Dear Lou,

I heard a rumor that honey is toxic
when placed in hot water. Is that true? Doesn't the whole world drink honey in
hot tea? Also wondering about the harvesting
of honey -- is it harmful to the bees and their sustainability?

Honey Lover from Vermont

Dearest
Honey Lover from Vermont,

I didn't
find any convincing studies on the toxicity of honey in water, but I did find
this most interesting quote through an Internet search on the topic:

Who knew
honey could be so versatile?

For a more
credible answer to your question, I rang up Ross Conrad, a fellow Vermonter and author of Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture. He
said the suggestion that honey becomes toxic in hot water is really not
accurate.

"The idea
is that heat destroys enzymes. And basically any time you are going to heat
honey the enzymes are going to get destroyed and as a result dilute a lot of
the medicinal value of the honey. Raw and unfiltered honey has incredible
antibacterial and antifungal properties. It's very, very healing in many ways."

That said,
there's no evidence that heat-treated honey is actually toxic.

As for
whether the whole world drinks honey in hot tea, I have no idea, but it's
certainly my favorite sore throat soother: mix honey with lemon, herbal tea and
a couple jiggers of whisky and you'll soon swallow with ease. (If you want a
"basty," recipe you're on your own).

Speaking of
the whole world, you've probably heard that our honeybees are disappearing.
Forget Halloween, this is scary, because without them humankind is in for a big
basty. Honeybees act as pollinators for many agricultural crops and are
necessary for all of us to have something to eat. But due to colony collapse disorder,
our striped friends are dying. There are many factors that lead to colony
collapse disorder, but pesticides and industrial chemicals are thought to be
key players. Unsustainable beekeeping practices can also play a role, and this
is where your final question comes in.

If honey
harvesting isn't done correctly, it can harm bees. Beekeeping, says Conrad, is
like any other form of farming -- some ways are more sustainable than others.

"People who
are managing their bees in a natural, organic fashion are only going to take
the excess honey that the bees collect," he told me. Short of taking all of
their honey and making survival impossible, there are other bad things beekeepers can do. "A non-sustainable way [to keep bees] would be to take too much
and try to feed them back sugar or corn syrup." One can only imagine what kind
of effect HFCS or other substances might have on bees.

In addition
to poor harvesting methods, there are other honey production practices to worry
about. Some beekeepers treat their bees against mites with toxic chemicals and
antibiotics on a regular basis. This adds to the pesticide load bees are
already carrying. Last year, researchers were shocked by the pesticide levels found in hives.

While you'd
think buying organic honey might be the answer, truly organic honey is a rare
find. Conrad told me that while it's not so difficult to manage hives
organically, making organic honey is hard because bees can fly to non-organic
places and pick up pesticides.

"The hard
part is finding a location that is going to be four or five miles from any
crops that are sprayed or grown with artificial fertilizers, chemicals,
pesticides, fungicides or any of that," he said. "That means five miles in any
direction."

For more
information about organic honey, check out this rather skeptical article.

To find a
beekeeper who is using best practices, buy your honey locally at a farmers market
or a farm stand. Talk to your local beekeepers about how they manage their
hives.

"Or get
your own bees. That would be ideal. We need more beekeepers," says Conrad.

If you want
to spread a little kindness to bees, Conrad advises avoiding chemicals in your
daily life as much as possible and grabbing your garden gloves. By removing the
monoculture known as your lawn and making a nice habitat for wildflowers,
you'll provide fodder for lots of natural pollinators, not just bees.

For more
information about supporting bees, check out this sweet, funny video of Grist's
own Umbra Fisk taking it to the streets
for bees.

In sum:
Cool your cuppa chamomile before adding honey; find a local beekeeper; and,
finally, make life nice for some bees. Because with friends like us, they don't
need enemas.

Er,
enemies.

Lou

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Dear Lou,

Is food irradiation good enough that we could theoretically go back to having rare hamburgers, soft-boiled eggs and unpasteurized milk? I miss all of those!

Carla

Dear Carla,

Let’s bond: I miss the hollandaise sauce at breakfast buffets, homemade mayonnaise, and eggnog made from scratch. Oh, and I miss raw chocolate chip cookie dough like the deserts miss the rain. 

The short answer to your question is no. If you’re going to gamble, head for Vegas (or Reno -- it’s nice there, too). No food preservation method is good enough for you to take a completely risk-free bite of any food, especially when it comes to undercooked meat or egg products. Although irradiation can vastly reduce pathogens, safe handling and cooking rules must be heeded.

The longer and perhaps more interesting answer is this: Even if irradiation (ionizing radiation) were effective enough to completely sterilize our food, we might want look before we leap when it comes to this technology.

As is my style, I’ll give you some pros and cons and let you decide.

Irradiation pros:

• In an era marked by food recalls, deadly contaminations, and food borne illnesses aplenty, irradiation could prevent illness and deaths. Not only can it kill insects and parasites, it can reduce or eliminate such nasty microorganisms such as E.coli, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Salmonella.

• Irradiation is endorsed as safe by the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and the American Medical Association. Say what you will, they’ve sure got a lot of people there with fancy initials after their names. Here’s a pro-irradiation video by the American Council on Science and Health.

 • Irradiation does not leave traces of radioactive material in food. (To the disappointment of nine-year-old boys everywhere, you will not glow in the dark if you eat it.) According to a FAQ by the University of Wisconsin Food Irradiation Education Group, “Irradiation by gamma rays, X-rays and accelerated electrons under controlled conditions does not make food radioactive. Just as the airport scanner doesn’t make your suitcase radioactive, this process is not capable of inducing radioactivity in any material, including food.”

• Irradiation proponents say that the nutritional value of the food is largely unchanged. (They maintain that thiamine levels are reduced but not enough to cause deficiency.)

• Irradiation can be used to prolong the shelf-life of certain fruits and vegetables. Irradiated strawberries last weeks longer than un-irradiated ones. (Why you would want weeks-old strawberries is another question entirely.)

• The use of irradiation could eliminate the need for chemicals to control pests for certain crops. (You have to admit, this sounds good.)

Irradiation cons:

• Irradiation doesn’t make food perfectly safe. While it can reduce microorganisms, it doesn’t entirely eliminate them. And while it reduces bacteria levels, it’s not effective when it comes to viruses or prions (which are responsible for Mad Cow Disease, and, as far as I can tell, cannot be eliminated by God).

• Irradiated foods cost more. The University of Wisconsin Food Irradiation Group asserts that irradiated meat and poultry runs 3 to 5 cents more per pound. In these uncertain economic times, that premium may be enough to further put off consumers who are already a bit spooked by radiation because of that unfortunate accident at Three Mile Island or that Cold War song by Sting. But there may be other reasons.

