Entries For: October 2008

“Smithfield: Good food. Responsibly.” This is the heading at the top of the Smithfield website, trying to convince consumers that all of its environmental awards actually reflect environmental quality.  And they now have another award to add to their list of accolades – the McDonald’s first ever Sustainability Award, a prize that they actually nominated themselves for. They presumably won it for having described how they try to conserve natural resources, treat animals humanely, and ensure the health and welfare of their employees. Now if only all this were true, then this award would be a great achievement.

This is hardly the first time that Smithfield has been given a pat on the back for supposedly being environmentally friendly. On their website, they talk about being the first to receive ISO 14001 certification for its U.S. hog production and pork and beef processing facilities – presumably the “international gold standard for environmental management.” Not to mention being ranked as a “socially responsible company,” or other awards from places like the American Meat Institute or the Virginia government.  Sounds quite impressive, right?

So what’s our problem? We want to know how an organization can be considered to be environmentally friendly when it raises hogs on factory farms, creating enough waste to rival an entire city – such as the 500,000 hogs at one site that produce more waste than all of Salt Lake City. That waste is untreated, and often, it is not contained- in one case in North Carolina, millions of gallons of waste have contaminated rivers and creeks. Is that really worthy of an award? Or in this case, several?

As you can see in our report – “The Trouble with Smithfield: A Corporate Profile”  - the company has a variety of environmental and labor practices that are just unacceptable. And their impact extends even further than workers and the environment– people living near their facilities have been known to experience extensive health problems as a result, including depressed immune function, asthma, and mood disorders. That’s hardly worthy of an award.

Food & Water Watch's fish team is currently in the Gulf of Mexico region, working to bring out a variety of local voices to the Gulf Council's public hearings on aquaculture. Marianne and Sascha, two of our fishy fighters, send dispatches from their work in the north Gulf region.

We hit the ground running on Wednesday, having meetings with various local allies in Mississippi to plan our week. In the evening, we were invited as guest speakers for the local Mississippi Sierra Club chapter. We had a great discussion about ocean fish farming, and in particular concerns with use of wild fish in feed for farmed fish. About 1 billion pounds of Gulf Menhaden are already taken annually from the Gulf of Mexico – and these fish are important in the wild as food for larger wild fish, birds and other marine wildlife. The chapter is very interested in Gulf of Mexico issues, and a group of people from the meeting agreed to attend the Gulf Council public hearing Monday night! They plan to carpool down to Mobile. We also had an interview with a reporter from the Associated Press by phone. That night, we headed up to New Orleans to stay with friends.

Thursday, we spent the day hanging flyers announcing the meeting at New Orleans colleges, including Loyola and Tulane, two schools with well-known environmental programs. We contacted some professors to get the students up on the Gulf fish farming issue. A number of students have already committed to attend the Council’s comment session Monday night, so we have arranged free transportation to and from the meeting for them, and are hoping more will join us. We also spoke to a Times-Picayune reporter who expects to come to the Council meeting in Mobile from New Orleans.

Friday was a very busy day! We headed out early to drive down to the bayou – through Galliano, La Rose, Cut Off and more to meet up with some of our local fishermen friends.  We had an hour at radio station KLRZ with Ken Friedlander, the “Rajun’ Cajun,” on Talk on the Bayou, to let people know about the upcoming Council meeting and the final decision on fish farms for the Gulf. Margaret Curole from Commercial Fishermen of America joined us to talk about how ocean fish farming in the Gulf can hurt Louisiana’s coastal communities. She also detailed the horrible conditions she’s seen in fish farms while traveling internationally. We had a number of callers tell us they are very worried about fish farms in the Gulf and that they are planning to come to the Council meeting to voice their concerns. It’s sounding like the Council meeting is going to be very interesting with the various types of people planning to attend.

Early on Saturday, we met up for breakfast with some of our local allies in Gretna, a historic community on the outskirts of New Orleans. We then went downtown to catch up with our fish team colleagues Christina and Justine, who had been working in the southern Gulf. They came north for VooDoo Fest, a local music event. Our fish mascot is going to VooDoo to tell people about the Gulf Council’s plan to permit offshore aquaculture in the Gulf and collect signatures on a petition. We had a quick collective chat, then split up again – our team headed back to Biloxi, and Justine and Christina to VooDoo Fest. Our plan for Biloxi was to stop at the various docks and bait shops to tell people about the Council meeting. We hung a number of flyers and handed out many packets of information. Some people told us they hadn’t heard anything about the fish farming plan, and were very concerned.

