good • man • eats » tomato

The Pains of Eliminating (weekly menu 19)

jared — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:01:53 +0000

Today signals the 5th week of my epic elimination diet. For the past 36 days I have avoided 19 different food items, including: citrus fruits, beans, vinegar, tofu, tomatoes, eggs and mushrooms. Suffice to say, this is not easy. In fact, I don’t wish this upon anyone. It’s one thing to be gluten-free 0r dairy-free or nut-free, let alone all three at once. But it’s a whole other beast to ignore a dozen or so common random food items. In both cases there are plenty of options; but in the latter lifestyle there is much more difficulty when interacting with the outside culinary world. If anything, the elimination diet makes you feel like a weirdo, alientaed from the “normal world.” A world I once proudly inhabited.

Drama aside, the weekly menu writing has faced gaining difficulty. At the moment I am most tortured by the absence of eggs and tomatoes in my diet. The egg-free issue totally affects breakfast options. Forget eating out. At the same time, I have to temporarily say good-bye to custard, quiche and other souffles. The casserole scene deflates when the egg is gone.

Tomatoes on the other hand, have absolutely killed my beef ideas. While planning this week I considered what I could make with ground beef. It seems like all ground beef recipes call for tomatoes; and if I want to braise some tough cuts, there again, are tomatoes.

There are lots of options out there. The problem is, I don’t know all of them. (If you’re reading this and have ideas, please comment and share them with me!) Considering this limited view of culinary possibility, here is the menu I wrote for the coming week:

Hamburgers, sweet potato fries and pickles (no pickles for me though)
Curried rice noodles with vegetables and ground beef
Three vegetables sides: braised greens, spicy roasted cauliflower and carrot/parsnip puree
Double Dutch mac ‘n’ cheese with chard and steamed broccoli
Coconut curry with beef and vegetables over rice
Sweet potato and sage soup

While flipping through Bittman’s How to Cook Everything I found a great recipe that uses beef and does not require tomatoes but curried noodles instead. As a fan of rice noodles, this meal shall be especially delicious. Having white rice noodles (as opposed to brown rice) is a nice change of pace. The Asian brands are cheaper and larger than the GF brown rice variety. Interesting though, this recipe only calls for 1/2 a pound of ground beef. With the remaining half I want to make the hamburgers. Normally I try to stick with 2 meat dishes in a week, but since this calls for two 1/2 pound portions, look’s like we’ll have three.

I also found a package of beef stew meat in the basement freezer. I’m thinking of throwing this into a green coconut curry with some vegetables. Yes, I know I make a curry dish regularly, but there’s something about the meat addition that adds excitement to the weekly rice meal.

Overall, it looks to be another fabulous week of food. Maybe later this week I’ll finally get around to posting a recipe for one of these dinners…

Share and Enjoy:

Are my tomatoes picked by slaves?

jared — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:39:18 +0000

The news report I discussed on Tuesday, “Indentured Servitude Persists on Florida Farms,” still haunts my mind and thoughts. In fact, every canned good I notice stacked high along the shelves at the grocery store, leave me fearful. The severity of the tomato pickers in the report was clearly extreme. But I cannot ignore the possibility that paid workers are still, often even, exploited. If I am skeptical of sweatshop laborers in China, why not support the exploited migrant worker who picked my tomato? (Right here in America no less.)

After dinner on Tuesday, I explained the post to my wife and vented my emotions on the matter. As much as I enjoy writing these articles, I want to do more. I want to make a statement on the issue. During our conversation my wife made a comment that seemed so simple and yet so poignant.

Why not write the companies a letter? Explain your concern and see what they have to say.

And so begins another new project; albeit smaller in size and scope than the food curriculum but important nonetheless. I introduce to you…a letter writing campaign!

Unlike many of my activist friends, I have not participated in a letter writing campaign. Sure, I’ve signed some online petitions, but I want to be a bit more proactive. Plus, I want to hear the genuine explanation provided by corporate food producers on the well-being of their tomato pickers. I’m sure my concern will be of importance to them, (or at least I want to think so.)

At this point the initial step has been taken:

Go to grocery store and coop to find all varieties of canned tomatoes – check
Write a standard letter that voices my concerns – will write soon
Mail letter to all companies on my list – not even close
Post collected information to share with readers and other concerned shoppers – still a goal

While completing the first task of finding all the brands available to me, I stumbled upon another issue. It so happens that the Alberta Coop sells 2 brands and New Seasons sells 13. Why such a discrepancy between the two stores? I know that space could be an issue, but now I’m wondering about the decision-making process the stores are making for each product. Although not part of the grand vision, I am also interested in learning more about the store’s own understanding of canned foods and worker rights.

I realize that a store needs profit and sometimes “corners are cut” to make it work. And yet, I am willing to stop purchasing canned tomatoes for fear of supporting these heinous corporations. Shouldn’t the store be willing to question this too? It’s important for me to point out that both of these stores are Portland institutions and pride themselves on progressive food politics. Following this expectation, if the coffee is all fair-trade, shouldn’t the canned vegetables be as well?

