Anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis knows I’m deeply interested, and concerned, about all of the above. What really impresses me about Morsels and Seeds is that it’s produced entirely by African American women: that’s so important on so many levels. For example, as many readers know, I live in southwest Philly, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city (although nowhere near as PA’s 1st congressional district). The neighborhood is primarily black, and there’s a lot of poverty and not too many high quality groceries. From what I see in the shelves, the emphasis is on high fat/high cholesterol soul food and far less on vegetables and fruits. The only way to change people’s diet is through education, and so to me it’s awesome to see a strong voice for nutrition come from the community FOR the community (even if I’m not necessarily part of that specific community myself). The blog is, in my opinion, so important, timely, and relevant to my work, that I have shared it with my office.

Not that you have to give up soul food to eat right, as Denise Agnew explains here. I might have to steal her recipe for red beans and rice.

Please Get A Soil Lead Reading First
I guess we can make this contrarian Saturday. One thing I really don’t understand – help me! – is the regular stream of people promoting urban agriculture. I don’t understand the point. I’ve got nothing against community gardens and the like, I understand that even urban hellhole residents might want to play in the soil a bit, but I really don’t get what the point of promoting urban agriculture more widely is.

Well, there are a number of reasons, both direct and indirect.

Gardening helps remediate and clean up all that lead in the soil, which by the way is plentiful in your standard country-agriculture too, thanks to decades of lead-based pesticide use. As the linked article makes clear however, remediating soil with lime or compost can raise the pH of your growing medium, and make lead less of a problem. One of my friends, who works at one of Philadelphia’s urban farms, tells me that if you remdiate your soil with compost ever year for three years or so, any lead is thoroughly dissipated. So that’s one reason: cleaning up and improving soil.

Another reason pertains to the whole “think globally, act locally” philosophy. Even though Philadelphia fits the description of a sustainable city due to our direct economic link to the farms of Lancaster county and beyond, it still costs money in terms of gasoline and road wear to truck meat and produce into the city. These costs are part of the price you pay at local farmers markets. Example: earlier this week, I paid $3.00 for a bag of baby greens and $2.50 for a head of red leaf lettuce. That same $5.50 pays for at least 2 packets of seeds which will grow ten times as many greens. In fact, the only reason I bought the baby greens this weekend was because mine aren’t fully grown and ready to eat. Urban farms encourage the local economy, and make our city more sustainable.

Planting crops like dill, cilantro, basil, and other herbs that bear very small flowers helps support our honeybee and beneficial insect population, all of which are under enormous pressures from chemical pesticides and pollution. Out in California, there’s worry that colony collapse disorder will literally destroy the bee-dependent almond industry: as we all should know by now, honeybee-based pollination is responsible for about two-thirds of all the food we eat, including beef (alfalfa is prime cattle feed, and wholly dependent on bees). Honeybees aren’t native to the US, and anything we can do to help them thrive and survive is a good thing. As it happens, there’s a hive somewhere on my block, and my cilantro and basil helps keep them alive, while playing a small role in ensuring biodiversity.

This brings us to the economics. A few years ago my buddy Larry let his daughters buy some baby chicks to keep as pets. Larry’s good with his hands and built a coop for the birds in the back yard. After about a year, the fluffy yellow birds had grown into full-size chickens, which lay eggs that Larry eats for breakfast. I don’t know the last time he had to buy a dozen eggs at the store. That’s a savings right there. Furthermore, the birds are pretty much self-perpetuating: chickens will eat just about anything, and don’t require a ton of care. It’s not like you pay out the nose for feed.

I’ll continue with the economics: it’s November and we just tore down our tomato plants yesterday. Even then, there was some discussion as to whether we could wring a few more fruits out of the vines. While it’s difficult to quantify exactly how many pounds of tomatoes we grew, I can tell you this much: our cabinets are stocked with quarts of tomatoes Christina canned herself. Last year, we didn’t buy a single can of whole peeled tomates ($1.79-$2.50 apiece, trucked in from someplace else, canned in a factory the doubtless genrates runoff and other pollution) all winter. All of our turnip greens are canned. So are the green beans. I don’t think we ran out until March and by that time, spring was upon us and it was almost time to start the cycle over. Currently, I’m growing broccolli and cauliflower in the backyard, two crops I eat a lot of. Thanks to my urban garden, I don’t have to buy them at the store, where the price will include a markup that covers all the trucking costs and provides for the grocery’s profit margin.