The Gulf coast seems to be slowly rebuilding from the storms in recent years. There were a number of new houses and docks, and there were noticeably more boats in the marinas than last year at this time. One area we stopped still had no parking lot – just some gravel and sand. We learned that in such cases, we should park the car elsewhere and walk to the docks – we got the car stuck in the sand for a while, until some of the fishermen noticed and came to help push us out (it was a great ice-breaker!).  We stopped at the local TV and radio stations, then at the Sun-Herald newspaper office. We had a late dinner at a local seafood restaurant, then drove back to New Orleans. We are going to VooDoo tomorrow!

– Marianne Cufone and Sascha Bollag

Food & Water Watch held the Get Cookin'! sustainable seafood recipe contest to gather the best recipes for the variety of seafood choices we recommend in our Smart Seafood Guide. Over the past several weeks, we received a multitude of recipes from seafood lovers all over the place. We were so excited to see how many people out there care about what they eat and have so many creative ideas for serving it.

We judged the recipes on the basis of several criteria: first, they had to include a type of seafood that we recommend in our Smart Seafood Guide. Other criteria included healthfulness, ease of preparation, originality and of course—most importantly—deliciousness. This last factor might seem subjective, but we had a panel of dedicated judges from the Food & Water Watch staff, including our partner chef, Rocky Barnette, who gathered to cook and taste all the recipes. It took a few rounds of voting before we were able to come to final decisions on all our winners, but we finally did. Throughout the tastings, everyone’s response seemed to be the same: “yum!” According to Chef Rocky, all the recipes were well-written and very professional. All the staff judges had a lot of good things to say about every recipe.

So we’d like to congratulate all of our winners on their wonderful recipes, and thank everyone who entered for their participation and enthusiasm. Stay tuned for the winning recipes, to be featured in a forthcoming recipe booklet out in time for the holidays.

Here are our fabulous seafood chefs:

Elaine Sweet with Crazy Cajun Shrimp Etouffee Cream over Garlic Noodles
Joan Churchill with Curried Clams and Melon Salad
Clayton Jay Davis with “Idaho Meets the Sea”
Roxanne Chan with Lebanese Scallop Salad
Rosemary Johnson with Black Cod with Butter Pecan Sauce
Bev Jones with "Grillted" Pomegranate Shrimp Salad
Candy Barnhart with Puffed Golden Halibut over Zucchini "Pasta"
Francis Garland with Crab Pizzawich with Wine-Soaked Grapes
Ken Hulme with Hogfish Hoagie
Wolfgang Hanau with Alaskan Salmon and Indian Cornbread Pie
Peter Halferty with Squid Risotto

All of these winners will be receiving a copy of the recipe booklet and a snazzy Food & Water Watch chef’s apron (pictured here on several Food & Water Watch staff).

And our grand prize of $250 goes to Jane Ingraham for her San Francisco Fish Stew. Congratulations, Jane!  

To all other sustainable seafood enthusiasts—both chefs and eaters—keep your eyes peeled for recipes to come. You can also click here for more ways to get involved with sustainable seafood--help to protect our oceans from unsustainable fish farming and check out our Smart Seafood Guide for recommended buying and dining choices!

- Erica Schuetz
email • bio

In preparation for the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s upcoming public hearing on open ocean aquaculture, Food & Water Watch’s fish team has been traveling around the Gulf Region speaking with fishermen, students and others about the plan.

For the past couple days Christina and I have been driving around Mobile Bay – from Mobile through Bon Secour, Foley Beach and Gulf Shores. We started out the day stopping by a couple bait and tackle shops, where most people were surprised to hear about the plan and couldn’t believe that it was already coming up for vote. It’s shocking to imagine that a plan with so many negative ramifications for commercial fisherman, shrimpers, recreational fisherman, coastal communities and consumers in general hasn’t even been publicized.

Next, we made our way down to Pelican point where we found some people net fishing off the end of the road. One – the “mayor” and “dock master” told us he didn’t understand why anyone would talk about putting resources into building farms in the Gulf – which will add more pollution – when we need to spend our resources cleaning it up.

