My Happy (?) Medium

Like so many, I find reading Michael Pollan exciting. It's like having your suspicions validated by someone who actually went out and bothered to do the research. After all, it's hard to look at the way we produce food today in America without coming to the conclusion that much of it flies in the face of common sense. A food chain based on corn and petrochemicals seems absurd, and when that extends to how we produce meat it's not only disgusting, it's also ethically difficult territory.

The locavore movement attempts to address this, but it's riddled with problems. It's tough to eat a varied diet of fresh foods when most Americans live in places with limited growing seasons. Considering this in the Business section of last Sunday's New York Times, Damon Darlin compared to locavore movement to Mao's Great Leap Forward with regard to steel production. By decreeing steel production be relegated to cottage industry he assured that many resources were wasted in the production of useless pig iron. Substitute the kale in your CSA basket for pig iron and you get the comparison. Darlin concluded that we have to find the happy medium between these extremes. Easier said than done.

Quite a bit of money has been spent to convince those with enough disposable income that buying "organic" was that happy medium. Unfortunately "organic" has become an increasingly meaningless label placed on products that aren't that different from those produced in a business as usual fashion. Same goes for "free range". Do terms like "carbon footprint" and "food miles" have any meaning? How do we make decisions about food that incorporate concerns about tastiness, ethics and healthfulness when we have no clear criteria for judging such things?

I'm with Pollan on eating real foods - only things someone's great grandmother would recognize - avoiding industrially processed crap whenever possible. That's a bit of work, but probably worth it. It'd be quite the leap of faith to assume new creations of food science and marketing are more wholesome than traditional foods. The last century's record hasn't been that great. What is there to put faith in? Breakfast cereal? Oleo? Baby formula? TV dinners? Spray on cheese? "Instant" whatever? Soda pop? HFCS? No thank you, unless I'm on the road, doing the best I can.

Meat is more troublesome. My wife has pretty much decided that she wants no part of corporate meat at home. Thankfully, all bets are off when we go out to eat. I don't see it as too different from neighbors of ours who keep kosher kitchens, but go out for a cheeseburger once in a while. Still, it has upped our food costs.

I go along with this because supermarket meat really doesn't always cut it. Aside from the ethics issues that bother my wife, there are quality issues that bother me even more. Flavorless chicken with a weird texture doesn't appeal to me, regardless of how cheap it is. I'd go so far as to say supermarket chicken kinda sucks. Fortunately I live right next to Chinatown, and many Chinese seem to feel the same way. This means I can get heritage breed (and ostensibly free range, locally raised) birds at Chinatown prices. These taste and smell like the chicken I remember from my childhood. Not much of a big deal to get used to buying them with the head and feet still on. I'd recommend that anyone looking to up their game on the chicken front without breaking the bank check out their local Chinatown (or their local Asian markets).

What about beef? We don't eat much beef at home, but I'm torn nonetheless. I don't think cows should be fed corn when grass is what they're supposed to eat. It isn't good for the cows or the environment, and I don't think it makes their meat good for us to eat. But... corn fed prime steaks taste good, so once in a while I'll buy them (from the butcher). For me they're in the same category as foie gras - an ethically murky treat that isn't exactly healthy, but you eat it once in a while anyway. The rest of our beef these days is expensive, grass-fed and best braised or stewed.

We do spend the extra $$$ for butter and cheese made from the milk of grass fed cows, but we don't consume enough butter and cheese for that to be much of a big deal, cost-wise. (Many imported dairy products qualify, since we're one of the few countries crazy enough to feed corn to our cows). Haven't made the switch as far as milk is concerned, but we do buy the hormone free milk, which is at least a start. The farmer's market, specialty shops and a locavore cheesemonger serve as sources for these things.

What about pork (my go-to meat)? Here the wife and I disagree. I say pigs are omnivores, so it doesn't matter what you feed them. Corporate hogs might not be pleasant to think about, but they taste fine. My wife wants happy pigs. I get this, since they're probably the smartest things we eat. Perhaps their misery is of higher value than that of dumber beasts? I don't know. They are cute. She buys the pork at the farmer's market. If she doesn't buy it often enough I'll still buy corporate pork, even if it means getting static from her. She's in the process upping the static level to the point where I stop. I expect this will take a while to play out. She'll very likely get her way, but I will have impressed upon her the importance of pig meat being ever at the ready in my kitchen. I can go weeks without beef or chicken, but only days without pork.

Lamb is another fine line. Lamb and goat are the only meats I'll still buy at the supermarket on a regular basis, but I get the good stuff at the butcher. I don't think they've figured out how to feed corn to lambs yet. That doesn't stop my wife from buying lamb at the farmer's market, too. We're eating the stuff more often, but in small portions. It is rich.

Fish is murky. Farmed fish is fed corn, and wild caught fish comes with varying ethical problems related to overfishing and environmental concerns. Some fish is even toxic! What do you do? I don't know. We still eat fish, though. Mostly flounder, canned tuna and sardines. We're not eating salmon like I used to...

What about veggies? Local is good, so is fresh. In season local is the best of both worlds. Unfortunately in the Northeast our seasons are pretty short. We eat too many veggies to go completely local. I appreciate eating seasonally, so I don't eat things like slicing tomatoes, summer fruits or asparagus out of season. Winter is about cabbages and root veggies, anyways. I try to minimize the amount of California produce I buy, as I'm not convinced trucking it across the country is a good thing for flavor or the environment. I'm still buying most of my fruits and veggies from the supermarket or my neighborhood greengrocers. I'm not averse to paying twice as much to support local agriculture in season, but I'm not ready to get dogmatic about it.

Specialty items like coffee, wine, olive oil and the like are off the table as far as ethical shopping goes. The best coffee I can get my hands on (from Counter Culture) happens to be labeled "fair trade" and "sustainable", but I have no idea whether those labels are in any way meaningful. Nor do I care. Being a home cook is already a part time job. Trying to be so "aware" only complicates complicates it. I guess it's worth it, though. My wife is no longer queasy about the meat we eat. My food tastes good and I have every reason to think it might be a little healthier.

The fact that I'm frugal means we can afford to do this without our grocery bill going through the roof. A day's worth of eating for the two of us (lunch and dinner) still rarely exceeds $12 (before wine), usually coming in under $7. (I'm not one to be zealot about my ethics, but I will be about my food costs!)

This is a far as I'm willing to go at the moment. I guess it constitutes my "happy medium". I don't know if "happy" is really the right word. Pain in the ass is more like it.