• Irradiation opponents see it as a Band-Aid solution to huge problems in our food system that need to be fixed, not covered over. They assert that the best way to prevent food-borne illnesses and deaths is to clean up the dirty, unsafe, and inhumane conditions at factory farms and slaughterhouses that are ultimately responsible for large-scale contaminations. Check out this clip of Lou Dobbs calling for FDA heads on a platter.
 
• Opponents of irradiation say that a diet high in irradiated foods may not be safe in the long run because it damages the quality of food. They further assert that the FDA’s approval for irradiation was based on flawed and inadequate studies. For more information, check out the Organic Consumer Association’s Stop Food Irradiation Project.

• Irradiation uses a lot of energy and could create enormous environmental hazards. Here’s a cheery list of scary incidents at irradiation facilities provided by Public Citizen [PDF]. (Chant the Nuclear Industry Mantra: “There was no danger to the public at any time. There was no danger …”)

 • Irradiation may not be suitable for all foods. Allegedly, it makes tomatoes mushy. So, that nuked burger you just ordered might be safer, but the Salmonella-infected tomato slice on it could still get you.

Would I feed my own children irradiated hamburgers, albeit well-cooked ones?

Although I’d like to say a resounding no, and that I only feed my family local and organic foods all the time, I can’t pull that off. (Did you hear that? It’s my Superwoman tiara clanging to the floor. Damn! It just rolled under the fridge …) It is highly likely that my family is already eating irradiated foods whether I like it or not. While you’d think that a large radura logo would be required for each and every irradiated food, consumers now have to squint to find he words “treated with irradiation” or “treated by irradiation” on the ingredient list on labels. Foods that are not entirely irradiated but contain irradiated ingredients (such as spices) do not have to disclose them. Restaurants and school lunch programs do not have to disclose that they are using irradiated foods. Although I don’t think that protecting our little ones from E.coli-infected CAFO burgers is a bad thing, for the love of God, we need to be informed. The FDA once proposed relaxing labeling regulations to permit the term “pasteurization” when it comes to certain irradiated foods. I’m no scientist (a phrase that certainly would make my high school chemistry teacher bust a gut laughing), but since when does pasteurization involve Cobalt 60?

So, Carla, if you have any appetite left at all, go have a well-cooked egg. Once your blood sugar (and pressure) return to normal, do some soul searching and perhaps make some calls.

With fond memories of Caesar salads,

Lou

PS: You mentioned milk: It hasn’t been approved for irradiation. Pasteurization (the old-fashioned kind that involves heat), in my opinion, is still the way to go. If you want the scoop on raw milk, check out this column by my esteemed colleague, Umbra Fisk.

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Hi there,

I am desperate for a tuna melt with some chips on the side, but am living in fear for my insides with the possibility of mercury in the fish.  I see "tongol" tuna in cans at my local high-end market and at the local co-op, so I'd like to make the assumption that this is somehow better for me, but I know that you will enlighten me and all of those others missing the foods of our youth...

Missing the Fish


Dear Missing the Fish (and all of you who are missing the foods of your youth),

It’s definitely a big bummer when you realize that your childhood comfort foods are not only potentially hazardous to your health, but also environmentally dicey. In tuna’s case, it contains mercury and it’s also sometimes fished in unsustainable ways. Um, dolphin-killing ways.

But don’t fret. It’s my job to rebuild your favorite meals by making them better for your “insides,” and for the outside (that is, the planet). Oh, and delicious too. Excuse me for a moment while I get my magic pixie wand.

While I look for it, here’s the canned tuna backstory:

• Mercury isn’t just a possibility in canned tuna; it’s a reality in every bite. Industrial polluters such as coal-fired plants pump methylmercury into our air. This stuff then falls from the sky and makes its way into our waterways, where it accumulates in fish that we eat. Big, longer-living fish and fish at the top of the food chain, such as tuna, accumulate more methylmermercury.

• While the fact that methylmercury is bad for us isn’t disputed, no one really knows how much of the stuff it takes to harm any given person. “There has never been a blinded, placebo, controlled study giving humans methylmercury to discern its effects over any length of time,” explained Jane M. Hightower, M.D., by email. “I doubt an institutional review board would consider such an experiment as ethical, yet you can buy all you want at your local grocery store without informed consent.” Hightower, who is widely acknowledged as the first American physician to recognize low-level mercury poisoning in patients who regularly consume certain types of fish, wrote the recently released book Diagnosis: Mercury.

• Not surprisingly, the FDA consumption guidelines for limiting methylmercury from canned tuna seem like a bit of a crapshoot. "Moms and Moms to Be" are told that canned light tuna is a low-mercury fish, but to limit it to 12 ounces per week whilst feeding kids "smaller portions," which seems outrageously vague given that methylmercury can harm kids' brains. They also advise limiting albacore tuna to six ounces per week. Is this stringent enough? There's confusion, even among our governmental agencies. "The FDA is in charge of commercial fish, but has not completely adopted the EPA’s determination that individuals keep mercury consumption to less than 0.1 microgram per kilogram of body weight per day, " according to Hightower.

• Meanwhile, who the heck knows how much mercury you are actually getting in any can of tuna. Defenders of Wildlife tested cans of imported tuna and found that one in 20 cans were unfit for human consumption, according to the FDA's standards.

• As I mentioned, tuna has problems beyond mercury. If you don’t see information about fishing methods on the can or package, assume that deadly-to-wildlife methods, such as purse seining or, worse yet, long-lining, were used. To read more about fishing methods go here.

• Dolphins are still dying for our tuna salad. Although the rate of dolphin slaughter slowed significantly because of the fishing industry’s response to public outrage, dolphin populations are not recovering well (in the immortal words of Doug Adams, “So long and thanks for all the fish!”). For dolphin-safe tuna, look for this official Earth Island Institute Dolphin Safe logo. Other so-called “dolphin-safe” labels lack their rigor. Sadly, no label can guarantee that dolphins are truly safe when it comes to fishing for tuna. 

Okay. I found the pixie wand. Let’s see if it can revive your appetite with two options.

Option #1: Use minimal-mercury, sustainably caught tuna. This tuna typically comes from younger tuna that hasn’t had time to accumulate lots of methylmercury. (This is why canned white albacore tuna, which comes from bigger, older albacore, is higher in mercury than light canned tuna, which tends to come from younger, smaller skipjack.) Wild Planet, Eco Fish, and Vital Choice are a few brands to try. Sustainably caught tuna is pole, troll, “hand” or line-caught. Also be sure to use your hard-earned dollars to reward companies that conduct independent testing for mercury and PCBs, and that use BPA-free cans. This stuff will be more costly than your average can of tuna, but the alternative is brainkill-noodle casserole.