Traveling down the coast from there we made our way to four fish houses. The first specialized in Royal Red Shrimp  – a deep red, deep-water shrimp considered a local delicacy in Alabama. At the others we saw red snapper and brown shrimp. People there were concerned about having fishing grounds restricted by industrial fish farms and frustrated about being pushed out the decision making process for a plan that could make or break their livelihood. Sadly, fishery decisions being made behind closed doors isn’t anything new to them.  Various fishing regulations – combined with fuel prices and competition from imported products – have already pushed many men and women out of the fishing industry. Open ocean aquaculture could be the last straw for those who remain.

To keep the gulf waters open to fishermen – and to keep wild, clean, green, safe seafood on our plates – we need people to tell the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council not to move forward with the plan. For those of you in the Mobile, Alabama area, your chance is on Monday October 27th at the Renaissance Riverfront Hotel.

- Justine Williams

A special congratulations goes out to one of our board members, Maude Barlow, whose impressive activism career recently led to her appointment as senior water advisor to the U.N. president!  In addition to the award-winning film, Blue Gold, which is based on her book,  Maude Barlow has written 15 other books and received six honorary doctorates. To add to her remarkable resume, she was just awarded the Citation for Lifetime Achievement from the Canadian Environment Awards, Canada's highest environmental award.

Congrats on both of these well-deserved honors, Maude!

-Food & Water Watch

Over the past several weeks, melamine has become a household name. It seems that not a day goes by without another product being recalled or suspected of contamination. All this begs the question, how did this not get discovered sooner? How did the range of products involved become so vast? Clearly China is going to have to do some fancy footwork to redeem their products in the eyes of the world. And the world must learn to respond quicker.

Recently 1,500 dogs bred for their raccoon-like fur died from eating melamine-tainted feed, leading to the development of kidney stones. All in one village. Yet this was not a first – last year, melamine-contaminated wheat gluten, a pet food ingredient made in China, caused dozens of dogs and cats in North America. Why was nothing done then?

Weeks after the food recalls in the U.S. began, Koala’s March cookies containing melamine were found on shelves in Connecticut. In Canada, Sherwood Brands Pirate’s Gold Milk Chocolate Coins were also found to have more than the supposedly “acceptable” level of melamine. Again, questions arise about our food inspection standards, and the production standards of China.

Every time we think we’ve heard the end of it, it seems that another products is discovered that has slipped through the cracks. And this isn’t just a U.S. problem or FDA failing – it’s an international issue. Australia had to order a recall of a milk drink and cake brand after tests showed melamine. Britain’s sex shop chain Ann Summers had to suspend sale of their “I Love You” sets of chocolate body spread for the same reasons. It almost makes you wonder what isn’t contaminated by melamine. It seems to be everywhere. And the potential consequences are anything but trivial, as shown by the thousands of babies that were sickened, and the unfortunate few that died, as a result of drinking tainted baby formula.

The fact that this has been allowed to continue for so long is unacceptable. While a short-term solution requires a ban of all melamine-contaminated products (not just those that meet the FDA’s arbitrary – not to mention meaningless – “safe” level of melamine), a long-term solution requires a complete overhaul of our food inspection system. In addition, we need to start holding other countries whose food we import accountable for their products, to ensure their safety and quality.

- Sofia Baliño

Last week the feature documentary Blue Gold won the Audience Choice Best Environmental Film award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. Based on Maude Barlow's and Tony Clarke's book "Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water," this film brings to the forefront the unethical dealings of corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments that are trying to control what little is left of the world's fresh water supply. 

However, people are fighting back, trying to protect what is rightfully theirs and of their descendants. Their efforts range from lawsuits to revolutions, from local protests at schools to fighting it out at U.N. conventions, in the hopes that water is not reduced to being a commodity or a tool for manipulation. The film brings all this and more to light, not allowing anyone at fault to escape from blame.

The audience in Vancouver took notice, and we hope that the word keeps on spreading. Future showings of Blue Gold include the Planet in Focus Film Festival (October 22, 2008 in Toronto) and the Environmental Film Festival (March 22, 2009 in Washington, DC) – with hopefully more to come.

For more information, check out the Blue Gold website at http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com

- Sofia Baliño

On October 11th , our fish team ate their way through Taste of Georgetown in Washington, DC, while promoting the new Smart Seafood Guide. We had a great time working with Sea Catch Restaurant & Raw Bar and Executive Chef Chris Sgro who prepared two gourmet dishes using Food & Water Watch’s seafood recommendations from the guide. 

