‘Big Food’ dominates school food conference

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‘Big Food’ dominates school food conference

The food industry’s influence over the School Nutrition Association’s conference sessions was alarming.

If there’s still any doubt about where the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) allegiances lie, their recent School Nutrition Industry Conference (SNIC) leaves no uncertainty.

The annual conference, which this year ran from January 11- 13, is “where school nutrition directors and industry representatives [came] together to build successful partnerships to better serve the nation’s children,” according to the SNA’s website. But a review of the conference agenda, speakers, educational sessions and sponsors paint a far different picture – one of an overwhelmingly industry-driven event heavy on the promotion of food and beverage offerings from major processed food corporations.

That’s bound to happen when the SNA taps the food and beverage industry to financially sponsor a conference. Food behemoths Domino’s Pizza and Jennie-O Turkey Store were listed as $5000+ sponsors of SNIC. Other Big Food corporations donating between $500 and $4,999 included ConAgra, Five Star, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Sara Lee, Barilla, Kikkoman, Land O’Lakes, PepsiCo, Rich Products and Schwan’s.

Politico’s Morning Ag described the conference as “an event to build partnerships and talk about how the Healthy Hunger-Free Act regulations are affecting ‘the business of school nutrition.’ Industry was also tapped to finance and bestow awards on SNA members for achievement in foodservice:

As the conference kicked off on Sunday, Basic American Foods, Schwan’s Food Service Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc. held a dinner reception at the swanky Omni Resort & Spa at Montelucia, in nearby Scottsdale, to honor their Foodservice Achievement Management Excellence (FAME) Award winners.

But even beyond giving out awards to SNA members, the food industry’s influence over conference sessions was alarming.  While the SNA maintains on its website that it is “the national organization of school nutrition professionals committed to advancing the quality of school meal programs through education and advocacy,” the SNIC program was ridiculously top heavy with Big Food speakers and exhibits. In fact, two of the four keynote speakers were from major food corporations (the president of Cinnabon and former president of Coca-Cola, North America Foodservice); three of the nine education sessions featured speakers from large food corporations (Cinnabon, Rich Products and Coca-Cola). Exactly what these Big Food speakers (who represent companies producing highly-processed treats, sweets and other low-nutrition items) could impart to advance the quality of school meals is a mystery.

How Regenerative Organic Agriculture Can Save the Planet

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How Regenerative Organic Agriculture Can Save the Planet

Carbon farming is an agricultural system implementing practices that improve the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material

Great Challenge: Farming, Food & Climate Change

Many of us are now choosing to eat holistically grown foods. We want:

  • more nutrition from our food
  • to avoid toxic pesticides and GMOs.
  • to create safer conditions for farmers and rural communities.
  • to protect the water, air and soil from contamination by toxic agrochemicals.

While these reasons are important, one critical issue is missing from today’s conversation about food. The concept is simple, yet virtually unknown. The solution to our global food and environmental crisis is literally under our feet.

Through the past hundred years, we’ve steadily increased our rate of digging up and burning carbon-rich matter for fuel. This is disturbing the oceanic ecosystem in profound ways that include reducing the plankton that feeds whales and provides oxygen for humans. And we’re not just talking about the extinction of whales. As I’ll detail in this article, even Maine lobsters could become a relic of the past.

We’ve severely disrupted the balance in the “carbon triad” by clearing rainforests, degrading farmland, denuding pasturelands, and burning coal and oil. The carbon triad? Yes; think of the three main carbon sinks: the atmosphere, the oceans and the humus-sphere. While I’m sure you’re familiar with the first two, you might not know about the latter carbon sink. Humus is the organic component of soil. (Gardeners create it as compost.) The humus-sphere is made up of the stable, long-lasting remnants of decaying organic material, essential to the Earth’s soil fertility and our ability to grow nutrient-rich crops.

Up until now, the big oil companies Exxon, Chevron and Shell have been perceived as the main climate villains. Yet a new and growing movement of “carbon cycle-literate” people and organizations now realize that Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and big ag are much worse. We now know that 20-30 percent of all manmade green house gases in the atmosphere comes from industrial agriculture. Chemicals are for cars, not for the soil. By dumping agricultural chemicals onto our soils, we disrupt nature’s delicate balance of water, soil and air.

In his recent Huffington Post piece “Nature Wants Her Carbon Back,” Larry Kopald writes, “How is it possible that with the entire planet focusing on reducing CO2 emissions we’re not even paying lip service to the single largest contributor?”

Tom Newmark, ex-CEO of New Chapter and co-founder of the Carbon Underground Project, has said it best: “Many NGOs view carbon and agriculture as the ‘enemy.’ The regenerative movement sees carbon as our friend, and agriculture as our natural ally to help our friend carbon return to the land.” The challenge is that the enemies of all things natural, i.e., Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta, are culture jamming in hope that the regenerative message won’t go viral.

VIDEO: http://youtu.be/eSjHN8zefak

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FOLLOW-ON: How Reducing Food Waste Could Ease Climate Change

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More than a third of all of the food that’s produced on our planet never reaches a table. It’s either spoiled in transit or thrown out by consumers in wealthier countries, who typically buy too much and toss the excess. This works out to roughly 1.3 billion tons of food, worth nearly $1 trillion at retail prices.

Aside from the social, economic, and moral implications of that waste—in a world where an estimated 805 million people go to bed hungry each night—the environmental cost of producing all that food, for nothing, is staggering. (Read more about causes and potential solutions to the problem of food waste.)

The water wastage alone would be the equivalent of the entire annual flow of the Volga—Europe’s largest river—according to a UN report. The energy that goes into the production, harvesting, transporting, and packaging of that wasted food, meanwhile, generates more than 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. If food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind the U.S. and China. (Read about the author who’s waging a war against global food waste.)

John Mandyck, the chief sustainability officer of United Technologies, a U.S.-based engineering and refrigerated transport firm, says that food waste can be mitigated by improving the “cold chain,” which comprises refrigerated transport and storage facilities. His company hosted the first World Cold Chain Summit in London last November. This week, Mandyck is in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Summit, where he’s talking up the problem of food waste. He answered questions via e-mail from Davos.

Why does the issue of food waste seem to slip below the radar?

We tend to take our food for granted in the developed world. Since food is so plentiful, we aren’t aware of the tremendous amount that’s wasted and the impact that has on world hunger, political stability, the environment, and climate change. Yet when it comes to looking for ways to curb greenhouse gas emissions, food wastage is a relatively easy fix—the low-hanging fruit, so to speak—and it is literally rotting on our tables. It doesn’t require any new technology, just more efficient use of what we already have.

Heat in the Heartland: Climate Change & Economic Risk on Midwest Ag

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Heat in the Heartland: Climate Change & Economic Risk on Midwest Ag

The Risky Business Project finds Midwest agriculture, labor, and manufacturing industries face economic risk from climate change.

The mission of the Risky Business Project is to quantify the economic risks to the U.S. from unmitigated climate change. Our inaugural report, Risky Business: The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States 2, highlighted these risks across every region of the country, with a focus on three sectors: agriculture, energy demand, and coastal infrastructure. We also looked at overarching issues such as changes in labor productivity, heat-related mortality, and crime. This follow-up report, Heat in the Heartland: Climate Change and Economic Risk in the Midwest, zeros in on the Midwest and offers a first step toward defining the range of potential economic consequences to this particular region if we continue on our current greenhouse gas emissions pathway.3

Our research combines state-of-the-art climate science projections through the year 2100 (and beyond in some cases) with empirically-derived estimates of the impact of projected changes in temperature and precipitation on the Midwest economy. We analyze not only those outcomes most likely to occur, but also lower-probability, higher-cost climate futures. These are the “tail risks,” most often expressed here as the 1-in-20 chance something will occur. Unlike any other study to date, we look at climate impacts at a very geographically granular level, in some cases providing county-level results.

Our findings show that if we stay on our current emissions path, the Midwest will likely experience significant economic impacts from climate change. These changes are both negative and positive, varying greatly from the southern to the northern parts of the region. However, if the region chooses a different path—if state and regional policymakers and business leaders act aggressively to adapt to the changing climate and also to mitigate future impacts by reducing their own carbon emissions—the Midwest can demonstrate to our national and global political leaders the kind of strong response that is necessary to reduce the worst future economic risks from climate change.

NYTimes Exposé – US meat research lab suffer animals for profit

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NYTimes Exposé – US meat research lab suffer animals for profit

At a remote research center on the Nebraska plains, scientists are using surgery and breeding techniques to re-engineer the farm animal to fit the needs of the 21st-century meat industry. The potential benefits are huge: animals that produce more offspring, yield more meat and cost less to raise.

There are, however, some complications.

Pigs are having many more piglets — up to 14, instead of the usual eight — but hundreds of those newborns, too frail or crowded to move, are being crushed each year when their mothers roll over. Cows, which normally bear one calf at a time, have been retooled to have twins and triplets, which often emerge weakened or deformed, dying in such numbers that even meat producers have been repulsed.

Then there are the lambs. In an effort to develop “easy care” sheep that can survive without costly shelters or shepherds, ewes are giving birth, unaided, in open fields where newborns are killed by predators, harsh weather and starvation.

20+ Food & Ag thought-leaders on ‘Growing Business’ Radio

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20+ Food & Ag thought-leaders on ‘Growing Business’ Radio

Greg Georgaklis – Founder and CEO – “Farmers to You”

John Taylor – Man behind the menu – Panera Bread

Louis Thiery – Founder at Apitronics – a central point for farm data monitoring & intelligence

Brad McNamara – Freight Farms Founder/CEO – local food hydroponics with global reach

Adam Goldberg – Encompass Ed founder – explores the role of nutrition in the Autism epidemic

Jared Auerback – Founder at ‘Red’s Best’ – NE fisheries & food traceability expert

Kip Kumler – Master wine maker, President & Founder at Turtle Creek winery

Chip Collins – TIMO founder – 4th largest US landowner & ecology management leader

Holly Fowler – Food-system thought leader, founder at ‘Northbound Ventures’

Lisa Sebesta – ‘Fresh Source Capital’ founder and local food guru

Peter Juusola – COO at Flour Bakery & Cafe – sourcing only local/better foods

Peter Burrows – Past CIO at Adidas/ Reebok turned VT Pig Farmer

Sean Buchanan – Head of proteins & business development at ‘Black River Produce’

Ian McSweeney – Land Conservation Easement specialist from the ‘Russell Foundation’

Mike Speights – Founder Boston-based organic meal delivery ‘The Foodery’

Jessie Banhazl – CEO & founder at urban farming specialists ‘Green City Growers’

Jeff Sirlin – Board member ‘Cancer & Nutrition Consortium’ and founder at CWellness

Melissa Benedikt – Raw, Organic & Grass-fed dairy owner & ‘Land-for-Good’ agent

Lynn Schenk – Social impact investment leader & mom focused on sourcing local foods

Jan Schlichtmann – Famous Environmental Lawyer turned Gloucester fish monger

Jennifer Hashley – Tuft’s New Entry Farming Project & ‘Pete & Jen’s Backyard birds’

Chris Cronin – Executive Chef at Washington Sq Tavern – sourcing quality proteins 

Adrian Gill – Past head of Puma global footwear, branding guru & advocate for local food 

A fruit for all seasons: Backyard Farms Tomatoes – The Portland Press

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A fruit for all seasons: Backyard Farms Tomatoes – The Portland Press

The greenhouse operation in Madison recovers from setbacks and is back to meeting strong demand for its firm, red tomatoes, but the sustainability of the business is still unclear.

MADISON — “You want them all to be red,” said Tim Cunniff, executive vice president for sales and marketing at Backyard Farms, as he indicated a cluster of cocktail tomatoes that would be in the stores within the month. He touched one tomato that already looked just right, deep red, firm and despite the longitude, latitude and a light dusting of November snow outside, alluring enough to bring on a craving for basil and mozzarella. “Without this one being ketchup,” Cunniff added. He wants that hydroponically grown cluster to arrive in customers’ homes with everything red and that first tomato he pointed to still firm, still perfect. “That’s the trick.”

Every week between 350,000 and 400,000 pounds of tomatoes leave Backyard Farm’s greenhouses, headed to stores like Hannaford, Shaw’s and Market Baskets in New England and Gourmet Garages or restaurants in New York. None spends more than 12 hours on the road and none travels farther than Maryland, where Backyard Farms has one customer.

Despite the evocative company name – the backyard being the most likely place for someone passionate about tomatoes to have first understood the greatness of the fruit – there is nothing on the packaging that boasts that these are “local” tomatoes. Cunniff said the word is too fraught, especially in this agriculture-happy region. “Each state in New England has its own definition of local,” he said. “Like in Vermont, if you’re not living next to the guy that grew it you can’t say that is local.”

