There's a saying that you can either choose to pay your farmers now, or your doctors later. Who would you rather pay?

Obesity: Agriculture's Ultimate Externality?
by Greg Plotkin

Published February 17, 2010 @ 01:01AM PT


When strolling through the aisles of the grocery store, most consumers have no idea that they are paying a far greater price for their Coca-Cola and Doritos than what their check-out total may lead them to believe.

These hidden and often unanticipated costs -- known as externalities in economic terms -- are not reflected in a product's purchase price but are instead passed along in the form of environmental impacts or health care costs that someone else must eventually pay.

Perhaps more than any other business sector, the agriculture industry has become an expert at making cheap food and externalizing its costs. For example, the widespread development of coastal "dead zones," is an external cost associated with the over-application of fertilizers and pesticides. These dead zones haven't made our food -- agriculture's end product -- any more expensive, but they have destroyed fisheries all over the world and cost many fishermen their livelihoods.

So while many Americans get to enjoy an endless supply of cheap calories, these may end up resulting in the greatest -- and ultimately, most expensive -- agricultural externality of them all: obesity.

The most recent estimates predict that if Americans continue to grow at their current rate, obesity will cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $350 billion a year, consuming an astonishing 21% of the country's total health care spending.

We can either continue to pass the true cost of our unhealthy diets onto our future selves, or we can begin to realize that paying a little bit more for healthy food now is the best way to cut down on the health care costs we pay later in life.

There's a saying that you can either choose to pay your farmers now, or your doctors later. Who would you rather pay?

I want to be a farmer when I grow up

http://www.mnn.com/food/farms-gardens/stories/photographer-captures-the-essence-of-an-organic-learning-farm-in-floridahttp://www.blogger.com/

MNN.COM > Food > Farms & Gardens
Photographer captures the essence of an organic learning farm in Florida
Thanks to Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms, Jake Stangel spent two weeks working with his hands, tilling some land — and taking some amazing photographs.
By Good MagazineFri, Feb 19 2010 at 2:25 PM EST
Read more: ORGANIC FARMING, PHOTOGRAPHY


ON THE FARM: Bringing sheep to pasture, early morning. (Photo: Jake Stangel)
In an effort to escape the hustle and bustle of his urban life, photographer Jake Stangel contacted Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms. WWOOF, as it's more commonly known, links volunteers with organic farmers to "promote an educational exchange, and build a global community conscious of ecological farming practices." WWOOF connected Stangel with a couple who operate an organic farm in Central Florida, where he spent two weeks learning how to work with his hands and till some land.

"I had this desire to leave the urban environment, to ditch the computer and the phone" says Stangel, who lives in Portland, Ore. "I got to work a handful of other people — to use my hands and power tools — on this beautiful farm in the middle of nowhere."

He may have left the computer at home, but he brought his camera with him, and he documented his work with remarkable imagery. What follows is a selection from Jake Stangel's "Florida Farming."

OK Em - Name That Food

Going Greek for the Super Bowl

Louis Pappas Famous Greek Salad - My version
Ingredients:

Potato Salad

6 boiling potatoes

4 whole green onions, finely chopped

1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/2 cup whole green onions, thinly sliced

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 to 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar Salt to taste

Greek Salad

1/2 medium head iceberg lettuce

1 head of Romaine lettuce

3 cups potato salad

4 small ripe tomatoes cut into 8 wedges each

1 cucumber, peeled and cut lengthwise into i inch strips

6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

1/2 jar pickled beet slices

12 Greek olives

six hardboiled eggs, quartered

Dressing:

1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1 TBS Oregano

Directions:

Make potato salad: Cook unpeeled potatoes in unsalted water until tender, about 20 minutes; cool until you can handle them. Peel potatoes; cut into chunks in large bowl. Sprinkle with vinegar and salt; add chopped green onions; toss. In small bowl combine parsley, sliced green onions, mayonnaise and salt; add to potatoes, mix well.

