Hazon Food Conference

I would be amiss if I did not put a plug out for the Hazon Food Conference coming up Dec. 24-27 in California. It is a great conference in a great location - right on the ocean. Like all of Hazon's events, the Food Conference builds a strong, joyous Jewish community in a weekend. It is also packed with educational opportunities (I am speaking, for one) across a range of topic areas. I like to go to the experiential cooking instructors, the political advocates and the farmers. I also go to network and meet people from the West Coast which has a much stronger sustainable food culture than we do. If you are interested, sign up quick!

NPR, Yahoo! and the Washington Post

Boy, the message about the issues with industrial farming are finally making and making and making prime-time. On Wed 12/9, not one, not two, but three major sources of information had segments on the issues.

NPR had a segment on industrial dairy farms in New Mexico, the resulting ground water contamination, and the public's reactions;Yahoo's Healthy Living section had a segment on food experts won't eat including among others, corn-fed beef, farmed salmon, canned tomatoes and microwave popcorn; and the Washington Post Health and Science section had an article on food safety which focused on how industrially produced food makes tainted food hard to avoid.

It is a hot hot issue!

Food and Climate Change

I (along with many scientists) believe that agriculture's affect on the environment is being seriously underplayed and overlooked in Copenhagen as well as by the US government. As you probably already know, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change began in Copenhagen this week. Some folks have already dubbed it a failure because preliminary climate change negotiations didn't work and they believe no accord will be adopted that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think that it is vitally important to do my part to add to the conversation about agriculture's impact on the environment and climate change. The Cool Foods Campaign has a good list of agriculture's contributions to climate change. They say, "It is imperative that the world shift away from industrial food systems and toward an ecological, organic food paradigm if we are to adequately address climate change." Their list doesn't address industrial animal agriculture specifically, but does recommend a shift away from industrial to sustainable (organic) farming practices.

Thanksgiving!

Well, after 4 weeks of Thanksgiving mayhem, I have a moment's rest.

It is truly a challenge trying to fit a non-industrial product into an industrial world. Its like putting a square peg in a round hole. My turkeys turned out smaller than we or the farmer expected. So I had to end up giving people two and ordering a whole bunch more - and it is not easy to find 100 pastured turkeys the week before Thanksgiving. To top it all off, fulfilling all these changed orders was a terrific challenge for my fulfillment folks. Ahh, the challenges of being a start-up! But at the end of the day, I am really thankful for (my family, my farmers, all the people who I work with) and especially YOU! Thank you, thank you, my customers, for being so understanding, and flexible! One thing I learned while calling many of you in the past couple weeks (to rearrange your orders) is the amount of support people have for what KOL Foods is doing. It is so nice to have that feedback in the midst of mayhem. Here is an email that I got yesterday from Sara Shapiro-Pleven of NYC:

"Devora, thank you so much. The turkeys were unbelievable. It was as if we were eating a whole different animal; I always thought I hated turkey, but this was delicious. I'm so glad that we were able to shop with you! But most of all, thank you for helping us to inspire our family to think more carefully about the food they eat."


Snif.

Global Warming and meat eating

There was a terrific op ed in the NY Times a couple of weeks ago which separated the issues of industrial animal meat production and vegetarianism. Nicolete Hahn Niman (of Niman Ranch fame) pointed out that the issues raised with eating meat (contributing to carbon dioide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions) are not really problems with eating meat, but with industrial meat production. Using traditional grass-fed farming methods eliminates many of these issues and, if done right, can contribute positively to carbon sequestration.

Here's a good quote: "None of us, whether we are vegan or omnivore, can entirely avoid foods that play a role in global warming. Singling out meat is misleading and unhelpful, especially since few people are likely to entirely abandon animal-based foods."

Click here for the whole Op Ed.

Eating Animals

Julie Steinberg (JCarrot.org blogger) interviewed me for her review of the new book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book is a bit of an investigative report on industrial meat production. It also goes into Foer's family history and his choice of vegetarianism. To read the full review click here.

What to do about industrial meat production?

A Prairie Home Companion has fun with Feedlot Beef & Industrial Corn

Garrison Keillor's show was broadcast in Des Moines last week. He did a terrific job of putting humor into the issue of feedlot/industrial beef and industrial corn in contrast to grass-fed beef. And why not have some fun? Here is the NPR feed for the Dusty Cowboy show (go to minute 24).

He also put a shout out to Grinnell College (in Grinnell, Iowa) where I went to college.

Ecological Intellegence and Life Cycle Analysis

I read a great book recently: Ecological Intelligence, How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything by Daniel Goleman. The main idea is if the consumer could easily compare the social/environmental/ethical impacts of the products s/he buys then the manufacturers would be forced to change their products to impact the world more positively.  Generally speaking, manufacturers are not interested in their products' impacts because it is not economically advantageous. The consumer is at a disadvantage currently because this information is not public (and in most cases, is unresearched). New research is needed to understand the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of all products and then these LCAs need to be made into a easy to use rating/label system.

