Cooking Subversive

#GeekingOutSeries/Safety101/ChemicalsinFood/4

This post is part of the Geeking Out series which presents data-driven information on food and farming, safety in the kitchen, practical science for cooks, cooking techniques and processes and other relevant nerdy stuff that every cook should know.  This post is from the chapter, Safety 101 and the final episode of a four part series.

How sugar insinuated itself into the American diet is a fascinating tale that begins with the scientific community’s colossal error in choosing personality over substance, and how we’re all living with the ramifications of this onerous mistake.

The Charm Offensive: Sugar vs. Fat

In the 1950’s, two competing theories were being floated on what caused heart disease. A physiologist from the University of Minnesota, Ancel Keys, posited that fat (cholesterol) was the enemy. On the other side of the Atlantic, John Yudkin, a British professor of Nutrition, had a hypothesis that sugar was the culprit.  Ancel Keys was also the inventor of K ration, the packaged food America’s soldiers relied on. 

When US President Dwight Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, his doctor gave a press conference instructing Americans to stop smoking and cut down fat and cholesterol to avoid heart disease, citing Ancel Keys’s theory.  Meanwhile, to buttress his hypothesis, Keys collected what seemed to be inarguable evidence that a diet low in saturated fat was key to a healthy heart.  What came to be known as the Seven Countries Study (which included countries like Greece and Italy), introduced Mediterranean diet into the gastronomic lexicon and became the foundation for vilifying fat.  Never mind that Keys may have cherry picked his data, having excluded France and West Germany which had high-fat diets and low rates of cardiovascular disease. 

What followed was a bloody battle where fact-based data was not the winner.  In The Sugar Conspiracy, published by The Guardian, writer Ian Leslie describes how the scientific community gravitated towards Keys’s Fat hypothesis despite inconsistencies in data, attributing personality as a key determinant. He writes:

“Ancel Keys was brilliant, charismatic, and combative. A friendly colleague at the University of Minnesota described him as, “direct to the point of bluntness, critical to the point of skewering”; others were less charitable. He exuded conviction at a time when confidence was most welcome. The president, the physician and the scientist formed a reassuring chain of male authority, and the notion that fatty foods were unhealthy started to take hold with doctors, and the public.”

Don’t forget he was also the inventor of the all-American K-ration.  Yudkin, on the other hand, was of the quiet sort.  We all know who won that war. John Yudkin was ridiculed by the scientific community and when he published his book, “Pure, White, Deadly” in 1972 to warn the public that it was indeed sugar that was the enemy of good health, his reputation had tanked and his book, though popular at the time, languished into near obscurity.

So “Fat is Bad” won, now what?

Here’s where it gets dicey.  In 1980, the US government released dietary guidelines to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol. The UK followed suit in 1983.  The verdict was loud and clear and resounded beyond the borders of North America.  FAT IS BAD AND CAUSES HEART DISEASE.  A surge of Low-fat and Fat-free food products began lining supermarket shelves and refrigerated sections.  Eggs were shunned, margarine replaced butter; skim milk was substituted for whole milk.  In Manila, I was using non-dairy creamers in coffee and avoiding avocados.  

The thing is, besides physiological benefits like helping you feel fuller, fat is responsible for other positive culinary traits such as a smooth and creamy texture, delightful mouthfeel, moisture  and most importantly,  flavor.  Someone at one of my cooking classes told me that FAT stands for flavor and taste, and while I haven’t found any evidence of its veracity, I thought it was rather cute, and on point.  So while food manufacturers scrambled to remove or reduce fat in their products, they had to find a way to compensate for the loss in flavor.

“Knock, knock, who’s there?”  Enter, Sugar Additives.

Here’s where the bump in sugar additives begins.  A sugar additive is basically sugar added to food in the processing stage.  As it turns out, sugar doesn’t just make food sweet.  In its web page (which includes a photo of colorful, healthy fruits), The Sugar Association uses candy-colored graphics and dots to depict sugar’s functional roles beyond sweetness to include: flavor enhancer/balancer/aroma, bulk, texture/mouthfeel, shelf-life/microbial stability, fermentation, freezing point depression, color and moisture retention.  

Sugar is quite the multi-tasker, and it’s no surprise it goes by different names.  What’s surprising to most of us is how many--a whopping sixty one, according to the Sugar Science page of the University of California San Francisco’s website. You might be familiar with some that we use at home: cane sugar, coconut palm sugar, maple syrup, honey.  And then there are those ubiquitous in most commercial food items like high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, dextrose, dehydrated cane juice (see end notes for full list). Added sugar is everywhere.  They’re hidden in whole-grain cereals and granola, fruit juice, yogurt and baby food.  They’re also in savory food items like canned soups, pasta sauce, bread and salad dressing.

The Nutritional Gamble that’s Sickened Millions

After forty years betting on Fat as the enemy, we find out that the scientific community, government and health organizations were absolutely wrong.  When the US government released dietary guidelines minimizing fat in 1980, obesity rates in adults were at 15%.  By 2016, 4 out of 10 adults in the country were obese.   In youth, it’s worse. Childhood obesity tripled since the 1970’s and now affects 1of 5 school-aged children.

To understand what had happened, new research finally uncovered what John Yudkin had known all along: Sugar is the real enemy.  It’s been implicated in cardiovascular disease deaths. What’s more, the old villain, Fat, has now proven to be not only beneficial, but critical to good health.  For the first time in 2015, the Food and Drug Administration recommended a cap on sugar.

More and more Americans are becoming aware of the harmful effects of sugar.  Yet it is still misunderstood, especially in conjunction with the corollary benefits of fat.  Going against an established belief that was imposed on nearly two generations is an uphill climb. Those who stand to benefit from the status quo of sugar-filled and fat-free products will fight.  There will be mixed messaging, further perplexing consumers.  Proof of that is that supermarkets are still full of zero-fat products, but to add to the confusion, new labels have appeared: sugar-free, zero sugar, no added sugar, etc.

The sugar industry is feeling the onslaught. On their website, The Sugar Association takes a defiant stance:

 “There is no substitute for sugar.   With all these valuable functions, sugar can’t simply be replaced by another single ingredient. Its versatility is unmatched—and that’s just one of the reasons why we love sugar.”

Actually, there is a substitute for sugar. It’s called real food.

Ultra-Processed, The Unreal Food

Processed food by definition is any food that has been altered in any way, including freezing, canning, or simply cutting into pieces.  It refers to a broad spectrum that ranges from minimally processed items like roasted nuts, frozen vegetables, vinegar, to ultra-processed food and beverages like sodas, potato chips and breakfast cereals.  So as not to get caught up with technical definitions, let me make a distinction that what I will refer to as poison will be ultra-processed food and beverages. 

Ultra-processed means food and beverages are manipulated to enhance flavor, texture, aesthetics, and nutritional profiles as well as to prolong shelf life. We already know there’s way too much sugar in ultra-processed food.  Besides sugar in its many forms, commercial food is also a toxic cocktail of sodium, artificial preservatives, coloring, flavor enhancers, and a host of other food additives.  You can check out the rap sheet yourself, but here are a few examples from the Environmental Working Group:  Nitrates and nitrites, coloring and flavor agents often found in cured meats (WHO declared these as probably human carcinogens), Potassium bromate to strengthen bread  (known carcinogen in California), Butylated hydroxyanisole (endocrine disruptor).   The list goes on, but you get the drift.  Ditch unreal food. Read ingredient labels.  Here’s how you’ll spot them.Ultra-processed food and beverages  have:

*      an ultra-lengthy list of ingredients, i.e., probably more than five

*      unidentifiable ingredients that sound like something out of chemistry class

*      added sugars.  Remember, they masquerade under different names like fruit juice concentrate, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, sucrose

The Reality Check

To commit to healthy eating, it’s important to build a habit of reading ingredient labels.  Start by making your next grocery shopping experience one that avoids all ultra-processed food and beverages. Second,  check ingredients of all food items in your refrigerator and pantry and make a plan to toss out most if not all ultra-processed food and beverages.   It might seem daunting at first because you’ll find most every kind of item---condiments like ketchup, salad dressings, juices, sodas, supposedly heart-healthy breakfast cereals and snack bars, peanut butter, potato chips and canned goods, will have one or more of the offending ingredients we mention.  Though I’m very much anti-waste, if you come to believe, as I have, that we are slowly poisoning ourselves with sugar and chemicals that are hidden in food, you’ll find you can manage a steely resolve towards the project.  It might seem expensive in the beginning to replace ultra-processed with real food, but when you consider the expensive medical bills and poorer quality of life that you have avoided, you’ll find it was a bargain after all.

Summary: “I’ll Have The Poison on the Side please.” 

Toxic chemicals are hidden in most of our commercial food supply and are a leading cause of disease and ailments in the world ranging from gluten-intolerance to type 2 diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. For a healthier diet:

* Buy fresh organic or chemical-free fruits and vegetables starting with those in the Dirty Dozen list which have the most chemicals

* To avoid the very toxic glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, buy organic or glyphosate-free flour and wheat products, oats, barley and beans

* Choose eggs, poultry and meats that are free-range,  grass-fed, organic, sustainably-raised, which have minimal or no chemicals added to them or their feed.

* Avoid Ultra processed food and beverages.  It’s ultra-processed if there are added sugars, generally more than five ingredients, or if ingredients sound like they are from your chemistry class.

**********************************************************************************

The 61 Names for Sugar

Agave nectar

Barbados sugar

Barley malt

Barley malt syrup

Beet sugar

Brown sugar

Buttered syrup

Cane juice

Cane juice crystals

Cane sugar

Caramel

Carob syrup

Castor sugar

Coconut palm sugar

Coconut sugar

Confectioner's sugar

Corn sweetener

Corn syrup

Corn syrup solids

Date sugar

Dehydrated cane juice

Demerara sugar

Dextrin

Dextrose

Evaporated cane juice

Free-flowing brown sugars

Fructose

Fruit juice

Fruit juice concentrate

Glucose

Glucose solids

Golden sugar

Golden syrup

Grape sugar

HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup)

Honey

Icing sugar

Invert sugar

Malt syrup

Maltodextrin

Maltol

Maltose

Mannose

Maple syrup

Molasses

Muscovado

Palm sugar

Panocha

Powdered sugar

Raw sugar

Refiner's syrup

Rice syrup

Saccharose

Sorghum Syrup

Sucrose

Sugar (granulated)

Sweet Sorghum

Syrup

Treacle

Turbinado sugar

Yellow sugar

Interested to learn more? Check out companion posts on Cooking Subversive:“I’ll Have The Poison on the Side Please” : Chemicals in our Foodpart 1: Chemical Fertilizers, Herbicides and Pesticidespart 2: And Then There’s Rounduppart 3: Steroids, Antibiotics and other Chemicals in Meat and Poultrypart 4: Sugar Additives and Ultra-Processed Foods

I Cook to Reclaim My Health

#GeekingOutSeries/Safety101/ChemicalsinFood/3

This post is part of the Geeking Out series which presents data-driven information on food and farming, safety in the kitchen, practical science for cooks, cooking techniques and processes and other relevant nerdy stuff that every cook should know.  For the next few weeks, we will be covering topics from the chapter, Safety 101. This is the third of a four part series.

