our genes interact with our food are all the rage lately. It seems that we may be at the tip of the iceberg with understanding why some people’s genetic makeup puts them at serious risk of disease. It is quite interesting that putting food through our digestive tract ultimately works with our genetic blueprint to produce favorable, or not so favorable, outcomes.

Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity is a 2004 work by food writer Gary Paul Nabhan that looks at these topics in order to understand how our varying paths of evolution lead to different genetic makeup, which leads to vastly different traditions and nutritional needs.

For example, Nabhan leads an interesting discussion on the logic of exporting the famed “Mediterranean” diet around the rest of the Western world. This diet seems to have done very well for the people of that region (or, actually, for the people on the islands of Crete and Corfu, from where most of the information about the diet actually came). But does that mean a Mexican-American would benefit similarly? It is possible, but that diet will likely be rather unfamiliar to that person’s body, including his genes.

This mainstream work of anthropology is approachable and entertaining. Food traditions are cornerstones of culture, and the fact that many of these are backed by our genetic blueprint is rarely considered. I personally think we should go to great length to maintain such traditions, and Nabhan’s work shows that this is not only important culturally, but also on an instinctual level.

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Food, by necessity, plays a massive role in today’s world. Historically, it has played an even larger role in culture and in people’s everyday lives. Take for example the hunter-gatherer, whose only worries were food and safety. Even during the bulk of the 20th century the vast majority of the world was still somehow involved in food production. Considering all points in between, author Tom Standage, in his book An Edible History of Humanity, traces mankind’s path by looking through its stomach.

The book amounts to a collection of food related stories throughout the history of man. It is both interesting and informative, as history always provides powerful lessons. Standage tells of the start of agriculture, when food was the initial form of wealth. Grains can be stored, so if you harvested and stored more of them than anyone else, you had more of the thing of most value. Until such divisions emerge (rich vs poor, haves vs have-nots, etc.) society as we know it can’t exist. It was truly food over all else that has determined culture throughout history. Later in the book, Standage reminds us that it was Napoleon who said, “If only I have bread, it will be child’s play to beat the Russians” (145). Food has indeed been a powerful weapon that has determined history.

Those with an interest in history will find this book an intriguing read (along with his other book A History of the World in Six Glasses). Anyone well versed on the topic may be disappointed by the book’s lack of depth. Overall, it is a rather enjoyable, though somewhat abridged look at the historical power of food.

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Author David Montgomery accomplishes quite a feat with his 2007 work, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. He takes a potentially mundane topic, dirt, and transforms it into an entertainingly educational trip through history.

As the name implies, societies throughout history rely on little more than their land’s ability to produce food. In fact, as the author shows, civilizations have been destroyed so many times in the past due to eroded and depleted soil that it is essentially predictable in any society. And after all, according to Wendell Berry, “what we do to the land, we do to ourselves” (1).

Certainly today we face enormous challenges with respect to our soil. Around the globe the earth faced abusive agriculture for hundreds or thousands of years, and with our current population, this pressure will only increase. We have undoubtedly increased crop yields using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but this high output, monocrop agriculture is clearly taking faster than it replenishes. Further, those impressive yields are no longer increasing and may even be declining. This inevitably leads to the usage of marginal lands to grow food. Unfortunately, history holds that this “fencerow to fencerow” and beyond system of agriculture only serves to erode a civilization until it is just a memory. This memory, of course, will also stand as a warning for all other civilizations willing to listen before it is too late.

You might also like: Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Costs of Civilization by Spencer Wells

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The US Farm Bill is a major point of contention among those concerned with human and environmental health. Most notably, the Farm Bill is responsible for subsidies paid to farmers for growing commodity grains on a large scale in order to provide a lot of cheap (and processed) food. As author Daniel Imhoff points out in his book Food Fight: The Citizen’s Guide to a Food and Farm Bill (2007), however, this legislation is much more than just corn subsidies.

In the foreword, Michael Pollan sums it up nicely by explaining that the legislation determines “what happens on a couple hundred million acres of private property in America, what sort of food Americans eat (and how much it costs), and as a result, the health of our population.” With such enormous implications, it is amazing the extent to which the Farm Bill flies under the radar.

Food Fight appears to be the only recent book attempting to explain the Farm Bill to the lay person. Imhoff succeeds in that the book is informative, readable, and thorough, without getting caught up in the minutia of an enormous piece of legislation.

Every 5 or so years, this legislation is changed, and I suspect (and hope) major changes will continue to come. The more educated John Q. Public is on what is really happening here, the better chance that we can improve this bill. Making positive steps is important, because as Michael Pollan points out, our health depends on it.

You might also like: The Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale

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There is a perceived battle between ranchers and environmentalists. Ranchers intend to raise animals without consideration for the land, while environmentalists fight tooth and nail against the exploitation of nature. In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Author Courtney White shows that these two groups hold nearly identical intentions in his book Revolution on the Range: The Rise of a New Ranch in the American West.

There are many examples of land being severely damaged by overgrazing. For this reason, many groups fight for tighter restrictions on livestock grazing, especially on public lands. White thoroughly details, however, that livestock can play an integral role in restoring an ecosystem when used properly.

His picture is painted using many different ranches across the American West. The action-oriented book is ripe with solutions, and as a result will be very useful in the ongoing task of land management. To an average person though, readability suffers.

White lays out his “new ranch” as an integral part of land conservation. To him, ranching and environmentalism are not only compatible, they are co-dependent. The arguments are compelling, and the solutions are innovative and realistic. The book is a great addition to the conservation literature.

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“Ultimately, nearly every single major disease affecting modern human populations–whether bacterial, viral, parasitic, or noncommunicable–has its roots in the mismatch between our biology and the world we have created since the advent of agriculture.”

10,000 years ago, people began growing food instead of foraging. This method of feeding populations seems like an obvious way to improve food security. (Although evidence does not suggest that hunter-gatherers had trouble obtaining sufficient food.) But as Spencer Wells states in the quote above, the affects of our decision to begin controlling nature through agriculture have been far reaching (90). He discusses the idea at length in his new book Pandora’s Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization (2010).

Exploring all of the results of the onset of agriculture is a daunting task, indeed. By design, the book covers many topics ranging from chronic disease to global warming. Wells includes great lessons on human evolution and traces an understandable path from the days of hunter-gatherers to current times–where we face decreasing natural resources and increasing mental illness, among many other challenges.

In the final section of the book, Wells presents his solution to these problems. If the human race wants to halt its move down a path of destruction, “want less,” he says. Noble and necessary, to be sure, but lacking in detail nonetheless.

Given the breadth of the text, some segments lack thorough discussion. But readers who aren’t searching for detailed science, will find the anthropological discussion enjoyable and informative.

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Boston bacon and beans, Cutthroat trout from Lake Tahoe, and Philadelphia terrapin soup are just a few entries on Mark Twain’s list of more than 80 favorite foods. Author Andrew Beahrs not only prepares meals of some of Twain’s favorite dishes, he also traces Twain’s life’s journey in order to understand the great author’s experiences with food. In Twain’s Feast: Searching For America’s Lost Foods In the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens (2010), Beahrs recounts all of his findings and experiences. The result is a truly unique book that discusses food traditions dating back a hundred and fifty years.

Sadly, many of the meals Twain enjoyed are simply not available to us anymore. The Illinois prairie chickens described in the book sound tantalizing, but the replacement of “twelve-foot-high big bluestem” prairie grass with corn monocrops effectively ended the availability of the prairie chicken by stealing its habitat. According to the author, the first John Deere plow made this habitat “transition” possible. Lahontan Cutthroat trout of Lake Tahoe were once recorded at up to thirty pounds. Today, however, they are much harder to find due in part to the Army Corps of Engineers altering the course of the Truckee River, the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe.

Twain’s Feast takes readers back to the time when seasonal, local eating was the only type of eating. Thankfully, we are slowly realizing that food traditions are important and worthy of looking after. Twain yearned for American food while traveling in Europe, and I fear that we too will end up longing for our traditional, tasteful and nourishing foods if we let mass produced, tasteless foods take over our tables.

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Anyone who has stumbled across a fruit tree while walking the dog probably shares the sentiment of author Darrin Nordahl. To pull a fig, apple or orange from a tree and eat it on the spot is a great experience. Perhaps we enjoy the  fruit because of its freshness, but I suspect there is something more innate about it; as though our bodies simply know this is the healthiest way to eat. Indeed, our ancestors survived exactly this way.

Public Produce (2009) advocates for gardens and fruit trees on public land not just for the enjoyment of dog walkers, but also to improve access to fresh, healthy food. Many of society’s most vulnerable lack the ability to find or afford what has sadly become somewhat of a luxury.

Many cities and municipalities are taking steps in the right direction. Michelle Obama’s much publicized White House garden is a great example. Public land already must be maintained – why not increase its value and grow nutritious foods at the same time? If done with conviction, a community stands to benefit greatly.