Does Your Box of “Ugly” Produce Really Help the Planet? Or Hurt it?

Fascinating New Republic piece by Emily Atkin about the rise of food boxes that purport to reduce food waste. Readers of my book will realize that food waste is a huge issue and we should work to reduce it however possible, but are 'Hungry Harvest' type services the best way to do so?

Should we have a carbon tax for airline flights?

I think so, and I wrote about why in this LA Times OpEd piece. I was stimulated to write this because of the recent UN IPCC report and then the US Government report discussing our need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas production to avoid massive environmental (and human) damage. I recognize that carbon taxes are controversial but in a pollyanish way I believe that they might be the magic bullet (or a kick in the butt) that will lead to us bringing carbon capture and alternative fuel production technologies to scale--which will benefit us all. At this point, I believe that technological innovations will have to be part of the solution.

Regardless of your position, it's surely worthy of a discussion over dinner...and certainly in the context of how we can rapidly reduce greenhouse gas production.

Read more at the LA Times.

Mixing mushrooms into hamburgers...

An article in Nature talks about how by mixing in mushrooms with hamburgers we can reduce the carbon footprint of hamburgers. Sonic drive through is doing it. So are Harvard and USC. Food for thought. Read more here.

The opportunity cost of an animal based diets exceeds all food losses

New article in PNAS shows how the  
The opportunity cost of an animal based 
diets exceeds all food losses. Check out 
the article and be amazed at the benefits of 
substituting plants for meat.

Electric Pressure Cooker cooking...

Happy New Year!

In a year where some might say that the sacred has become profane, but everyone would clearly agree that 'we live in interesting times, I hope that the next year is less of a roller coaster ride (yea, right...). Lotsa stuff to talk about at dinner parties...and lotsa reasons to break the bread with folks that might not have the same feelings about things that you do...

I've used a pressure cooker for the past 30 years. It all started when I had to carry my fuel up to Dhee Sar, the uninhabited  very high alpine meadow where I studied marmots for my dissertation research in Pakistan in the late '80s and early '90s. However, learning to cook non-professional Pakistani cuisine (think the unit of measurement for spice is cups rather than tablespoons!) was always delicious but often resulted in rice burned in the bottom of the pot (OK, I never read a recipe so cut me some slack...). Thus, it is with GREAT pleasure that I can announce that I've just gotten an electric pressure cooker (I'm not getting paid for this, but it's an Instant Pot). Pretty cool.

Electric pressure cookers are incredibly efficient...they not only save oven/stove time, but they also save water--realize that you only have one pot to clean!  I'm experimenting with a variety of recipes now. The first thing I made was modified from a quiche recipe (I played around with this great veggie quiche recipe). Delicious! In less than an hour and without having to fire up the oven or add fat to the kitchen top,I pressure steamed a delicious family brunch.

There are tonnes of bean recipes to explore and I'm really excited to play around with some 5-minute rice and fish recipes -- I'm going to use tilapia (some of them start with frozen fish--go figure!--no excuse to not cook a fresh meal anymore...).

The great thing about the electric pressure cooker is that it's all science because it regulates the temperature and pressure in ways you can't as easily do with a pressure cooker on a stove or, as I cut my teeth on, on a kerosene burner or a yak-dung fire.

Stay tuned...but I'm playing around with a number of interesting sites with recipes that include: Amy & Jacky, forkly, Health Starts in the Kitchen, and more...they're easy to find...just google around.

Environmental impact of dogs and cats...

"US cats and dogs cause 25-30 percent of the environmental impact of meat consumption in this country. The nation's 163 million cats and dogs eat as much food as all the people in France. People should keep their pets -- and keep feeding them meat -- but there may be steps pet owners can take to reduce their environmental impact, says a researcher." 

Read more...

New OpEd on surviving in a post-truth world

I just had an OpEd published on Project Syndicate on Surviving in a Post-Truth World.  The main point worth discussing over dinner and drinks is what is truth and how would we identify it. If we agree that there are better and worse ways to seek it, shouldn't we lobby our politicians to follow those paths?