Picture this: an expanse of lush green as far as the eye can see where cows graze in idle harmony. Nearby, chickens cheerfully pick at blades of grass and cow dung for their bug buffet, fertilizing their patch of pasture as they break up the bovine manure and deposit a bit of their own little black gold. The contented lowing and clucking of cattle and poultry accompanied by a gentle breeze completes the sensory experience for this bucolic paradise. Hogwash.

This is the sort of fantasy Big Agri wants us to believe when we pick up their neatly-packaged chunks of meat in Styrofoam containers.  And while there are some farms that pasture animals free range like the one above, they are few and far between. Most meat and poultry found in supermarkets never had lifestyles this lavish. Here’s the reality check.

Remember that BigAgri is all about the bottom line, which means maximizing efficiency and lowering costs. That translates to beef manipulation that begins prior to conception with cows treated with hormones that regulate the timing of conception so that calves are born within days of each other. The calves spend the first seven to nine months grazing on grass and then are taken to a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), which can be feedlots or windowless buildings housing hundreds to millions of animals.

Jo Robinson described in a 2008 article from Mother Earth News:

“Upon arrival at the feedlot, the stressed, thirsty and hungry calves are herded down chutes and subjected to a number of procedures, which can include dehorning, castration, branding and tagging. Then they are dewormed and vaccinated against various diseases. A common practice is to mix antibiotics with the feed, whether the now-stressed animals show signs of illness or not. Tetracycline, an antibiotic important for humans, is one of the most commonly used medications.

Lastly, the calves are implanted with pellets that contain growth-promoting steroid hormones that lose their effectiveness in a matter of months. Many animals are given new implants of higher potency to replace them. The aggressive use of hormone implants can add 110 pounds of lean meat or more to a calf. Every dollar invested in implants returns five to 10 dollars in added gain for each animal in the six to 12 months they spend in the feedlot.”

Meanwhile, the calves are shifted from grass to a high- grain diet to fatten them further.  Remember our earlier discussion on Roundup’s glyphosate being used on GMO produce like corn and soybeans?   GMO crops are principally grown for livestock feed, so everything we said that was bad about Roundup, including glyphosate, will be present in industrialized meat.  Besides GMO crops, animal waste (blood, offal, dead animals) are recycled in a process called rendering and is part of livestock feed. The (barely) good news is, as of 1997, the FDA regulated against feeding cattle euthanized dogs and cats (as well as other mammals) as a preventive measure against mad cow’s disease and other diseases transferred from sick animals. However, the rule doesn’t apply to poultry.  Speaking of which, in a 2012 study on rendered poultry feather meal sold as fertilizers and animal feed, multiple pharmaceuticals were found including Prozac, Benadryl, acetaminophen and personal care products. 

Grain (not to mention all the other offending ingredients) is not a natural diet for ruminants like cattle, which makes them sick. The stress of being tightly confined in pens hooves-deep in pathogen-rich manure makes them sick.  What to do with sick animals?  Give them antibiotics.  The prevalence of antibiotics in food we consume is partly to blame for the antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that plague us today.  In 2017, the FDA banned the use of antibiotics used purely for growth promotion, but using it for “disease prevention” is allowed. Where money is concerned, and that’s $111 billion-strong in 2017, the livestock industry is going to find a way.

There are other chemicals that are routinely part of Big Agri meat and poultry besides those already mentioned.  This is but the tip of the iceberg.  Europe banned US beef in 1989 due to the use of growth hormones and it’s only recently that they’re allowing exports of hormone-free beef.  However, chickens are still banned due to the use of chlorine baths (used for disinfection) which may hide unsanitary practices.

With that said, nothing is written in stone.  In a capitalist economy where profit rules, it’s important to understand how Big Agri can be persuaded to make salutary changes.  It’s rarely because of altruistic reasons.  Consider these recent developments in the porcine world.

Until recently, US pork was banned in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork. Why? 60-80% of US pigs are given ractopamine, a feed additive that builds muscle instead of fat, which means bigger pigs, which means extra dollars.  Ractopamine is banned in 160 countries, including in Europe due to concerns over adverse effects in humans.  With the exception of Smithfield which phased out ractopamine in its pig production soon after it was acquired by China’s WH Group in 2013, most hog producers use this drug which “has resulted in more reports of sickened or dead pigs than any other livestock drug on the market.”  So even when China lost more than half of its favorite meat to the African swine fever of 2018-19 (about a quarter of the world’s pigs), it still refused to import US pork.  But the vast demand for pork that just opened up-- more than double the total US production, has proved too tempting for producers now scrambling to fill it.  Food giant, JBS USA which holds the Swift and Swift Premium brands was first to blink and announced in the latter part of 2019 that it will ban ractopamine in its pork.  Tyson followed suit with a similar announcement made within weeks.  I thought it interesting the company tried to put an altruistic spin on economic motives with its news release title, “Tyson to Help Meet Growing Demand for U.S. Pork by Prohibiting Ractopamine Use.” But you can read between the lines--- Tyson will ban ractopamine so it can sell to China and make more money. Early in 2020, Spam producer Hormel joined in the fray, announcing it will eliminate ractopamine from their supply chain by April of the year. 

To be continued…Coming up next in part 4: Sugar Additives and Ultra-Processed Foods      

Interested to learn more? Read my companion posts on Cooking Subversive:“I’ll Have The Poison on the Side Please” : Chemicals in our Foodpart 1: Chemical Fertilizers, Herbicides and Pesticidespart 2: And Then There’s RoundupI Cook to Reclaim My Health

#GeekingOutSeries/Safety101/ChemicalsinFood/2

This post is part of the Geeking Out series which presents data-driven information on food and farming, safety in the kitchen, practical science for cooks, cooking techniques and processes and other relevant nerdy stuff that every cook should know.  For the next few weeks, we will be covering topics from the chapter, Safety 101. This is the second of a four part series.

In part 1 of  “I’ll Have The Poison on the Side Please,” we gave an overview on how and why American agriculture had devolved into a monoculture landscape of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. We continue the discussion by introducing a poison used not only in commercial farms, but in home gardens.

Have you wondered why “gluten-free” is all the rage these days?  In North America and Europe, an estimated 5% are either diagnosed with Celiac disease or are gluten-intolerant.  Symptoms include “nausea, diarrhea, skin rashes, macrocytic anemia and depression,” and is “associated with numerous nutritional deficiencies as well as reproductive issues and increased risk to thyroid disease, kidney failure and cancer,” according to a study published by the US National Library of Medicine. Guess what it’s largely attributed to?  Glyphosate, the active ingredient in a product we all know: Roundup.

Roundup, manufactured by Monsanto and recently acquired by Bayer, is the largest selling herbicide in the world.  Many home gardeners use it to kill weeds unaware that its main ingredient, glyphosate, has been linked to cancer, specifically non-Hodgkin lymphoma, currently the subject of several lawsuits. 

But that’s not all. A team of French scientists from the University of Caen found that an inert ingredient in Roundup, specifically polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA was “more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself,” according to an article published by the Scientific American.  They concluded that the formulation itself-- the combination of various ingredients in Roundup, “could cause cell damage and even death [at the] residual levels.”

In the US, many farm products have an inordinately high amount of Roundup.  According to an article published by the Environmental Working Group:

“Most glyphosate is sprayed on “Roundup ready” corn and soybeans genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide. Increasingly, glyphosate is also sprayed just before harvest on wheat, barley, oats and beans that are not genetically engineered. Glyphosate kills the crop, drying it out so it can be harvested sooner than if the plant were allowed to die naturally.”

The use of Roundup as a pre-harvest dessicant increases the chances of residuals, making wheat, barley, oats and beans particularly noxious.  Fortunately, there is some good news.  

At the end of 2019, Kellogg’s, the ubiquitous cereals manufacturer, made a commitment to phase out oats and wheat treated with glyphosate by 2025.  Second only to General Mills, Kellogg’s holds enormous sway over farms and suppliers and one can only hope that this will have a positive ripple effect across the industry.  Even if a disingenuous marketing move (would you serve your child a bowl of poisoned cereal when you have an option that isn’t?), it is still a step in the right direction.  However, it does beg the question of how many children and adults were and are still being slowly poisoned by common food items containing glyphosate?     

In tests commissioned by several groups including the Environmental Working Group, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Friends of the Earth and even the FDA, glyphosate was detected in most wheat-based products such as pizza, crackers, pasta and cereals.   So yes, your typical American commercial food is pretty toxic and we’re all getting slowly poisoned every day.

Herbicides with glyphosate, are already banned or restricted in many parts of the world including France, Germany, Argentina, India, Australia, and in some US cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Austin and Portland, ME.  Why isn’t it banned everywhere?  Capitalism, baby.  The same reason the EPA under the previous administration allowed  corporations to make our air and water dirtier by scrapping or relaxing regulations that limit pollution.

After around 30,000 legal claims from customers who believed they developed cancer from glyphosate, there’s a bit of environmental good news:  Bayer announced last year that it would no longer sell glyphosate-containing products, including Roundup, to home gardeners starting 2023.  That’s a start. But unless it is banned completely, there’s still 280 million pounds applied annually to crop lands.  You can bet a lot of that is making its way into our food system.

While the sad reality is that we can’t currently rely on government or big business to safeguard our interests, specifically our health, we are not entirely helpless. How we choose to spend our dollar makes a difference and can influence how food is produced in the US.  Buying organic or from local, sustainable farms is not just a hipster trend, it’s a commitment to consume healthy food, limit the impact on the environment and support farms and companies that are doing the right thing.  If money were no object, everything we buy should be organic and/or local. But it’s expensive, initially. Over time, it’s much cheaper if you consider how much you’d be spending on outrageous medical bills and a reduced quality of life caused by a toxic diet.  But for most of us, our brains don’t work this way.  When you see organic bell peppers at nearly twice the price of conventionally grown ones, it’s easy to chuck good intentions aside and reach for the conventional ones.  I’ve been there.  And, it’s still an ongoing battle with my husband who has a difficult time resisting deals and sales.  Thankfully, there’s the Dirty Dozen list.

The Dirty Dozen

Fruits, vegetables and other crops have varying degrees of pesticide, herbicide and other chemical residues based on their particular farming practices. 

Chemical residues, including petroleum-based wax applied to some produce for cosmetic purposes or to retain freshness, are mostly found on the outer layer of produce.  So eating conventional spinach would be more toxic than a conventional banana where most of the chemical residues are on the discarded peel.

