Sad news

This week saw the passing of Tom Ishibashi of Ishibashi Farms in Torrance. This farm has been in Torrance, CA for decades. My last visit to the farm was a few weeks ago during which time I purchased one of the best batch of strawberries I have ever had along with a sweet pea bouquet. It is a family owned farm in the middle of the city near the Torrance airport. This is the last urban farm in Torrance, a city that used to be full of farms many decades ago.

Condolences to the Ishibashi family.

Food Site

Current obsession that's food related: www.food52.com

This site is completely awesome. It's all about food. Wonderful recipes, tips and cookware, reviews and contests.

Exploding Watermelons

Watermelon farmers in China are experiencing a problem with their crops: exploding watermelons. The farmers in order to have the watermelons grow faster have been using the chemical forcholorfenuron however administered wrongly they did too "good" a job and the melons have been literally bursting from growing so quickly. 

What is disturbing is that this chemical has been popular for 3 decades and accelerates growth by a reported 20%. We add chemicals in order for our food to grow faster and to look better in order to sell them. But do we really need to? How has decades of adding chemicals to our food in order for our meat, fruit and vegetables to grow bigger faster changed our taste, let alone our health?

For the full article please go to http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/17/growth-chemical-leads-to-exploding-watermelons-in-china/

The Food Desert Landscape of the United States

What exactly is the food desert landscape? It is describing the areas in the US where food is scarce and the poverty level is about 20% or higher. So the places where they need more access to food are the very same places where they cannot afford food which means that grocery chains or corporations do not find it lucrative enough to establish stores in these areas. And the food, as you can imagine, that is available in these areas are not healthy, not nutritious, and certainly not beneficial which fits the criteria of the definition of food security (availability and access to food that is nutritious and beneficial).

To see how your neighborhood/region does please go to http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/fooddesert.html and enter your zip-code.

What are we doing? The First Lady's initiative "Let's Move," the Treasury Department, Health and Human Services, USDA and the Economic Research Service forms the Healthy Food Financing Initiative which will "expand the availability of nutritious food to food deserts--low-income communities without ready access to healthy and affordable food--by developing and equipping grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets with fresh and healthy food" explains the USDA's website. Can we add educating and promoting community gardens and individual gardens (or urban farms) to these communities as well? Because if these communities are at a poverty level of 20% or greater I am not sure how good a solution grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores and farmers markets will be if not supplemented with community and individual gardens/farms.


This map is actually very horrifying...

Clinton in Rome to Discuss Food Price Crisis

On Friday, May 6, 2011 Secretary of State Hilary Clinton spoke in Rome about the pending global food shortage and rising prices of food which could spark an international crisis and riots in developing nations that would be most affected by both scenarios.

Matthew Lee, AP

She urged the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) that steps must be taken immediately to hold down prices and increase production.

Clinton also warned that emergency aid is only a band-aid solution and that real steps towards stable prices and production must be taken to prevent riots similar to what happened in 2007-2008. During the 2008 crisis, Thailand, Vietnam and India, countries that happens to be the world's biggest rice producers placed a cap on rice exports to protect domestic rice supply. This action increased global prices on rice to a record high. Last year Russia banned export of wheat due to domestic drought in order to protect domestic wheat supply.

This is a case in which the global trade presents a serious problem overall. The actions of a few countries in which they justifiably take actions to ensure their own people are able to eat affects other nations in whether or not they get to eat. Again as in another previous blog I do not want to say global trade is bad but in the case of food it has too much influence and we should decrease our reliance on this system and push domestic trade and production of goods that can easily be produced w/in home country to the forefront to stabilize prices and reliability of food availability.

For the original article please go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/food-prices-hillary-clinton_n_858446.html  

Recipe Time: Mother Nature Network's 5 Declicious Garden to Table Recipes

For the actual recipes please visit this link as the pictures below will not work:

http://www.mnn.com/food/recipes/photos/5-delicious-garden-to-table-recipes/edible-landscapes

improve your world

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

MNN.COM›FOOD›RECIPES›PHOTOS› 5 DELICIOUS GARDEN-TO-TABLE RECIPES 5 delicious garden-to-table recipes Photo: Enrique Gili

The Blame Game Continues Over Hunger and Rising Food Prices

First, I must mention just briefly about today's news. I cannot begin to remark on what a momentous occasion it is in our world history let alone nation's history except to say pax et bonum (peace and goodwill).

Moving onto the topic of food...There are many reasons or excuses for the rise of food and weakening of food security for millions of people: rising price of oil, overpopulation, weather, etc but now they're throwing in banks and stock brokers speculating on commodity prices. This is a concern that I have mentioned throughout this blog's history. Speculation is partly why the price of oil has been rising and speculation is partly why commodity prices have been rising as well (corn stock, cereal stock, etc). But this is a dangerous game to play because these people are interfering with a very basic right of the people--the right to eat, the right to food that is good and satisfying. This speculation and inflating the prices of commodities are driving millions into hunger. This isn't just about making money in the stock market but about whether or not hundreds of millions of people can afford rice, bread, etc for their families on any given day. Food prices have gone up 36% compared to last year which pushes 44 million more people into hunger. This means 44 million more people whose ACCESS to food has been drastically limited or if you will, shut off.

Food is a basic right and a common good for everyone yet the way we produce it and treat it as an economic good, industrial production product is making it into a luxury or a privilege. It is unhealthy both literally and figuratively. It is about time that we start pushing for a system change when it comes to how we produce and obtain our food both on an individual and community level.

For the short article on big banks and their influence on our food prices please go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/banks-speculation-commodities-index-food-prices_n_856399.html

Info map of the US: Ranks each state

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/stories/infographic-united-states-of-the-environment

from the Mother Nature Network site. Please visit the link above to check out these maps further.

Visit Hulu and watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Episode 2. And diabetes does not have to happen to you.

Please watch this episode or at least a part of it. And yes Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) IS that oblivious and stubborn. As a parent in the episode pointed out they are training children to eat fast food and fast food only. Back in February 2011 it was reported that California's biggest concern for its children is not drugs but obesity and the school districts are still slow to respond to this concern.

http://www.reportingonhealth.org/fellowships/projects/poll-obesity-not-drugs-biggest-threat-kids-health

The link to Jaime Oliver's show now on Hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/233628/jamie-olivers-food-revolution-i-think-i-found-a-loop-hole

One of the most infuriating things that I came across while watching this episode is this one girl's story. Her entire immediate family has diabetes. Her grandmother to her mother to her father to her brother were diagnosed with diabetes. She is in her teens and afraid she will be the next one. Her grandmother died from diabetes. But her family has done little to change their current eating habits. The feeling there is one of resignation/acceptance that diabetes is part of their family history so why watch what we eat? Yes, you may be genetically inclined to develop diabetes but that inclination is mostly decided by how you eat. For the most part, how you eat pushes your body into diabetes.

It is one thing to say my family is predisposed to cancer well the news is everyone has pre-cancerous cells in their body. Family history is a small percentage of the reason why someone develops cancer, and it's the same for diabetes. The biggest deciding factor in developing diabetes is how we live and in some cases where we live as well. It's a combination of things. Please do not think because some family members have diabetes you will get it too. Adjust the way you eat. Anyone can develop diabetes and it's very easy now because of the food out there. Look at the amount of sugar in our snacks, desserts, drinks and meals and keep eating that way and anyone/everyone can develop diabetes.

I have an uncle with diabetes and he does not take any medication for it but controls it by how he eats. My dad had diabetes for which he took insulin shots for each meal. My grandmother had diabetes. Hers was severe but she also got diabetes after coming to the US and started eating unhealthily because of her work schedule. It's hard because of our current lifestyles dictating how and what we eat but if it means a little inconvenience to be careful, to do a double-check on the things we're about to eat versus convenience and developing diabetes...Please take care and be well. Hopefully with a little more push and outcry we can change the food industry and the way it is a part of our lifestyles so that our food can stop killing us.

*Did you hear that Subway is reducing sodium in all its subs? This will save a lot of people from hypertension worries.

Interview with Nursery and Avid Gardener

On April 23rd I had the privilege of meeting and speaking with Melissa at Sunflower Farms whose tagline is "Where Good Things are Always Growing." This nursery has been a fixture in the South Bay for many years and is close to a busy intersection near the freeway and surrounded by two gas stations, a mobile home park, a market and a Wendy's. Once you enter this nursery though, it's such a welcome break from what is going on outside. There are little enclosures a la Secret Garden style, an area devoted to herbs and vegetables, some small ponds and a little shop with gardening materials, vintage books and seeds of course. 

Inside the nursery

See the power lines? Artichokes are looking good. 

I had a good time exploring this nursery that I have often passed by on my way to the freeway. And I've learned quite a bit especially from Melissa. Here's some of my takeaway points from the interview:

• There has been more interest from the public for gardening in general but also in growing their own food.
• The reasons she's heard for the interest is that the food tastes better. 
• Even if they have no idea how to garden their own vegetables/fruits people seem excited about trying.
• More interest in growing vegetables and herbs especially tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers and herbs for cooking and for teas.
• Vast majority isn't very concerned how food is produced for the markets such as how much chemicals farmers use for pest control and for fertilizers or even genetic engineering
• Customers at the nursery come to purchase vegetables to plant in their gardens or in community gardens
• The growing interest in growing their own food are for the above mentions (fresh, tastes better and less chemicals) but also because of the economy people seem to be staying in more and cooking and have noticed how much produce costs at the markets. Market prices have gone up

The thing about urban farming or urban gardens is that the food produced there are fresh, nutritious and satisfying but in the markets the costs are up, often does not taste as good and people are sidetracked into purchasing food that is not nutritious and satisfying.

We touched upon community gardens. There are pockets of community gardens throughout the South Bay with the land often provided by the city. There may be a small fee to have the use of a plot and for water costs.

Another concern that came up is cross pollination by bees. Let's say there are two farms across from each other. One uses genetically engineered crops while the other does not and is organic but the bees will go from one farm to another and will change the non-genetic engineered crops. There are a lot of consequences that the way we produce and eat have on the future. How did eating, the simple act of eating get so complicated?

Near the End of the 50 Days and Best Smelling Strawberries Ever

Updates: I grew micro-greens which is primarily a salad topping. It adds a peppery kick and I've been growing and eating it pretty steadily. It takes less than a week to grow and pick but you have to grow a lot. It's definitely a kitchen counter plant where you can grow lots of it and constantly with little care. The mescluns are the same, grows almost as quickly as the micro-greens and I've been eating them. The squash unfortunately I've killed due to thoughtlessness. The radishes are still growing.

 

Fresh and Locally Grown in the Middle of the City Strawberries!

I went to a farm stand today. This farm is actually in the middle of a city, right next to a busy shopping plaza, Armstrong Garden Center, a Lexus Dealership and the Torrance airport. But it's actually been at this location for close to 70 years! And the strawberries they grow and sell there...SO incredibly delicious and juicy. It's fragrant and not that tart. I really wish you could smell them. During other seasons they also sell tomatoes, flowers, corn, etc.

I got three baskets of the "big" strawberries for $13. It's so good, freshly picked and grown locally.  I think my next plants are going to be strawberries and I hope they taste half as good as these. 

April 22nd: HAPPY EARTH DAY!

I try to remember on Earth Day to just be kind to how I use the world around me. 

Please visit the link to find out a little bit about Earth Day and how it got started:

http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement

Then watch these short videos for some public service announcement as well as some of George Carlin's views about earth and conservation:

The Serious:

The Funny:

http://lafarmgirl.blogspot.com/ : Urban Farmer Extraordinaire

Monday, April 4, 2011

Your Excess Produce Can Help The Hungry

If you are still doing your spring planting and planning your summer garden/farm, you might want to plant an extra row for those who need. New statistics show that LA County leads the nation in the percentage of people who do not have a consistent source of food.

Here's my Care2 Healthy & Green Living post that talks about how to donate and help. We can all make a difference!

Nearly 1 Billion People Overweight and 1 Billion Hungry? What?

Most of the hungry people in the world are subsistence farmers (is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed their families. The typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to eat and clothe themselves during the year. Kind of like the pioneers in the US?).

2010 is the 30th anniversary of current Global Food Trade System.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ellen_gustafson_obesity_hunger_1_global_food_issue.html

Please watch this TED lecture video by Ellen Gustafson, co-founder of FEED or the FEED bag (see GAP). It is so very interesting

Community Garden: A Way to Heal Broken Communities?

For the full LA Times article please go to: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/04/community-garden-might-replace-notorious-gang-hangout-in-glassell-park.html

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Community garden might replace notorious gang hangout in Glassell Park

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April 10, 2011 | 10:31 am

For years, a small house at 3304 Drew St. in Glassell Park was the center of a drug-dealing and gang intimidation network that made the two-block stretch where it sat among the scariest in all Los Angeles, authorities say.

Then police arrested the occupants — a family of career criminals — and the city declared the building a nuisance. The house was eventually bulldozed.

Now, two years later, a nonprofit group hopes to plant a community garden on the site.

On Friday, more than 20 people met at the lot to plan the garden, which is scheduled to open in mid-June.

"We're hoping for good things from this," said Paola Alquicira, 76, a native of Tlalchapa, in Guerrero,Mexico, who has lived in a cottage on Drew for 34 years. "We've never had much on this street."

The garden was the brainchild of staffers at City Councilman Eric Garcetti's office. The idea emerged after Wells Fargo & Co. donated the property to the city last fall, said Mitch O'Farrell, a Garcetti community advisor. The garden is being organized by the Los Angeles Community Garden Council, which has helped start about 80 such gardens around the county.

Read the full story: Seeds of hope to be planted in Los Angeles' notorious Drew Street neighborhood

-- San Quinones

Photo: Los Angeles police officers meet with residents of Drew Street in 2008. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Email: newstips@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimescitydesk @lanow

Facebook: latimescitydesk

More in: Los Angeles

Why do we take it so far?

*This is related to food production but more about the meat part of it than vegetables and fruits.

Scary article came out. Half of the meat in our stores are tainted with staph bacteria. Staph bacteria is worrisome because the strains of staph bacteria they found on the meat are shown to be highly resistant to antibiotics especially the last of the line antibiotics. So if you get sick with a staph infection and the bacteria is resistant to the strongest antibiotics available you're kind of out of luck.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/15/tainted-food-epidemic-staph-bacteria-meat-poultry/

A reason why half the meat in our stores are carrying traces of resistant strains of staph is because the way we raise our cows, our pigs, our chickens, etc. Whatever meat you eat. We inject them with antibiotics and hormones to ensure they make it to the end of the food production line and quickly (slaughterhouse). This is why a lot of people look into organic meat: no antibiotics, free-range and hormone free.

The good news is that staph is easy to kill. Just practice good sanitation behaviors when handling meat; wash your hands, wash down the kitchen counter, be careful not to cut yourself when handling meat, etc. And by the time you cook the meat the bacteria should be gone and you should be fine. However this raises the question of we know the more we use antibiotics the more bacteria evolves to resist those antibiotics so why do we do it? At first when farmers began to use antibiotics and hormones to raise meat was because wow the cows aren't getting as sick as much and they're growing so much quicker. The turnaround is faster and the profit is safe (less cows falling ill and more meat more quickly). Then we kept on doing it which raises bigger concerns and safety fails (food recalls, warnings such as this one about staph bacteria, etc).

This is worrisome because researchers are constantly, constantly looking to create stronger and stronger antibiotics and the bacteria is evolving faster than the researchers can create new antibiotics. 

The Afternoon at a Garden

Today I went to the South Coast Botanical Gardens which has a Volunteer Garden or Community Garden full of vegetables, herbs and edible flowers.

Welcome to community gardening

Not as big as the monster sized strawberries in stores but looks good, right?

I know that's lettuce on the left but on the right? 

This plot had several things including these flowers which are edible.

Squash. Makes me sad to see since I killed mine. 

Rhubarb on the far left.

Celery. Looks fantastic. 

Butter lettuce. These are usually sold in the markets with the roots still on. 

This is a plot that a lot of gardeners use to grow vegetables, etc in their yards. 

The South Coast Botanical Gardens had a plant sale today. I interviewed a seller who kindly spent a few minutes with me on the issue of urban farming. And here are a few points that I took away:

1) In the last ten years, he's seen what he figures would be a 10-15% increase in interest from customers wanting to grow their own food.