Chop the lettuce and put it in a large (very large) bowl with the tomatoes, cucumber, eggs and feta cheese. Mound potato salad in center.
Arrange the beets and the olives on top of the salad.

Mix the oil, vinegar and oregano in a jar and shake to emulsify.

Serve as dressing over the salad.

Roasted Tomato & Pepper Soup

I went out to dinner with Ryan last night to a nice little Italian place called Patsy’s. Since both of us are trying to lose weight, and knowing we were going out, we abstained from eating for the entire day until he got out of work – around 8:30 pm. So naturally by that point we were ready to start eating unnecessary body parts. We ate an incredible amount of food: fresh bread, bruschetta with tomatoes, lemon juice and basil, mozzarella sticks – those were the appetizers – and for the entrée I got tortellini carbonara with prosciutto and onions, and Ryan got ravioli with meatballs. There was, unfortunately, no room for dessert. Believe me, though, we tried to find some.

Anyhow, so I woke up today still feeling uncomfortably full, not to mention rather guilty for so egregiously disregarding my diet, and decided to make something light to eat in the middle of the day. After taking a short one-person poll, I elected to make roasted tomato & pepper soup. I scanned a few recipes and none looked good, so what follows is more of less an amalgam of a bunch of recipes I read over and discarded. I was feeling incredibly lazy today so I used mostly canned ingredients, except for the hot peppers (the grocery store didn’t have any of my favorite chipotle peppers in adobo sauce). I’m sure this soup would be even better with fresh red peppers and tomatoes.

Roasted Tomato & Pepper Soup

2 28-oz cans whole, peeled tomatoes

1 6 oz. can tomato paste

2 15-oz cans roasted red peppers

6 oz. chile peppers (optional, but I like heat)

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 medium sweet onions

4 cups milk

½ can evaporated milk, about ¾ cup

¼ cup flour

1 tablespoon vegetable soup base

Ground pepper, salt to taste

Preheat the oven to around 450 degrees. Slice the onions, de-seed the chile peppers and drain the tomatoes and canned peppers, but reserve the liquid – it’s all going in the soup. Line three baking sheets with aluminum foil and rub each with a teaspoon of the olive oil, and put the tomatoes, onions and peppers in their own trays. Sprinkle each with a teaspoon or two of garlic, and a little salt and pepper. Put them in the oven to roast for about 20–30 minutes at the preheated temperature, and then turn on the broiler until everything is black on top, probably another ten minutes. Make sure you check frequently while the broiler is on; things in my oven can go from pleasantly charred one second to totally inedible before I can turn around, so watch out. Take the trays out and let them cool.

Put the tomatoes, peppers and onions in a thick soup pot. Don’t scrape off any of the charred bits – they add a lot of flavor to the soup, even if they aren’t pretty. Add the reserved liquid from the cans and stir in the tomato paste. Using a hand blender or a conventional one, puree everything until very smooth. Set aside.

In a sauce pan, add the other tablespoon of olive oil and heat it on medium for a couple minutes until it’s bubbling, then add the flour and make a roux. Then add the milk and vegetable soup base and simmer for about ten minutes, whisking constantly so everything incorporates. When it has thickened nicely, take it off the stove and add it to the pureed tomatoes and peppers. Blend it again until has an even consistency, then put it back on the stove. Simmer for 15 or 20 minutes until it’s nice and hot, adding the evaporated milk toward the end for a creamier texture.

I served this with grilled cheese sandwiches and it was exactly what I was in the mood for. For the nutritionally minded, this recipe makes around 10 two-cup servings, and according to my diet software, it has 180 calories, about 5g fat, 28g carbs, 4g fiber and 9g protein per serving. (I used 2% milk and fat-free evaporated milk in the soup.)

[This sentence is a place-holder. My camera's batteries were dead so I couldn't take a picture, but one will go here the next time I re-heat some of the soup.]

"Chicken in every pot. And a car in every backyard, to boot."

The new Republican idea of prosperity is a Wal-Mart every quarter mile and six lanes on every street, but that's a post for a different blog.