Making sense of all this and recognizing that most of us can’t afford to buy everything organic, the Environmental Working Group  releases an annual list of the twelve fruits and vegetables that have the most chemicals in them, and therefore are the produce that we should buy organic.

The Dirty Dozen List (aka What You Should Buy Organic)

(2021 list according to most toxic)

1. Strawberries2. Spinach3. Kale4. Nectarines5.Apples6. Grapes7. Cherries8. Peaches9.  Pears10. Bell Peppers11. Celery12. TomatoesYou can check their website for the full list at : https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/

The list above pertains to fresh produce. But given what we now know of the high levels of Roundup in our wheat, barley, oats and beans, buying organic, including organic flour (pasta, cereals and other derivatives) and avoiding GMO products is also highly recommended.

Then there’s the Clean Fifteen. The Environmental Working Group also releases an annual list of produce that don’t have as much chemicals in them.

The Clean Fifteen (aka What You Don’t Have To Buy Organic)

(2021 list according to cleanest/least toxic)

1.Avocados2. Sweet Corn3. Pineapples4. Onions5. Papayas6. Sweet Peas Frozen7. Eggplants8. Asparagus9.  Broccoli 10. Cabbages11. Kiwi12. Cauliflower13. Mushrooms14. Honeydew Melons15. Cantaloupes

Coming up next in part 3: Steroids, Antibiotics  and other Chemicals in Meat and Poultry      

Interested to learn more? Check out companion posts on Cooking Subversive:“I’ll Have The Poison on the Side Please” : Chemicals in our Foodpart 1: Chemical Fertilizers, Herbicides and Pesticides

I Cook to Reclaim My Health

#GeekingOutSeries/Safety101/ChemicalsinFood/1

This post is part of the Geeking Out series which presents data-driven information on food and farming, safety in the kitchen, practical science for cooks, cooking techniques and processes and other relevant nerdy stuff that every cook should know.  For the next few weeks, we will be covering topics from the chapter, Safety 101. This is the first of four parts.

While the idea of pathogens posing a danger to our health is established knowledge-- we’ve all learned about it in elementary science for one, my reference to many chemicals that are in our food system as “poison” may raise some eyebrows.  I’m referring to three kinds: toxic chemicals that go on our crops such as fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides; are present in our meat and poultry like steroids and antibiotics, and are in ultra processed foods like sugar additives and preservatives. While there’s a growing body of woke citizens, health professionals, scientists, environmental groups and even government agencies like the CDC that acknowledge the toxicity in our food production system, most Americans don’t realize the gravity of the situation for a number of reasons.

* It’s fairly new. Widespread chemical use in agribusiness is relatively recent, gaining traction only in the mid twentieth century.  The adverse effects caused by chemical fertilizers and additives in our food were not easily identified or immediately apparent, sometimes taking years to diagnose. It’s only in the last decade there’s been broad consensus that sugars, particularly high fructose corn syrup, are linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.      

* Corporate greed.  The main reason for the use of chemicals in our food system is to increase efficiency and lower production costs (but not environmental and public health costs), which means bigger profits for companies. Big Business loves its bottom line and will do anything to protect it. Large amounts of money are spent trying to convince the public their products are great or that studies showing harmful effects are conflated. Sound familiar?  We’ve been down this road before with the tobacco industry denying for decades that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. 

* Human nature.  Our tendency towards the path of least resistance means it’s easier not to change old habits or question previously established beliefs, despite growing available data that should convince us otherwise.  Plus, it’s not easy keeping up with food trends --margarine was in, now it’s out; wine was out, now in; coffee is…what now? It doesn’t help we’re bombarded with billions of dollars in unhealthy food advertising, brainwashing us since we were children. Sorting through the muck of false or misleading information is overwhelming.  To top it all, we’re not hardwired to be on red alert if we think the danger posed is far away.  Unlike e coli which could make you sick right away, toxic chemicals in our food system are a slow poison and it’s easy to believe we’re okay until we’re not.  Just like a lobster unaware it’s slowly boiling to death (also a good metaphor for why we’re not all panicking about global warming).

Knowledge is key.  Stories can put things in perspective and convince us to take action. I hope that understanding how and why America’s food system is in crisis might be the nudge we all need to make food choices that benefit the planet and ourselves, and not just Big Business.

Chemical Fertilizers, Herbicides and Pesticides

It’s impossible to overemphasize the danger posed by many chemicals in our food system.  They are not only toxic to us, but to other animals, the soil, the environment. Why the US is able to legally serve its populace harmful food comes down to corporate greed, how big money can influence government regulations, and insidious marketing that’s shaped culture and tastes predisposed to unhealthy food that keeps corporate coffers full.  For a detailed understanding of America’s food system from production to consumption,  I will defer to a few books that have strongly influenced me over the years:  Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, Third Plate by Dan Barber and Micheal Pollan’s  Omnivore’s Dilemma and Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

Monoculture America:  An Overview

Most commercial farming practices monoculture, the cultivation of a single crop in an area.  Think of those sweeping fields of Idaho corn or row after row of potatoes.  It’s ubiquitous and you could be forgiven for thinking this is how farming always was.  But that’s not right.  American Indians and other farmers practiced polyculture, planting diverse crops which were mutually beneficial not only to each other, but to maintaining and building soil health. The Three Sisters of Native American agriculture is one such well-known companion planting of corn, beans and squash. Jo Robinson in her book, Eating on the Wild Side describes:

‘The Wyandot people, renamed Hurons by the French were masters of this art.  Each spring, the Wyandot women would walk to a cleared field and spread a mound of fish waste every three or four feet.  They covered the fish with dirt and then planted a few corn seeds in the center of each mound. When the corn leaves reached hand height, they planted beans next to the corn, then sprinkled pumpkin seeds between the mounds. The corn stalks grew tall and sturdy, providing support for the limply twining beans.  The beans made their contribution by drawing nitrogen dioxide out of the air and converting it to a stable form of nitrogen that could be used by all three plants, but especially by the nitrogen-hungry corn.  The broad squash leaves fanned out beneath the corn and beans, preventing weeds from growing, cooling the soil, and slowing the evaporation of water.”

The function of the beans to draw out nitrogen dioxide from the air and convert it into a kind of nitrogen plants can use (ammonia and nitrate) is what’s called nitrogen-fixing.  Legumes, clover, lupines are some of the nitrogen-fixers commonly used to replenish the soil.  Another popular companion planting example is the home gardener’s tomatoes-basil combination.  According to the Farmer’s Almanac, not only do they taste good together, but the basil helps increase tomato yield and repels pests like mosquitoes, flies and aphids.

In companion planting, not only is there a symbiotic relationship between plants, but the diversity provides insurance of crop survival. Blight might take down corn, but maybe the squash will survive. And when planting is diverse, it’s harder for pests to home in on their favorite food. Vast swaths of single crops are an all-you-can eat buffet waiting to happen.

But in the 20th century, a confluence of events propelled America and much of the world’s agriculture into a monoculture landscape dependent on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.     

In 1909, A German chemist named Fritz Haber discovered a chemical way of “fixing” nitrogen, which is to produce liquid ammonia, the raw material for making nitrogen fertilizer. By 1913, the Haber-Bosch process was used to produce liquid fertilizers in greater quantities and by the time World War II was over, munitions factories which used ammonium nitrate for explosives, could find a new lease in life producing chemical fertilizers, thereby increasing supply and lowering costs to farmers.

In the mid-50’s, another scientist, Norman Borlaug bred a variety of dwarf wheat that tripled yield with the use of fertilizers.  The wheat variety, regimen of fertilizers and single crop cultivation (monoculture) were tested in Mexico and then later in India, which was on the brink of a famine. With the template for breeding high-yield crops dependent on fertilizers a huge success, The Green Revolution of the 60’s was born and exported to many parts of the world, including the Philippines, where “miracle” rice, another fast yielding crop, was developed. And this is how monoculture agriculture dependent on chemicals became the norm in American Agriculture.

The Ravages of Monoculture Agriculture

The Green Revolution had noble intentions and was a miracle with its bountiful yields, earning Borlaug the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize.  But decades later, we’ve learned what it has cost us. Forcing land to produce more than nature intended with chemical fertilizers is like me having to put in 70 hour work weeks on uppers.  Eventually, both the land and I are going to self-destruct, affecting everything in our wake.  Artificially propped up by speed, I may be able to function temporarily on this mad schedule. But besides the adverse effects on body and mind (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need a refresher on Breaking Bad), I’d probably be an insufferable maniac to co-workers and family. It’s a vicious cycle.  An organism builds tolerance over time, so after the initial productivity, more chemicals are required.

Land stripped of nutrients and toxic with chemicals becomes sick and unable to protect itself;  plants that grow in this environment are stressed and susceptible to diseases like blight.  Pollinators that feed on the toxic plants become sick and die. Declining bee population is largely linked to pesticides and habitat loss and in the US, winter losses commonly reach 30-50%. And drift-prone weed-killers like dicamba kill valuable food sources for bees—weeds.  Bees have been in serious decline over the last decade.  Pollinators, especially honeybees, are responsible for one in every three bites of food we take, according to the USDA.  You get the picture.  All these fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are killing our pollinators.

But they’re also killing us.  200,000 people die every year of acute pesticide poisoning worldwide, according to a UN report released in 2017.  That doesn’t include chronic illnesses and other diseases attributed to indirect exposure such as in contaminated food. 

And then there’s Roundup.

To be continued…

Interested to learn more? Read my companion posts on Cooking Subversive:I Cook to Reclaim My Health Superpowers of the Garden

Happy New Year everyone! 

So a few days ago, I was super psyched to learn that my jazz ensemble was booked for the 2022 Boston Food and Wine Festival jazz brunches, to be held at one of my favorite locations, The Boston Harbor Hotel. With wine on my mind, I thought I’d do a post on it, especially since a lot of folks are curious.  As it so happens, I’m married to a wine and whisky aficionado, Jeff Hunter.

Now this isn’t a proper interview at all.  We were about to settle down for the season finale of Mandalorian when it occurred to me I should see if Jeff was up for an impromptu interview, something he is more predisposed to do with a glass in hand.  He was.  So while he prepared for us to sample 2018 vintage Cabernet Sauvignon from two very different locales, one from Alexander Valley Vineyards California, the other from Penley Estate Phoenix Australia , I grabbed a mic. 

I know wine events can be daunting.  There’s the odd swish and sniff of glasses; the confident gargle, and the spit.  And what about the knowing look you get when you opt to swallow your sip ‘coz goodness knows you’ve paid good money for this!   And then there’s the jargon—  “structured,” “hint of oak,”  “tannic,” that defines moments of deliberation.

It’s easy to forget that a wine palate is cultivated.  Unless vinification is a family business or inherent in your culture, there’s a big chance your first sip of wine was disappointing and far from how you imagined it to be.  My parents let us have a sip or two when we were kids and I did not understand what the big to-do was.  Even in my college days it wasn’t something I enjoyed though I learned to tolerate it because I badly wanted to travel to Europe and I thought wine was something everyone had with their meals.  In the 70’s and 80’s in Manila, I remember drinking Blue Nun Riesling and Cold Duck champagne in our family events. Paul Masson Chablis was the main wine served at my 18th birthday party debut, an important milestone in Filipino society.   At the time, and in a nation of beer and whisky drinkers, any wine at a party was impressive, even if they all tasted like tart juice or downright vinegary. In a hot tropical country like the Philippines where houses don’t have basements, cellars, cool pantries,  nor any concept of proper storage, it’s highly likely we’d been blissfully toasting with turned wines and thinking that was cool.

So we all start somewhere and my first point is, wherever you are in your wine journey is okay.  Second, over time and as you explore a breadth of varieties, your palate will evolve.  What you find pleasant today may not be so tomorrow, and the opposite could also be true. Third, what is considered “good,” even by experts, need not be expensive.  Though price point can be indicative of quality, it is also affected by supply (limited production usually is pricier), brand name, popularity and other factors that have nothing to do with quality.  Wine regions like Bordeaux (France) or Napa Valley (US) have more cachet with some people than Australian or Argentinian wines, hence my earlier example of two 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon wines we were comparing, both very good and under $20, with the Penley Estate Phoenix Australia rated #69 in the Wine Enthusiast top 100 wines.

Learning about wines is fun and a lifetime activity. While I can barely remember vineyard names, I know what I like, am confident about food pairing , and am more articulate about my descriptions, which means, I can pretty much fake my way in an event.  I’m fortunate to have learned from others and most especially Jeff, who often cooks dishes with particular libations in mind, such as this evening’s Seafood Cioppino paired with 2006 Constanti Brunello di Montalcino, which means, a lot of our dinners are mini wine tasting events.  

Since I have a resident (literally) wine expert on board, and he now has the mic, let’s see what he has to say.  Bear in mind, we’ve had a few glasses at this point.

Marlene:  So I’m here with Jeff, an avid wine and whisky collector, purveyor in auctions and former wine consultant.  So Jeff, tell us a bit more about your passion for wine.

Jeff: Oh, good evening. Thanks, Marlene. Thanks for the nice introduction. My name is Jeff, Jeff Hunter, and I've enjoyed wine for many years.  I can recall the first case I got of an older Bordeaux that I kept in my parents’ basement. And that was kind of the beginning to my desire to collect. I just love the smell of the case of wine, the wood, the ability to taste that wine over the course of many dinners, as it evolved, and how long it would age and trying to correctly predict when I would drink it.

Marlene:  What kind of wines should we be looking at?

Jeff: Okay, we're gonna talk about popular wines or those that are less discovered at Wine Festivals. So if you're a curious person, and you would be interested in trying different regions, Lebanon, has some interesting things that are coming out. Israel as well has some fabulous Cabs. So explore. I'm not too familiar with Greece and Italy was always a mystery to me. But the more I've tried and the more I've looked at the maps of the different landscapes and wine producing regions of the various countries, the more I've gotten to appreciate all the things that make up the different wines of Italy, let's say,  France, as well, obviously, with many different wine producing regions, so great to be an explorer. And there's a lot of great wines being produced today around the world.

Marlene: Any favorites?

Jeff: Personally, I've been really enjoying something that's not as popular as it used to be. That's the Australian Cabernets and Shiraz. I just love those big, jammy, bomb-y types of wines and the concentration and the freshness of fruit that I find in some of them. So it's been kind of fun enjoying those, otherwise I go to, for sure, vintage Bordeaux.  Always buy the good years, sit on them, give them time, 5-10 years to come around. So get them early and be patient.

Marlene: What about unusual wines?

Jeff: I think that as esoteric wines go, the Tokaj of Hungary can be quite fascinating. And I was able to purchase six bottles of the Essencia of Pajzos from Tokaj, and that's the best of the best. It's a 1993 Vintage Robert Parker who's the wine critic gave it an O M G 100 points. Said it tasted like heaven. Amazing wine. Residual sugar is sky high but yet there's still some crisp snap through all the apricot flavor. Amazing wine.  I think I paid $125 a bottle with a discount should be about $300 to 500 at this point in 2022.

Marlene:   Lots of people are curious about wine events.  For those who’ve never been to one, can you perhaps give an idea on what they can expect?

Jeff: Going to wine festivals has always been a fun thing. I've always enjoyed the opportunity to taste many wines and a big gathering. And my favorite way of doing this is to have a friend who works in the wine industry and then have him get you in for free as his roadie; you can help him bring his wines in, and then maybe even help pour some of his wines, and then get to go in and check everything out for free. That's my favorite way to go into wine festivals.

Marlene: Ok, ok, let’s be serious.  If it was for like, you know, just a regular Joe, how would it be?

Jeff:  Of course yeah. You know I do love wine festivals and my approach to attending a wine festival based on the limited amount of time I have with so much to taste. And so I would recommend getting in doing your research. Look at the listing, see who's attending, see who's pouring, see who's pouring what. Stay away from the pedestrian wines, focus on your whites first. So you don't ruin your palate. Get around, it doesn't matter if the table has red or white just stay with the whites. You can always come back for the Reds later. And then just keep moving through the festival. Don't get bogged down. And as the more you taste and don't forget to spit because the more you taste, the more you can become a little bit more friendly with all the participants and lose valuable time-- tasting time. Focus on the big boys at the end, the big reds, and make sure you get them before they run out because the popular ones do go fast.

Marlene: Thank you, Jeff. 

So let me clarify. Jeff’s point is to maximize time at a wine event, and he’s just outlined an efficient way to go about it, if that’s your goal. 

1.     Do a bit of homework so you can home in on what you really want to try, to avoid palate fatigue and being too inebriated to appreciate what you’re consuming.

2.     Spit.  You can’t taste a whole lot of wines and be sober otherwise.  In other words, though ruthless:

 Not spitting = inebriation= friendliness=waste of tasting time

3.     Start with whites and end with reds.  The reverse will ruin your palate for whites.

Now most of us don’t approach wine events with Jeff’s single-minded efficiency, nor should you, unless you are a collector.  For everyone else, I’d say, go where you will, listen to the wine curators, ask questions (they love this) and meet people.  Have fun. And if you’re worried about looking gauche, here are a few tips:

1.     Hold wine glasses by the stem, not the glass, so you don’t warm the wine (or get fingerprints on glass)

2.     Swish the wine in the glass to aerate and release the bouquet; sniff to appreciate.  Note what you’re smelling—apricots, raspberries, etc.

3.     Sip together with a slight breath in, and swish around the back of your mouth for aeration.  It looks and sounds a bit like a gargle, but isn’t. It’s not a pretentious action.  Retronasal olfaction is smelling and tasting from the back of your mouth, and better perceived when wine is aerated.

4.     Spit.  In bucket.

5.     Describe what you smell and taste with fellow participants and wine curators so you can build your wine vocabulary.

6.     And finally, if like my sister, Manischewitz is your favorite wine, never admit it.

#WhyCookseries/MyHealth/1 #CSM1

This post is part of the Why Cook? Series: 6 Reasons to be a Lifestyle Cook, a discourse on the pillars of The Cooking Subversive Manifesto (CSM). Providing great reasons to cook are powerful motivators to make cooking a lifestyle choice especially when we understand how forces have conspired to make us choose otherwise.

America’s obesity rate is 42.4%.

The United States may lay dubious claim to being democracy’s chief champion of late, but when it comes to obesity, it is without a doubt the leader, and has been so for nearly 2 decades among countries tracked by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  That’s not exactly something to be proud of.

We’re inured to this data point because we’ve sat with this fact for far too long and it’s only becoming worse.  We’ve vilified the subjects—overweight people, because in the back of our minds, we’ve been taught to associate being fat with gluttony, poor self-control, laziness and other reprehensible traits we like to think we’re absolved of. Because we’ve appropriated blame to the wrong culprits, we’ve missed the real offenders, and they’ve been able to hide in plain sight.  Before we point fingers, let’s first understand the magnitude of the problem.

Why the US Covid-19 death toll is so high

We’ve just reached the grim milestone of 800 thousand deaths in the United States, with no real end in sight.  From the onset, the huge American death toll, disproportionately higher than in other developed countries, begged the question: why so high?

In a John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center tally of global deaths attributed to  coronavirus, the US has 239.43 deaths/100,000 people.  It is the 6th highest in the world, preceded by Brazil, Romania, Czechia, Hungary and Bulgaria; and the highest among wealthy nations.  While we can debate on the ramifications of polarized attitudes towards masks and vaccines (we don’t have the monopoly on anti vaxxers and conspiracy theories), the data is clear on the primary causes of American deaths.  According to a study published by The Lancet.

Consistent with reported COVID-19 outcome data from Europe, the United States, and China, higher caseloads and overall mortality were associated with comorbidities such as obesity, and advanced population age.

Let’s unpack the comorbities part.  Comorbidy, the simultaneous presence of two or more diseases, entered our lexicon when covid-19 exploded.  Comorbidity is a bulls-eye target for coronavirus;   the chances of getting very sick or death is much higher.  But what diseases are strongly associated with covid deaths?

In this screenshot of Covid-19 deaths with contributing conditions released by the CDC for 2020 and 2021, I circled 9 diseases linked to obesity.   That’s half of the top 18 (see note) diseases associated with covid-19 deaths that can be linked to obesity, which is directly associated with poor diet and unhealthy lifestyles.

Even without Covid-19, 3 of the top 7 leading causes of death in the US, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, are linked to obesity. A recent report by the New York Times suggests that covid 19 lives in fat cells. If proven conclusively, that will be the most direct link yet of Covid-19 to a poor diet.  

Covid-19 exacerbated what we’ve known all along: Americans are unhealthy and unless we make lifestyle changes, we are literally going to pay for it with our lives. 

When I was a child, my mom told me her father had diabetes. She said that they would find ants gathered near the toilet, because his urine was so sweet. To an 8-year old, that was the sort of outrageous, fun and slightly gross family factoid to brag about to friends.  As an adult, the implications were serious.  Though my mom didn’t have diabetes, both her parents did; my father had it too, and two of my siblings are on medication for it.  The CDC says I am highly predisposed to diabetes if it runs in the family (check) and if I’m Asian American (check).  Add to the melee, heart disease is also a familial companion.

You would think this less-than-glorious health history was enough incentive to get me cooking.  It was not.  In Manila, we had household help who cooked for us, I frequently dined out, and frankly had no interest in it. I turned to cooking in my 30’s out of necessity: I downshifted from a corporate career in Manila and moved to the US as a music student. I simply couldn’t afford to keep eating out.  But I also had not understood the pernicious actions of big corporations, particularly the food industry, nor their sustained influence on lifestyle and culture, which diminished cooking life skills in our eyes.  I didn’t know then what I know now.  So despite a lifetime eschewing junk and processed foods, I became prediabetic. That’s a red flag for me to be vigilant about diet and lifestyle so I never cross over to diabetes.  I have no ailments, am not on any medication and I want to keep it that way. So though my cooking journey began with economic reasons (the fifth tenet of the manifesto, I Cook To Save Money), it’s now sustained by others, primarily, that I Cook to Reclaim My Health.  

To Solve a Problem, Understand What Caused It

There’s nothing like statistics on death and disease to put a damper on holiday celebrations.  I admit, the timing may not be the best as we look forward to celebrating with feasts and abundance.  A snapshot of America’s health today, however dire, is not without use. 2022 is around the corner, and what better way to counter a grim trend than to make new year’s resolutions that benefit you and your family?

But resolutions are only resolute if you can counter forces that undermine.  So we need to understand how we got into this predicament in the first place. 

Why are we Fat?

There are really just 2 big reasons:

1.     We eat too much. (overconsumption)

2.     We eat unhealthy stuff.

Easy, peasy, right?

Well, not exactly. This is one of those Matryoshka-esque problems where an issue opens up to another and then another, and sometimes is intertwined with others. As an example:

Overconsumption can be traced to reduced cooking and preparation times which  has its genesis in mass food production and consequent growth in prepackaged foods; but it’s also related to sugar addiction which fails to satiate hunger. And if you think sugar is just that white table stuff, think again, because sugar has over 60 names and comes in many forms most don’t even recognize.  The general public’s confusion on understanding exactly what is healthy and what’s not is a product of the machinations of greedy, unethical corporations, poor science, complicit government actions and a culture that makes us too busy to figure things out for ourselves. Confounded yet? Exactly! It’s a lot to unpack and why we haven’t been able to solve this decades-old problem.  And because it’ll take me a few passes to paint the general picture, I’ll start with how we started to spend less time cooking.

When did we start spending less time in the kitchen?

In his book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, author Michael Pollan traces the fascinating history of cooking from when man first learned to make fire to where we are today.  As a starting point for my discussion, I will jump to post World War II in the United States where Pollan recounts:

…the food industry labored mightily to sell Americans—and American women in particular—on the processed-food wonders it had invented to feed the troops: canned meals, freeze-dried foods, dehydrated potatoes, powdered orange juice and coffee, instant and superconvenient everything.”

Post war America was a different world.  Women, who were the traditional cooks, had entered the workforce; a proliferation of cars gave rise to suburbs where cooking became an isolated chore when once it was a communal activity; technological advances in the food industry were making packaged foods cheaper and more palatable every day and labor saving kitchen devices like the microwave oven were proving to be indispensable appliances. 

The combination of changing societal and technological norms of postwar America, increased wealth, the burgeoning idea the food industry peddled that women should be “liberated” from the kitchen and most especially the prevalence of ready-made food that could be picked up or delivered all conspired to convince Americans to spend less time in the kitchen.  In 1965 it was 146 minutes a day.  By 2019, it was 36 minutes.

*2019 data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics

In a 2003 study titled, Why Have Americans Become More Obese? , researchers Cutler and his colleagues linked increased caloric consumption, primarily from snacks, directly to the rise of obesity.  Data collected (1977-78 vs 1994-96) showed that men and women consumed 268 and 143 more calories per day than they did 14 years before. The question was, what was making Americans eat more?  They’re conclusion: Less cooking.

Binge America

A simple home-made Pizza Margherita, even if you use store-bought dough, tomato sauce, mozzarella and happen to grow basil leaves in your window sill, will likely take more time to make then having pizza delivered.   You’ll have to roll out the dough, perhaps half-bake if it’s a thick crust, slather sauce, arrange toppings and then bake again to finish. While you were at it, you probably popped a piece of mozzarella into your mouth with a leaf or two of basil and perhaps sampled the tomato sauce with it.  Your home-made pizza took more time, but not only was it more fun, you tasted along the way, which reduced the chance of wolfing it down when it came out of the oven.  But more than that, a craving for pizza, not the healthiest of foods to begin with, becomes more difficult to satisfy if you had to make it from scratch.  But pizza delivered is just a phone call away.  And that is why delayed gratification was the link Cutler and associates made when they concluded that:

Less Cooking Time=Less Delay in Gratification=Eating More

Yet how many Americans actually make their own pizzas? Pre-made food, because it’s accessible, is not only easier to eat, but makes you likely to eat more. The time and effort involved in cooking, delayed gratification and eating slowly all help to curb our appetite.  When Netflix releases a whole season of your favorite show, you’re not just watching one episode.   It’s why the term “binge-worthy” exists. 

Lest you think we’re immune to the allures of instant gratification, let me assure you that we’re not.  Jeff and I are as guilty as everyone else of Netflix binging and snacking while we’re at it.  We live in a modern world subject to time-sucking temptations and frankly, our self-control is not as iron-clad as we would like.  So instead of fighting human nature, we’ve just become a little smarter working with it.  Besides reducing our screentime by cooking (including preparation and clean up) we make sure snacks at home are healthy for when the munchies hit.   

So yes, Americans are eating more. But we’re also eating too much of the wrong stuff.  It’s not like we don’t know who the usual suspects are; we do.  We know processed junk foods are some of the worst offenders, yet they are almost 60% of calories  consumed in the United States.  But eating is not a rational behavior; and corporate America is counting on that.

The Companies We Hate To Love

Forget covid for a sec: prior to the pandemic, it’s long been known that being overweight and obesity can lead to heart disease, the leading cause of death for both men and women in the US. That’s 1 out of 4 deaths, according to the CDC.  

Perhaps even more than overconsumption, the rise in obesity is attributed to poor diets—specifically the increase in sugar, sodium and other toxic additives in ultra processed foods.  Unhealthy ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil (trans fats) and flavor enhancers are used by the food industry because they are cheap and make nutrient-deficient lab concoctions edible.  “But they make us sick”, you might say.  Well, in America it’s all about free choice and capitalism.  You’re not forced to drink a can of Coke (high- fructose corn syrup) or eat Kellogg’s Froot Loops (partially hydrogenated oils) for breakfast, but it’ll be hard to resist because all your life you’ve been told it’s the right thing to do. 

My second job out of college was a brief stint as Account Executive for the Coca Cola division of the McCann-Erickson advertising agency in Manila.  The Philippines was one of the few markets where Coca Cola was way ahead of Pepsi, so dominant a player that we broke out of the soda category and considered the whole beverage industry as our competitive field.  We ran radio ads to compete with coffee, juice and milk with our Coke in the Morning campaign; we printed Coke Tuba posters targeted to the Southern Philippines where locals consumed Coke with Tuba, an alcoholic libation of fermented coconut sap.  Coke ads were hip, featured cool music, had great looking, laughing models, and the sales pitch was always oblique. Coke ads evoked warm and fuzzy feelings.  I was a kid and still recall when the mega-hit commercial of the 1970’s spawned the memorable tune, I’d Like To Teach the World to Sing:

I'd like to teach the world to singIn perfect harmonyI'd like to hold it in my armsAnd keep it company

So sweet. Just like Coca Cola, addicting the world to its empty sugary charms.   I wasn’t a Coke or Pepsi drinker and I already knew about the deleterious effects of sodas, but still, I was hooked.  I loved my job with the Coke group also because its branding strategy, front and center of Filipino lifestyle and culture  meant aligning with the music pop stars of the country and part of my work was to travel with artists and help organize Coca Cola concerts.  That was a dream job for someone in their 20’s.

I also had an unusual personal history with Coca Cola: my mother was one of their first models in a video advertisement; and as a student activist, I marched against Coke, the premier face of imperialism.

US occupying forces during the great wars brought Coca Cola with them introducing the world to the “pause that refreshes”. Regimes came and went, but more durable was a non-violent Coca Colonialism that tied profitability to notions of liberty and the American dream. The Philippines’ relationship with Coke, like mine, was complex and conflicted. An article in the New Yorker published in 1959 is filled with wry , often humorous anecdotal evidence on the world’s infatuation with Coke.  In a former US colony like the Philippines, liberated from the Japanese by the Americans in World War 2, the sentiment ran strong, as evidenced by an account of Filipino General Carlos Romulo in his memoir “I Saw The Fall of the Philippines”:

This day that was to mark the turning point in the Battle of the Philippines began for me with an incident that seemed of the greatest importance. In fact, so vital did it seem at the time that that night, upon my return to the tunnel on Corregidor after one of the most terrible days a man could ever experience, I wrote a detailed account of that day on my typewriter with a ribbon that could hardly make itself legible, and with trembling hands I added the important notation: “I had a Coca-Cola.”      

Pearl of the Orient: A Coca Cola infomercial on the Philippines

The World Wars are decades past and discussions on Coca Colonialism are long buried.  But these antecedent events are important to comprehend where we are today.  If you still think I’m overstating Coca Cola’s sway on our culture, look no further than at the brand’s most iconic figure and ambassador of goodwill and cheer, Santa Claus. The jolly, rotund man in red is a visage largely shaped by Coca Cola which you can read about on the company’s page,  “Five Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus and Coca-Cola.”  

We hate to love companies that are bad actors if their brands are associated with positive ideals deeply ingrained in who we think we are or want to be.  Like an abusive boyfriend, they know how to sweet talk their way back.  Our ambivalence is why they are still around and why we still consume their products despite the harm they’ve caused us. 

Big Business, our Sugar Daddy

Big Business is omnipresent.  They’ve been targeting you since you were a babe with a multi-media onslaught that includes ads on television, internet and social media.  They infiltrated your videogames through advergames.  At school, you bought soda from their vending machines and the tomato-based pizza served at your school’s cafeteria was your vegetable option. You even got free Big Business- branded school supplies.

Obesity among youth has more than tripled since the 70’s and affects 1 in 5 of school-aged youth. If you were a kid who celebrated your birthday party at MacDonald’s, then Big Business may have lassoed your little heart and you feel a tiny tug whenever you spot the golden arches as you drive by.  Food ads on television comprise half of all ad time in children’s shows, according to the American Psychological Association.

We must not underestimate how well Big Business understands and manipulates our collective psyche.  We know it’s powerful, because despite our best intentions, we continue to poison ourselves when we consume unhealthy foods. What rational being does that?  Unless it’s because we’ve been deliberately misled and have not seen the whole picture yet.  Which is why this story isn’t over.

We reduce caloric consumption when we cook by delaying gratification.  And if we’re eating a home cooked meal, perhaps we’re not consuming unhealthy ultra processed food as much.  That’s already a win.  But healthy cooking is as much determined by what and how we cook. Remember I mentioned a confluence of forces that helped confuse America and the world on what healthy eating means? When we take a detour from the Cooking Subversive Manifesto tenets to introduce a few more bad actors, we’ll see how what we eat is even more nefarious than how much we eat in the battle of the bulge and other diseases. In the new year, we’ll take a glimpse at America’s food and farming in the post, “I’ll Have The Poison on the Side, Please.” : Chemicals in our Food.  

Additional References:

High US covid death toll causes: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771841

Food waste: https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/wasted-2017-report.pdf

Growth of the Suburbs: https://americanhistory.si.edu/america-on-the-move/city-and-suburb

Santa Clause: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/company/history/five-things-you-never-knew-about-santa-claus-and-coca-cola

Impact of Food Advertising on Childhood Obesity: https://www.apa.org/topics/obesity/food-advertising-children

#WhyCook #CSM #LifestyleCooking

I came across an article published by the Harvard Business Review in 2017 with a data point that astounded me: only 10% of Americans love to cook.  The article’s author, a consultant for consumer packaged goods companies who did the study for one of his clients, also pointed out that of the 90% who did not love to cook, half hated it and the other half were lukewarm. 

While I already suspected many Americans didn’t know their way around the kitchen, I didn’t expect how much in a minority avid cooks were and further, to find so disturbing the use of the strong sentiment hate to describe one of my passions. To add insult to injury, the author’s point was not that a valuable life skill was practically lost in this generation, but that groceries and food manufacturers risked market share decline and category obsolescence by not addressing the downward cooking trend.  He advocated for a ruthless portfolio strategy that calls for food manufacturers to identify “long-term losers, and exit by selling them while they can.” 

My gig as a culinary educator had already began, but these data points upset me and fueled a desire to not just teach cooking, but to promote it as a lifestyle choice.  Teaching how to cook dishes is not hard—you introduce new ingredients, demonstrate and explain the scientific principles behind basic techniques and share the recipes so they can be replicated. But that doesn’t teach you how to cook without a recipe; to cook when you have a busy week or to have fun.  You don’t learn to fall in love with cooking this way. 

You fall in love with cooking when you produce dishes you’re proud of.  You fall in love with cooking when you find it brings family and friends together. And you know you’re in love when cooking stops being the thing you have to do to eat; or  that instead of trying to fit cooking into a busy schedule, you make your schedule less busy because you’ve realized cooking is a worthier endeavor than other activities that fill your time: television, social media, video games.  You’re in love with cooking when you’re having fun.  

That won’t happen to everyone and it certainly will not happen overnight.  Nothing worthwhile is instant, though we’ve been programmed to believe otherwise, since our culture worships convenience and speed. The barriers to entry are low: even dry, over-salted scrambled eggs, barely edible, will pass for cooking.  But good cooking—producing food you’re proud of that you prefer more often to restaurant fare or store-bought packaged foods, or that non-family or friends would willingly choose to eat, well that’s different.  It’s the same difference as when a drunk guest comes up to the band stand to say “hey, I also play in a band,” and I think, well okay, we’re professional musicians with decades of experience, so I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing here. While there are plenty musicians better than I, I’m willing to bet it’s not this inebriated fellow. But hey, I’m glad he’s playing music. 

Good cooking, like playing an instrument well, has a higher learning curve.  It will take my piano students many years of practice and scales before they can master a relatively simple piece like Fur Elise. But when they do, they will take pride, and that will be its own reward and a powerful motivator.  Most of my students will have given up long before they get to this level of proficiency.  It takes patience and commitment to play well. Like cooking, there’s a lot of competition for a piano student’s time—school, friends, social media.  Fortunately for cooking, there’s an immediate and practical payback—dinner!  It’s not hard to cook a simple dish well, but another matter to do it consistently and regularly.  All of which takes time, practice and a certain mindset. To get to the point where cooking is its own reward, we’ll need incentives and a game plan to keep us on the path.  

Lifestyle Cooking

Lifestyle cooking is a term I’ve coined where we choose to make healthy home cooking part of our lifestyle.  Lifestyle cooking isn’t just about cooking  dishes, it’s reclaiming cooking as a valuable and enjoyable life skill and reframing what we know about the food and farming industries so we can make healthy choices; it’s learning how to shop, organize, share duties, be part of a community; it’s about eating and celebrating. It’s about helping the planet (and ourselves) because learning how to cook and shop means we can reduce the 68% of food we waste in our homes, which will reduce the carbon emissions from global food waste that account for 8% of the world’s carbon footprint.  If global food waste was a country, it would rank third, after the USA and China.    

So yes, I’d like to convince the 90% of Americans that don’t love cooking to change their minds. Tough order, right?  But in a weird turn of events none of us could have foreseen, covid-19 happened, life as we knew it changed almost overnight and with many restaurants closed, people started cooking and gardening.  Life slowed down and the Big Quit happened—where a historic number of people quit their jobs to reassess their work-life balance. Nothing like a seismic lifestyle shift and a brush with death to straighten our priorities. And that gives me hope. 

When I launched Cooking Subversive last year, I mentioned that I saw cooking as a gateway to slowing down.  But it works both ways: with the pandemic, slowing down became a gateway to cooking.  But with many restaurants almost back on their feet, and those of us employed returning to work, cooking may fall to the wayside despite our best resolve.  So we need motivation.  And this is why I wrote the:

Cooking Subversive Manifesto

I Cook to Reclaim my HealthI Cook to Reclaim the Planet’s HealthI Cook to be with Family and FriendsI Cook to Create (which gives me Pride) I Cook to save MoneyI Cook because…well dang it, I like to Eat!

The Cooking Subversive Manifesto (CSM) is a proclamation of why I cook.  It is a declaration of how cooking is not just a means to eating, (though that’s a pretty good incentive by itself), but fundamental to reclaiming rights to health and happiness for ourselves, the community and Mother Earth.

So in the next few articles, we’ll explore the tenets of CSM in the Why Cook? series:  Six reasons to be a lifestyle cook.  You might think these are self-evident.  After all, who will debate that home cooking is good for our health?  Though I will argue that what and how you cook are important determinants, in general we agree that home cooking is healthier than commercial alternatives. Would anyone doubt that home cooking brings family and friends together or contest that cooking something delicious and beautiful is a point of pride?  The ubiquitous food photos on our social media feeds are proof enough.  Yet, most of us have not been swayed to take the time to cook until the pandemic forced some of us to. 

In a 2011 report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that measured time spent on home cooking and food preparation across 28 countries:

The United States is the only country where both the participation rate and mean time for cooking are at the bottom of the ranking. In other words, the American population attaches on average little importance to cooking relative to the other surveyed countries. The United States is also one of the countries where relatively little time is spent eating as a primary activity and where obesity rates are amongst the highest in the OECD.

So it begs the question, why haven’t these reasons been enough for us to take cooking seriously?  And that is what we will unpack.  Anyone can learn to cook. But becoming a lifestyle cook requires a change in mindset.  This is only possible when we can understand the confluence of forces, whether accidental or deliberate, that made us think time spent cooking wasn’t worthwhile; that if we could afford to hire someone else to do it for us, whether it’s dining out, buying pre-cooked meals, or a private chef, then we should do so. We’ve outsourced cooking and missed out on all the benefits. 

Let’s change that storyline.

Coming up next: I Cook To Reclaim My Health

In the wise, lyrical book, Braiding Sweet Grass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the author describes how the children of the Onondaga Nation begin and end their school week. They recite the Thanksgiving Address, or as is known more accurately in the Onondaga language, Words That Come Before All Else.

The following text is an excerpt from this beautiful book.

May we choose to be grateful every day, and for our actions to be guided by these words.

Words That Come Before All Else

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now let us bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People. Now our minds are one.

We are all thankful to our Mother the Earth, for she gives us everything that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she still continues to care for us, just as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect. Now our minds are one.

We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst, for providing strength and nurturing life for all beings. We know its power in many forms—waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans, snow and ice.  We are grateful that the waters are still here and meeting their responsibility to the rest of Creation.  Can we agree that water is important to our lives and bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to the Water? Now our minds are one.

We turn our thoughts to all of the Fish in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that they continue to do their duties and we send to the Fish our greetings and our thanks. Now our minds are one.

Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our minds gathered together we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many generations to come. Now our minds are one.

When we look about us, we see that the berries are still here, providing us with delicious foods. The leader of the berries is the strawberry, the first to ripen in the spring.  Can we agree that we are grateful that the berries are with us in the world and send our thanksgiving, love, and respect to the berries? Now our minds are one.

With one mind we honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden, especially the Three Sisters who feed the people with such abundance.  Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans, and fruit have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them as well. We gather together in our minds all the plant foods and send them a greeting of thanks. Now our minds are one.

Now we turn to all the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are so happy that there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect to the Medicines. Now our minds are one.

Standing around us we see all the Trees.  The Earth has many families of Trees who each have their own instructions and uses.  Some provide shelter and shade, others fruit and beauty and many useful gifts.  The Maple is the leader of the trees, to recognize its gift of sugar when the People need it most.  Many peoples of the world recognize a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength.  With one mind we greet and thank the Tree life.  Now our minds are one.

We gather our minds together to send our  greetings and thanks to all the beautiful animal life of the world, who walk about with us. They have many things to teach us as people. We are grateful that they continue to share their lives with us and hope that it will always be so.  Let us put our minds together as one and send our thanks to the Animals.  Now our minds are one.

We put our minds together as one and thank all the birds who move and fly above our heads. The Creator gave them the gift of beautiful songs. Each morning they greet the day and with their songs remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader and to watch over the world. To all the Birds, from the smallest to the largest, we send our joyful greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one.

We are all thankful for the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help us to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us messages and giving us strength. With one mind we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds. Now our minds are one.

Now we turn to the west where our grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers. Now our minds are one.

We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind we send greetings and thanks to our Brother, the Sun. Now our minds are one.

We put our minds together to give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, who lights the nighttime sky. She is the leader of women all over the world, and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. Let us gather our thanks for Grandmother Moon together in a pile, layer upon layer of gratitude, and then joyfully fling that pile of thanks high into the night sky that she will know.  With one mind we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the Moon. Now our minds are one.

We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them at night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With our minds gathered as one, we send greetings and thanks to all the Stars. Now our minds are one.

We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind we send greetings and thanks to these caring Teachers. Now our minds are one.

We now turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for all the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator. Now our minds are one.

We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it is not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way. And now our minds are one.

#gardenroutines #hugelkultur

The falling leaves drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold.

As a kid growing up in the Philippines, I remember seeing photos of brilliant Autumn foliage in books and magazines, and often in calendars when October came around.  I remember thinking what a dream to experience the magic of Fall.

Fast forward a few decades and I am living in New England, the heart of Fall foliage.  It is my favorite season.  I love everything about it—the nip in the air, wearing jackets and boots, the tease of the holidays, and yes, the color.  My home is surrounded by tall oak trees that have begun shedding their magnificent garb.  With the aid of blistery winds this last weekend, they’ve converted what once were my lawn, driveway and foot paths into a plush golden carpet. And the leaves, do I love the leaves?