Chef Sgro served jumbo Gulf Shrimp wrapped in pastry & bacon with boursin cheese, along with wild Alaskan salmon tartar – both huge hits with the crowd, making it easy to talk to people waiting in the long lines about clean, green and safe seafood. Just take a look at how these delicious dishes are a feast for the eyes!

Also on-site was our soon-to-be-named fish mascot (link) who was posing for pictures and getting people to sign the “Holy Mackerel! This Plan Stinks!” petition. What exactly “stinks”? The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is voting on a plan in less than two weeks to allow industrial fish farming in Gulf waters. But their plan doesn't protect fishermen, consumers, coastal communities or the environment from the potential negative impacts of a new big industry. Our fish team is making its way down to the Gulf region to keep this bad plan from going through, and is arranging carpools to take people to the council meeting for a question and answer session for the public with the entire council.

So if you live in the Gulf, make sure to sign up and make sure your voice is heard! And for those of you who live in other parts of the country, you can still make a difference by signing the petition.

- Erin Greenfield
email • bio

 

In kicking the bottle, the Kindle conference joins a growing movement of restaurants, cities and college campuses rejecting bottled water and removing plastic bottles from public functions. Earlier this year, Food & Water Watch helped to facilitate access to tap water for 50,000 fair-goers at the inaugural Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco. Food & Water Watch has developed a how-to guide, “Free Your Event from Bottled Water,” in response to a growing trend in bottled water-free event planning, including trade shows, conferences, and university events, as well as festivals and specialty events. 

 

The conference's host city of Portland, ME, joined the Take Back the Tap campaign this summer, encouraging people to drink the city’s tap water and to support local public water systems. Across the state of Maine, rural communities have received recent media attention sparked by “water wars” pitting Nestle-Poland Springs private bottling interests against the concerns of citizen groups and water activists who defend local control of community groundwater. 

 

Join the Take Back the Tap and make your next event bottle-free too! 

 

About Bioneers 

 

Bioneers is a nonprofit organization providing education on practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring Earth’s imperiled ecosystems and healing our human communities. 2008 marks the nineteenth year for the Bioneers Conference in California and the seventh year of partnering with local, independent community groups and organizations to produce these satellite conferences. The other venues include Anchorage, AK; Baltimore, MD; Boulder, CO; Bozeman, MT; Carbondale, IL; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; Grinnell, IA; Houston, TX; Logan, UT; Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN; New Bedford, MA; Salt Lake City, UT; Seattle, WA; Spokane, WA; Traverse City, MI; and Turlock, CA.  

 

Some Bioneers featured at Kindle - The Northern New England Bioneers:

Alexandra Cousteau

Saving Our Water Planet

 

Peter Neill

 

The World Oceans Observatory

 

Russell Libby

Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

(MOFGA) 

 

J. Carl Ganter

 

Circle of Blue

 

The conference also features a "Water Rights" workshop led by Tom Linzey, co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and CELDC organizer and water rights warrior Gail Darrell. Gail, founder of Citizens of Barnstead for a Living Democracy, pioneered the passage of the first New Hampshire law banning corporations from withdrawing water within threatened towns. 

Global financial markets are in peril. Panic is gripping Wall Street. The Dow has taken huge dives and continues to stagger. September job loss was the highest in five years and nearly one in six homeowners are under water – owing more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. Times are tough.

Several state and local governments are drowning in these rough waters. They can’t make payroll or raise money for vital public works projects. With revenues running dry and municipal bonds becoming a hard sell, city officials have thrown their hands up in exasperation. A few are even thinking about turning to the private sector and the very financial institutions that helped get us in this mess.

Milwaukee's comptroller has proposed privatizing its water system, hawking it off to the highest bidder, to raise funds to keep city operations running. This is a classic example of taxing through the tap. The city would lease off the utility for 75 to 99 years in exchange for a one-time payment of $500 million. Then whatever corporation gets the deal will invariably hike water prices not only to recover the city’s payout but also to pad their stockholders’ wallets. Leases are an absurdly expensive way to raise money – even in this tight municipal bond market.

Milwaukee is not alone. Akron, Ohio, will vote on a similar lease of their sewers this November. Morgan Stanley is advising the deal, which comes as no surprise. They are eyeing water investment, as have Goldman Sachs, the now-defunct Lehman Brothers and AIG.