Option #2: Ditch the tuna altogether and use sardines, which may be making a culinary comeback. The biggest taste problem with tuna is that it tends to be dry. (Remember the tongol you mentioned? It’s a species of tuna that tends to be moister and therefore popular. The Monterey Bay Aquarium ranks most tongol as a fish to "avoid" because of high levels of bycatch and poor enforcement of fisheries regulations.) But dryness isn’t a problem for sardines, which are not only oilier, but also lower on the food chain, low in contaminants such as mercury, and high in the always-popular omega-3 fatty acids. According to Hightower, “If one consumed a low-mercury fish such as sardines or salmon, only two ounces would be needed to give adequate omega-3 intake for a day. If you consumed four ounces of it, you would take in on average, 3 mcg of mercury for that meal, and still have room for another equally low mercury meal for that week."

But will you like the taste?

In the name of science, I made two batches of melts using this classic diner recipe for my tuna-loving friend, Kim. One batch contained tuna; the other skinless, boneless sardines packed in water. While Kim admitted that the sardine melt was fishier tasting, she said it was close enough to tuna to convince her to make the switch. More incentive: With this mercury calculator, I used Kim’s weight to calculate that if she ate a six-ounce can of albacore tuna, she had consumed 140 percent of the EPA’s suggested safe mercury consumption, whereas the same amount of sardines put her at a mere 10 percent.

The catch (pardon my pun)?

Kim didn’t think her kids would go for the sardines.

It’s time to enlist my savvy, tireless readers, or Jessica Seinfeld, to post some deceptively delicious sardine recipes. In the meantime, to go with your melt, check out which sustainable chips Grist found most delicious.

Until then, for the love of God, please don’t ask me about meatloaf,

Lou 

PS: For more information about the different species of tuna, consult a seafood watch list. You can also get text information on your cell—handy when you’re pondering a restaurant menu or grocery store cold-case—by using the FishPhone. 

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Just get rid of all this annoying rainforest stuff, and you can have all cookie shortening you want.Hi there,
I keep hearing that the increasing demand for palm oil and products with palm oil (hello, Newman-Os!) is leading to rainforest destruction in a serious way.

As a baker with a big ol' tub of palm oil shortening in the cupboard in a quest to go au naturel and avoid trans fats, I'm starting to feel guilty and want to know more.

What if the palm oil is organic? Does that matter?

Thanks much,
Palm Oil Perplexed Marta

Hey there, Marta,
You heard right: Palm oil (aka palmitate, palm kernel oil, and palm fruit oil) is hard on our planet's lungs and then some. It's a top-o-the-heap evil-doer when it comes to ubiquitous and environmentally-destructive ingredients.

Here's a quick and unsettling lowdown: Palm oil's bland versatility, shelf-stability and lack of trans fats make it highly desirable to those who seek processed-food ingredients to, well, make processed food. It's in everything from chocolate to snack crackers to margarine. Remember the creamy center of Oreo cookies? Palm oil provides the famously unctuous mouthfeel. It's also in cosmetics, soaps, detergents and some plastics. Worldwide, it's a popular cooking oil. Last but certainly not least, it's increasingly used for biodeisel production.

As you've heard, palm oil's "moment" comes at the expense of the planet. To keep up with demand, vast monocultures of oil palm are grown in Indonesia and Malaysia, where rainforests and peat forests are razed to make way for oil palm trees. Indigenous people are uprooted and harassed, more carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere and precious habitat is lost, sending species such as the orangutan on the express train toward extinction. The destruction caused by the demand for palm oil is truly unsettling at a visceral level, even for those who have seen worldwide deforestation. Chris Wille, chief of sustainable agriculture for the Rainforest Alliance, told me this: "It's just mind boggling. I've been in this business for a long time and I feel like I'm pretty tough. I feel like I've seen a lot of burning forests, but what's happening in Indonesia and Malaysia - it shocks even us veterans." If you need a visual of the rainforest being hacked into a moonscape, go here.

Palm production streamrolls rainforest in Indonesia. Photo: GreenpeaceAll of this probably puts a damper on your home-baked trans-fat-free cookies. (Ummm. Is that chocolate chip cookies I smell? No, wait. It's the rainforest burning.) There is no perfect choice when it comes to fats and baking, so you'll have do some soul searching about your own values and health-related needs. Because my cholesterol levels are good and I "trust cows more than chemists," I use organic butter when I bake. A farmer friend also supplies me with the occasional mason jar of local lard. (Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like homemade rendered pig fat.)

If these options don't appeal, can you do right by buying organic palm oil? Sadly, in this case the organic label may not be sufficient. Organic certification bans the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but has nothing to say about rainforest management. That's right--you could burn down pristine rainforest, plant it with a palms, and still get organic certification. Industry and green groups are trying to hammer about a certified-sustainable label that ensures responsible forest management. But right now, sustainable palm oil is both hard to find and controversial.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an international organization of producers, distributors and conservationists, came up with standards to address deforestation and managed to get 1.3 million tonnes of certified sustainable palm oil onto the market last year. Critics of this "green" palm oil cried foul, alleging greenwash and weak certification standards. It was almost a moot point: Most of that oil has languished on the global market because many of the big players won't pony up the extra money for it. (Surprisingly, Chinese buyers recently stepped up to the plate.) Hoping to spur interest with a good old-fashioned public shaming, the World Wildlife Fund will soon issue a scorecard to show which major palm oil buyers have made commitments to sustainable palm oil.

As consumers, the easiest way to avoid palm oil is to avoid highly processed food, which isn't good for us anyway. (Palm oil, btw, may be trans-fat free, but it's relatively high in saturated fat, the kernel oil even more so.) To banish it, read labels and prepare to do more of your own baking. Here's a list of companies that are big palm oil users. If one of these firms makes a product that causes you to salivate, and it contains palm oil, call or email the company and implore them to use sustainable palm oil. Another school of thought says that not only palm oil is here to stay but that it's also a vital crop for the developing world--so we'd better make damned-sure that it isn't grown in a reprehensible way. Picking up the phone or getting online, I think, is the least we can to support the NGOs that are duking it out on our behalf.

Put that Oreo down, or this guy gets it. If your big ol' tub of veggie shortening is organic and you'd like to see if it's also sustainable, check the manufacturer's web site. According to a somewhat apologetic Newman's Own FAQ, the palm oil in their cream-filled cookies comes from co-ops in Colombia and is certified by Pro Forest. It's a start. The Rainforest Alliance is also currently working with some palm plantations in Latin help them meet standards to earn sustainable certification. Wille told me that within a year consumers will be able to find language on certain food products (cookies and health bars) that will identify palm oil that came from Rain Forest Alliance-certified farms.

