Bovine Flatulence, or in colloquial terms, cow fart, is what compelled me to start thinking about how our diets and choices are affecting the environment. It was 2007 and a friend had forwarded me one of those chain emails that make you wonder if you should feel misguided or enlightened.

Image: South Dakota Politics Blog

“According to the UN,” read the email, “the livestock sector, thanks to cow burps and farts, generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport.”

I remember forwarding it to all my friends, beef eating and otherwise, with a note full of mock-horror. “Finally there’s proof! Your beef gluttony is destroying the world.” I was expecting the jokes that followed – “Holy Cow!” – but not the heated debate. What started as, “Isn’t it good then that we’re eating them?” very quickly turned into, “F**k this shit! We love beef and none of you environment-loving tree-huggers can change that.” That email-debate destroyed some fairly deep friendships, I’m told. I should have known. In India, where I was at the time, people take their cows very seriously.

The email, whether true or not, was the first time I started thinking about what goes into our food and how our choices make a difference. A cow isn’t just a cow. If I am what I eat, then I am also what the cow eats, and I am also the plant-food and soil that the grass eats. That seemingly simple choice to eat a steak wasn’t that simple after all. It made me accountable for whatever, good or bad, the cow had done. It made me accountable for cow fart and it’s horrendous greenhouse effects. Oh the guilt!

Something else that I learnt because of the email was that very few people sit up and change their choices and habits simply because it’s ‘good for the environment’. People stick rigidly to their likes and dislikes and the only argument that comes close to having any effect is when it’s “good for health” or a question of life and death.

Combining both these arguments is where Mark Bittman’s true genius lies. The New York Times’ award-winning food writer and author of several books, perhaps knows that the best way to get people to do something for the environment is to convince them that, really, they’re doing it for themselves. So, his 2009 book, Food Matters, “explored the crucial connections between food, health and the environment”, making the case that a plant-based diet was great for our health and the environment; but mostly, great for us. And his 2010 cookbook, by the same name, came with “comprehensive and straightforward ideas for cooking easy, delicious foods that are as good for you as they are for the planet.”

Equal parts culinary life coach and food intellectual, Mark Bittman is a man on a mission. A man who has made a career out of changing the way we prepare and think about food. If there are any food issues that come to your mind, whether it’s the dangers of sugar, soda and its impact, workers rights, the state of school food or anything else, chances are that Mark Bittman had a hand in putting it there.

I suspect much of Mark Bittman’s fundraising talk (and dinner) on 30th April 2013 in Downtown Brooklyn ((in association with Brooklyn Food Coalition) will be a call to action, of sorts – A good look at the intersection of food, politics, the environment, and personal health, and what we can, and should, do about it. There’ll also be a fair bit about his newest idea, VB6 – eating vegan before 6, and anything your heart craves, after. (His new book by the same name is also releasing on the same day and will be available for purchase and signing at the event).

VB6 is how Mark Bittman lost a lot of weight, improved his cholesterol and got a handle on his blood pressure. And he shares this journey in the book, along with ways to tailor the concept to our specific lifestyles. It’s a wonderful idea that’s all about enjoying the balance in our meals, about having a little of what’s good for us so we can have a little of what’s not. But most of all, it’s about eating less meat not just for health reasons but for positive environmental impact.

I think I can get behind that. Especially if it means I no longer have to worry about world problems like global warming and bovine flatulence.

Nidhi is a New York based writer who gave up a cushy business-consulting life to be a penniless writer. When she’s not fawning over Mark Bittman or obsessing over bovine flatulence, Nidhi can be found writing about all things food and culture at nidhichaudhry.com

 
This looks good.

As part of the 2014 Budget Request released last week, President Obama included a proposal that would overhaul America’s international food aid system. It’s not a perfect proposal and it still needs to be approved by Congress, but it’s a huge leap forward.

Right now, the U.S. has a well-intentioned yet wildly inefficient food aid system. Unlike other donor countries, the U.S. ships food from here rather than donating money to purchase food available in or near disaster-stricken countries. As a way of unloading surplus grain, this system works well. As a smart, efficient way of responding to humanitarian crises, it’s atrocious.

Food shipped from the U.S. can take up to three months longer to arrive than food purchased regionally. This means that while the food is making its way over the ocean, millions of people are dying. And when it finally arrives, it can undercut local farmers, driving them even further into poverty and creating a vicious cycle of dependency for developing countries. Finally, the current system is expensive and wasteful. Shipping food from the U.S. can cost upwards of 25% more than purchasing food locally, with more than half of our food aid grain dollars consumed by shipping and overhead.

President Obama’s proposal would change all of this. First of all, under the reforms, almost half of emergency food aid (45%) may be purchased in local markets. Second, the reforms would end monetization, a practice in which NGOs sell American relief food in local markets in order to fund some of their ongoing development programs, like clinics and schools. Per the Government Accountability Office, monetization is wasteful — it costs an average of 25 cents on every taxpayer dollar spent on food aid — and pits American NGOs against local farmers.

If President Obama’s proposal is passed by Congress, the U.S. will be able to reach more people – including an estimated four million more hungry children – every year, without spending an additional dime. In fact, the Obama Administration estimates the proposal will save $500 million over the next decade.

For the past two years, as a volunteer and then as a Kol Tzedek Fellow, I’ve been working with American Jewish World Service (AJWS) to bring about many of the reforms President Obama proposed last week. We collected signatures and postcards here in New York that petitioned the President and Congress for change. I remember apologetically handing 80 signed postcards to Senator Gillibrand’s staffer, thinking, “She must be so annoyed with more postcards to deal with,” when she thanked me, saying earnestly, “We count each and every one of these.” We met with local representatives, sometimes to their surprise. Rep. Yvette Clarke looked at us and said, “I get a lot of requests…but this is the first meeting where a group of Jews from Brooklyn asked me to do something for Haitian farmers”. We spoke, wrote, and taught about the issue in forums large and small. And, last month, we went to DC and lobbied our representatives.

Admittedly, the reforms are not a perfect fix. Under President Obama’s proposal, up to 45% of emergency food aid can be locally and regionally procured. This is a strong start, but in the long run we’re hoping for 100% flexibility. And, of course, we can’t call this a victory until it gets the approval of Congress. But these reforms signal big change – less hunger, less dependency, support for local farmers, and a healthier and more sustainable food system for all.

For more information, check out this article in The Guardian, as well as AJWS’s public statement. To show the Obama Administration your support for his bold actions, click here.

Karin Fleisch, a food security consultant, is an MPA candidate at NYU Wagner and a Kol Tzedek Fellow at American Jewish World Service.

Carry that weight a long time

The Beatles

The Weight of the Nation: Consequences, part one of a four part HBO series on obesity in America, focuses on its consequences: for the individual, family, community, and even the nation. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher and it’s easy as we grow older to gradually put on the pounds.  The country too has grown fatter as it enters middle age – 68.8% of Americans are now technically overweight or obese.  If this were simply a matter of vanity or looks this issue would not be so grave.  However, being even slightly overweight, by as little as 5%, can have serious consequences for one’s health.

Consequences is a science heavy film.  Some of those interviewed were part of the groundbreaking Bogalusa Heart Study (1972-2005) that followed children into adulthood and discovered conclusively that heard disease begins in childhood.  Other interviewees are doctors and specialists.  Those interviewed who struggle with their weight discuss frankly the emotional and physical challenges.  The doctors and pathologists, meanwhile, explain in vivid detail the dangers of obesity: high blood pressure; heart, liver, and kidney disease; asthma; dementia; diabetes and its consequences such as blindness and amputations; and early death.

The statistics are not pretty.  Twenty percent of the kids in the Bogalusa study had arterial plaque and high cholesterol.  Now 50% of the children in Bogalusa, Louisiana are overweight or obese.  Obese children are eight times more likely than normal ones to develop diabetes.  It’s hard to say if Bogalusa is exceptional or whether it’s a bellwether – the new normal.

At one time obesity was considered a problem of poor people but rates of obesity are increasing among all socioeconomic classes.  While obesity no longer discriminates based on income, 9 of the 10 poorest states have the worst problem with it.  Nor is obesity determined by one’s ethnicity.  The scientific consensus is that it is a complex condition brought on by a combination of one’s DNA (not a single gene but perhaps hundreds) and one’s environment.  Some people are more susceptible than others and your surroundings play a big part.

The good news is that unlike many diseases, or a natural disaster such as a tsunami, obesity is preventable.  While being a mere 2-5% overweight carries increased health risks, many of these can be eliminated by achieving a healthy weight.  Consequences does not suggest that everything is up to the individual.  The film recognizes that solutions extend to the community and to the nation.  In fact, obesity costs the United States $150 billion in health care dollars, half of which is paid for by the public through Medicare and Medicaid.

Because The Weight of the Nation is a four-part series, it hones in on its subject matter and does not suffer, as do some food documentaries, by covering too much ground.  Consequences lays the groundwork on the dangers of obesity and hints at some solutions.  Subsequent parts, Choices, Children in Crisis, and Challenges complete the picture.

Weight of the Nation: Consequences will show Tuesday, May 14, second floor meeting room of the Coop, 7:00 p.m.  Free and open to the public.  Refreshments will be served.

Keep the pressure on by calling on President Obama to issue an executive order calling for the mandatory labeling of GMO foods! 202-456-1111 Please call between 9 AM and 5 PM, Monday through Friday.

There is 10 MILLION DOLLARS ON THE TABLE, HOW WILL YOU SPEND IT?!

The second year of participatory budgeting (PB) is in its final phase and residents of 8 different NYC Council Districts can vote for their favorite projects all this week.  (CMs: Halloran, Lander, Levin, Greenfield, Mark-Viverito, Ulrich, Weprin, and J. Williams.  For full details go to www.pbnyc.org)

To apply, please send a cover letter and your resume to organizers@596acres.org by 11:59pm on Sunday, March 31, 2013. Include a short story about a challenge you have encountered organizing within your community in the body of your letter. Please use the subject “Bronx Organizing Fellow” / “Brooklyn Organizing Fellow” / “Manhattan Organizing Fellow” for your email.

Positions will run April 15 – August 15, 2013; fellows will receive a stipend of $500 per month ($2000 for the entire fellowship) and will be asked to commit at least 40 hours per month.

Fellowship Duties and Responsibilities

• Respond to inquiries about vacant lots in your borough and help communities structure their land access campaigns using 596 Acres resources, as well as OASIS, Acris and other databases.
• Keep accurate notes about communities’ experiences with government entities.
• Communicate with organizers in your borough by phone, email and in person.
• Conduct popular education “Land Use Visioning Sessions” when requested in your borough.
• Develop and maintain dialogue and relationships with community leaders, political entities, governmental agencies in order to create more garden spaces.
• Co-develop and organize database of community leaders and stakeholders for multiple sites.
• Assist in turning maps and broadsheets into signs that can be posted on vacant lots.
• Manage volunteers for sign posting.
• Act as a direct liaison, when necessary, with city agencies and community boards.
• Check email at least every other day.
• Meet twice a month with other fellows and facilitators to discuss
  • ongoing organizing efforts
  • strategies for approaching communities &
  • to problem solve city agency interactions.

Recommended Qualifications

• General knowledge of community gardens, their history and city and state governmental structures that directly affect them.
• Understanding politics of land access, politics around vacancy, land usage, and development in the borough where you will be working.
• Ability to operate well in a collective-type organizational and decision-making structure.
• Ability to speak Spanish, and present comfortably in both Spanish and English.
• General knowledge of borough geography and neighborhoods/community boards.
• Knowledge of OASIS, ACRIS and other city databases, maps and research tools
• Understanding of gardening basics, and familiarity with resources available to gardeners
• Experience in grassroots community organizing and/or founding, running, or working in a community garden are all a plus!
• Available most weekends during fellowship.

COME TO RALLY AT CITY HALL 3/19
We need you to join us on Tuesday, March 19 from 12pm to 1pm on the steps of City Hall, for a Rally on Behalf of New Amsterdam Market.

TELL THE COUNCIL TO VOTE “NO”
This is our last chance to stop the mall developer’s plans to destroy the iconic, city-owned Fulton Fish Market and replace it with a luxury high-rise complex whose details have not been disclosed to the public.

GET THE WORD OUT
If you can’t make it to the Rally tell as many people as you can!  Email, Facebook, tweet and call everyone you know.  Contact your local Council Member BEFORE WEDNESDAY 3/20 and tell them to vote “NO” on the Pier 17 ULURP. Instructions are here.

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RECAP FROM THE MARCH 14 HEARING
On March 14, hundreds of New Yorkers overwhelmed the City Hall Council Chambers to support New Amsterdam Market at the last public hearing on the future of the South Street Seaport. We thank all of you who attended, testified, and wrote letters on our behalf.

We stand proud with our local City Council Member Margaret Chin, who took the mall developer Howard Hughes to task for posing as a champion of community and small businesses while acting otherwise.

At the March 14 hearing, we offered testimony unveiling Howard Hughes’ plans to destroy the iconic, city-owned Fulton Fish Market and replace it with a luxury high-rise complex whose details have not been disclosed to the public.

THE CITY COUNCIL PLANS TO VOTE ON THIS ISSUE ON WEDNESDAY MARCH 20. We urge the Council to dismiss this entire rezoning request until Howard Hughes reveals its full plans.

If you want to show your support for the resolution and help see it through the city council, download, sign and mail this letter to

Speaker Quinn
224 West 30th St
Suite 1206
New York, NY 10001

Oh, almost forgot…Park Slope Food Coop members can receive FTOP work credit!*

Data Entry: help needed to update our member and volunteer database.
Tabling & Outreach: be BFC’s presence at community events and help recruit members
School Food Parent Advocates: parents of school aged children who are interested in school food issues and change
Volunteer Coordinator: manage our core of volunteers
Administrative Assistant: manage important email accounts and help maintain our community calendar
Childcare Workers: provide childcare services at BFC events.
Community Gardeners: available for garden work day support at school gardens, community gardens, and local farms.
Special Event support: assist the Special Events Committee in planning BFC events and programs.

*Must also be a member of the Brooklyn Food Coalition. Become a member.