Shareholders Force McDonald's to Act on Pesticides

Feeling pressure from a coalition of shareholders, McDonald's has announced that it will examine the use of pesticides on the potatoes it purchases with an eye toward possibly reducing the use of noxious chemicals and making public information about the extent to which its potatoes are sprayed.

Under an agreement with the shareholder group--the Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund--McDonald's, the nation's largest purchaser of potatoes, will:

* survey its current U.S. potato suppliers

• compile a list of best practices in pesticide reduction that will be recommended to the company’s global suppliers (through the company’s Global Potato Board)

• communicate findings related to best practices to shareholders, as well as in the company’s annual corporate social responsibility report.

The three investor groups teamed with Investor Environmental Health Network to engage McDonald’s in talks about pesticide reduction. The shareholders said the company’s commitment will support progress on the pesticide issues that affect the environment, public health, and farm employees.

We say this is a good thing. A spud without chemicals is definitely a better spud. And we like the idea of shareholders mobilizing for food free of pesticides.

Don't Drink Bottled Water

Fifty-four million barrels of oil.

That's how much energy it took to quench Americans' thirst for bottled water last year. That's about 2,000 times the energy required to produce the same amount of tap water. And we haven't even begun to calculate the cost of the plastic bottles discarded from approximately 200 billion (that's b-i-l-l-i-o-n) liters of water sold around the globe.

According to a recent study by the Pacific Institute, when water is shipped relatively short distances most of the energy involved in getting it to consumers is tied up in producing the bottle itself. Water bottles typically are made of polyethelene terepthalate (PET), a thermoplastic polymer resin used to make everything from polyester for clothing to food containers. When bottled water is shipped long distances, the cost in energy can double.

And if you thought those bottles were recycled, think again. Most water bottles are still being made of virgin PET, and the Pacific Institute estimates that about 1 million tons of it were used to produce water bottles for the U.S. market in 2007. More than 60 million water bottles end up in landfills and incinerators every day--assuming they weren't just tossed on the side of the road or are floating in the nation's waterways.

If you must drink bottled water, please fill the bottle out of your tap and re-use it.

Two-Stroke Madness

It's 90 degrees, the polar ice caps are melting and gasoline is more than $4 a gallon. But apparently that's not enough to stop the Landscapers from Hell.

And what is this man chasing with his giant leaf blower? Perhaps you can see the little trail of grass clippings blown up against the granite curb.

Does anyone remember when we used a broom to deal with a few errant blades of grass?

This was the scene this afternoon as my wife and I strolled through the National Police Memorial, one of the newer parks here in the District of Columbia located across from the giant National Building Museum (formerly The Pension Building) at 400 F Street NW. It's also the site of an entrance to the Metro's Judiciary Square station on the Red Line. So there were plenty of people around taking in the sights.

The landscaping has come a long way in just a few years, with shade trees forming a pleasant and inviting alley on a hot summer day. Except for the blaring of the leaf-blowers. Not one but two grounds crewmen were engaged in the grass blade chase and the racket was almost unbearable. Need we add that two-stroke engines are among the most polluting on the planet?

Note to whomever is responsible for maintenance at the National Police Memorial: We know where you can get a good broom. Note to Mayor Fenty: Isn't it high time for some restrictions on two-stroke engines?

Tart Cherries

The tables at the Sunday farmers market were groaning with early fruits and berries, especially cherries. Here's the cherry display at the Dupont Circle market.

Normally we would be out picking our own tart cherries--15 pounds or more to make pies and cobblers and freeze for the rest of the year. But somehow we haven't been motivated to drive to the orchard, especially after I discovered Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, Michigan.

Tree-Mendus Farm, a family run operation going back three generations, grows cherries, peaches and apples, including more than 200 varieties of heirloom apples. They will ship a 10-pound container of frozen tart cherries, already pitted and cleaned, for $33 (plus shipping). I'm trying to decide how that stacks up against driving 30 miles each way to our favorite tart cherry picking site--Butler's Orchard in Germantown, Maryland.

We love hanging out at the orchard, but at current rates, the cost of gas comes to more than $8 plus all the CO2 emissions and the time spent pitting the cherries. Before you know it, you've spent the better part of a day on cherries, but then we have a year's worth of tart cherries all bagged in convenient pie-portion packages.

Could it really be more environmentally friendly (cheaper, even) to have our tart cherries shipped from Michigan? Or is it more important to support our local farm, even if it means burning all that gas?

Graduation Day

Our old electric lawn mower from Costco started to sound more like an egg beater so I kissed it goodbye and joined the ranks of modern push-reelers. It's a great feeling not to be trailing that power cord through the garden, knocking over my lettuces and onion plants. And now I don't have to answer any more questions about how much coal the local power plant is burning so I can cut my grass.

I took the plunge after I noticed more and more of my neighbors ditching their two-stroke mowers (terrible polluters) for good, old-fashioned muscle power. Just lowering the noise level in our neighborhood--replacing the horrible din of gasoline engines with the gentle rattle of the push reel--is worth the switch.

Did you know that more gas is spilled filling lawn mowers each year than all the oil spilled by the Exxon-Valdez?

I did a bit of research on the internet and found you can spend $250 on a European reel mower. I opted for this Sunlawn model with a 14-inch-wide reel priced at $142 at Amazon. It arrived two days after I ordered it (free shipping) and took about 10 minutes to attach the handle assemble to the reel.

The blades are said to stay sharp for up to 10 years. What I like best about it is, it only weighs 16 pounds. Cheaper mowers are heavier. Not only is this one easy to carry from one place to another on our urban lot, but it hardly feels like pushing anything at all.

The push-reel doesn't cut as neatly as the power mower. Thin stalks of fine weeds manage to survive several passes. But we've never attempted to have a perfect lawn. We've never fertilized (just let the clippings fall in place) or applied any herbicides (we make dandelion wine). The yard's full of all different kinds of grasses, weeds and clovers. I imagine if you stayed on top of your mowing chores, you'd hardly be able to tell that you'd switched from power to manual.

I noticed that every few minutes mowing our overgrown lawn the height setting on the mower needed re-adjusting. I attribute that to having let the lawn go too long between cuttings. On this particular model, the highest setting is 2 inches. I wish it were a bit higher. Some models will cut as high as 3 inches.

I don't think it took me any longer to mow the yard with the push-reel than it did with the electric mower. We have some steeply sloping areas that I was concerned about, but I managed. Edges also are a bit of an issue: I'll have to come behind the reel mower with our electric line trimmer. What I will miss are the clippings for my compost pile.

Yesterday we stopped by the hardware store and there were all kinds of reel mowers on display. Apparently we're part of a healthy trend. That's something to feel good about.

On Power Cords and Lawn Mowers

I know. If I want to be really kind to the environment I should be using a manual push mower. But I've never progressed that far in my carbon footprint scheme. I'm still using an electric mower. I consider it vastly gentler on the planet than the two-stroke gasoline monsters that power most mowers and leaf blowers. Shouldn't they just be outlawed? Besides being some of the most polluting machines ever invented, they create such a din we can barely hear the sound of the polar ice caps melting.

I nearly trashed my electric mower recently and for all the wrong reasons. We've had bad luck with electric mowers. Maybe we are too tough on them, although we really don't have much lawn to mow. What I want the mower for mostly is to collect grass clippings for compost. One mower just quit. Another--a Craftsman, I think--overheated and started to melt. Our latest is something we picked up for a bargain price at Costco. It's actually made in Hungary, and when you start it it makes a noise like a giant fan that's winding itself up to blast into outer space.

Towards the end of last season, this mower started acting up, too. It would just stop in the middle of the yard. I'd let it rest awhile, then start it up again. It would run for a few minutes, then stop again. The intervals that it worked got shorter and shorter. I figured it was my bad electric mower karma coming back to haunt me, so I stashed the mower in the garage and started using my electric line trimmer ("weed whacker") to cut the grass.

Mowing with the line trimmer left the yard looking like it had a bad hair day. But we have plans to landscape and eliminate the lawn entirely, so I wasn't about to buy a new mower (although I was looking at the latest battery models--pretty cool). Then the line trimmer started acting up, doing the same thing the mower had been doing. By now I figured they just weren't building electric lawn equipment to last. I ran to the Home Depot to buy a new one, and was soon in for a surprise.

Something told me to test the new machine when I removed it from the box. I plugged it in. No response. I jiggled all the connections on the power cord. Still no response. Suddenly it dawned on me that I'd been misdirecting blame for the problem all along. It wasn't the mower or the trimmer. It was the cord.

Our 100-foot outdoor cord had been stolen. Since then, I'd tied two 50-foot cords together as my main power source to the mower. But one of the cords was heavier than the other. When I removed the lighter cord and tried the mower with the heavy cord, it worked just fine. So did the line trimmer.

My wife thought I was the perfect fool for not testing the cord earlier. I was just happy to have my mower back. The 50-foot cord just barely reaches the farthest corner of our yard, and since we have a corner lot, I must look pretty comical running here and there, plugging the cord into different outlets and out of one window first, then another, then the front door as I mow my way around the house. (It's an old house--there are no electrical outlets outside, but thanks for wondering.)

The lesson: extension cords come in different gauges. On the packaging it should indicate how much amperage your cord is designed to handle. Compare this with the amperage of the machine you are operating. For instance, my electric mower draws 12 amps. The smaller cord I was using was designed for 10. Apparently, I had overheated and damaged the cord. That's why it stopped working with the line trimmer as well. The trimmer draws 7.5 amps.

You may have gathered by now that I am not a lawn person. (You may also be thinking I'm pretty dumb when it comes to electricity.) I have great memories of lazing around our freshly mowed lawn when I was a kid, watching clouds and smelling the good smells of the earth. The grass was warm and buzzing with small insects. But I never caught the perfect lawn bug that seems to afflict so many Americans. I would rather grow vegetables. If, however, you are intent on having a lawn, I certainly hope you follow these earth-friendly steps:

* Ditch the two-stroke, gasoline-powered machines and convert to an electric or manual mower. Some jurisdictions even offer rebates for purchasing electric mowers, and the battery-operated ones look pretty neat. Also, hang up your gas-powered leaf blower and try using a rake and a broom. Old fashioned, I know. But I have a feeling that old fashioned may be coming increasingly back into style.

* Set your mower to cut as high as possible. The green blades conduct photosynthesis, feeding the plant. When you cut the grass short, you stress the plant. Longer grass is healthier, less vulnerable to diseases and more drought tolerant.

* Let the grass clippings fall in place. They will eventually decompose, becoming food for the soil, feeding the lawn.

* Kick the artificial fertilizer and pesticide habit. More fertilizer is used on American lawns than in all of agriculture. Some of those feed mixes are 40 percent nitrogen. It runs off into the watershed and becomes pollution. Fertilizers are killing the Chesapeake Bay and create a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico outside the mouth of the Mississippi River. In addition, artificial fertilizers are made from natural gas, a rapidly depleting resource we need to heat our homes (at least until we convert to solar.)

* Pesticides are toxic to the environment, your pets and your children. There is no need for them. If you have problems with weeds, spread an organic product such as corn gluten before weeds emerge in the spring. Corn gluten creates a film on the soil that prevents weeds from sprouting. You might also learn to love your dandelions a little. Try eating them, or turning them into dandelion wine.

* Feed your lawn with compost. Spread a half-inch layer over the lawn in spring and toss some more grass seeds. Your soil will love it, and it will share its love with your grass. Don't listen to people who say you can't maintain a lawn organically. You can. It may be more expensive. It may require a little more work. But you will feel so much better having a healthy, great looking lawn that isn't working at cross purposes with nature.

* For more information about maintaining lawns organically, check out SafeLawns.org. They've even published a book on the subject. If you're the least bit curious about the dangers of those pesticides and herbicides you've been using, Beyond Pesticides has detailed information on all of it. (Click on "Info Services" in the banner, then click on "Pesticides Gateway.")

* Finally, cut back on watering your lawn. Water is a precious resource. If your lawn is made of cool weather grasses, it is genetically designed to go dormant in the summer heat. You are just fighting nature if you douse it with water and fertilizer to keep it green. Likewise, if you have a hot weather lawn, its natural tendency is to turn brown in the winter. Learn to live with what your lawn is hardwired to do.

Now, back to growing those vegetables...

Chesapeake Bay is Dying

The Chesapeake Bay used to be one of the greatest food sources in the world. It teemed with fish, crabs and oysters.

But the latest "State of the Bay" report from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) says conditions on the bay are getting worse, not better. This year the foundation gave the bay's health a score of 28 points out of 100, down a point from the year before. Reasons for the lower score: Increased pollution from phosphorous, worsening water clarity and a continuing decline in the bay's crab population.

States in the Chesapeake watershed in 2000 signed an agreement to clean up the bay by the year 2012. It's pretty clear that won't happen, despite many promises and words spoken by area officials. While there have been some inroads made in combating nitrogen pollution from fertilizers, phosphorous continues to pour in the bay from agriculture and from lawns as millions of new people crowd into the area. The worst phosphorous levels are coming from the Potomac and James rivers, according to the CBF.

The bay's crab population, driven down by overharvesting and pollution, now stands at a level not seen since the 1940s. Crabs also are suffering because of the overfishing of menhaden (used to make fish oil). The rebounding striped bass, which favor menhaden, are now eating more crabs instead. Meanwhile, pollution and murkier water are killing the bottom grasses that crabs depend on. Pullution is feeding enormous algae blooms, which create an aquatic "dead zone" that stretches from the Bay Bridge outside Annapolis all the way to the mouth of the bay in Virginia.

Nitrogen levels, dissolved oxygen, water clarity, underwater grasses, oysters, shad--all are listed as "critical" in the CBF report. Commercial fishing has all but vanished. Now when you order a crab cake at one of our local crab houses you don't know if the crab hasn't been flown in from Southeast Asia.

Is there any previous example of a species other than humans destroying the habitat on which it depends? I wonder if there will be some sort of ceremony if the Chesapeake Bay does, indeed, expire. What words will seem apt when the last fish, the last crab, is pulled from the water?

Yeah, When Hell Freezes Over...

The Washington Post yesterday confirmed what we've all been hearing: Greenland is melting.

According to the Post's front-page account, that could eventually mean people in Manhattan will someday be treading water. Or that we here overlooking the Nation's Capitol might someday be sitting on waterfront property.

But for now, the people in Greenland itself are pretty happy. Average temperatures have risen 11 degrees since the 1990s. The ships in the harbor aren't frozen in year-round any more. There's more pasture for more weeks out of the year to fatten sheep. The cod grounds, which hadn't seen any fish since the 1960s, are now teeming with cod again.

But why should a food blog care about what's happening in Greenland?

Writing for this blog almost daily the past several months I've learned less about food than about how we can't just eat our way through the next century. Even cooks have to consider themselves part of what's happening to Planet Earth. You wouldn't know it by reading the local food section, but we cooks do in fact play a role in global warming, rampant consumerism, environmental degradation...

You can't grill a piece of tuna without wondering where it was caught, how it was caught and whether there will be any left next year. How many miles did that out-of-season fruit salad travel before you picked it up in a neat little plastic container at the supermarket? Do we really need a 1,000-square-foot kitchen with wall-to-wall granite, Sub-Zero fridge and Viking stove? Or the under-the-cabinet, flat-screen TV to watch The News Hour while we're microwaving dinner?

Do we really need to eat so much?

In fact, we all need to take stock of what's happening globally and consider whether we can live simpler, more sustainable lives. So I was bound sooner or later to run across blogs such as No Impact Man and Simple Living. They represent the growing numbers of people who not only eat, but are adjusting their personal lives to the new reality of a shrinking, ailing planet. They are trying to do something about it by leading simpler, less consumer-driven lives.

So I've added a new feature to The Slow Cook, a listing called Treading Lighter on Planet Earth where you can link to the voices of all kinds of folk who are concerned about where we are headed as a civilization. They are showing us how we as individuals can become more aware and make a difference through our everyday choices. I hope you will take a look.

And this doesn't mean we can't eat well. Oh, no. We will definitely eat well. But we will do so a bit more consciously, with a lighter step.