Right now there are no official seals or labels that you can rely on and sustainable certification for palm oil, like most things in life, is imperfect. Growers need to, at the very least, commit to ending new deforestation--and according to Wille, conserving "remnant ecosystems within the plantations." Will this be enough to save our planet's lungs or orangutans? Time will tell. Perhaps what we need is an orangutan-friendly label for processed foods. The pathos invoked by the sad eyes of an orphaned baby orangutan might lead more of us to pass up a box of cheap Double-Stuf (sic) Oreos for a more principled product (like, say, regular single-stuf Oreos). Even better, maybe we'll all start baking our own cookies again.

Confession: I have a box of Hint-O-Mint Newman-O's on my shelf right now, and, yes, I am an eat-the-creamy-center-first kind of person.

Sorry, make that the creamy, evil center.

Thanks much for the question, and keep baking!
Lou

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

-------------

What's up, cat?Dear Lou,
My wife and I enjoy fish and like to eat a variety of types of fish. Living in Minnesota we have access to locally caught walleye but have to be careful not to eat too much because of mercury content in MN lakes. I've been a big fan of catfish (bottom feeders) and am curious as to the pros and cons of farm-raised catfish. Are we talking similar issues with farm-raised catfish as Tom Philpott's recent essay  re: farm-raised salmon?

We'd like to know more!

Dear Glenn,
Dang! I hear walleye are delicious. According to Minnesota's fish advisory you can eat one walleye meal a week, but if your wife is pregnant she's out of luck. On the upside, local crappie is less restricted, but, wow, talk about the need for a serious re-naming campaign.

I'm also a big fan of catfish, especially in light of some research. But-and this is a big but-you have to be savvy before you reach for that Po' Boy.

So let's get to the pros and cons, bad news first:

Cons:
Most of the catfish eaten in the United States is imported, and unless you specifically ask for "U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish," or see the official seal, you might be getting Asian-farmed catfish. FYI on the name game: Vietnamese pangasius (tra or basa), is a different species of catfish than the kind grown here (channel catfish), and cannot be called catfish in the American market. Because the Chinese now farm the same variety of catfish as we do, it will be labeled catfish. So, look for "Product of China" on fish labels--and avoid it! This is potentially very bad stuff. Beware also of any white fish that cannot be linked to a source. Beware of the generic term "fish."

• Many of the problems with farmed salmon identified in Tom's post apply to catfish farmed in Asia. Catfish from there is often contaminated with carcinogens such as malachite green, illegal antibiotics or salmonella In Alabama, state scientists have found banned antibiotics in catfish from China. The FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of foreign-farmed fish. It has been notoriously lax at doing so. (Luckily, American catfish are sustainably farmed. I'll get to that soon.)

• According to the catfish wiki, catfish can't be kosher because the fish lack scales. This would pose a problem for observant Jews.

• The high-protein feed (made from soy, corn and rice) that farmed catfish eat is not organic.

• Some people find the taste boring, occasionally muddy, or think catfish is merely a vehicle for batter and hot sauce.

• Because farm-raised catfish eat vegetarian feed, they are not as high in Omega-3 fatty acids as cold-water fatty fish, such as sardines.

• All-American catfish may not be easy to find. As many as one-third of U.S. catfish farmers recently went out of business because of the high cost of soy and corn. This may one reason that two of my favorite markets didn't carry catfish at all. It could also be a perceived stigma: Many diners turn their nose up at lowly bottom feeders, and catfish has the reputation for being the poor man's fish. One of my friends who is a fishmonger at a high-end grocery explained, "People here just don't want it. It has pretty much been replaced by tilapia."

Pros:
Other folks praise its flavor as mild or even sweet. I recently broiled some U.S. farm-raised fillets with a little butter and served them with a simple squeeze of lime. They were terrific and so mild that my friend Kim described them chicken-like. "So un-fishy," she said with disbelief. "My kids would eat this."

• At Price Chopper I paid $5.99 per pound for the aforementioned fillets; farmed salmon was $9.99 per pound. Evidently pesticides, sea lice and antibiotics cost extra.

• Safety standards for U.S.-grown catfish are high and catfish farmers are pushing for ever more rigorous regulation. By contrast, there are currently no international safety standards for fish, hence the nasty stuff sometimes found in Asian imports. And few imports are inspected. (See my admonition above to read the label!)

• It's American, goddamnit. (I'm in a protectionist mood these days.) In addition to racking up fewer food miles, eating this native fish keeps American farmers in business.

• Unlike farmed salmon, catfish farmed here are freshwater fish and therefore raised in self-contained inland ponds, which means they are not very likely to escape into the sea and overtake other fish populations. These self contained pens also pose little risk to the surrounding environment (unlike open-ocean pens used for salmon). This is why green groups such as the National Audubon Society, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Environmental Defense endorse U.S. catfish as a safe environmental choice.

• Unlike salmon, catfish are vegetarians and fed vegetarian feed, as opposed to the wild-caught fish that salmon are fed.

• You can eat it every day! Because American catfish are not raised in coastal environments and kept in clean aerated pens that use well water and fed vegetarian feed they are very low in contaminants such as mercury. (Vietnamese catfish on the other hand are farmed using river water that may contain all manner of pollutants, including human excrement.) Antibiotics are seldom issued to US Farm-Raised catfish and hormones are never used.

• Eating bottom feeders is cool. Eating lower on the food chain gives our depleted fish stocks a chance to recover and reduces our chances of ingesting heavy metals and poisons often found in many predatory fish. It's also worth noting that stigmas can be reversed: At one point in our nation's history lobster was considered too déclassé to eat; people fed it to pigs (man, can you imagine how awesome that bacon must have tasted?). U.S. farm-raised premium catfish fillets (which are thicker) may get an anti-stigma boost through a new name: Look for it in 2010 as "Delacata." (Hey, it worked for Orange Roughy, which used to be Slime Head. Take notes, crappie!)

Bottom line: Pass the hot sauce and enjoy U.S. farm-raised catfish whenever you can get it. If you can't find it, ask your fishmonger or grocery store to order it. Because you mentioned that you like to eat a variety of fish, here's two of my favorite tools that make choosing sustainable and healthy seafood easier: A seafood watch list that can be tucked into your wallet or downloaded to your cell phone and an online mercury calculator.

Your devoted food columnist and lover of all things with gills,

Lou

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Black (fly) magic

Triclosan: a toxic chemical that shows up in the damndest placesIn Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

---------------------

Dear Grist,
I have been getting contradictory information about triclosan. Organic Consumers Association says danger, beware, don't use. Other sources say no problem. I trust you. Precautionary principle says don't use. What do you say?
Love,
Steve

Dear Steve,
I say, the good old precautionary principle has a point this time. In fact, I'd make like a teenager looking to impress friends in a souped-up car: flee triclosan, leaving nothing behind but a screech, a cloud of dust, and skid marks. Oh, and while you're barking your tires, don't forget to flip the bird in the rearview mirror. Trust me, this anti-microbial chemical deserves it.