Last night we had Chicken in a Pot for dinner while we watched the State of the Union Address.
I have been living with the false impression that some president or other used this phrase in a speech but, in preparation for my post on this recipe, I found that not to be the case.

Promising a Chicken in Every Pot — Infoplease.com: "The Question:
Which president promised 'a chicken in every pot'?
The Answer:
It wasn't just chicken. During the presidential campaign of 1928, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won there would be 'a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.'
Despite a landslide victory over Alfred Smith, the first Roman Catholic to run for president, the Republican Party's promise of prosperity was derailed seven months after Hoover took the oath of office. The stock market crash of 1929 plunged the country into the Great Depression and people eventually lost confidence in Hoover.
During his administration, however, there were several impressive accomplishments. He increased the acerage of U.S. national forests and parks by five million. He also worked out the engineering and funding of San Francisco's Bay Bridge, and re-organized the FBI. Despite these undertakings, American voters couldn't be persuded to elect him to a second term. With the Depression at its lowest point, voters elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to replace Hoover in 1932."

Who says history doesn't repeat itself - except the only impressive thing he did was get us into a war that is sucking us dry financially and we kept him for two terms.

But, regardless of who said what, Chicken in a Pot tastes great, is simple to make and everything cooks in the same dutch oven making clean up quick and easy.

Chicken in a Pot

Ingredients:

1 large chicken

2 Tbs Olive oil

1 Tbs dried rosemary or 2 4-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary

1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp black pepper

salt to taste

1 pound of packaged baby carrots

8 small red potatoes

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 cup dry vermouth

2 Tbs flour

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Put the olive oil, paprika, garlic powder, black pepper, salt and rosemary in the pot.

Roll the chicken around in the spices and oil to coat it evenly on all sides.

Place the potatoes and carrots around the sides of the chicken then pour in one cup of chicken broth and the wine.

Cover and bake for at least 3 hours.

Remove the chicken, potatoes and carrots to a serving platter. Mix the flour in the remaining 1/2 cup chicken broth and add it to the cooking liquids in the pot. Stir over a burner on medium heat until it thickens to a gravy. Serve the gravy over the chicken and potatoes.

The good, the bad and the incidental

The good:

Pizza is always good. Last night, it was probably better than good.

I made the same dough I usually do and topped it with provolone, crumbled Italian sausage, mozzarella, Parmesan and roasted red pepper.

Things were hopping around here yesterday and I didn't get a chance to make sauce, but that turned out to be a good thing too as I discovered a very acceptable pre-made pizza sauce, Dei Fratelli. I plan to keep a couple cans of this on hand for emergency purposes. It was so much better than any pre-made sauce I have ever tried in the past.

The bad:

I went to visit my neighbor and to bring her some of the shredded chicken nachos we had the other day. She asked me to look up a term her doctor used to describe her medical condition which she was unfamiliar with: Binswanger's Disease.

The term was unfamiliar to me as well but sadly, I am all too familiar with the condition.
Binswanger's is another term for Alzheimer's.
So now I get to tell my friend that she has been tentatively diagnosed with the same disease which killed my mother.

The incidental:

They are wrapping up the first stage of our sinkhole remediation. They ended up pumping 300 cubic yards of cement under the house, 100 cubic yards less than the worst-case scenario.
My excitement yesterday occurred about four feet in front of my computer on the other side of the sliding glass doors leading onto the porch. They were attempting to fill one of the last remaining grout points when the pipe shot out of the hole and straight through the ceiling of the porch with a horrific bang. Much excitement ensued. But today they are cleaning up and clearing out.
I feel sort of bad for my first post or two about the workers here. They have all been very nice and it's not their fault they were here to do a job that for me was living hell.
I think Jack will be sorry to see them leave. Now he will just have me to harass and, on top of that, I got his Frisbee stuck in a tree this morning when I was at the barn.

So, hopefully things will be back to normal around here for a while(are they ever normal?) until the shallow grouting starts February 12 when I will get to tell you what it's like to have expanding urethane injected under your house.