Smaženice--Czech scrambled mushrooms

I've got a colleague visiting from the Czech Republic who saw some portobello mushrooms in the fridge and offered to make a Czech speciality. First, however, I had to buy caraway seeds (a major part of the cuisine). And, I have to say, I'm quite glad that I did. I've used caraway seeds in pickling before but the flavor they added to the potatoes and mushrooms was both delicate and exciting!


Here's Pavel Linhart's recipe for Smaženice:

100 g of butter, oil, or pork fat (for frying).

1 large onion, diced.

500 g of mushrooms (bolets, champignons, etc.), cut into 1-2cm cubes.

2-4 eggs, depending on mushrooms; it should be a dish mainly from mushrooms (e.g., 2-4 eggs / 500g of mushrooms)

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

1 tsp to 1 Tbs caraway seeds (to taste--Pavel advises "it is hard to overdose caraway seed, do not hold back!'")

In a frying pan, warm the butter, oil, or pork fat and fry the onion until it's soft and glassy. Add the mushrooms, caraway seeds, salt and pepper.  Cover with a lid, stirring occasionally until mushrooms are well cooked (10-20 min). Mushrooms will release water when cooked but if it is not enough and the mushrooms begin to stick to the pan, add a little water. When mushrooms are cooked add whisked eggs and stir constantly until they harden up. 

Serve with bread or garlic bread, or with potatoes boiled in salty water with 1 Tbs of caraway seeds.

Yum.

Not all vegetarian and vegan diets are similarly low impact

A fascinating paper was just published in Scientific Reports that followed a number of individuals who adopted different diets (omnivore, vegetarian, vegan). While we are all told that eating a vegetarian or vegan diet should have a lower carbon footprint and use less water, there was remarkable variation between individuals.  Read and share the article and discuss diet choices at your next dinner party.

John Holdren on Scientific Evidence

Former Obama administration science advisor John Holdren has written an excellent OpEd in the Boston Globe about the process by which we evaluate the evidence about man-made climate change.

Rather than questioning the evidence (which scientists constantly do and which leads to a better current understanding), discuss at your next dinner party the 'discount rate'.  In other words, accept the scientific consensus and discuss who should pay and when.

Is it ethical for us to suffer now for future generations?

Is it ethical for us to not suffer now for future generations?

How much change in our current behavior is acceptable to support future generations?

And, what changes do you personally feel comfortable implementing.

If you want realistic scenarios of sea level rise in the US, have a look at this scary simulator published in Wired. Predictions like this explain why the US military views climate change an existential threat to our national security.

New documentary about GMOs

From a LA Times review of Food Evolution, a new documentary about GMOs:

"But finally the film is more troubled by the erosion of trust in science and by anti-GMO activists like Zen Honeycutt who says on camera that she trusts personal experiences of mothers more than the conclusions of scientists. As writer Lynas says, "If you throw science out, there is nothing."

Though it ultimately sides with the pro-GMO camp, "Food Evolution" makes some fascinating points about human behavior along the way, about how we don't make decisions based on facts as often as we think we do. This documentary may not change your mind, but it will make you consider what caused you to decide in the first place."

I'm putting the film on my must-see list.

LA Times grilled veggie recipes...YUM

The LA Times just posted some of their favorite grilled recipes. Grilled radicchio looks great with our without the prosciutto as do the grilled avocados!  I'm going to be trying some of these sooner rather than later (even if I don't have access to a grill in Colorado where I'm working...).

Good grilling!

Portobello mushrooms with a smoky mayo!

I was at a bar a while ago and ordered a variety of appetizers. One was what must have been a grilled portobello mushroom that was served with a smoky mayo sauce. Last month I got around to trying to recreate it. Easy and delicious.  What I did was to:

1) coat with Olive Oil, 4 portobello mushrooms

2) grill mushrooms on a hot grill (can be done in a broiler or even a hot oven) until they started to shrink (on the grill they get nice grill marks...). When finished, cut into strips or cubes.

3) mix several tablespoons of Kewpie Mayonnaise (a delicious Japanese mayo, you can use any mayo) with liquid smoke to taste. I've recently discovered that it's not always possible to buy liquid smoke.  I probably ended up using a teaspoon or so of it to about 4 Tbs of the mayo...but you should do this to taste.

4) drizzle the smoky mayo over the strips or cubes of portobellos.

Yum.