So what is it? Triclosan is a leftover from the germ-phobia of the '90s, when people were trying to sterilize everything in sight. People don't seem as intent as they used to on buying anti-microbial everything, but triclosan just keeps hanging around. 

The watchdog Environmental Working Group (EWG) says it's "nearly ubiquitous in liquid hand soap and dishwashing detergent" and also found in "toothpaste, facewash, deodorant, a host of personal care products, and even mattresses, toothbrushes and shoe insoles." Mattresses? This creepy stuff even has the nerve to get in bed with us! Triclosan is also often found in chopsticks, because ... your don't want to be exposed to your own germs while eating Chinese food. Or something.

But get this: it fights germs no better than plain soap--and yet its widespread use may be creating "super germs"!

And make no mistake, it is creepy stuff. As the EWG put it:

Triclosan is linked to liver and inhalation toxicity, and low levels of
triclosan may disrupt thyroid function. Wastewater treatment does not
remove all of the chemical, which means it ends up in our lakes, rivers
and water sources. That’s especially unfortunate since triclosan is
very toxic to aquatic life.

Studies show that it disrupts thyroid function in both rats and harms
tadpoles, to boot.

It's too bad triclosan is so common in personal care products, such as
toothpaste and shaving cream, because it can combine with chlorine in
tap water to form chloroform, a probable human carcinogen. (As is the
case with oh-so-many industrial chemicals, Further Studies Are
Necessary to "prove" the bad effects of triclslan plus chlorine. Don't hold your breath.)

Still not convinced? From our sinks and potties, triclosan takes a free ride down the drain into our waterways, where it wreaks serious havoc with aquatic life. Read all about it in this excellent Beyond Pesticides fact sheet(PDF). Speaking of aquatic life, a recent study found triclosan in the blood of dolphins.

Of course, Steve, there is that no problem camp you mentioned. According this enough-about-those-dolphins-already press release from the Soap and Detergent Association, the low traces found in dolphins just proves that, thanks to science, "You can find just about anything you want to just about anywhere if you're looking for it." Hmm. Uh, okay then. Let's look for triclosan in human blood, shall we?

Turns out that, even when avoided, the stuff has a disturbing
tendency to linger. Chances are that it's in your
blood and pee or your wife's breast milk right now, so you might want
to get a restraining order.

For you, Steve, I called up Dr. Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defense Canada and co-author of the forthcoming book Slow Death By Rubber Duck, which is already a bestseller in Canada. In the book, Smith and his colleague Bruce Lourie imbibed and absorbed seven common toxic substances, including triclosan. The results were surprising at the outset because Smith had measurable levels of triclosan in his blood before the experiment despite the fact that he had been "scrupulously avoiding this thing for years."

How triclosan got into Smith's body is anyone's guess, but he happened to notice that his garden hose was "Microban protected." (Microban is one of Triclosan's brand names)

"I was showering my little tomato plants and chives that we use in our egg omelets with a triclosan garden hose," he told me. "So I don't know if it came from there, but it's likely that this stuff is just ubiquitous now."

So how much more triclosan was in Smith's blood after two days of using triclosan-infused toothpaste, shaving cream, body wash and deodorant?

"My levels spiked by 2,900 times," he said. Check out the video footage of the experiment here.

Steve, I can tell by the way you sign your letters that you are a loving person, but I think it's time to get tough. Take Smith's advice and avoid triclosan rigorously: "It's a classic example of a pointless product foisted upon us by money-grubbing companies," he said. "It's just that simple. There's no evidence that this chemical is improving our lives. The extent to which it's being used in frivolous ways is just mind boggling."

To give triclosan the heave-ho, read labels and get savvy. The Environmental Working Group's has a great guide to Triclosan-free products. For good measure, here's a list of products that do contain the nasty stuff.

Good luck. One more thing. How to keep your life reasonably germ-free without resorting to toxic chemicals? Like your mama probably told you, plain old soap and water does the trick. As with everything, moderation!
Love back at you,
Lou

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Heat makes honey toxic, and other myths of the hive

Nothing hits the spot on a hot day like an icy glass of all-American root beer. (Okay, if you want to split hairs: Nothing hits the spot on a hot day like an icy glass of all-American root beer when you must stay sober.) The problem is that when you take your wilting self to the cool respite of the beverage aisle, you discover that nothing in this life is simple.

Perhaps, like me, you go with the simple criterion of avoiding anything produced by Big Soda and loaded with high-fructose corn syrup. Ha! If only it were this straightforward. What started as a handcrafted, medicinal-tasting beverage devolved during the last century into a mass-produced cloying shadow of its former self. The good news is that root beer, like Mickey Rourke, is making a comeback, and the results can be kinda wild.

Today, your beverage aisle might showcase retro, handcrafted "root sodas" with exotic spices, certified organic root beers, a green-tea root beer, and a diet root beer spiked with an eco-sounding plant-based sweetener. You might even be able to find a local root beer with an ostensibly lighter carbon footprint. OK, so what's a green-minded, confused consumer like you to do, short of licking your cracked lips, throwing up your hands, and heading to the nearest vending machine?

Answer: Let taste be your guide. Because if it tastes awful, it's not going to matter if it's eco, healthy, or handcrafted by pygmy monks chanting hymns to Gaia -- you aren't going to buy it. At least not twice.

So for you, and only you, I assembled a tasting panel consisting of my spouse, a few willing friends, and our gleeful, sticky progeny (see video at bottom) to try some of the root beer alternatives to Big Soda. Herewith, our Highly Unscientific Results:

Maine Root
Ingredients: Carbonated pure water, organic fair trade–certified cane juice and spices (according to the website, the company uses extracts of wintergreen, clove, and anise).
Eco-claim: Organic fair trade–certified cane juice (though not USDA organic certified). Also, if you happen to live near Portland, Maine, you can take a small comfort in knowing that this root beer will be delivered via a biodiesel VW Jetta.

Price: $7.16 / four-pack of glass bottles

This is a fizzy rather than creamy root beer. Aside from the one comment that this root soda has a "nice nose," all of the adult tasters felt that it was way too sweet, and one went so far as to describe it as a "marshmallow in a glass." While you'd assume that the overly sweet quality might appeal to kids, it didn't. One claimed that it "smelled like mushrooms."

Boylan's Root Beer
Ingredients: Carbonated water, cane sugar, pure essential oils of sweet birch, cinnamon, sassafras, and anise, extracts of bourbon vanilla, yucca and licorice, and other natural flavors and spices, caramel color (from cane sugar), citric acid.

Eco-claim: Touts itself as "100% natural," which means no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives -- which is, methinks, a reasonable place to set the bar, considering that soda basically consists of three things: water, sweetener, and flavoring.