For more than a decade, the global water barons have been going into cash-strapped communities to push them to privatize their water. They have paraded around as if they were the saviors of these struggling governments, claiming to have the capital to make needed improvements and upgrades. In the last few years, investment banks joined this charade, expecting big payouts.

Ah, but time did tell another story. The investment bank era is over. The government forced the last two big independent investment banks – Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley – to become commercial banks. The problem? Not enough capital.

The irony is too great. These were the very banks that had pranced into communities proclaiming their wealth and bad-mouthing government finance. Then – bam! Stocks plummet as bad decisions catch up with greedy speculators. Now the federal government has to use our tax dollars to bail out the crumbling institutions. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley stand to be two of the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout. AIG already got its cushion. 

We trusted Wall Street with our homes, and look what happened – subprime lending, speculation, foreclosure crisis, doors boarded up, tent cities across the nation. Can we afford to trust it with our water?

Instead of corporate handouts and golden parachutes, our tax dollars should support projects that benefit the public good and protect the wellbeing of communities across the country. The federal government should ensure the safe and sound operation of our nation's water systems, so that something as precious and necessary as water is never subject to the whims of speculators and the fleeting fancies of the fat cats on Wall Street. 
 

Act now and tell Congress to support a trust fund for clean and safe water. Tell them we need public money for public utilities.

For more information about how corporations could seek heady profits from the water funding crisis, check out our report Costly Returns.

[Image from Candor]

For those of you who don’t know, one of our big Octoberfish events this month has been our Get Cookin'! sustainable seafood recipe contest, in which we had contestants send in recipes featuring a recommended fish. Other criteria for the recipes included that they used sustainable/local ingredients and were unique, flavorful, healthy, and easy to prepare.

As part of our “judging” process, we recently held a massive cooking extravaganza at the house of a Food & Water Watch staff member, with the brilliant Chef Joseph “Rocky” Barnette in charge of the operation. We split the cooking/tasting process over two evenings, trying out an array of dishes such as “Idaho Meets the Sea” and the “Hogfish Hoagie” – just to name a few!

While we don’t want to give anything away until the winners are announced, we do have three favorites in the running for the top prize, and overall we were immensely pleased with all of our submissions. They were well-written, easy to make, and showed inventiveness and creativity – all things that make a good recipe, according to Chef Rocky. We were able to buy most of our ingredients at a local market that had all the selections we wanted at very affordable prices, and they tasted incredible. We also put to work our Smart Seafood Guide, using only sustainable seafood in our cooking.

We’ll be voting on our favorite recipe over the next few days, and will notify the winner by October 31st. And for those interested in trying some of these amazing recipes, we will be choosing several to publish in our recipe booklet, which will be available in time for the holidays – as well as an online video of the cooking event, which includes a few tips from Chef Rocky. Stay tuned!

- Sofia Baliño

Use your DJ skills to win $400 and participate in a historic cause worth rapping about!

The Great Lakes Tour of the documentary The Water Front and its filmmaker Liz Miller are offering a chance for remix artists to compete with their unique spin on the film's theme song "Please, Mr. Waterman." Legendary Detroit Bluesman Joe L. Carter lays down the heart-wrenching feature track that pleads to the authorities for relief from water cutoffs and loss of his home, his only worldly possession.

The Water Front asks the question, "What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but couldn't afford to use it?"  It follows the struggle of Highland Park, MI residents to keep control of their public water. The Great Lakes Tour debuted to its local audience on the Marygrove College campus on September 26. Residents from the area were engaged by the powerful film about a group of women who struggled to keep their community from being shut off from water after the city raised rates and began turning off for those who could not pay. Audience member Marian Kramer -- also one of the women featured in the film -- gripped the audience as she said "This film shouldn't just touch you, it should grab you."

The opening kicked off the 6-month tour of The Water Front throughout the Great Lakes region. Following the film, viewers participated in a dynamic discussion about the underlying economic and political issues that result in a fight for basic rights. The screening was a successful start to the film's fall tour of the Great Lakes Basin. Future audiences can expect to take part in lively give-and-take panel discussions following the screening. For those who haven't seen the film yet, the next screening of The Water Front will be on October 15 at 6:30pm at The Little Theatre at 240 East Avenue, Rochester, NY. Get additional screenings at: www.waterfrontmovie.com.

The Remix Contest runs from October 3 through December 16 with the
winner being announced at the film's New York City premiere. Rap about culture, rap about a cause and submit your remix.