Did you know most grocery store garlic comes from China? Again, there are ramifications for global warming (all that fuel spent in shipping the stuff), as well as worries about what chemicals the Chinese are using to grow the crop. Garlic is incredibly easy to grow: plant cloves each October, harvest whole bulbs by July.

Urban agriculture also adds greenery to neighborhoods that might otherwise be blighted with vacant lots, which in Philadelphia is another word for “impromptu landfill”. Community gardens help create a sense of ownership and neighborhood cohesion among the residents. For example, my neighbors have taken over the lot next to their house, setting up about 10 raised beds as well as a work space. Earlier this month, they got their hands on a cider press, and were going through crate after crate of apples. All the little kids on the block were looking through the fence and asking to help. What better way to teach kids about the value of nature and respect for their world than through hands-on activities that end with something yummy?

Finally, there’s the whole notion of learning a skill. It wasn’t too long ago that everyone had some level of gardening and farming skills (as well as sewing and clothing repair, brewing, basic carpentry…). These days we’re almost entirely dependent on others to provide the necessities of life. If the apocalypse hit tomorrow, Christina and I would be set for a few weeks at least, and if we were able to avoid the rampaging mobs of zombies and flaming hailstone dropping from the sky, we’d have more crops going as soon as possible.

So: urban gardening helps individual households cut their dependence on corporate food and all the negative consequences that go along with that; helps build the local economy by encouraging small business and nurturing entrepreneurship; helps sustain populations of beneficial insects and encourages biodiversity; teaches adults and kids a meaningful skill; promotes responsibility and independence; and helps build community. those are just some of the reasons for promoting urban agriculture widely.

Just say no to HR 759. call Congress and tell your rep to vote NO.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

HR 875 and HR 759 are major pieces of shit.

Not that I’m complaining of course. There’s something really intrinsically satisfying about getting down in the dirt and growing your own produce. Last year, we had a large enough tomato crop to have fresh maters well into September/October, and canned almost enough to carry us through to spring. in fact, we just used our last jar of ‘maters last week. If we’d been a little more diligent with the kale (and actually built a cold frame like we talked about), we would have had greens all winter too! This year, I’m ahead of the game: it looks like I’ve found some used aluminum-frame storm windows, which I hope to pick up this afternoon. I’ll set those aside for winter. We’re planning our winter crops this weekend (i hope). Mike McGrath has soem good suggestions.

Obama turns around and intervenes in a Democratic primary on behalf of one of the worst Bush enablers in Congress — not in order to help Barrow defeat an even-worse Republican, but to defeat a far better and plainly credible Democratic challenger.

For all of Obama’s talk about the wicked ways of Washington, these incumbent protection schemes — whereby Beltway power factions all help each other stay in power no matter their ideology or positions — are among the most vital instruments for perpetuating how Washington works. Democratic leaders pretend that they are forced continuously to capitulate to the Bush administration due to their “conservative” members, yet continuously work to keep those same members in power, even when it comes to supporting them against far better Democratic primary challengers.
[snip]
Making matters much worse here, Obama — who has removed himself almost completely from the pending eavesdropping and telecom amnesty debate — recorded this ad for Barrow on the eve of that bill’s passage, all in order to keep in power a key Democratic supporter of this FISA/amnesty bill. Yet telecom amnesty is not merely a side issue but is one of the purest expressions of what Obama claims so vigorously to oppose in Washington.

Regular readers know Obama was my third choice, and that I’ve always been a bit suspicious about the kumbaya language. You also know I’m not one of the cuckoo-bananas crowd that thinks McCain would be better than Obama, This is an excellent example of why I have always felt that way, and I agree with Glenn: Mr. Obama is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the debate.

