Stop Using Technology and Eat Real Food

This week has been packed with news on protein. Here’s a run down mixed up with a bit of commentary.

First, due to consumer demand, the USDA is allowing public schools to opt-out of using Boneless Lean Beef Trimmings (BLBT) aka ‘Pink Slime” in their school lunches. 

Next comes two voices of support for a new soy-based chicken product - two voices who couldn’t be more different. Mark Bittman and a leading Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner Perkins just announced that they think Savage River Farms’ new soy-based chicken is delicious and investment-worthy, respectively. 

I find it exciting that a well respected VC firm like KP is getting interested in ag and solving our food and resource problems. But I find it disturbing that Bittman did not mention concerns of using organic or non-gmo soy for Savage River’s products. 

Our Problem with Protein is not the animal, it’s the volume of which we eat, which Bittman acknowledges, and also the feed that most of them are given; soy and corn. Almost 90% of the corn and soy that is grown in the US is genetically modified. These are crops that are reliant on pesticides and chemicals to survive, thrive, grow, be harvested, processed, and end up on your plate or in your animals. Creating a soy-based chicken-like product will not prevent the runoff from pesticides, the nutrient-deplention of our soil from monoculture, or bring back the diversity in our whole, real foods that we need to see from organic farming.

In addition to these problems with non-organic soy production, soy in general isn’t even that good for you. Just read this run down of its link to Alzheimer’s, increased Cancer rates, reduced Sperm count, and even some countries’ advice to parents not to feed it to children.

The answer to our food problem is to eat real, organically grown, whole foods. This is includes real animal products. The nutritional make-up of which has yet to be manufactured by scientists. We just need not give in to our savage instincts and over-eat animals like we do now. 

Eat less, eat better, know your source. If you don’t know how your animals were raised, or what they ate, or how they lived, ASK. Ask your retailer, grocery store manager, restaurant owner, butcher, whomever. Just. Please. Ask.

We as humans need protein to survive, but soy is not the answer to a sustainable protein system.

Land o’ Labels

With the majority of US food being produced in curiously mysterious ways, more and more labels and certifications are popping up to help we, the eaters, have confidence in what we choose to feed ourselves. 

But with more information, comes confusion…and the required time dedicated to deciphering. 

Never fear! Here’s a good break down that SF’s Center for Urban Education and Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) put out last year in hopes of clarifying meat labeling.