Friday, February 4, 2011

Pity the Prey


Lentils, a kinder protein.  



                If people read all the good articles and books on food, farming, and livestock, then there wouldn’t need to be so many trees and pages devoted to our dinner plates.  Bleh!  The food chain makes my knees weak as a rule since I cannot help but pity the prey, but reading about the consequences of the way we humans feed ourselves makes your heart weak.  Two articles out of The Best Science and Nature Writing of 2010, “All You Can Eat” (by Jim Carrier; http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4395/) and “Graze Anatomy” (by Richard Manning; http://www.onearth.org/article/graze-anatomy), force you to consider the impact your hunger has on the world around you.  Although we are reading these articles (both written by journalists) to consider what is stellar about the writing, I was quickly pulled into the argument that each author was making.  (Surely that’s a sign of good writing!)
                Carrier starts with dumpster diving at a Red Lobster and soon takes us to a meeting with American shrimpers (tearful ones, in fact), to the author’s youthful memories of rare shrimp, to the history of commercial shrimping, to their evolutionary history and life cycle, to the environmental issues of shrimping, and leaves us back at the Red Lobster where we will certainly reconsider ordering any shrimp.  He had personal stories, history, biology, technology and innovation, agriculture, economics, and politics (not to mention food).  Something for everyone!  He said that in the early days of commercial fishing, for every pound of shrimp harvested, there was ten pounds of by-catch.  And although it’s better today, the thought is enough to turn you off of eating animals from the sea. 
                Manning starts with the personal stories of two men, one who started out as a veterinarian working with livestock, which he left because he considered it “so crude and so cruel,” and another who grew up on an industrial-scale farm.  Both ended up using their knowledge for good and eventually went into the business of grass-fed cattle.  The article tells of the environmental benefits of grass-fed cows and the economic payoffs.  His article also draws from personal stories, the biology, economics, and a little politics.  He often uses very nice analogies where the “roots of perennials act like elevators” which aid in understanding and provide interest to what could be a dull (if important) phenomenon.   Manning lays off the horrors of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) for animals and the humans who work there, and instead concentrates on all the positive aspects of grass-fed, free-ranging cattle and other livestock—economically and ecologically.  That seems like a very effective strategy.  I get so many emails with subjects like “Help Stop the Slaughter of Yellowstone’s Bison!” and “A New Year Means a New Attack on Wolves!” that I just get overloaded and can’t manage anything but to click the delete button in order to maintain a will to live.  The world is full of so much suffering that we just can’t deal with all of it.  At least, I cannot.  In Break Through:  From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Shellenberger & Nordhaus the authors say that people respond to the “I have a dream” and not the “I have a nightmare” speech that environmentalists are so good at.  Manning manages to focus on the possibility for better things ahead and that was refreshing. 
                Both of these articles were interesting and well researched.  They had a central message, but did not oversimplify it and they added a lot of rich texture, which informs the reader about the complexity of the situation.  At times, I did find myself wondering if these sorts of articles were more in the purview of journalists than scientists.  For instance, we’re unlikely to fly to Long Beach, CA as Carrier did, to see the largest shrimp port for a few paragraphs.  Who knows, maybe that’s where he took his family vacation.  But any scientist working on a particular research topic, especially in the applied fields, ends up doing research into the historical context of the problem so that you can understand how we got where we are today and what other issues might be at play that we haven’t considered.  We’ve got the dirt; we just need to spread it around. 
                By the way, does anyone want a recipe for Lentil Sloppy Joes so you can enjoy your Joes without the worry?

2 comments:

  1. Yes, actually - that sounds delicious!

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  2. Lentil Sloppy Joes

    1 T veg oil
    1 onion, finely chopped
    4 stalks celery, diced
    4 cloves garlic, minced
    ½ tsp dried oregano leaves
    ½ tsp salt
    Freshly ground pepper
    ½ c tomato ketchup
    ¼ c water
    1 T balsamic vinegar
    1 T brown sugar
    1 T Dijon mustard
    2 c. cooked brown or green lentils, drained & rinsed (if you’re cooking these, it’s about 2/3 to 3/4 c dry)

    If using dried lentils, cook 25 min. or until tender. In a skillet, heat oil over medium heat for 30 seconds. Add onion and celery and cook, stirring until softened, about 5 min. Add garlic, oregano, salt and pepper to taste, and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Stir in ketchup, water, balsamic vineagar, brown sugar, and mustard. Add lentils & stir well. Heat for 15-30 minutes and serve on buns.
    Or...if making in crockpot, add above (after cooking in skillet) to crockpot & cook 6 hrs on low or 3 hrs on high.

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