So the “Maine Greenhouse Tomatoes” stamped on the box suffices.

It’s confusing though. Backyard Farms sent its first tomatoes to the market in January 2007, joining the food economy at a time when words like “local” and “sustainable” were first becoming nearly as commonplace in Maine as “lobster” and “snowplow.” But the privately owned company, headquartered in a 42-acre greenhouse in Madison, doesn’t quite fit the standard definitions of either word. It uses massive amounts of energy. It also employs 200 Mainers in an area where jobs are hard to come by.

Want to Live Longer? Pass the Whole Grains

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Want to Live Longer? Pass the Whole Grains

Whats the magic ingredient that is the key to longevity? Its likely not just one nutrient or compound but more likely a combination of all that whole grains have to offer.

If you need a New Year’s resolution to kick the year off on a healthy note, you may want to begin by adding more whole grains to your plate. A large study involving over 110,000 adults published today in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that a diet adequate in whole grains was associated with a reduced risk of dying prematurely, especially deaths due to cardiovascular disease. Even when the researchers adjusted for the individuals’ age, smoking habits, and body weight, the association remained.

In fact, based on the study’s results, the researchers estimated that for every one ounce serving of whole grains consumed daily, there was an associated five percent reduction in dying of any cause and a whopping nine percent reduction of dying from heart issues. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among Americans.

According to the National Cancer Institute and United States Department of Agriculture, you should be eating between 1.5 ounces to 5 ounces per day of whole grains depending on your calories needs, but most Americans are eating less than 2 ounces of whole grains daily. The Whole Grain Council estimates that 40 percent of Americans never touch the stuff.

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NHmagazine:  Our Favorite cafes in NH – Great Photos!

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Coffee shops build communities with a warm welcome and a creative jolt. Here’s the “crema” the crop.

For winter in New Hampshire, nothing quite beats a cup of hot coffee. Nothing puts life back into frozen fingers like wrapping them around a steaming mug, and nothing gives the same kick to get us out the door when the weather outside is frightful. There’s snow to shovel, ski trails to run, work and play that needs doing. But first, have a cup of coffee.

A passable cup of joe isn’t too hard, but many of us still prefer a café to the old kitchen brewer. That’s because you get more than coffee at a café. They’re meeting places, social centers, cozy homes-away-from-home. They hold a community together and, like caffeine, energize and invigorate it. A café is to a town what coffee is for the body, making it cozy and getting it going, providing energy and warmth. Coffee helps us get through the cold, dark winter, but so do our friends, the usual table, a fresh-baked pastry and the hum of the town hub.

The best coffee places are local, but coffee itself is global — you can’t grow it in New Hampshire. So some cafés bring the best of coffee’s unifying power not just to the town they’re in, but also to the relationship between that town and the community that produces the coffee. Dark roast or light, milk and sugar or black, for here or to go, this is a drink that places us in the world, connects us not only to the barista and the other regulars but to growers a continent away.

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Invest in your employees – why Office Health & Wellness Programs Fail

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Office health and wellness programs matter. Every dollar spent on workplace wellness programs can reduce health care costs for employers by $3.27, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health-related absenteeism also costs the economy $84 billion in lost productivity every year. The CDC reports that “a modest reduction in avoidable risk factors could lead to a gain of more than $1 trillion annually in labor supply and efficiency by 2023.”

So, why doesn’t every employer have an awesome health and wellness program? And why do so many health and wellness programs fail to deliver any appreciable return on investment, like PepsiCo’s did last year?

Reason No. 1: A Lack of Resources

Jane Wang, CEO of employee health company myHealthSphere, thinks she knows why. “I think most employers believe that [health and wellness programs are important] in principle, but in reality, there’s not a lot of resources given to them,” she says. “The reason for that is because there are things that are more pressing, such as profit or productivity. We know that employers don’t use [wellness programs] because they don’t see direct ROI from them.”

Time and time again, however, successful health and wellness programs do show ROI. Wang says that most employers don’t see the ROI because it’s often not immediate. For example, employers may not realize their gains in productivity are coming from lowered absenteeism rates. They may attribute the gains to other initiatives, new processes, or talented employees.

Reason No. 2:  more…