There are some positive signs of movement on multiple fronts. There are a couple of websites where consumers can already get ratings like http://www.goodguide.com/. Hekhsher Tzedek is trying to put together its own ethical certification of kosher food products. And in the UK, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) has put our a call for proposals for "Effective approaches to environmental labeling of food products".

It is time for those who care greatly that what we buy creates positive (or the least negative) impacts on the world to step up!

Humane Veal?

Remember veal? The 1980s symbol for animal raised especially inhumanely? There is an interesting article in the 9/28 Washington Post Food section about humanely raised, grass-fed veal. "Its producers argue that if male calves from dairy cows, an otherwise useless by-product of the dairy industry, are not ethically raised for meat, they are sold to less-humane veal producers or are destroyed."  What do you think? Should KOL Foods sell grass-fed kosher... veal? Click here for the complete article.

Pastured turkey sale ends Nov. 3.

Order your KOL Foods Pastured Turkey by Nov. 3 and you will be automatically entered into our raffle to win a free turkey. Click here to go directly to the KOL Foods turkey page. We will soon add turkey recipes to our website since pastured turkey cooks differently.

We love our poultry farmer, Jake Zook. He has a terrific story, a terrific farm and raises great tasting turkeys. If you are ever near Lancaster Country, PA, pay him a visit. His farm practices are an open book to any customer.

Touring farms is a great way to learn where your food comes from, how it was raised and what it takes to bring it to your table. In this age of industrial agriculture, it is so hard to be thankful for our food when we have no idea where it comes from. At KOL Foods, we work hard to develop relationships with our farmers and to tell their stories. May your Thanksgiving blessings be all the more meaningful knowing exactly what it is you are blessing.  Click here to read Jake's story.

Industrial Organic - Wise, Empire and all the rest.

Have you noticed that your kosher organic chicken tastes very similar to the same-old conventional bird that you always used to buy? That is because the ARE very similar!

It is time to clarify the distinction between industrial organic and sustainable (or non-industrial). In the kosher world, all certified organic meat and poultry (Wise, Empire, etc.) that you can find in the common marketplace is industrial organic (except for KOL Foods). The reason why I created KOL Foods was because I found industrial organic to be disappointingly only slightly better than conventional confinement meat and poultry.

Kosher USDA certified organic (read industrial) animals are raised in very similar confinement situations as conventional meat and poultry and they have the very similar waste & environmental problems. The big difference between industrial organic and plain industrial is that to be certified organic, an animal must only be fed organic feed and cannot be given antibiotics or hormones. Other than that, animal's feed can consist of exactly the same ingredients. For example, industrial organic cow would be fed an organic grain (corn) based diet in feedlots.

In terms of poultry, the regulations insist that they have "access" to the outdoors, particularly if they are to be labeled as free range. But all that means is that there needs to be an open door in the same-old industrial confinement house. Chickens (not your adventurous sort) never go through that door so it makes no difference that it is there at all.

As you can see, both "USDA Certified Organic" and "Free Range" are not what one would hope them to be. They are really just the same-old, same-old industrial with a twist.

No Impact Week and Shabbat.

We are catching up with the end of No Impact Week. (Just because we missed most of this week, doesn't mean we shouldn't use the guide and organize our own communities.) The No Impact Week Guide focuses each day of the week on an element of our impact. Sunday examines consumption: Monday looks at trash; Tuesday it's transportation; Wednesday it's food and Thursday it's energy. The week culminates in an "eco-shabbath" which looks considerably like the Jewish Shabbat.

I saw No Impact Man (the movie) when Rabbi Steve Greenberg brought it to the Hazon Rosh Hashana retreat at Pearlstone in MD. Steve actually knows Colin Beavan (aka No Impact Man) and talked to him considerably about his "No Impact" project. When Colin described his year attempting to have no impact by (among other things) not buying anything new, not using electricity, not traveling in any motorized way, Steve pointed out that religious Jews do all those things every week! Here's an interesting perspective...

What would Shabbat be like if we focused not only on community and spirituality, but on the repair of the world in a very real and practical way?

Click here for the No Impact Week Guide Book.

