Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: beer, brewing, Bryan Walsh, craftbrew, cuisine, environment, food, Free State Brewing Company, local, microbrew, Stone Brewing Company, Time Magazine
Much of my insight into the world is through beer.
And surprisingly, not always through consumption.
As I was looking through the photo essay of food consumption around the world, (sober) I recognized them from an article I read in Time Magazine last summer. Of course I couldn’t remember the specifics of the article, just that I had read it. So I read it again.
The article focused on the loss of the national identity of food.
For thousands of years, humans were chiefly agrarian, which meant that you ate only what you could grow or slaughter yourself or trade for locally. Geography was culinary destiny.
That last sentence struck a an alcohol related chord in my head. For the last 20 years there has been a reinvention of beer. In this country, what once was limited to the American light adjunct lager and it’s “less filling” counterpart, beer has transformed into a regional culinary treat. This is all thanks to the craft or micro brew boom.
Photo Courtesy of USA Today
Now you can go to any part of the country and find a relatively local glass of suds. Each one is a unique beer experience. But this didn’t just happen. It started with the legalizing of home brewing by Jimmy Carter. (Thanks Jimmy) Then it took beer connoisseurs and advocates to move away from the Budweisers and Millers of the world. Companies like Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, and Bert Grant’s Yakima Brewing Company pioneered the way for other brewers around the country to provide regional taste sensations.
The same is just beginning with food. As we have discussed on this blog, locally produced food is getting a lot of attention and is a growing market. Can it continue to become a share of the American pie?
The other lesson from the evolution of liquid bread is the business of it. Before there was refrigeration and modern brewing technology, more people brewed on their own. You will still find a fair amount of enthusiasts, but not nearly the scale that home brewing once was. Now local brewed beer is big business. Like all technologies it allows us to specialize in our own fields and jobs, but still have the luxury of locally brewed beer. Most of us don’t have time to brew our own.
In Bryan Walsh’s Time article, he points out that a lot of the loss of regional food identity is from our modern busy lives.
She looks happy, even serene as she works, but when asked whether she has passed these skills on to her daughter, she sighs. “Of course not,” Shinobu says. “She’s far too busy for this.”
It is neither good or bad that we are loosing some of the domestic skills our parents possessed. Just an evolution of society.
Change is happening in food, albeit slowly. Along with stores, restaurants are offering locally inspired fare. This means regional flavors still have a chance. The meat from farms around Lawrence Kansas should taste different that meat from California. Just like Free State Brewing Company in Lawrence Kansas tastes different from Stone Brewing Company in San Diego. (To the discerning palate anyway) We need to keep a weathered eye on the impacts of the transformation and make eating decisions that are sustainable.
Along with all the positive environmental impacts of eating locally, we should see a revitalization of cultural cuisine.
This should be celebrated, preferably with a toast, as it allows us to have our beer and drink it too.
Photo Courtesy of Whatsontap at Flickr
-Adam
Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health | Tags: affordable, brands, budget, cows, dairy, generic, Great Value, grocery, hormone free, hormones, Kansas, Kroger, labels, lobby, milk, monsanto, organic, rbgh, rBST, Safeway, Wal-Mart, Walmart
Wal-Mart, the largest grocery retailer in the US, made a bold move last week when it announced that its Great Value brand milk will be sourced exclusively from hormone-free dairy cows. Other “budget” retailers like Kroger Co. and Safeway Inc. have changed their house brands to using exclusively hormone-free milk, too.
Why are budget groceries making the switch? Because customers have demanded it.
Not everyone can afford to purchase organic milk, often costing more than $3 for half a gallon as compared to around $1.70 for conventional milk. Store brands, or “generic” brands, offer the same kinds of products that national brands do, but at rock bottom prices. For consumers concerned about what’s in their milk, hormone free options from some of the most affordable brands in the US, like Great Value and Kroger, make a nice economic middle ground between conventional and certified organic.
Growth hormones, often referred to as rBST or RBGH, is marketed under the name Posilac by Monsanto, a giant agricultural company that also makes herbicides, insecticides, and genetically modified seeds. Some of you may remember that just this month Monsanto was lobbying in Kansas to keep milk producers from putting “hormone free” on their labels. We’re not the only ones. Monsanto has been waging big battles in other states as well (see this NY Times article).
Monsanto, are you listening? Consumers don’t want milk from cows treated with your product.
Monsanto may create front groups, lobby our government, and even try to control the media…
But we can all take comfort in knowing that in the end, it’s us – the consumers – who can stop a Goliath like Monsanto by simply voicing our concerns and putting our money where our mouth is. Thank you Wal-Mart, Kroger, Safeway and others out there who are listening!
Learn more about the issues surrounding Monsanto and rBGH at Sustainable Table.
~ Sarah H
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