The Meatless Monday campaign here in the U.S. has grown leaps and bounds over the past few years (the recent blogpost on Sodexo’s success with the campaign is just one example), but did you know that 23 countries now have campaigns that seek to reduce meat consumption one day a week? When I was in Sweden earlier this month I had the pleasure of meeting with Jonas Paulsson, the founder of the Swedish Köttfri Måndag (Meatless Monday) campaign. On top of co-managing the campaign with his friends, Paulsson also regularly writes editorials and engages in debates in support of Meatless Mondays, gives public lectures about the need to reduce meat consumption in Sweden, and works as a local politician. He was recently awarded the Swedish World Wildlife Fund’s Environmental Hero of the Year Award for his work with the campaign. I asked him if he might be willing to share some of his experiences with the Köttfri Måndag campaign with us here on the livablefuture blog in a short email interview, and he was kind enough to oblige. Read More >
If you haven’t heard of the recent Harvard study entitled, “Red Meat Consumption and Mortality,” then you’ve been spending too much time on Facebook.
The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine on March 12, 2012, attracted an enormous amount of press with its results suggesting that our popular diet staple, red meat, increases the risk of dying prematurely by an average of 12 percent and up to 20 percent if that meat is processed, as it is in hot dogs and bacon. Journalists and bloggers across the globe immediately began spreading the news and sharing their reactions, often with alarmist tones and titles, such as “Will Eating Red Meat Kill You?,” or better yet, “Eating All Red Meat Increases Death and More Reasons to Never Eat Meat.” It has definitely been interesting and sometimes entertaining to follow the publicity of the study, as it is with many other research studies of this high-profile nature that attract a lot of media attention (Do Pink Slime or Tuna Scrape ring any bells?). Read More >
Yesterday the New York Times ran an article that raised the idea that poor urban neighborhoods are not food deserts. Citing recent studies, the author, Gina Kolata, quoted researchers who found that low-income neighborhoods have plenty of options for buying fresh, healthy food, and that obesity has no correlation to food access.
These studies add another layer of understanding to the complex issue of equitable access to healthy food. Working with the Baltimore Food Policy Initiative, my colleagues and I have re-defined what constitutes a food desert in Baltimore. Here, as in many urban areas, food deserts are not just about supermarkets. Back in 2009, we looked at household income and access to supermarkets. For the 2012 Baltimore City Food Environment Map, we looked at more subtle factors, such as distance to the nearest supermarket, and what kind of transportation options were available in households. Read More >
Fewer than three weeks on the job and I have the privilege of writing my first official blog post about the release of exciting survey results from Sodexo’s Meatless Monday Initiative. Who is Sodexo and what are the exciting results, you ask?
First, let me introduce myself. I am the new Project Director of the Johns Hopkins Meatless Monday Project, which was launched in 2003 to serve as the scientific adviser to the national Meatless Monday campaign, a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). I recently completed my MSPH degree in Human Nutrition and certification as a Registered Dietitian through a coordinated program at the JHSPH. I am thrilled to be back at the Center in this capacity, and look forward to applying my knowledge, skills and enthusiasm surrounding food, nutrition, public health, and environmental sustainability to direct this exciting and dynamic project. Read More >
Last week, Sylvia Nasar, author of Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, addressed the issue of economics as it relates to food systems and the future, at the sixth session of the Baltimore Food and Faith Project’s Enoughness series. Complex and massive, the topic garnered a number of diverse responses. Here are two contrasting written responses, excerpted from attendees of the session.
Avram I. Reisner, PhD, rabbi of Congregation Chevrei Tzedek, Baltimore:
Sylvia Nasar gave an important presentation for us to hear, this morning, precisely because it so represented economic orthodoxy and failed to grapple with the very issues we are convened to consider. … We must be thankful for and preserve those gains [from the Industrial Revolution], no doubt. But her prescription for the future was continued productivity gain through the free market. And I, and I think all of us, question whether that is a reasonable prescription for the future. She presumes a continued escalator; that productivity can and will rise in the future as it has in the past. Is that likely? … Granting that humankind was not producing enough before the Industrial Revolution, are we now, and should we now remain in thrall to the old orthodoxy that rapid productivity growth is necessary? Read More >
According to USDA estimates, per capita meat consumption in the United States nearly doubled between 1930 and 2007. On average, each American today eats about 200 pounds of meat per year, or almost nine ounces per day—roughly twice the global average. With a few exceptions, intake has been on a fairly steady incline, until recently: From 2007 through 2011, estimates of consumption dropped by over 12 percent and are projected to continue to decline through 2012.