Trade offs we all must confront when eating fish...

Kerri Szejda wrote a thoughtful article in The Conversation nicely discusses the trade offs we must all make when selecting fish to eat (omega 3 fatty acids, sustainability, mercury...).  Worth a read (and a discussion) if you eat fish.

Our Throwaway Culture...

Dave Hall writes in the Guardian:

"In 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate the scraps. But in the past decade, he said, while plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, old habits had died hard – and that was why the beach was fringed with a crust of plastic. Beyond the merely unsightly, this plasticcongregates in continent-scale garbage gyres in our oceans, being eaten by plankton, then fish; then quite possibly it’ll reach your plate ..."

Read the rest of Throwaway Culture at the Guardian.

Cooler Smarter

I'm fearful for the reduced role that science and evidence are playing in today's policy decisions. Thus, Janice and I decided to join the Union of Concerned Scientists. As a thank you gift they sent me a GREAT book--"Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living."

Filled with concrete things that you can do to reduce your carbon footprint and ensure that your voice is heard by policy makers. The not so dirty secret is that when you save carbon, you save money so it should be a win-win, right?

It's worthy to get a copy and pass it around at your next dinner party (better than those damn smart phones!) and discuss how each individual's concrete actions can help reduce our carbon footprint.

You can buy the book on Amazon or you can donate to UCS and get it as a gift.

Our Miserable 21st Century

"The abstraction of “inequality” doesn’t matter a lot to ordinary Americans. The reality of economic insecurity does. The Great American Escalator is broken—and it badly needs to be fixed."

So writes Nicholas Eberstadt in the 15 February 2017 issue of Commentary in his article "Our Miserable 21st Century." The depressing article is a worthy read and could form the basis of an interesting dinner party conversation. I found it by reading David Brooks' essay based in part on it in the NY Times.

Both include shocking statistics about unemployment, drug use, and felony convictions. Both paint a picture of a polarized country filled with suffering and blame.

I think that if we are to productively work towards a better future we have to address these issues--the two faces of America--and stop pointing fingers of blame and start working together for solutions.

Ask your guests, what will they do to change our presently disturbing status quo. And, ask yourself too.

double chocolate cookie aka: 'diabetes waiting to happen'

It's been raining a lot recently--we need it but it does stifle going outside. Our son and his friends wanted to bake something chocolate. They Googled double chocolate cookies and found this NY Times recipe--which they decided to bake it as one big cookie on a large cookie sheet covered with a silpat. Peels of laughter emerged from the kitchen as it expanded, and expanded, and expanded into a HUGE cookie.

As we all wiped chocolate off our mouths, one of his friends called it 'diabetes waiting to happen' which is what I'm going to call it when we serve it the next time we make a desert for a dinner party.

D E L I C I O U S ! ! ! ! ! !

A thoughtful essay on alternative opinions...

Aaron Hanlon, a professor at Colby College, wrote about being a conservative student on a liberal campus and how his advice for his students was to hone their powers of persuasion, rather than victimizing themselves as a minority conservative.

I really enjoy those challenging dinner party conversations that are polite but involve people with very different viewpoints logically developing their position. I learn a lot from these and often become less polemic in my own views.

Check out his essay at the NY Times and see if his advice works around your table (it certainly does around our table).

Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

...eat groundhog of course!

I was interviewed by Extra Crispy (Time magazine's food newsletter/blog) about eating groundhog in honor, of course, of Groundhog Day.

At the outset I'll admit that I've not eaten groundhog or any of the 14 other species of marmots (but I have eaten a variety of wild ungulates, boar, hare, geese and ducks, reptiles, and, once, in Norway, Eurasian beaver). Ken Armitage, my mentor and founder of the long-term yellow-bellied marmot project that I now run once said to me, "I wouldn't eat my friends!"

And I too would not eat our friends, but I would consider eating a groundhog (preferably a very, very fresh accidental roadkill), or a marmot from Eurasia (where they are shot for their fur and many are eaten).

Sustainably harvested wild game can be both good for you and an ethical food choice. The crux is the sustainability threshold--how do you know if your wild food is sustainably harvested? Something I'll throw out for a discussion this next week at 2 vegetarian dinner parties I'm hosting (on Saturday and Wednesday).