Food and Water Watch and it's campaign Take Back The Tap are co-sponsors of the Great Lakes Tour of The Water Front. We hope to see you at the movies.

-Veronica Segovia
Food & Water Watch Intern | email

Chef Rocky Barnette reports from various exciting locations as he begins his seafood-savvy tour. First, he's stopped in New York.

September 4, 2008

    My first day in the city, I was fortunate enough to have lunch at restaurant WD-50, which is definitely a hot spot and a culinary destination for foodies and chefs alike.  The lunch menu had great variety of appetizers, main courses, and desserts.  I was pleased to see that there were delicious seafood choices available, including cod and scallops.  Finding out where these items were from came as a relief because the cod was from the Pacific, where cod is not overfished, and the scallops were diver-caught, which means they are collected in a way that’s much less damaging to the ecosystem.  They were sensational and I have included menu descriptions and pictures of both.
 
 Cod, smoked mashed potato, pickled mushrooms, red pepper oil

Scallops, hen o’ the wood mushrooms, cranberry, pecan, spice bread consommé

It's important to always ask where your seafood comes from. Though waiters or chefs may not be able to tell you right away, they can and should find out for you. It's good for restaurants to know that their customers are interested in the source of their seafood.

September 8, 2008

I had only been in the city for a few days and found myself on my way back to the country.  This was like no country I had ever seen: I was going to upstate New York.  I went to artist Peter Nadin’s farm in Greene County.  We were not going to see fish on this farm, but rather pigs.  I am currently designing a menu for a “Ceremonial Performance Dinner” in New Orleans on November 1st that opens the KK Projects Art installations and celebrates the New Orleans Art Biennial.  Peter is a premiere artist in the show.  Here is a little more about that:

Roots Menu will feature the highest-quality foods grown in this region, influenced by the offerings of Indian, French, African, and Spanish cuisines interpreted with delectable contemporary sensibility.

The evening is star-studded with celebrated Chef “Rocky” Barnette, former executive sous-chef at critically acclaimed restaurant The Inn at Little Washington. Artist Dawn DeDeaux, the dinner party queen of New Orleans, will be in charge of the setting, creating a magical, mystical evening through art and choreographed performances.

Barnett and DeDeaux have collaborated on a conceptual menu and presentation that deconstructs New Orleans gastronomical/historical traditions towards the creation of an indelible, highly original amalgamation of tastes synchronized with sights and sounds. 

Barnette – partner chef of the consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch, which promotes sustainable seafood in restaurants – will incorporate sustainable Gulf Coast fish together with indigenous grains and vegetables.  His culinary team will include the highly regarded New Orleans-based chefs, the que crawl boys, who have delighted guests for two previous KK Projects gala dinners. 

DeDeaux first utilized the dinner arena as art form in 1982 with Feasting with Panthers: The 100th Anniversary of Oscar Wilde's Visit to America, sponsored by the New Orleans Museum of Art.  Here again, she will work with local and international artists to produce a highly original theatrical experience – complete with customized dining utensils, table sculptural form, and choreographed live performances.

The dinner will feature sustainable Gulf Coast seafood and pork from Peter Nadin’s farm.  These pigs really have the life.  They live on a beautiful piece of land and, along with their normal diet, they are able to forage to their hearts’ desire.

I will also be doing a dinner in mid-October for the people attending Peter’s symposium and the first showing of his work since 1991.  We will be featuring one of his pigs and a sustainable fish that has yet to be determined.  I call it “operation porkfish.”

September 10, 2008

    I am back in the city and amazed (and disappointed) at the number of restaurants that don't know the origin of the fish they serve.  Often, they don’t even seem to care where they seafood comes from.  At the Fulton Fish Market, a chef or restaurant can buy any type of seafood, from anywhere in the world, with little thought of any ramifications for the environment or fishing communities.  It’s a big problem, and can seem overwhelming. But really, anyone who eats seafood has the power to help change this. If people start asking where their seafood comes from (and shopping accordingly), restaurants and grocery stores will have to change to meet the demand. This, in turn, will support fishermen whose practices are sustainable and good for human health and the environment, and ultimately can encourage other fishermen to transition to good practices. It’s common sense, really.

    I did have the wonderful opportunity to dine at a traditional English fish & chip shop called “A Salt & Battery.”  They had a sign posted at the register where orders are taken announcing their stand against Atlantic cod and informing diners that they are using haddock.  Hook-and-line caught haddock, in particular, is a good sustainable choice. The fish and chips were lovely and spot-on.