Price: $5.96 / four-pack of glass bottles

The online description says this traditional-tasting beer was developed as antidote to the super creamy, vanilla-laden style of root beers that is popular today. Interestingly, more than one taster described it as "traditional" and one described it as thin, perhaps owing to its lack of creaminess. Another said it had a "slightly astringent finish." One of the kids tasted pepper.

Zevia Natural Diet Soda Root Beer
Ingredients: Triple-filtered carbonated water, natural erythritol, natural GMO-free caramel color, stevia, citric acid and natural flavors (citrus peel oil, winter green oil, cassia oil, anise seed oil extract, ginger root extract).

Eco-claim: Touts itself as "100% natural" and "nature's answer to diet soda," but the marketing emphasis is on stevia's superiority to artificial sweeteners, not its environmental impacts. (My take is that stevia, at this point in time, doesn't seem particularly environmentally destructive. Read more of what I have to say about stevia.)

Price: $5.69 / six-pack of cans

After several expletives and exclamations, it was clear that my panel would rather suffer dehydration headaches than drink this root beer. One of our tasters said it "tastes like the snacks at my diabetic father-in-law's house." Another sighed, "That's definitely a diet drink." I found it sickly sweet and only vaguely root beer–like. The kids found it "weird" and "bad" but worst of all like "polishing toothpaste." (Q: Since when do kids use Topol?)

Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Root Beer
Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water, cane sugar, natural root beer flavor, citric acid, caramel color (from cane sugar).

Eco-claim: None on the packaging, but Whole Foods has a notoriously green agenda.

Price: $2.49 / six-pack of cans

"A good, solid root beer," said one taster, and another approved of its "caramel nose." Another said, with obvious relief, "No funny aftertaste!" I found it to be smooth and straightforward and neither too sweet nor too weird. The kids deemed it spicy, sweet, and root-beery. Our panels (adults and kids) separately ranked it No. 1, with no dissent.

Blue Sky Certified Organic Root Beer Encore
Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water, organic cane juice, natural root beer flavor, caramel color and citric acid.

Eco-claim: Uses USDA-certified organic cane sugar. Why pony up for organic sugar? Although you don't have to worry about GMOs yet when it comes to cane sugar (GMO sugar beet crops have been planted in the U.S.), conventionally grown sugar does have enormous impacts on the environment. Read all about it in a World Wildlife Fund report.
Price: $5.69 / six-pack of cans

This was the neither-here-nor-there root beer. Although it had a "nice nose" and was "pleasantly effervescent," its aftertaste bugged the tasters who described it as sour, flat, or medicinal. The damning comment: "No worse than any other root beer." One of the kids said it was "more like Coke," which shocked her parents, who would never let their kids drink Coke.

Santa Cruz Organic Root Beer
Ingredients: Sparkling filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, natural root beer flavor, organic lemon juice concentrate, organic vanilla extract.

Eco-claim: In addition to using USDA-certified organic ingredients, the company itself makes green efforts. The can also carries a Green-e label that states that this root beer is made with 100 percent certified renewable energy.

Price: $6.99 / six-pack of cans

That fact that this soda is clear may telegraph that it doesn't use artificial color, but our tasters found its transparency "kinda freaky" and "trippy." A child commented that it looked like white wine. After sipping, someone blurted out, "That's root beer?" No one actively disliked this soda, but every taster complained that it was not root-beery enough. Two tasters said it was "like a ginger ale" and one thought it was like a Sarsaparilla (a drink made from the eponymous root rather than the sassafras root that gives real root beer its flavor). Kid zinger: "It tastes like the fluoride I hate the most."

Virgil's Microbrewed Root Beer
Ingredients: According to the website: carbonated water and unbleached cane sugar along with these natural herbs and spices (including point of origin): anise from Spain, licorice from France, vanilla (bourbon) from Madagascar, cinnamon from Ceylon, clove from Indonesia, wintergreen from China, sweet birch from the southern U.S., molasses from the U.S., nutmeg from Indonesia, pimento berry oil from Jamaica, balsam oil from Peru, cassia oil from China.

Eco-claim: Like Boylan's, its ingredients are "natural." Although artisan consumables and green-mindedness often go hand in hand, it's worth remembering that this isn't always the case. This product aims to be tasty rather than to save the world. Upside: no greenwashing. Downside: What, no freakin' biodiesel Jetta?

Price: $6.36 / four-pack of glass bottles

This beer is brewed and flash-pasteurized as opposed to "cold-brewed," which allegedly produces a sub-standard product. "Nice and dark," someone cooed as we poured it. Strangest comment: "Dark and bubbly like a good Jacuzzi." Every taster noted the licorice taste and used the polite-but-damning adjective "different" to describe it. Refreshingly, this entry is not too sweet.

Steaz Organic Sparkling Green Tea Root Beer
Ingredients: Sparkling filtered water, organic evaporated cane juice, organic caramel color, natural flavors, organic fair trade–certified green tea, citric acid, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), Sodium citrate.

Eco-claim: UDSA organic ingredients plus organic and fair-trade green tea. Triple-bottom-line company.

Price: $3.99 / four-pack of glass bottles

Does green tea really belong in root beer? "Damn hippies," spat one taster. Most tasters found the dominant taste not to be root beer–like or tea-like but akin to caramel or syrup. Thin, watery texture made one taster lament that it had, like limp hair, "no body." One kid said it tasted like Sprite.

Saranac Root Beer
Ingredients: Filtered water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, sodium benzoate (preserves freshness), natural and artificial flavors, citric acid.

Eco-claim: None on the bottle, but according to its website, Saranac's green initiatives include recycling its spent grains into cattle feed (insert boo-hiss from grass-fed beef fans) and recycling the CO2 from its fermentation process. Although people in my neck of New England think of it as a "local" root beer, it's brewed 144 miles from my house, according to MapQuest.

Price: $6.29 / six-pack of glass bottles

I was so peeved to discover that this beer contained HFCS that I almost didn't include it in the tasting. (Alas, HFCS is not uncommon in comeback root beers, as Eric Asimov discovered in his taste-test.) I included it because I was curious: Would anyone taste it? Sure enough, the very first comment was, "The sugar is different in this one!" Another taster said, "Overly sweet." Ultimately, tasters liked its texture, which was so creamy and smooth that one taster said it was "like whipped cream in my mouth." I thought it had an overly tangy aftertaste. It was the runner-up for the kids, who said it was a "plain-old root beer."

The bottom line: Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value Brand root beer tastes great and doesn't contain HFCS. It may not be earnestly green, handcrafted, exotic, or zero-cal, but its low price means that you might be able to afford to top if off with a big dollop of really yummy organic vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!