I posted a photo of my front yard covered with leaves on Facebook with the caption:

“What do I see?

Free mulch. Free fertilizer. Free critter homes. Free gym.”

Someone commented:  “I don’t miss raking leaves.”

I get it.  For many, leaves are just one more thing to add to a list of chores.  But perhaps I can help you see leaves in another light. 

Why Leaves Fall

First of, leaves don’t passively “fall.” As the days get shorter and colder, deciduous trees actively push out their leaves by sending messages to abscission cells (note the relation to the word “scissors”) located between the leaf stem and branch, to cut off.  If you recall, leaves, through photosynthesis, is how trees make food, requiring water drawn from roots to nourish them. But in winter, water trapped in leaves will freeze and expand, damaging cells which kill leaves. A tree with no leaves won’t survive.  It’s pretty much like how we have to shut off garden faucet valves in winter, making sure no water is trapped, to avoid a costly pipe burst.

Knowing why leaves “fall” doesn’t help de-clutter my lawn, but it helps to see that a tree does this to protect herself, which ultimately benefits me, since having her alive and healthy ensures I will continue to receive not only the bounty of her beauty and shade, but all the wonderful benefits trees give, not least of which are clean air and carbon storage.

But even in disrobing, trees leave us gifts with their leaves.  How are they gifts? Let me give you five ways.

Free mulch  

When I was new to planting, I did not understand what mulch was. I saw them in many gardens—a palette of dyed red or brown bark, dotted with a few plants.  I thought it was just an American aesthetic.

Mulch can be made from a variety of materials: wood chips, straw, leaves, stones, gravel, even plastic. But while mulch can trim up a garden nicely, its benefits are mostly for its abilities to absorb water, prevent soil erosion, protect plants from temperature extremes and suppress weeds.  If you are using organic materials that break down easily like straw, wood bark or leaves (NOT stones or plastic), then you have the added benefit of providing food for the denizens of the underground: bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, earthworms, and arthropods.  In other words, you are providing a feast for the soil web.  Organic mulch is future compost. And we all know that compost is necessary for healthy soil and therefore, healthy plants.

So how do I use leaves as mulch in my garden?

For bushes and trees, I tend to just rake or blow leaves to their bases where fellow leaves are already gathered, partially sheltered from winds.  It’s like a party in there! But for garden beds I want neat, I shred leaves to top and then water them—or better yet, just mulch before the rains.  Once wet, the matted leaves will keep from blowing in the wind.  In addition, shredded leaves break down faster than their whole counterparts, so in no time at all, they’ll become compost.  Come Spring, I’ll layer black bark mulch (for aesthetics) over the decomposing shredded leaves, which in a year or so will also become compost.  Voila!  A water-retentive and self-sustaining system that creates healthy soil for healthy plants.

When mulching, be careful not to be heavy-handed in areas where you want seeds to pop up, such as with self-seeding annuals or on lawns.  If they can smother weeds, they can smother grass and other small seedlings as well.

Note: while most leaf litter from deciduous trees are great as mulch, soil amendment or in compost, avoid leaves from allelopathic bushes and trees (e.g. Black walnut, Tree of heaven, Fragrant sumac) which suppress plant growth.

Free fertilizer

So we know leaves become compost.  In truth, most everything except plastic will break down and therefore becomes compost at some point.  You and I will also become compost one day.  Compost is a broad term that describes organic matter in varying stages of decomposition.  Kitchen food scraps we collect in compost bins are compost. So are the leaves and spent flowers that I add into them.  These are unfinished compost.

What you buy in nurseries, the one that looks like rich soil, is finished compost.  That’s what happens when organic matter has fully decomposed:  you get rich, dark crumbly earth teeming with nutrients.  Black gold.  But that’s not fertilizer per se. Not yet, that is. Though compost contains everything a plant needs, including Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium, the three macronutrients that is the NPK of fertilizers, only a small amount is immediately available as plant food.  Soil microbes still have to consume and transform compost nutrients so that they’re bioavailable to plants.  Though there are many benefits to compost including improving soil structure and water retention, it’s really food for the soil organisms at this point.

So the difference between compost and fertilizers is a matter of:

* concentration -fertilizers have higher concentrations of NPK

* origin - fertilizers can be synthetic, and

* time - fertilizers are immediate plant food. Compost is slow-release.

If you have been regularly integrating compost into your beds, than the plant food in your soil has been accumulating over the years which reduces or eliminates the need for fertilizer amendments. 

What about leaves? While I’ve known that leaves are an important component of compost bins because of their high carbon content, it wasn’t until recently that I learned that by themselves, they also contain NPK and a whole lot of nutrients that feed soil organisms.  Like finished compost, the NPK values are small and released slowly, but as they decompose, these are made available to plants.  Further, according to a report by Rutgers University in New Jersey, field experiments conducted in Quakertown silt loam soil showed that 17% of the organic carbon in the leaves remained in the soil after one year, a plus towards keeping carbon in the ground.  So leaves, like compost, are a slow-release fertilizer.

Why is this important?  When nitrogen is released too quickly, such as with synthetic chemical fertilizers, any excess that plants don’t consume can contaminate our water system; if exposed to air, it turns into nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas which warms the atmosphere 300 times more than carbon dioxide.

Free homes for critters

According to the National Wildlife Federation:

A leaf layer several inches deep is a natural thing in any area where trees naturally grow. Many wildlife species live in or rely on the leaf layer to find food and other habitat, including salamanders, chipmunks, box turtles, toads, shrews, earthworms, and many insects’ species.

In addition, several butterfly and moth species overwinter as pupae in leaf litter. Besides encouraging pollinators in the garden, they are also an important food source for other critters, especially birds in spring which need caterpillars to feed their young.

Free amendments to hugelkultur and core garden beds

Hugelkultur, German for “mound culture” is the ultimate raised bed where branches and twigs, organic material and manure are piled into a mound, soaked with water and then topped with soil, ready to be planted on. Over time, not only do the organic components slowly break down to provide nutrients to soil, but the air pockets created by the components even when they decompose, trap moisture, reducing the need to water. In addition, the decomposing organic matter in hugelkultur beds raises the temperature just enough to boost plant growth.

While large hugel beds piled high—as much as 7 ft. tall, and utilizing large logs that will take many years to break down guarantee long-lasting fertility, it’s not a practical solution in home gardens. To preserve aesthetics in my yard, my solution was to dig 2 feet deep to bury branches, twigs, leaves, compost and manure, soak with water, then pile on the soil. Even if my pile was 5 ft. tall, the visible mound was only 3 ft. high.  I have since created over 2 dozen hugelkultur beds over several years, rehabilitating soil so inhospitable even weeds didn’t dare grow. Today, with minimal watering, plants are thriving in formerly barren pockets of our yard.

Core gardening  is a planting system I recently learned about from a MIGardener Youtube video.  The basic idea is to bury and soak straw (I use shredded leaves) in the center of your planting bed.  Like a hugelkultur, the core acts as a sponge that retains water.  And of course, the decaying matter will also provide nutrients for the beds.  This is much easier to make than a hugelkultur, but it won’t last as long.  

There are other planting systems (like lasagna gardening) which employ the same idea of burying organic matter for soil fertility and water absorption.  Any planting system that uses organic matter is a great use of leaves. I like hugelkultur  beds because I have access to copious amounts of branches and leaves and because they last a long time.  But there’s no reason why you can’t experiment and play around with hybrid versions based on resources you have or labor you’re willing to invest.

And now we come to the final gift the leaves give us.

Free gym

The garden is an outdoor gym.  Fresh air and exercise, free, courtesy of leaves.

So to answer my earlier question, do I love the leaves? Yes, I do, let me count the ways…

Author’s Note:  Read Superpowers of the Garden parts 1 and 2  for a macro view of the Soil web and Phenomenal Abilities of Plants and Trees as complements to this article.  

Additional References:

Compost: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/composts

http://compost.css.cornell.edu/microorg.html

Compost nutrients: https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/organics/farming/analyses

Allelopathic plants : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5988857/

Leave the Leaves presentation from Kathy Connolly of the Tower Botanical garden

Leaf chemistry: https://sustainable-farming.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/JEQ-2006-Chem-Comp-of-Leaves.pdf

Leaves from City Shade Trees Benefit Soils: https://sustainable-farming.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Leaves_Fr_City_Shade-Trees_Soil_Benefit_Heckman.pdf

Hugelkultur: https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur

#SuperPowersOfTheGarden/2

Wildlife, nature and the environment have always occupied a special place in Marlene’s heart.  This passion has led her to volunteer at a rare animal breeds conservation farm in Bulgaria and an organic and permaculture farm in the South of France to learn more about working with nature.  In this special mini-series edition, she discusses a piece of nature closer to home: the garden.  In 2019, Marlene’s garden was certified as a Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. 

In part 1 of Superpowers of the Garden, we said that to re-imagine a garden that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but functional to humans, wildlife and the environment, we need to get to know its superpowers. A garden can provide more than just beauty and food and when we understand her better, we can harness her superpowers to be part of the solution to global warming and declining pollinators.  We began our discussion on Garden Elements and Their Superpowers by taking a closer glimpse of soil, one of Earth’s most precious resources.

Even with just the singular function of decomposition, the micro livestock that makes up healthy soil recycles nutrients so that living organisms can make use of them.  Soil is so fundamental that no life is possible without it.   As if that wasn’t enough, we also learned that healthy soil absorbs and holds rainwater for use during dry spells, filters and detoxifies pollutants and provides water, nutrients and the medium to grow in, for plants and trees.  Today, we’ll discuss the next garden elements and explore additional abilities of soil made possible through their symbiotic relationships.   

Garden Elements and Their Superpowers 

Plants and Trees

All of us know some of the superpowers of plants and trees.  We know their value as food, medicine and as a resource for a whole range of items like textiles, paper, dyes, building materials; they also provide shelter and nourishment to wildlife.  While these are pretty magnificent superpowers by themselves, there are other hidden talents our mostly-green friends have.

We’ve established that healthy soil is critical to sustain all life.  So it is all the more perplexing that the very serious problems of soil degradation and erosion are not given the attention they deserve.  Soil, though dirty, is not a sexy topic to most humans.  Thankfully, plants and trees know better.  Our green friends know that soil not only provides them a home, but supplies them with water and nourishment.   And so they return the favor in kind. 

*    Plants feed soil

We know soil feeds plants, but plants feed soil too. When vegetation dies, they are decomposed by the tiny livestock in healthy soils. But plants don’t have to die first to provide nourishment for the soil.  Living roots exude sugars and compounds and when the roots die (as a normal cycle and often when plants are stressed) they also become food for soil microorganisms.  So when we mow our lawn (plant stress), the clippings and dead roots become food for the soil.  And in fall, we use the copious fallen leaves as mulch for trees to eventually decompose and become food for soil’s microorganisms.  Oftentimes I bury them with fallen branches, twigs and compost in soil I want to rehabilitate, as an invitation for organisms to come enjoy the feast and do their magic.

