Jill Richardson has action on the brain. As a blogger for La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board, she makes the recommendations of an activist. In her new book, Recipe for America, she goes undercover at Whole Foods as a bakery clerk. In a chapter called "Yes, I've Heard About Whole Paycheck," she writes about her work at a Whole Foods in her home town of San Diego.
In the same vein as books like Fast Food Nation and In Defense of Food, this latest entry about how U.S. agribusiness is poisoning us starts out on what is now familiar territory. Early chapters address the meat industry, revealing the danger of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and their attempts to "reap uniform output." CAFOs are defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as "agricultural operations where animals are kept and raised in confined situations…" The use of grain mixed with antibiotics as feed instead of grass in CAFOs, the effect on our immune systems, the use of post-war DDT in pesticides and their effects on the environment and wildlife population all continue to shock, though they confirm earlier research.
It almost makes you want to live completely off the land: cut out stores all together, drink and boil water from Quabbin, burn old-growth forest wood (no pesticide… perhaps) for fuel, grow everything from safe, non-GMO-tainted seed and maybe acquire a goat for cheese and to mow the lawn. Sound like a drastic change to Saturday night in front of the tube? TV could be giving you cancer as well.
But Richardson is not an alarmist. She admits to eating food from stores and at restaurants when necessary, but only when necessary. In a recent conversation we got a taste of her common-sense approach.
Valley Advocate: Do you advocate boycotting Whole Foods?
Jill Richardson: I question the ability of boycotts to make change, especially when Mackey isn't our real problem—it's Congress.
Where do you live?
San Diego.
What will it take to educate Americans to eat more healthily?
To start, we need to curb all of the out-of-control marketing that substitutes for education, and we also need to get the lobbyists out of the government's nutrition advice.
What is the nature of your blog, La Vida Locavore?
I try to keep it updated with food news and I provide context, background, and opinion to each of the stories I cover to help people understand them. I also write about my own personal experiences and opinions on the blog. It's set up so that anyone can write on it who wants to and I encourage people to do so. The more diversity, the better!
What kind of response is it getting?
The blog has gotten a wonderful response since I started it a year ago. I'm constantly surprised by how positive people are about it.
What is your favorite food?
Apple blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I think it's responsible for the size of my waistline these days.
Note: Jill Richard was promoting her book in the Valley a couple of weeks ago. I saw her at the Red Fire Farm Tomato Lite Festival. That waistline is around 29 inches!
With movies like Food, Inc. chiming in with harrowing footage of Tyson workers chucking chickens around like bocce balls and weeping mothers with children fatally harmed by food bought at supermarkets, how can any self-respecting food titan show his or her face in the light of day? Well, one such CEO, John Mackey of Whole Foods, did more than come out into the light of day: he used the hot spotlight of the Wall Street Journal. In an August 9 article criticizing universal health care coverage, Mackey made the claim that record obesity and diabetes are our own damn fault.
"Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root cause of poor health… many of the health care problems are self inflicted," he wrote. "Two-thirds of American are now overweight and one-third are obese. Many of the diseases that kill us and account for 70 percent of all health care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices."
Mackey's timing couldn't have been worse. A recent book written by a former FDA commissioner reveals that poor eating habits are at least partly a result of corporate tactics to trick individuals into getting fat. In The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, author David Kessler, M.D. claims the urge to eat an entire bag of chips rather than just one comes from manipulation of our appetites. His front-row seat gave him a look at the machinations of the food industry. The book reveals a uniform corporate strategy to include addictive substances in almost all the food that is processed and sold—the substances the body naturally craves but doesn't naturally need, or at least, doesn't need so much of. Chapter Three of the book is titled, "Sugar, Fat, Salt Make Us Eat More Sugar, Fat, Salt….."
Mackey's article in the Wall Street Journal prompted a flurry of posts on various food activist-related list serves where everyone from scientists, politicians, students and out-of-work school superintendents weighed in on his comments. Many claimed he was "blaming the victims," and many condemned Whole Foods for the way it treats its employees and for its high prices. A call was made to boycott Whole Foods altogether.? For many of us, boycotting Whole Foods is like boycotting skiing in Dubai: "What, no wild-caught steelhead trout from the Columbia River?"
Recipe of the Week: Rosa Bianca Right Here, Right Now
Let's say you're like me and you've just come home from the farmers' market with a non-plastic bag full of strange and wonderful veggies and fruit. If you've got one, or a couple, of these Rosa Biancas—an heirloom variety of eggplant—you probably aren't sure what to do with it. Let's say all you have at home is eggs, milk, and the aforementioned Rosa Bianca. This particular version of the popular nightshade is purported to be "creamy, with not a bitter taste." Preserve the delicacy of the Rosa Bianca with this insanely simple recipe.
What to Put In
2 Rosa Bianca eggplants
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Butter
Breadcrumbs if you have any bread around; either corn bread or regular bread. Toast it up and crumb it.
1 large beefsteak tomato or two medium-sized ones or a handful of cherry tomatoes
1 large clove of garlic
1 small onion
10 or so leaves of fresh basil
How to Make It
Slice the Rosa Bianca across the middle into quarter-inch to half-inch slices.Soak each slice in a little bowl of milk and then "dredge" (flip to cover both sides) in bread crumbs. (If you don't have bread crumbs, no big deal.)
Fry each side in a cast-iron skillet until brown. Butter is a good thing to fry these in. Avoid getting the skillet too hot, but it shouldn't be too cool, so they don't get soggy.
Remove and serve in little piles, like pancakes.
Create a little tomato sauce by sauteeing a small onion in butter and add a garlic clove when the onion is translucent. Add chopped tomato and more butter and softly cook until the tomato puddles. Finish the tomato sauce with the shredded basil leaves.
Serve on top of the eggplant slices or on the side. It's very Locavore.