Pastured Turkeys. Online ordering available now until Nov. 3

KOL Foods' Broad Breasted Whites are not your normal birds. They are raised on the pasture of Jake Zook’s Amish farm in Lancaster Country, PA especially for KOL Foods. While conventional turkeys are fed and bred to have such large breasts that they have trouble walking, KOL Foods’ turkeys are reminiscent of a time before industrialization when poultry was free to roam. Our turkeys live turkey lives. Jake provides them with all the staples: ample food, drink, protection and good old-fashioned freedom. The turkeys live on the farm’s pastureland where a hoop barn provides them with shade but does not keep them contained. Using a technique called Rotational Grazing, Jake moves the hoop barn each morning to a fresh piece of pasture. The birds follow to find fresh grass and grubs – in a bird’s eye view: heaven.


Jake understands what they mean; he also sees his farm as heaven. In the 1980s he farmed conventionally like all his neighbors and friends. Then severe liver illness brought him to his knees. In and out of the hospital for months, Jake had time to discover that the cause of his disease came from the toxic fertilizers he was using. Once well, Jake vowed to work with nature instead of toxins. He converted his farm to raise his animals on pasture. Jake and his soils took a while to recover, but now the land that once was so hard and infertile that most of the pesticides he put on it washed into the creek, is rich and fertile and can absorb rain water again. The earthworms have returned.

In the age of industrial meat production, we have forgotten that the health of our bodies isn’t just in what we eat; it is in what what we eat eats. For our turkeys to be healthy for us, they need to eat healthy grass and healthy grubs grown on healthy soils. In a wonderful synergy of nature, not only are pastured turkeys healthy for us and healthy for the earth, they are deliciously rich in flavor. They taste like turkey was meant to taste.

So let’s have a truly special Thanksgiving. Eat consciously. Know your farmer and where your meal comes from and to be truly thankful in bringing them to your table.

Pastured turkey online ordering is available until Nov. 3rd.
Click here for more information and to order.

Cool Foods Campaign

I'd like to put a plug out there for the Center for Food Safety's Cool Foods Campaign. They are doing some terrific work to push the govt. to include industrial agriculture regulation in the Climate and Energy bill. The current proposal does not sufficiently address the impact agriculture has on climate change, and the significant potential it could have in reversing current destructive climatic trends. Here is what the Center for Food Safety (CFS) says...

"Though research unequivocally concludes that industrial agriculture is one of the major contributors to global warming, neither international nor domestic policies adequately take on this issue," said Debi Barker, Director of the Center for Food Safety's Climate Change and Agriculture Program." Barker notes that at least 60 percent of all dangerous nitrous oxide (NO2) emissions and 40 percent of all methane (CH4) emissions are produced by industrial farming, primarily from the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer and intensive livestock operations respectively.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international consultative body, reports conservatively that industrial agriculture accounts for at least 14 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Many scientists maintain that this number is even higher, falling in the 25 to 30 percent range when the total energy backpack of the current food system is taken into account.

"The environmental goals of climate legislation cannot be compromised, but without addressing the impacts of industrial agriculture practices on climate, that is exactly what's taking place," added Andrew Kimbrell, Founder and Executive Director of CFS. "If the United States is serious about creating real environmental change, this piece of legislation must recognize the impacts of industrial agriculture on climate and take steps to reverse trends by requiring a shift to low-impact, sustainable agriculture."

Antibiotics in feed and E.coli

Here is an interesting note that I pulled from the Union for Concerned Scientists, a science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world.


According to a new study, resistant E. coli infections in humans come from antibiotics given to conventional feedlot animals. The study noted that E. coli strains on meat most likely develop resistance as a direct consequence of antibiotic use in food animals. Read the study (pdf) and commentary (pdf) in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"The agricultural industry often pretends that the science supporting the link between antibiotic use in livestock and resistant bacterial infections in humans is incomplete. This is yet another study proving the connection." ~ Margaret Mellon, Food & Environment Program Director

Jewish Week Article

In case you haven't seen it yet, KOL Foods was on the front page of last week's Jewish Week (with a photo of me!). Not a bad article about the importance of non-industrial meat and the need for its accessibility for kosher consumers. It also laid out some really beautiful thoughts on sustainability and kashrut from a Jewish perspective. Here is the opening paragraph:


"Rabbi Natan Margalit has become a seasoned chicken plucker. Simon Feil’s Brooklyn freezer is stuffed with beef cuts — including unanticipated non-kosher ones he cannot eat. And Devora Kimelman-Block, a onetime vegetarian, is quickly becoming the Jeff Bezos of kosher, free-range organic meat — taking Web orders and shipping beef, lamb and chicken all over the East Coast." Click here to view the article in its entirety. 

Grass-fed meat, safer meat

Yesterday NPR's On Point aired Why is a Burger Still Unsafe? which was an interview with Michael Moss the investigative reporter whose article on E. coli bacteria in ground beef appeared on the front page of Sunday's NYT. If you haven't read the article yet, you definately should. There is also a good summary video that you can click here to view. The central story about a 22 year old that became paraplegic and brain damaged from eating tainted meat, honestly made me cry.