Watch the Junior Tasters at work:

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Simple people

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In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

----------------------

Is your green cred slipping? Dear Checkout Line,
We try to buy local food whenever we can. Some things just seem doomed to have air miles on them, though. Is there anywhere in the U.S. that can grow bananas? Or coffee and tea?
Best,
Pat


Dear Pat,
Personal confession: If frequent-flyer miles were assigned to my coffee habit, I could probably commute from New England to Tibet for free. After doing a little research, I learned that some of the beans in my cuppa French roast this morning came from Ethiopia. According to this food-miles calculator, those beans traveled approximately 7,158 miles. I'm not going to tell you how much coffee I drink for fear of being taken into protective custody.

As you already know, many of the tropical crops dearly loved by Americans come with a whopping carbon footprint, in part due to the miles that they travel aboard planes, ships, trains, and trucks. While it would be an improvement carbon-wise to buy this stuff locally, in most parts of the United States it's not possible to grow these crops commercially.

Well, at least not yet.

Let's take a look at the warm-weather darlings you mentioned and I'll give you some options to offset their mitigate their deleterious effects on our planet.

Bananas
Where they are grown: These favored phallic fruits are currently cultivated in the toasty equatorial regions of the world known as the tropics. Check out the banana wiki and scroll down to the top-banana producing nations if you want to get specific. Good news: Hawaii grows a tasty, nutritious variety of banana called an apple banana that will be available from this web site in the near future. Although this won't help you reduce your food miles unless you live in Hawaii, you would stimulate the Aloha state's agricultural economy. A few things: These Hawaiian bananas must be irradiated for export and although they are not organic, Hawaiian banana farmer Young Tarring assured me that they are low-spray. Meanwhile, the tropics may not be the only place producing bananas in our globally warm future: according to this article, bananas now grow in southern England.

Doom-mitigating action items: Bear in mind that food-miles are just one of the environmental problems associated with our dysfunctional food system. Other things that effect sustainability are how the food is grown and processed, so buy organic and Fair Trade bananas to assure that your bananas aren't heavily sprayed and that the people who grow and pick them are treated with respect. But because food miles are at the top of your irk-list, I'll suggest limiting your intake of commuter fruits to wintertime, when your access to fresh, local fruit might be limited. That said, we might brace ourselves for some banana deprivation: The most common variety of banana, the Cavendish, is likely to vanish from our future because of a blight. Ain't monocultures grand?

More radical step: Grow your own. Hunka-hunka burnin' lobe, calculator-wielding eco-pioneer Amory Lovins manages to grow bananas with passive solar energy in Colorado's Rocky Mountains, so maybe there's hope for the rest of us. Talk to your local nursery about getting a banana plant suited for your climate (you'll want to stick to container growing if you live up North).

Coffee
Where it is grown: In parts of the world with stable, moderate temperatures, sunshine, and great soil. Check out this "bean belt" map. As is the case with bananas, you can't buy coffee locally unless you live in Hawaii. If you'd like to support American growers anyway, surf the Internet to find organic growers there. This organic coffee farm also offers a vacation rental. (I'm just saying.) Local Harvest is a great place to find Hawaiian high-test.

Doom-mitigating action items: Buy triple-certified (organic, fair trade and shade-grown) coffee, bring your-own mug when you caffeinate on the run, and use your buzz to save the world. If the travel miles are coming between you and the enjoyment of your latté, heed your values and kick the habit. Just don't ask me for advice on how to do this because I am draining a French press as I type.

More radical step. Move to Hawaii! Short of that, grow your own coffee shrub. According to this site, a mature plant can produce as much as two to four pounds of java per year. Okay, so that's only a month's worth of coffee for me, but you could always raise more than one plant and have your own micro-plantation. Downside: It could take a few years for your plant to start producing. And you can't cruise your plantation on horseback.

Tea
Where it grows: Most of the tea that comes from Camellia sinensis plant (which produces black, green and white teas) hails from countries in Asia, Africa, and South America. Hawaii also has some growers; look for them here. Giddy news: You can buy tea from the Lower Forty-Eight! The Charleston Tea Plantation in South Carolina produces American Classic Tea, which was recently purchased by Bigelow.  If you're willing to do a little homework, you can also get tea from small, artisan growers such as this one.

Doom-mitigating action items: Buy organic, Fair Trade-certified teas. Buy in bulk to avoid excess packaging.

More radical step: You guessed it! Grow your own tea plants. As with the above grow-your-own options, a few plants won't keep a serious habit fully supplied, but it will be an enjoyable exercise in appreciation. Here's some help. Who knows, tea growing might even become your thing. "There will always be hobbyists and green thumbs who are growing and processing small quantities of tea using different varietals of the tea plant," Seattle tea blogger Brett Boynton told me by email. "You find these people all over the world. Although we will never be as common as orchid people, rose people or tulip people, I am proud to be one of a handful of NW tea lovers who grows and processes a little bit of my own tea." (A "tea blogger"--is this a great country, or what?)

Well, Pat, let's hope, for all of our sakes, that things don't get so hot here in the U.S. that we're able to grow coffee in Colorado and bananas in New Jersey.

Thanks for the great question. I need to surf real estate websites in Hawaii now (so that someday maybe I'll learn to surf for real), so I must run.

Yours,
Lou

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So many seeds ... so many uses? In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.

Dear Lou,
At Halloween we look forward to the pumpkin seeds as much as anything, but lots of other fruits--watermelons, squash, avocados--are full of beautiful seeds and it seems a shame to throw them away. Are they edible, and can anything be done with them?
Debbie from Ohio

Dear Debbie,

Not only do seeds symbolize hope, opportunity and potential, but, as embryonic plants, they have the literal ability to feed us. It's no wonder we feel a twinge of shame when they go into the compost bucket. So, to borrow a grammatically awkward but enthusiastic phrase: Let's not do that!

There are several things that can be done with the seeds from the foods you buy at the grocery store (or farmers market):  

1. They can be eaten.  
According to this Wiki on edible seeds, we eat lots them in the form of legumes, nuts, cereals, pseudo cereals (such as flax), and gymnosperms (such as pine nuts). Of course, there are many seeds we don't want to eat, and this is happy news for plant procreation. According to the New York Times, the bitter taste of some seeds makes them less desirable to predators (such as omnivorous humans). As for the lesser known yummy seeds you mentioned, I'll say this about that: Go ahead and eat those squash seeds--just roast them as you would pumpkin seeds. Here's a recipe. Watermelon seeds can indeed be eaten, but in raw form they pass through our systems as seeds are wont to do (hoping, if seeds can hope, that they'll get a chance to sprout on the other end). Snacking on dried watermelon seeds is common in China but not so popular here. I didn't find a watermelon seed recipe for you, but I did find you this gizmo in case the urge hits to roast some (just like the squash seeds) after your next picnic. Next: Ixnay on eating the unpalatable and (and highly chokey) avocado seeds, but I have another good use for those, coming up. First, some bonus trivia that really shouldn't be in the eating-seeds section: The term sperm comes from the Greek sperma or seed.

