How credit cards or food stamps might be used at the Farmers Markets

by Larry Geller

Wouldn’t it be great if food stamp users could buy healthy, freshly picked produce at the Farmers Markets?

The technology is here now. A startup called Square is taking credit card payments already, with no startup fee and no hardware cost. At present, an iPhone is needed, but they promise more connectivity options in the future. Yes, it works through a cell phone.

Watch this video. The sound is poor at first, but it gets better when they demonstrate the unit. Basically, you’ll see a little gizmo that plugs into the iPhone. The card is swiped through the gizmo, then the user signs with a finger on the touch screen. The gizmo is free to the merchant. Cool!

The upstart startup is being treated quite seriously by the industry. Leader Verifone has come up with a version of its own, but there are startup and monthly costs. Still, this validates the new technology.

Anyone can take payments. A merchant account is not necessary with Square. Their website explains how it works.

Square has not replied to my inquiry on whether they process food stamp cards or not. I’ll keep after them.

Study links Monsanto GM corn to organ failure in rats

by Larry Geller

Most genetically modified seed corn is produced in Hawaii, where a large majority of all the corn grown is raised expressly for the production of genetically modified seeds. [Pacific Business News, Genetically modified corn is on the rise, 9/7/2004]

Hawaii-grown corn, big business or not, may be bad business for the state. A recent study is getting to the point GMO opponents have long advocated—the study claims that the stuff is bad, at least for rats (no, this has nothing to do with the Chinatown rat problem, I know you were thinking about that…).

Here is a headline from today’s Democracy Now:

Study Links Monsanto GM Corn to Organ Failure

A new study claims to have uncovered new health effects caused by genetically modified corn from the agricultural giant Monsanto. The International Journal of Biological Sciences says GM corn helped cause organ damage in rats. The study’s author called Monsanto’s GM methods “a very serious mistake, dramatic for public health.” [Democracy Now headlines, 1/13/2010]

An article from the Huffington Post: Monsanto's GMO Corn Linked To Organ Failure, Study Reveals (1/12/2010)

More info and a discussion of Monsanto’s rebuttal: Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage (Food Freedom, 1/1/2010)

New York Times digs into a ground beef safety issue

by Larry Geller

As you may remember from her famous run-in with the cattle industry in 1996, Oprah Winfrey exclaimed on her show about mad cow disease, "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!" So she was sued.

She ultimately won, but that suit underlined the risk involved in taking on the meat industry in this country. One little slipup and you’re in trouble.

Perhaps that figured into the careful investigation conducted by New York Times reporter Michael Moss in preparation for his article, Safety of Beef Processing Method Is Questioned (12/30/2009). The newspaper posted a series of documents, some marked “Confidential,” along with the article.

The story is about fatty trimmings that “the industry once relegated to pet food and cooking oil.” A company invented a process to treat these trimmings (see how respectful I am being) with ammonia to kill E. coli and salmonella.

Based on a study conducted by the company, according to the Times article, the USDA approved the product, and

With the U.S.D.A.’s stamp of approval, the company’s processed beef has become a mainstay in America’s hamburgers. McDonald’s, Burger King and other fast-food giants use it as a component in ground beef, as do grocery chains. The federal school lunch program used an estimated 5.5 million pounds of the processed beef last year alone.

The Times reports that they obtained records from the school lunch program that show problems with the product:

Since 2005, E. coli has been found 3 times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat was caught before reaching lunch-rooms trays.

The USDA comes under scrutiny in the article for accepting the product despite internal criticism:

Carl S. Custer, a former U.S.D.A. microbiologist, said he and other scientists were concerned that the department had approved the treated beef for sale without obtaining independent validation of the potential safety risk. Another department microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef "pink slime" in a 2002 e-mail message to colleagues and said, “I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling.”

Fraudulent or not, it’s safe to assume that most people are not aware of what goes into this or other food that they eat.

“The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you’re eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.” [from Food, Inc. preview]

Read the Times story and draw your own conclusions. Yeah, I’m chicken (though the more I know about chicken…). I’ve done my job if you read the article.

Hawaiian Red Veal at KCC Farmer’s Market this Saturday!

by Nanette Geller

I was thrilled to see that The Hawaii Cattleman's Association will be bringing red veal to the KCC Farmers Market again this Saturday, 12/12. If you aren’t a vegetarian I urge you to give it a try (http://www.hfbf.org/farmersMarketKCC.shtml). If you can’t make it to KCC, R. Fields at Foodland Beretania carries it as well.

My mother was French so we ate veal pretty often. Not just the expensive cutlets, but stews (usually shoulder), veal breast (cheap in those days), liver, kidneys, and even brains. Much as I like veal I haven’t eaten it in many years because of ethical issues with how it is raised. So I was excited when I read about red veal, raised in Hawaii, which is raised without hormones, without antibiotics, and without cruelty (http://www.shareyourtable.com/get_fresh/2009/veal). 

I decided to give it a try in October, when it was available for one day only at the KCC Farmer’s Market. I was hoping for an affordable bone-in breast but the breast was only available as a boned, rolled roast and beyond my budget. Ground veal and stew, however, were within reach.

The culinary students of Slow Food KCC were doing a red veal demo at the market and the Moroccan veal meatballs Gida Snyder cooked up were so fabulous I decided to duplicate it (http://slowfoodkcc.blogspot.com/2009/10/slow-food-cooking-demo-celebrating.html). I made only minor modifications to the meatballs, adding fennel seed along with the coriander and cumin seeds and lightly sweating the onion and garlic instead of using them raw. I happened to have a can of harissa, so I used that instead of making my own. 

I plated it with a salad of coarsely chopped parsley & cilantro, sliced red onion, lemon juice, lemon zest and olive oil for a very special feast.

Ba-Le on track to open restaurant and plant near Home Depot in March

The former Weyerhaeuser corrugated container plant should be the home of a new Ba-Le restaurant and plant by March 2010. The building is to be shared with Island Flooring Co. which joined with Ba-Le Restaurants in purchasing the property earlier this year. The building is on the corner of Nimitz Highway and Alakawa Street.

The new restaurant should do well, given its proximity to Home Depot, the planned Lowes Home Improvement Store, Best Buy across the street and Costco just a block away. 

Condé Nast to discontinue Gourmet Magazine

by Larry Geller

Unbelievable. But if it is in the New York Times, it must be true.

Condé Nast will close Gourmet magazine, a magazine of almost biblical status in the food world, it was announced on Monday. Gourmet has been published since January 1941. Also being shut down are the Condé Nast magazines Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride, according to an internal company memo that also was sent to reporters on Monday.

The Times website has another article reporting that Gourmet editor and one of the centers of New York’s food world Ruth Reichl was surprised at the news. And they promise more in their Dining section tomorrow (Wednesday).

New York Times reporter investigates the meat industry

by Larry Geller

I was going to write about the New York Times blockbuster article, E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection, which is a long, tough look at the meat industry and the USDA. But I see that David Shapiro has beat me to it. Please click over and read Where's the beef? You don't want to know.

Good, it would make me sick all over again if I had to summarize that NY Times story.

I’ll add two things to what David has posted: first, Hawaii is mentioned, the tainted raw minced beef at a Japanese restaurant here. Second, I want to point out that the Times includes its source documents as links throughout the article. Good bloggers do this, and I’m glad to see newspapers adopting the habit. Maybe there’s a future for (some of) them.

 

That tasty looking fresh water fish could be out to kill you

by Larry Geller

A nationwide study of mercury contamination in fish released on Wednesday found this dismal result:

Scientists detected mercury contamination in every fish sampled in 291 streams across the country…

About a quarter of these fish were found to contain mercury at levels exceeding the criterion for the protection of people who consume average amounts of fish, established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More than two-thirds of the fish exceeded the U.S. EPA level of concern for fish-eating mammals.

That’s bad news for fish lovers. The report, Data on Mercury in Water, Bed Sediment, and Fish from Streams Across the United States, 1998–2005 can be download from the US Geological Survey website.

The mercury comes from a variety of sources, including coal-fired power plants and mining. Yes, there are natural sources, but the findings demonstrate that concentrations of mercury have increased over pre-industrial times. Here’s a handout from the USGS that explains this.

Fish data is here (Excel file). Smallmouth Bass and Blackchin tilapia caught on Oahu were included in the study. I’m not competent to evaluate the numbers, but the concentration of mercury appeared to be among the lowest in the table if I understand it correctly.

Of course, the fish we purchase largely comes from elsewhere, and the numbers for certain regions of the country are many multiples of the Hawaii data.

Additionally, the USGS report covers fish caught in the USA only. We have no idea what contaminants might be in imported fish unless they have been specifically tested. Even if they are, standing at the fish counter at Don Quijote or even at Whole Foods, we have nothing to tell us what’s in that fish we are contemplating buying for tonight’s dinner.