After 70 years, Americans are finally eating less meat. In his recent New York Times opinion piece, author Mark Bittman asks, “Why?” Industry reports suggest the “shocking” decline stems from factors such as a rise in ethanol production, which raised the demand for corn—the main ingredient in most livestock feed—along with the price of meat. Combined with the recent economic downturn, it’s understandable that consumers would turn toward cheaper alternatives.
The report also blames a federal “war on meat protein consumption,” a suggestion that ignores the considerable federal support offered to them in the form of feed subsidies, tax write-offs, research dollars and weak enforcement of antitrust laws and environmental regulations.
Both Bittman and industry literature acknowledge another possible reason: Perhaps Americans have come to recognize the public health, environmental and social justice impacts—to which I would add animal welfare harms—of a model that has come to be known as industrial food animal production, or IFAP. Read More >
This November, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future joined with fellow members of the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition steering committee to officially launch the Healthy Farms, Healthy People coalition—“a broad-based collaboration of organizations committed to achieving a healthier nation in tandem with a strong farm economy through policy reform at the local, state and national level.”
The Coalition will work on short-term targeted policy efforts, as well as long-term goals centered on policy change and information-sharing across sectors. The Coalition brings together stakeholders from the health, agricultural, anti-hunger, environmental and economic development communities, whose diverse expertise is necessary to make such reforms to the food system a reality. Read More >
Stocking up for Irene
Ten days ago, I, like everyone else, joined the throngs streaming into the parking lot of the local Giant in a last ditch effort to stock the shelves at home in anticipation of up to a week with no water or electricity. Despite the expectation of extended power outages, we were planning to stock our refrigerators with food in the hope that the power will be back on within a day or two, or with the intention to run one of the small gas-powered generators that fly off the shelves of local hardware stores in the aftermath of the storm. Compared to some, like citizens of Chester, Vermont, located in one of several counties where FEMA has been called in to provide assistance to individuals and families whose homes were severely damaged by flooding, we were lucky. We only lost power for a few days.
As I made my way through the store, no bottled water or bread remained on the shelves. I purchased a gallon of milk, knowing my two young children would polish it off before it went bad. As I stood in the alarmingly bare aisles, I wracked my brain for ideas, items no one else may have considered buying that didn’t require refrigeration or water to prepare. But, as they say, where there is a will there is a way. Read More >
Today the James Beard Foundation named the 10 recipients of its inaugural Leadership Awards, expanding the Foundation’s focus to include “game-changing pioneers who have inspired positive action to improve our country’s food system,” says Susan Ungaro, president of the Foundation.
Among the honorees are Fedele Bauccio and Fred Kirschenmann, who served as members of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production and contributed to its 2008 report, “Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America” The report was the product of a two-and-a-half year study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts through a grant to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Robert Lawrence, director of the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) served as principal investigator on the grant; Shawn McKenzie, associate director of the CLF, and several CLF researchers assisted in the production of the report. Ralph Loglisci, former Communications director of the Pew Commission, is now a member of the CLF staff and serves as the director the Johns Hopkins Healthy Monday Project. Read More >
New from EWG
You know what you ate this week—but do you know how it will affect climate change and the planet? As of today, you can use the Environmental Working Group (EWG)’s newly launched website to get information on food carbon footprints.The “Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health” helps users quantify the impacts of their current diets.Try adding up your meals’ impacts—you may be shocked, especially if you ate beef or cheese.
The carbon footprint of beef, for example, is 24.5 times higher than that for tomatoes. A 2008 study found that red meat and dairy comprise 48 percent of U.S. food-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).EWG’s analysis suggests that if the whole U.S. population committed to Meatless and cheeseless Monday (or otherwise gave up meat and cheese one day a week), the reduction in GHGs would be the same as that for driving 91 billion fewer miles, or taking 7.6 million cars off the road.Meatless Monday sounds to me like an easier goal, and I say that not only because CLF is affiliated with the program.Of course it is not either/or, and we need to cut all forms of GHGs. Read More >