One important question that keeps being asked and rarely answered is how the E.coli got in the burgers and why are the cases getting more extreme? It is the slaughterhouses and processing plants that get sued, but what about how the animals are being raised? Moss' article barely mentions the feedlots and doesn't suggest any preventative measures in how the animals are being raised that could prevent E.coli infections. As the video states, they are looking to sue the last place where the bacteria could have been prevented. Why not start with the first place?


Here is the summary of a Cornell University study about this very issue: a major cause of E.coli is that the cattle are on a grain (corn) based diet. Grass-fed animals have far fewer E. coli than grain-fed animals. What's more, the small amount of E. coli they do have is much less likely to survive the natural acidity of our digestive tracts—our first line of defense against infectious diseases.

Why this marked difference in the survival of the bacteria? Feeding grain to cattle makes their digestive tracts abnormally acidic. Over time, the E. coli in their systems become acclimated to this acid environment. When we ingest them, a high percentage will survive the acid shock of our digestive juices. By contrast, few E. coli from grass-fed cattle will survive because they have not become acid-resistant. When cattle are fed their natural diet of grass, our natural defenses are still capable of protecting us.

Of course, you should still follow all safe-handling recommendations when you prepare meat from grass-fed animals. It takes only a few E. coli bacteria to make us ill. But you can be assured that your risk of becoming infected is much, much lower.

If you want to have safer meat, you need to eat grass-fed meat. If you are looking for kosher, grass-fed meat click here.



Here is a study by Cornell University:
Russell, J. B., F. Diez-Gonzalez, and G. N. Jarvis. “Potential Effect of Cattle Diets on the Transmission of Pathogenic Escherichia Coli to Humans” Microbes Infect 2, no. 1 (2000): 45-53.

A Purposeful Fast: A Yom Kippur Sermon on Food

Yes, we are just passed Yom Kippur, but with the fast still fresh in our minds and with the gates not yet fully closed, I think Rabbi Dov Gartenberg's (of Temple Beth Shalom in CA) sermon has some terrific lessons for us. Specifically I would like to highlight one issue which is close to my heart and which continues to bring my blood to a boil...

"No one is talking about how our government subsidizes terrible food choices. No one challenges a system that spends billions of marketing dollars seducing us to eat food products that undermine our environment, waste huge amounts of fossil fuels and most of all jeopardize our personal health... The government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, one of the main contributing factors to that disease. Our health crisis in America is driven not only by a broken health care system, but even more so by the American way of eating and producing food. This food system compromises our health which requires massive amounts of expensive medical intervention to keep us functioning and alive." Click here for the sermon in its entirety.

A kavennah for eating meat...

To celebrate the birthday of the world we should eat in a way that honors the earth and honors the life that was taken in order for us to eat.

If eating meat over the holidays:

1) Eat consciously. Bless it and reflect on everything involved in bringing it to your plate.

2) Eat sparingly. The rabbis encouraged people to eat meat on the holidays because they lived in a society in which eating meat was rare luxury. It isn’t special if you eat it at every meal.

3) Don’t swallow your ethics. Do your best to consume ethically. Consider buying sustainable, non-industrial, pastured, organic meats (like those available through www.kolfoods.com). If buying industrial meats, go for the organics and the companies that employ union labor.

Who is KOL Foods?

Today’s dominant agricultural methods rely on synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, large amounts of energy and water, major transportation systems, poor waste disposal and factory-style practices for raising livestock and crops. Artificial hormones, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, mad cow disease, and large-scale outbreaks of potentially deadly E.coli are all associated with this industrial form of food production.

Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities. And the results are delicious!

History of KOL Foods
Until July 2007, virtually all kosher meat available to U.S. consumers was industrially produced. A kosher consumer who refused to eat unethical, industrially produced meat had no choice but to become vegetarian. KOL Foods gives kosher consumers access to healthy, ethically produced, non-industrial meat. Today, there is no need to choose between eating according to your values and keeping kosher.

In July 2007, KOL Foods established a partnership with a synagogue in Washington, DC, a slaughterhouse and a local farmer to make the first glatt kosher, organically raised, local, grass-fed meat available. Scores of kosher consumers were eager for this product. In just its second offering, the program generated sales of more than 2,400 pounds of beef through a single email. Jews from 14 different DC area synagogues, ranging from Reform to Conservative to Orthodox, purchased this beef. We were so encouraged by this powerful consumer response that we worked to expand to meet the demand. 

Website  
While we build a new system to make delicious, healthy products available in your community, we hope you'll join us in our advocacy efforts which promote sustainable agriculture. Please explore our website to learn more about KOL Foods and how you can reduce your foodprint. www.kolfoods.com