More Glenn:

it’s critical to keep in mind that Obama is a politician and, like all people, is plagued by significant imperfections. He has largely entrenched himself in, and is dependent upon, the power structure he says he wants to undermine. Uncritical devotion to political leaders, including him, is destructive. Obama needs pressure, criticism, checks, and real scrutiny just like anyone else in power in order to keep him accountable, responsive, and faithful to the principles he claims are the ones driving him.

Pressure of that sort should include demanding that he take meaningful action against this Draconian and lawlessness-enabling bill. This is, after all, a bill which his own party is seeking to pass and justifying their behavior, in part, by claiming that they’re doing it to protect Obama politically from being attacked as Weak on Terrorism. If this bill passes and Obama does nothing to stop it, he’ll bear significant responsibility for its enactment. Here’s his campaign’s phone number: (866) 675-2008.

As the Presidential frontrunner, Obama could stop this FISA sell-out TODAY.

The past 6 years have been an orgy of meat, a carnival in my intestines. Cheesesteaks became a kind of manna, greasy, salty scraps of ribeye soaked in cheese and wrapped in an Amoroso roll. Hamburgers. Chicken. Hot dogs. Steak. Beef. Pork. Lamb. You name the animal, and I’ve probably eaten it. All types of fishies. Octopus. Ostrich. Buffalo. Yak burgers. Venison. Kielbasa. Linguica. Chourico. Chorizo. Bacon. Canadian Bacon. I could go on like this all day.

[Warning: I am about to go to "Too Much Information" land, and if you have a weak stomach, I suggest you skip the following paragraph.]
The result of all this carnage have been less than satisfactory: my cholesterol is higher than it should be. Although the rest of me is skinny as a string bean, I have grown an unhealthily bloated belly that hangs off of me like some kind of alien pod. When I was a vegetarian, I produced one or two dumps a day: now, I shit constantly, and the shits are simply nasty: foul smelling spurts of liquid and the occasional turd as opposed to the logs I used to squeeze out. While I’m still pretty high energy, there’s been a noticeable drag on my usual pace.

This all changed about 4 weeks ago. I get paid bi-weekly, and after I pay my bills, including child support and my student loan, I’m usually scraping the bottom of the barrel on the day before payday. So I was looking at my budget for the week, and saw that I wasn’t going to be able to afford my usual sandwich from the deli down the street. Christina and I went to Trader Joes that afternoon to do her grocery shopping, and I found a special on boil-in-the-bag Indian meals for $2.00 a pop. I spent $10.00 and change and bought my lunch for the week: saag paneer, dal makhani, and a great lentil dish. I didn’t eat any meat that week, except for maybe a little chicken.

Goodness gracious, the effect was amazing! I felt a lot peppier than I’d felt in months. My head was a little clearer as well, and my shits, for the first time in years, weren’t cause for coastal evacuation plans, and instead of crapping throughout the day, i was back to one or two healthy solid dumps. So I decided to do an experiment: I spent the next week meat-free, until Friday. That evening, Christina wanted to go get Peking Duck, which she’d never had before. We headed down to Chinatown, and filled up on duck and a side of pork with garlic sauce. Saturday morning, another friend called up and asked me out to dim sum. Again, I filled up on pork dumplings, tofu skins filled with ground beef and pork, and more. Sunday, my parents paid a surprise visit in the late afternoon and took me out for pho, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup that is simply heavenly.

By Sunday night, I could barely move. I was back to where I was two weeks prior: bloated, low-energy, stupefied.

Since that night, I have pretty much avoided eating red meat and poultry. The results have been largely positive, and my gut is beginning to deflate.

Am I a born-again vegetarian? No. I fully intend to gorge on turkey and duck this Thanksgiving at my parents’ place, sure as I’ll be shovelling down whatever animal is placed in front of me on Christmas Eve. But as Cookie Monster has now sadly realized “cookies are a sometimes food”, I’m going to be changing my diet as well.

Meat is murder alright: murder on my guts, murder on my state of mind, and murder on my energy. More tofu, please!