2) His concern and the concern of many people who are interested is space. Many people are not fortunate enough to have yards or available yard space to grow tomatoes for example. What do you do with this problem?

3) Another concern is regardless of the space issue how much square footage would you need to grow enough to feed a household? How much fruit and vegetables would an average household member consume and would their own garden provide that amount?

4) A neighbor of his plants corn every few weeks to keep the production of corn coming all year round. So the guy never runs out of fresh corn.

5) Look up horseradish tree. You can eat the leaves, the roots, etc. Requires little water.

6) Besides sustainability, there's the question of enough water. Most of the South Bay in Los Angeles is restricted on how and when we water our yards. If we water our yards at a certain time and the city notices guess what we receive a ticket.

I hadn't truly thought of many of the issues he brought up before. He has noticed interest in customers of growing edible plants but if they live in an apartment with no yard or garden available then the most they can do is walk away with a few herbs to grow on their kitchen counter or window sill or maybe a tomato plant. He pointed out that we're fortunate to live with yards that can provide the space that these plants would need to produce. He's so right. I live in the suburbs which I sort of forget. What do the people living in concrete jungles do even if they are interested? I thought of this fleetingly while in Kolkata, India back in March. In fact I did a short blog on it. So my next step in this project is to look more into this issue of community farming in the so-called concrete jungle city centers. 

Making Ends Meet? With Rise of Food Prices Welcome to Poverty

Global food prices are up 36% from the same time last year. The World Bank which is the international organization that funds developing nations states that 44 million people have been pushed into extreme poverty due to the jump in food prices. One reason for the sharp increase is the high prices for commodity stock foods (not sure if that's the right term) but basically corn, wheat, soybeans or the crops that the majority of the world depend on. Another reason is of course, the rising price of oil.

Expensive oil, expensive crops such as corn and cereal means more people pushed into hunger, pushed into poverty and food in general will cost more. This means that it will cost more to feed cows, pigs, chickens, etc and by the time it gets to you, the consumer, will be paying more to account for the extra cost. Transportation will cost food companies more so the prices for your fruit and vegetables and chips and candy will cost more as well.

There is a lot that could go wrong in food production (weather, a blight upon crops, etc) and a lot that can influence (such as civil unrest causing concerns over oil) how much it ultimately costs the consumer. But the accessibility of food, the ability to buy your nourishment not just snacks is about power dictated by not just how much you make but really more about where you live. If you live in the so-called inner city area there are few big chain markets and if there are certain foods may cost more partly due to transportation costs. It costs the company more money to move food to your neighborhood. You pay the cost for living where you do. Then again desirable locations have their own drawbacks: high rent means higher prices. What I'm trying to say is if not for the ability to control how your vegetables are grown and the quality of it, try to grow a small vegetable garden to cut back on costs.

Here is the link to the original article on the price increase on food: http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/14/news/international/world_bank_food_prices/index.htm

The New Progressive Era?

At the turn of the 20th century we saw the rise of the so-called muckrakers: Journalists and activists who voiced loud and clear the inadequacies of the system in place, the squalid living conditions the new urban dwellers lived in but could not thrive in--the future looked dim.

Too much pollution:

Pollution in the background in Salt Lake City, Utah in the 1930s

Not enough green, no safe places for children to play in, overcrowding, trash everywhere in the cities:

No work regulations, people often working 6 days a week for more than 10 hours per day including kids:

No food regulations:

Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle exposed the conditions of the food industry. Rats and spoiled meat and whatever else lying on the floor would be swept up and mixed with the fresh meat for processing. His book led to massive public outcry and to reform and Congress created what would become the FDA in 1906 with the Food and Drugs Act.

The last line on the poster they are holding is: Eat Fresh Vegetables. This photo must have been taken in the early 1920s. And here we are in 2011 still trying to tell ourselves to eat fresh vegetables.

The trip to the past or to the progressive era is that we're facing many of the same issues now.

Then:

Now:

Kolkata

Only the same issues, the same fights from the same positions that people faced over a hundred years ago are being fought in countries that are not Western Europe that isn't the United States. This isn't to say that the United States aren't facing the same issues only we've regressed, we've taken a few steps back by being perhaps too comfortable-we need to constantly be aware that urban life has many drawbacks on quality of life and the quality of living.