Share and Enjoy:

Slave-trade Tomatoes, Fresh from Florida

jared — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:43:20 +0000

Forget about fair-trade coffee. What about fair-trade tomatoes?

That’s right, you read that correctly. Instead of buying coffee from fair-trade farmers in countries most people cannot find on a map, let’s stop and serisouly consider an appalling reality in our own country, the U.S. of A.

Last Thursday, while driving home from a substitute teaching job, I heard one of the more intense news reports on NPR (National Public Radio.) The title of the piece was “Indentured Servitude Persists in Florida’s Fields.” Over the course of a 17-minute report and interview, I found myself both frightened and disgusted with the evils of capitalism in our country. As the title suggests, the report investigated the exploitation of vulnerable peoples for the sake of indentured servitude on Florida’s farms.

It is widely known that many migrant workers are not U.S. citizens. Sadly, I have accepted the reality that many of these laborers are exploited for cheap labor. Embedded in the convenience of modern food production is the mantra of capitalist beliefs – lower production costs to raise overall profit. The use of chemicals and machinery to produce our foods are commonly associated with this convenience. And so it is with great shock and sadness that I consider the lives of the worker – in this case, the tomato and citrus pickers.

This brief report on NPR opened my eyes to the serious issue of knowing where our food comes from. To be honest, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the issue. (Well, I guess not.) It turns out that even canned foods require the critical eye we throw on conventional meat and dairy products. Here its not about animal cruelty but human cruelty.

According to the report, 90% of the tomatoes we purchase in the grocery store or at a restaurant come from Florida. If anything, let’s recognize this – the majority of tomatoes in our mouths and cupboards come from Florida. That is a HUGE amount of tomatoes. This includes whole tomatoes, canned tomatoes, those used in ketchup and pastes, those found in fast-food restaurants and Safeways, Walmarts and Kmarts, etc. Well, it turns out, that an estimated 5% of the tomato fields and citrus groves (think fruit and all types of citrus juices) are “employing” indentured servants to work the fields.

Let me repeat this statistic. It is estimated that five percent of the tomatoes and citrus fruits that come from Florida are harvested by slaves. Slaves! The appropriate term is indentured servant – a phrase you may remember from history class in high school, when you learned about slaves in the South during the 18th and 19th centuries in America. An indentured servant is someone under contract by an employer who works until a certain debt is paid off. The technical difference between this and a slave is the opportunity to work off the debt. The reality is that the owner determines the wage and thus determines the time frame of servitude. In Florida today, indentured servitude is used by employers to ensure cheap labor.

In some cases, tomato pickers will work 7 days a week to try and pay off the debt. Maybe the owner also supplies food, shelter and transportation. The next thing you know, the paycheck only covers the expenses made by the owner instead of paying off the debt. It’s like you work all day everyday to earn just enough money to pay rent and buy food. No money accumulates for paying off the debt. This is where servitude becomes slavery.

According to the report on NPR, there have been about a dozen cases of indentured servitude on tomato and citrus groves. It’s likely that there are many more cases of this but the main source of information is the freed servant. As you might expect, once freed, that person will do what he or she can to not get caught again. Since many of the slaves are not citizens, there is the added fear of deportation and incarceration. Consequently, there are less cases brought to court. Nonetheless, some of the recent cases that have come to light are significant discoveries.

For example, in the most recent case, it was found that workers were chained and beaten; and kept inside a U-Haul truck where there was no bathroom but a corner to urinate and defecate. No matter how you look at it, these are slave conditions. Is this an extreme case? Maybe. Are there more cases like this? Possibly. What really gets me is our collective memory on slavery – specifically, that slavery ended with the Civil War. This is not the case and it must be known.

Throughout my interest in eating healthy food I have been cognizant of the worker rights piece. At times, the food movement shines the spotlight on barbaric working conditions, but lately most of the attention goes to caged animals and contaminated vegetables. Its deeply upsetting how little we, as a nation of food consumers, consider the lives of the workers who grew or harvested or butchered our food. I think our ignorance on that matter is partly due to racism. We all know that the folks fulfilling these jobs are either illegal immigrants or new immigrants with minimal language skills or education. The “immigration issue” in our country is so intwined with our economy and yet we are unwilling to accept the real cost of our consumer needs.

There’s a reason why tomatoes or other fruits are cheap year-round. Yes, produce is cheap because chemicals are used to ensure expedient and larger-than-normal growth. The price of produce is also lowered by the industrialization of our food and the technological “innovations” that have enabled more food to be grown with less energy used. And now, a third piece is thrown into the fray. Food is cheap because the workers are exploited. There is no insurance or retirement plan even though the work is incredibly dangerous. There is no push to provide real livable wages because than corporations won’t make enough money to provide multi-million dollar bonuses. And ultimately, if the worker is not white and not a citizen, than why care?

Please listen to the report. I promise it will open your eyes and hearts. The pursuit of local, seasonal and ethically-grown food is not just about individual health and the environment. This is also a movement for justice, equity and human rights. I think its time we consider the lives of the worker when we purchase “healthy foods.”

Share and Enjoy: