The Forest Grove Farmers' Market offers a food stamp program for the second year in a row. Here's a look at how that helps both the farmers, and the people with low incomes who might otherwise go without fresh organic produce.
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| Photo by Steve Bickel |
The program has grown since then, and I'm glad to see that that's the case. Why?
I'm sure that in one of my recent tirades I've mentioned that corn is in everything. It's used as a binder, a thickener, a sweetener, a preservative: you name it. It's in everything precisely because the government subsidizes the growing of corn. This means it costs almost nothing to use corn ingredients in one's products. People with limited incomes can stretch their dollar further by buying these products, and consequently they have the worst diets in the country. Meanwhile, these buying habits just reinforce the inclusion of corn-based products in virtual everything.
Food stamps at farmer's markets help the good guys win.
First, farmers can sell produce for cheaper while making more money. Farmers lose a lot of potential income when they sell to grocery stores because those grocery stores have to factor in overhead when calculating their buying price. Selling directly to the consumer saves everyone money.
Second, people with limited incomes are able to buy healthy foods which they would often pass up in grocery stores on account of price. Because the money is going from the food stamp program to the local farmers, it's helping to stimulate the local economy.
Third, because this food is local, and often organic, it's reducing the farm-to-fork miles contributed by one of the most offending demographics. Unfortunately, this demographic has very little control themselves, and are jerked around by what they're able to afford. Programs like this help them make healthy choices for themselves, for the planet, and for the local economy.
The unfortunate thing is that it is cost prohibitive for most farmer's markets to start a food stamp program. The necessary equipment costs thousands of dollars. Check to see if your local farmer's market has a food stamp program, and if not, you can help by looking into getting grants to start one, or by organizing a fundraiser to come up with the necessary funds.
On top of the benefits to this underserved demographic, however, is the fact that the same equipment will allow the farmer's market to collect credit and debit card payments as well. The ease of buying that this has created for our market has meant better profits for our farmers, and a well-fed community.
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environmental reasons for hating it. No, this hatred stems from the fact that I'm a clean-freak fighting a losing battle: what will I clean today given the limited hours in a day? My ass would be one of them (if you'll excuse my English... no, really... "ass" comes from "arse," which in turn comes the Middle English "ars," and then from the Old English "ears." "Ass," as it refers to a donkey, stems from the Old English "assa," which ultimately comes from the Latin "asinus." See how I take a moment that could otherwise be considered profane and make it educational? But I digress...). As gross as it is to talk about--bear with me here--I think we all secretly hate the smearing action we're perpetuating on our backsides. How could that be considered making us clean? And how much paper do we waste in wiping for perfection?
8.33 days, or, roughly one roll a week. I have a roommate, obviously, so that means roughly 2 rolls a week for our entire household. That seems to mesh pretty well with how often I seem to change the roll, so the estimates seem pretty good. In one review I read about a 4 or 5 person household where they claimed to be going through half a roll a day, which also fits with my calculations. Households in America, then, are probably using somewhere between 2 and 4 rolls of TP a week, or 104 and 208 rolls a year. I can't make any specific environmental claims based on these numbers, but I can point out a thing or two about cost: at these rates, assuming they are typical for an American household, those same American households are paying between between $108 and $217 each year on toilet paper if they're trying to be environmentally friendly and buying a 100% recycled paper like the Seventh Generation brand (and if you're using toilet paper, and you're reading this, one could assume that that's very likely).
Do you want to know what costs less than toilet paper? A bidet. Or, I should say, a bidet attachment, since in many parts of Europe and other locations around the world, a bidet is actually separate from the toilet. But because most American bathrooms don't come with bidets (spell check isn't yelling at me, but I have a suspicion that that isn't the proper way to pluralize "bidet"), there have sprung up several manufacturers that have created bidet attachments that install right on your toilet. There are lots of options, but even 
comes in at only $99, which means it's still cheaper than the annual toilet paper costs for a two-person household (given all of the aforementioned assumptions). But I'm a pretty simple person and I don't need all of the bells and whistles that come with the more expensive models. 
has also received rave reviews, but without all of those bells and whistles it comes in at only $41.50. At this price, even if I was living alone, recycled toilet paper would cost me more.
water, but it is still using water. And in a traditional bathroom setup you're flushing a lot of water needlessly down the toilet. As someone who rents a small apartment my options are limited, so a bidet attachment is one of the best compromises I can make. But, if you've been reading for a while, or you've gone back through the archives, you'll know that when I first started this blog 
provides plans for doing so, but you can also buy a 
. Well, a commenter over at 
- Michael Pollan's 
has been transformed into a film by PBS. The film follows the domestication of four plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes. But have we domesticated them, or have they domesticated us? And while it certainly behooves a plant to be attractive to us, has its attraction ultimately caused its genetic weakness and susceptibility to disease? Especially with apples and potatoes, consumers and producers are looking for specific traits, and as we find them, we end up eating a very limited variety of these foods. As a result, genetic variation declines, and the plants become more susceptible to pests. And perhaps our variety in diet has declined too much as a result of our selecting for certain traits. This film has beautiful cinematography on top of having compelling premises that interesting conclusions. Definitely a must-see.
- From the man that brought us 
, comes a film that takes us on a tour of the food industry. When we walk into a supermarket, we're met with an illusion of diversity. The truth is that a limited number of companies, like Tyson, own the majority of the food producing operations in the U.S. Not only are we being swindled on variety because of what grows fastest, grows biggest, or stores longest, but the farmer's producing our food have little say in what or how they're growing. Companies like Tyson finance chicken growing operations and tell farmers when and how to do things. If farmers don't play along, they go out of business, often being in debt hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. Much the same is true with potatoes. McDonald's is the largest consumer of potatoes in the world. What kind of potatoes does McDonald's want? Russets. And if a farmer isn't selling to McDonald's it likely isn't staying in business. And then there's the business of corn. I knew corn was in a lot of things, but I wasn't terribly concerned until I saw this film. High fructose corn syrup, dextrin, maltodextrin, dextrose, fructose, sorbitol, starch, monoglycerides, diglycerides, monosodium glutamate, vegetable oil, vegetable broth. It's everywhere. Not only do farmer's struggle to meet the demands of companies that own patents on GMO corn, but they're also pressured to grow corn because of outrageous government subsidies on corn. Our diet has become almost completely corn, and without our knowledge or consent. Want to know how far the rabbit hole goes? Watch this film.
- On the subject of corn, these two college friends and filmmakers decide to get back to their Iowa roots and grow an acre to corn for a year. When it's done, they watch where it goes. Before they even start growing, they're paid by the government just for claiming that they intend to grow. They go through the process of spraying their acre with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and at the end of the growing season they find out that they've actually lost money on their crop. But not to fear, they still have a lot more money to collect from the government just for growing corn. And that's because corn ends up in everything. At the very beginning of the film, the two filmmakers have an analysis done on their hair that shows that their diet is predominately corn. They find out why when they start following their crop. The truth is, the corn they're growing isn't even edible without being processed into high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and other filler ingredients. What's left over goes to feed cattle. The corn-based diet upsets acid levels in the cow's digestive tract, and if they weren't taken to slaughter as soon as they are, the diet itself would kill them. The hamburgers that the filmmakers eat are predominately corn, the ketchup and their burger and fries is predominately corn syrup, and their fries are cooked in corn oil. It's no wonder they analysis was showing so much corn in their diets.
- This film dives into America's obesity epidemic and tries to uncover why its happening. It shows large food companies lobbying for their rights to target advertisements at children, and then asking parents why they weren't more attentive to what their children were eating. It shows the unprecedented amount of corn in our diets and how that's contributing to early onset diabetes. And it shows how teachers were shut down when they tried to get sugar-filled vending machines out of the schools. I appreciated that this film approached the food industry from the angle of its effects on us. It struck home. Even after the other films railed on corn, this one really sealed the deal because it made the link between our unknown obsession with corn and the effects it's having on our health. If you want less enviro and more human-oriented thinking on the modern food system, this is the one to see.
- A lone man takes his family off the grid over the course of a year. What's the catch? They live in New York City. They ditch cars for human-powered bikes and scooters and eat only local food (even visiting the farms they're buying from). He starts composting in his apartment and washing laundry by hand. At the 6 month mark, they turn of the electricity, and for the remainder of the year they do everything by candlelight. It's a long year, and they take at lot of flack, but at the end of the year they've learned something about what they can and cannot go without. Of all of these films, this is the one that most inspired me to get out and do something (or stay in and do something, as the case may be). Even something as simple as using candles at night instead of electric lights can be the big difference. And this year I think I'll actually be participating in a CSA owned by a farmer I know through my work at B St. If you want a really well-rounded film that will give you lots of ideas about how you can lessen your impact on the planet, this is the one.
- This film was worthless. Don't see it. Woody Harrelson and his band of pot-smoking jokers take off down the west coast in a bus and Woody gives speeches on sustainability at colleges along the way. The only part of those speeches you get to hear is a poorly written poem. The rest of it is just an excuse for them to smoke and have sex. This film fails to be educational, and it fails to be entertaining. It just fails. If there were no other documentaries out there on the subject of sustainability, then it might have some merit for starting a discussion. Instead, it says much less than dozens of other films have already said, and it says it much less intelligently. This is the only film I watched that I really can't recommend.
only had bits up to 1/8" so I improvise and used a grinding stone to widen out the holes.
A similar claim could probably be made about washing machines. Even if the manufacturing process doesn't create more pollution, it's likely that it produces a very significant amount.