2. They can be sown.
Did you know that seeds from many of the foods found in your produce aisle can be grown into attractive houseplants? I didn't, until I bought the book Don't Throw It, Grow It: 68 Windowsill Plants from Kitchen Scraps, by Deborah Peterson and Millicent Selsam. This fun little book urges you to grab a friend and make a "pit stop" to create houseplant fun (!) out of everything from carrots to tamarind. Speaking of houseplants, that avocado pit you mentioned might get as big as a gorilla with enough love (when he was a little boy, my husband planted one in a glass on his grandfather's kitchen windowsill. Thirty years later his grandfather passed on, but the avocado had pretty much filled the old man's sunroom.) Want that? Try this.

Some words of advice before sowing: Buy organic produce and heirloom varieties if you are able (hybridized plants won't breed "true," which means that you might not end up with a plant that resembles its parents). Also, be careful about plunking your grocery store seeds or seedlings into your garden: Those mangoes (yes, you can grow them) are unlikely to survive in your growing zone. More important though, some plants might be invasive. Peterson points out that a few Jerusalem artichokes planted in her garden formed a "clump of scraggy, eight-foot perennial plants."

3. They can be used for other fun, random stuff.
You can spit seeds, which is just plain, vulgar fun. And evidently, there's a real technique to it. If you're on the refined side, you could dry all of your unused seeds and then make really cool art. I was pretty impressed with this life-like seed portrait of Dolly Parton. You can also make seed balls, a fun project for your progeny (seeds of your loins).

More bonus trivia: You live in the "buckeye state," because of all
those horse chestnut seeds in Ohio that look like deer eyeballs. Not
that you can eat them, but they're fun to collect and look at.

Well, Debbie, I know what to do! Let's get off these silly computers and go raid our refrigerators for, um, seed projects before I use any more seed sayings.

Thanks for "planting" this question,
Lou

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My climate for a cow fart? Dear Checkout Line,
I read recently that meat is a huge emitter of greenhouse gas--more than even cars! It got me to wondering--does that mean all meat, or just from animals grown on factory farms? For example, I know that cow farts and burps contribute lots of methane. But don't grass-fed cows burp and fart, too? I guess my bottom-line question is, is any beef really sustainable, in greenhouse gas terms?
Thanks,
Beef-loving Ed

Dear Beefy Ed,
Count your blessings! If we blamed global warming on human flatulence, beer and Mexican food would be verboten and scientists might make you wear this.

Is it just me, or does emitter sound like a fake noun? (I prefer what we call my two-year-old toddler when he emits gases: a toodler.) In any case, meat does generate greenhouse gases. Lots of them. The fact that burgers contribute more to global warming than SUVs was revealed in the 2005 report "Diet, Energy and Global Warming" (PDF). The paper's co-author, Gidon Eshel, is a cattle rancher turned professor of geophysics who happens to live nearby, so I was able to buttonhole him with your questions. Oh, btw: Eshel is now a vegetarian. This fact might make a meat-lover like you nervous, but don't jump to any conclusions yet. The answers to your questions are complex and surprising.

When I first read that a cow burp could contribute to global warming, it reminded me of the theory that the flutter of a butterfly's wings could cause a hurricane. Of course, the cow-burp is not only more tragicomic and far less poetic--the effect is also easier to prove. Bovine gas (the burps more so than the farts) is problematic because cattle, jolly cud-chewing ruminants that they are, digest their food through enteric fermentation, which emits methane, a gas approximately 23 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. According to an EPA FAQ about methane and livestock in the U.S. alone, cattle emit about 5.5 million metric tons of methane per year into the atmosphere--20 percent of U.S. methane emissions. And there 1.5 billion belching cattle here on earth, a number that is expected to grow rapidly as earth's meat-hungry population expands.

It's perhaps not surprising that scientists all over the world are trying to figure out how we can have our meat and eat it, too. Their attempts to make cattle emit less methane include alterations in diet, breeding, and even a vaccine.

What was surprising (at least to me) is that grazing, grass-fed cattle--those happy cows we all like to celebrate, and some of us (hi, Ed) like to eat--will, according to Eshel, emit four to five more methane than corn-fed cattle.

But wait -- that doesn't mean that you should reach for a CAFO burger.

"There are many reasons why grass-fed is superior," says Eshel. "I don't want anyone to think that greenhouse gas is the be-all and end-all. We have so many environmental problems." Livestock production, especially the intensive production that is the hallmark of factory farms, contributes to all of those other problems, including  energy use, deforestation, fertilizer production and runoff, and much more. Read all about it the sweeping, disturbing UN report "Livestock's Long Shadow."

Just because corn-fed cows emit less methane does not make them better, says Eshel, and the idea that we can convert cows into low-methane systems by feeding them corn is like asking a giraffe to graze on grass. "It's evolutionary advantage is lost," he says. He contends methane is a normal end-product (actually, a product of both ends) of healthy, grazing cows. Re-plumbing cows to emit less methane is, he says, absurd. "Maybe what we need to do is consider the scope of our reliance on those animals, rather than trying to re-evolve them into something that is advantageous to us," he suggests.

He also thinks sustainable meat, in greenhouse terms, is possible, although meat production would have to be "scaled down dramatically." Further, he says that cow manure can help reduce the life cycle fossil fuel consumption of food production. It could also reduce eutrophication of waterways caused by excess fertilizer runoff, a problem he that finds particularly troubling. One of the elements that can help end eutrophication, he says, is diverse, small-scale beef production. "If you have small herds throughout the land, not just in traditional places but throughout the country, the cows have this uncanny ability to recycle local nutrients. Pooping is one of their biggest talents. And that's what we need of them, really."

I called up Anna Lappé, who is currently working on a book about diet and climate, to get her take. "Historically and currently, there are some sustainable farmers who incorporate livestock, including ruminants, into a cycle that I would argue is pretty sustainable," she told me. "Now, is that how most of the meat on the planet is being produced? No. I think that we shouldn't delude people into saying that we don't need to worry about meat and greenhouse gases because it can be sustainable. Most of the meat that's out there is being produced in highly unsustainable ways."

She also points out that most consumers don't have access to sustainably raised meat. For these reasons, she advocates for cutting back on the stuff. For more info, check out her new web site, Take A Bite Out of Climate Change.

So, Ed, to alleviate greenhouse gas concentration, it looks as if meat lovers like us should be reaching for not only sustainable beef when we can get it, but also for veggie burgers (speaking of gas).

Your faithful food columnist,

Lou

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