Bon appétit.

Tracking recalls, a pain, but necessary?

by Larry Geller

Last night we went to Kahala to see the movie Food, Inc. and then to do a little shopping at Whole Foods. Let me tell you, after watching that documentary, it was hard to decide whether or not to buy that piece of chicken we were thinking of for dinner later in the week.

The FDA is not protecting us against the contamination that appears to be rampant in modern American industrialized agriculture. The movie makes that clear.

That’s another article, though. Today I was wondering what the FDA is doing for us exactly, after I was sent a link to a story on an FDA recall of sanitizing products. It seems this stuff you might put on your hands to kill the germs (and products to put on a wound) actually seems to contain germs itself (AP, US Marshals seize sanitizer for bacteria problems, 8/2/2009). The US marshals were called in, according to the report, because the company refused to promptly destroy the products. (More here. The company’s website is here, and although I did not search everywhere on it, I didn’t see the recall information there.)

Ok, it seems the FDA is not totally moribund.

I decided to check out what they have been up to. It turns out that the list of recalls is extensive and a bit scary.

Here is a list of “Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts” on the FDA website. If you are interested in tracking them, they provide a way to get email alerts. I created an RSS feed for the page, which is this. Put the feed in your newsreader if you prefer to get alerts that way.

What’s there? Right now I see cilantro contaminated with salmonella, Chai Tea recalled, some medical devices, raisins and nutritional supplements recalled, “male enhancement products” recalled, more cilantro recalled (it looks like a bad month for cilantro) and lots more.

Major brands and some recognizable items are on the list. For example, General Mills’ 'Nut Lovers' flavor of Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters product (possible salmonella).

Is all this stuff getting pulled from the shelves? Of course not.

Who has all the time to check it out? That’s where a newsreader (also called an “aggregator”) comes in. You can follow it if you like. Or get the salmonella, up to you.

Another source of recall information is here, though it’s less useful. It’s a blog devoted to recalls.

Costco posts recalls on a bulletin board, but who goes there to read it?

Sorry to have spoiled your lunch. Buy local, stay safe. The Food, Inc. movie explains why.

A slippery conundrum

by Larry Geller

Today, July 19, 2009, is doyo no ushi no hi in Japan, a day in summer for eating eels, or unagi.

It’s a tradition going back centuries. On this day in Japan it’s an imperative to eat unagi for lunch or dinner. It’s said to be “stamina ryori,” or health food, and doyo no ushi no hi is aimed to occur at about the hottest time of the summer in Japan. There may be more than one in a given year.

There are plenty of eel restaurants to accommodate the demand. Some lunch stands come to resemble a rush-hour Tokyo subway crush as people line up for their unagi-don (eels on rice) or kabayaki (broiled eels served in a lacquer box, pictured).

The cooking process involves steaming and grilling, producing a product that is just short of addictive. In Osaka, eels are grilled without steaming and served between two layers of rice, a dish called mamushi, which foreigners often confuse with the poisonous Japanese snake whose name is a homonym. Which style a person prefers is often a matter of which they were imprinted with as a child.

The sad truth is that the demand in modern Japan exceeds the local supply and so for this day, inferior imported eels crowd out the higher-quality domestic product too often. The expense-account crowd doesn’t have a problem, though. The finest (and most expensive) eel restaurants are reserved a year or more in advance, and this is assuming that you qualify to eat there, anyway. The un-connected need not even apply.

Buying frozen eels in Hawaii presents a similar problem. The Chinese import is cheaper at Don Quijote, but the Japanese eel is fatter and better prepared, but more costly. They also have tiny bottles of sauce to go with the eels, but for some reason don’t keep them nearby the freezer holding the eels.

Don Q is missing the boat by not publicizing the day, incidentally.

One story of the origins of doyo no ushi no hi is that business had not been going well for a certain eel vender due to the hot weather. So he sought out scholar Hiraga Gennai, perhaps one of history’s earliest marketing consultants. Gennai is said to have advised  him to stick up a sign declaring the day as “eel day” with his name on it, and the rest is history. Other eel shops followed suit and the popularity of unagi soared.

The modern-day conundrum is that the wild eel population is in decline. The Monterrey Bay Aquarium has put eels on their “Avoid” list. Farmed eels are very problematic, with waste product issues and (because they eat other fish) depletion of wild fish populations is an issue also.

What to do? For now, we have cut out our eel habit completely, except on this day. If conscience overcomes the taste buds tonight, we may give it up entirely.