*   Plants protect soil from erosion, compaction and water loss

Plants keep soil from blowing in the wind or getting carried off by water.  Above ground, a plant’s foliage and stems shield soil from harsh elements while below, its roots anchor the soil.  In addition, plants cushion the effects of pounding rain and traffic (foot and hoof) which cause soil compaction. If you remember, compacted soil means there are little or no pore spaces to store water and air in.  That’s bad news not only because plants and organisms need these to survive, but because soil that can’t absorb water means increased drought frequency and severity.  Compacted soil also means that when the rains come with nowhere to go, flooding becomes an issue which also leads to soil erosion.

Plants also provide shade which keeps soil cooler and reduces water loss from evaporation.  The leaves and stems can also slow down the movement of water which can give compacted soil a fighting chance to absorb this valuable commodity.  It’s really a downward spiral without plants.

And that is why we need weeds.

The Function of Weeds

The primary function of weeds is to protect bare soil. If there is a cardinal sin in a sustainable garden, it is bare soil.  When soil is unprotected, weeds arrive like an army to defend the lines.  Because of their mandate, they are persistent and can survive conditions their more finicky counterparts shrink away from. Some of them, like dandelions, are tenacious in their grip, with long roots that firmly anchor them in place.  Weeds are doing what they need to do.

My relationship with weeds changed radically when I understood this.   In general, if they’re not invasive or harmful, I treat weeds as place-savers until I can get the right plant to replace them.  They are a reminder for me to do my job as a gardener which is, to plant.  And then there are those I no longer think of as weeds because they are welcome in my garden:  broadleaf plantain, clover, dandelions and violets are some that I’m quite fond of.  Besides providing food for wildlife, they are edible, medicinal and in some cases, like with clover, have a special ability. Clover, like other legumes, are nitrogen fixers. 

*   Some Plants Fertilize the Soil

Nitrogen is considered one of the most important nutrients essential to a plant’s growth.  It’s the N in the NPK ratio, the proportion of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) in fertilizers.  But though nitrogen is naturally present below ground and particularly abundant above comprising 78% of air, with few exceptions it can’t be used by plants unless converted into a usable form. 

Nitrogen in soil becomes plant-usable through a process called mineralization where our trusty herd of soil microorganisms decomposes organic matter, and nitrogen is then recycled into mineral nitrogen which plants can then use.  

Nitrogen in air becomes usable to plants through Nitrogen fixation, a chemical process between particular kinds of plants and the Rhizobium bacteria. Legumes (clover, alfalfa, beans) are an example of nitrogen fixers, whose roots feed the bacteria and in return, the bacteria help convert nitrogen in the air to a form the host plants can use.  When these plants die, mineralization occurs where the nitrogen gets recycled and converted for the use of soil organisms and other plants.  This is why sustainable gardens and farms usually include nitrogen fixers in plantings and why they are routinely used as cover crops to replenish the soil. 

Important note:  Nitrogen from nitrogen-fixers is available to other plants only when they are decomposing and mineralization occurs.  While alive, the nitrogen fixing plant uses the nitrogen for its own growth.

*   Plants filter contaminants

When we bought our house many years ago, we were delighted that we abutted a forest and that there were several mature oak and hemlock trees on the property.  Being surrounded by nature was a dream come true.  But our woodland garden meant we only had a few prime sunny locations for a vegetable plot.  Our south-facing front yard got the most sun, so we decided it was the optimum site for a vegetable garden.

A weed-covered bed buttressed by a rock wall that ran parallel to our street seemed the likely spot for it.  The problem was, with just a few feet between the road and prospective vegetable bed’s edge, I feared contamination by winter salt and other undesirable road run offs.  Even if I replaced the bed’s soil, subsequent run-off could contaminate my food.  That was not acceptable.

So we consulted with an arborist.  He recommended we add plants along the perimeter to act as a buffer between the road and the future vegetable bed.  The plants would filter contaminants.  That was the first I heard of plants used as a filtration system.

The Dynamic duo:  Soil and Plants for Phytoremediation

In part one, we mentioned that soil filters and detoxifies contaminants.  Think of soil as a strainer which filters out particles too large to make their way through its structure.  But its chemical composition also causes metals like phosphorus or even bacteria and some viruses to attach to soil particles in a process called adsorption.   Pore spaces in soil capture and keep pollutants safe in place, preventing further contamination.  Meanwhile, the soil microorganisms consume the pollutants, detoxifying, decomposing and converting them into nutrients for the soil.

In similar fashion, it’s easy to imagine how a plant’s physical structures, both above and below ground, act as filters. The dense foliage and the tangle of roots below catch and keep debris and pollutants from going further.  But plants also consume common water and soil contaminants such as zinc, copper and nickel as mineral nutrients.  They also take up non-essential elements like lead, cadmium and mercury. 

Contaminants can either be stabilized, degraded, converted or stored in both soil and plants.  Plants can also take up water containing organic contaminants through their roots and release them into the air through their leaves.  Making use of soil and plant abilities to accumulate or degrade contaminants is called phytoremediation, a technology garnering interest because it is relatively inexpensive to deploy and is carbon dioxide neutral.

While all plants filter and decontaminate pollutants to a  degree, some are particularly good at it.  Sunflowers  Helianthus annuus and Brassicas, particularly brassica juncea (Chinese mustard) and brassica oleracea which include broccoli, cauliflower and kale, are some of the plants that most of us are familiar with.  Note: If you are using these plants as filters, do not consume.

Phytoremediation has been used to clean up petroleum spills with willow trees, arsenic in weapons-testing areas with ferns, and wastewater with halyphytes, which are salt-tolerant plants.

*   Plants Reduce Carbon dioxide in air

Walking through a forest always makes me marvel at how air can be so clean it is intoxicatingly sweet.  Back in elementary school, we learned that in photosynthesis, plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, water from the soil and use the sun’s energy to convert them into sugar for food and oxygen, which is released into the air.  Just from this cycle, we understand how forests and areas with high vegetation purify our air:

But that’s just half of the equation. 

The Dynamic duo strikes again:  Soil and Plants for Carbon Sequestration and Storage

Though some of the carbon dioxide a plant takes in gets released back into the atmosphere when it respires, it retains close to half, some of which is used for its own growth.  As explained by this article from the Yale School of Environment:

Through photosynthesis, a plant draws carbon out of the air to form carbon compounds. What the plant doesn’t need for growth is exuded through the roots to feed soil organisms, whereby the carbon is humified, or rendered stable.

So while a plant or tree is living, carbon sequestration is active.  We refer to plants, forests, and the soil as carbon sinks because they take up a significant amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  In fact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

When carbon dioxide CO2 is released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, approximately 50% remains in the atmosphere, while 25% is absorbed by land plants and trees, and the other 25% is absorbed into certain areas of the ocean.

How Plants, Trees and Soil lose their carbon stores

When a plant dies and decomposes, the carbon stored in it is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide through microbe respiration.  This is why deforestation is a huge problem.  Not only does carbon sequestration stop because the trees are killed, but most of the carbon taken in during its life is released back into the air.  That’s a double whammy and why forests that are extremely damaged from logging, farm and pasture clearing or have more dead trees than living, become carbon polluters.  Forest fires cause even more damage because trees store  carbon in wood, which is immediately released into the atmosphere when it burns.

While forests in aggregate are still carbon sinks, they are becoming less so. 

Meanwhile, carbon stored in the soil-- think of all the decomposed matter from the beginning of life, mineral carbons, animals and plants still decaying and those contained in soil’s living microorganisms, is lost through poor farming and gardening practices such as tilling and use of synthetic chemicals. 

Disturbing soil through tilling not only kills the microorganisms (which contain carbon) but causes stored carbon to react to the oxygen exposure (oxidation), converting it to carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere.  Use of synthetic chemicals like herbicides and pesticides not only kill pollinators but soil microorganisms which contribute to carbon storage.  It is no wonder that global agriculture and forestry account for 18.4% of greenhouse emissions and the earth has lost 50-70% of the carbon it once held.

Carbon dioxide is not the only global warming gas produced by poor gardening and farming practices. The use of quick-release synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, the go-to for American agriculture, nurseries and gardeners, causes a glut of nitrogen over and beyond what plants can use, so the excess is converted to nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas which warms the atmosphere 300 times more than carbon dioxide.

Special Mention: Additional Carbon Storing Superpowers

Trees

Trees are big perennial plants.  And as plants, they have all the superpowers we mentioned earlier.  But when it comes to carbon sequestration, size and longevity matters.  Root size corresponds to carbon intake, so the bigger the better.  Longer roots are good too, because carbon can be stored deeper in the ground which makes it less accessible to oxidation by erosion or other soil disturbances.  Trees also live much longer than their smaller counterparts, sometimes for many centuries, which means they get to store carbon longer.

Mycorrhizal fungi

Remember the amazing fungi and their mycelia which function as a communications and distribution network between plants and trees? It turns out that plants and trees with mycorrhizal connections i.e., symbiotic relationships with fungi, can transfer up to 15% more carbon into soil than their non- mycorrhizal counterparts.  In addition to providing plants with water and nutrients, the fungi uses carbon from plants to produce glomalin, which holds the carbon and deposits it into soil minerals and other organic matter. 

Soil and plants are the foundations of our gardens and fundamental to life on earth.  They are a big piece of the puzzle in managing our climate crisis and environmental pollution.  Though they are primarily under assault by improper farming and forestry methods, individual gardeners like you and me can make a difference by adopting practices that enhance soil and plants’ superpowers and building our little piece of earth to be a garden allied and aligned with nature.   

We’re not done though.  There’s still another garden element to discuss.  In part 3, we’ll talk about Wildlife and their superpowers.

To be continued…

Additional References:https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/PA_NRCSConsumption/download?cid=stelprdb1266221&ext=pdfhttp://www.soilquality.org.au/factsheets/soil-nitrogen-supplyhttps://academic.oup.com/labmed/article/27/1/36/2503490?login=truehttps://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_a/A129/https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcseprd621806.pdfhttps://extension.missouri.edu/publications/wq261http://soilquality.org/functions/filter_buffer.htmlPhytoremediation:https://academic.oup.com/labmed/article/27/1/36/2503490?login=truehttp://www.cpeo.org/techtree/ttdescript/phytrem.htmhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1369103/

Carbon sequestration: https://e360.yale.edu/features/soil_as_carbon_storehouse_new_weapon_in_climate_fight

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200521-planting-trees-doesnt-always-help-with-climate-change

How soil stores carbon:

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/soil-carbon-storage-84223790/https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/02/21/can-soil-help-combat-climate-change/

Clover photo credit: https://pixabay.com/users/couleur-1195798/?utm_source=link-attribution