September 11, 2008

    I decided to find out what kind of fish people were buying when they were going to buy it themselves in a grocery store, rather than dining out.  I went to the local Whole Foods, where they “ensure that we only source farmed seafood from the world’s leaders in environmentally responsible aquaculture” and “know that we can trust our farmer partners because, like us, they’re committed to the healthiest, most environmentally friendly farmed seafood.”  I was really hoping this was not just environmental lip service.

  

On this day ALL the shrimp there were from Thailand.
 

There is no sustainable Chilean seabass.

 

Atlantic Salmon as far as the eye can see.
 

Russian Crab.

I am trying not to be overly critical of Whole Foods’ buying and selling practices, because I do realize that they often provide environmentally responsible choices for a variety of foods. Still, with all good things they do, they have the opportunity to be even better, and should be – especially with regards to seafood.

September 13, 2008

    My last day in New York, I met my best friend Rob Ramirez in Chinatown.  It was the day of the Chinese Moon festival and Rob’s wife is from Taiwan, so we decided to celebrate with a barbecue and cook some fish.  We went to Chinatown to find out what kinds of choices they had for whole fish in the market.  In Chinatown the celebration was already underway and I felt like I was swimming through an ocean of people.  We went to a few different stalls and finally decided on the one that was the cleanest and had the freshest-looking selections.  There were so many fish that I could not identify because I had never seen them before and I could not read the placards that were in Chinese.  We finally settled on a seven-pound bluefish and two three-pound Spanish mackerels. These aren’t the best choices out there, but for what was available that day, they were. (There are a number of questions you can ask a seafood provider to help lead you to the best choice available – check out our Smart Seafood Guide.)  I took the fish on a six-block tour of the city and a subway ride to Brooklyn.  There I turned one mackerel into ceviche with red onions, fresh lime juice and zest, poblano peppers, red pepper flakes, oregano from the garden, and salt, sugar, and cumin for seasoning.  The other mackerel was filleted, seared in a pan and coated with lemon juice and black soy sauce molasses.  With the big daddy bluefish I scored the skin and rubbed him down with a chunky peanut and chili oil paste and coarse salt.  We roasted him whole on a bed of Thai Basil from the garden over a charcoal fire.  The fish was a hit and there was nothing left but a mess of bones.  I realized after eating these fish that it was the first time that I had eaten or cooked either one.  People would do well to to lose their inhibitions and get out of whatever salmon/tuna/cod rut they are in and find out more about lesser-known and fish.

This is your chance to voice your opposition to water profiteering. You can vote against the privatization and commodification of water by participating in an online "Cambridge style" debate hosted by The Economist magazine.

The debate proposition is: "Water is both an industrial input and a prerequisite of life. Roughly a billion people do not have a constant supply of clean and safe water. Would water supplies be better managed if it were treated as a commodity, and priced accordingly? Or is water a basic human right that governments should secure for their citizens?" 

We know that water is a vital resource, critical for all of us. The provision of such an essential public good cannot be left in the hands of corporations, who will raise prices in the search for greater profit.

Join the debate and tell the moderator that allowing the market to determine the price of water will severely impact the world's poorest people, subjugate environmental conservation and trade public control for private profit.

Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter commented:

The U.S. government and its corporate allies clearly believe that water is a new profit center. They are promoting markets and privatization as the solution to providing water to the world's poor -- 1.4 billion people without access to drinking water and 2.5 billion without sanitation services. International finance institutions, funded by the U.S. and other developed nations, provide loans to developing nations on the condition that they privatize services and charge steep user fees. Indeed, the very institutions that are charged with alleviating poverty, like the World Bank, are implementing policies that force people who make $1 or $2 a day to choose between food, housing or water.

Communities all over the world have suffered from the empty promises of water-privatization profiteers. Whether in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, or Guayaquil, Ecuador, or Atlanta, GA, the results have been devastating. They include cost-cutting measures that jeopardize public safety, job cuts to essential staff, maintenance and water quality problems, lack of infrastructure investment, sewage spills, corruption, environmental degradation, outrageous rate hikes and political meddling.

Almost across the board, private corporations deliver poorer service at a higher cost than do most public utilities. Surveys of U.S. utilities show that privately owned water utilities charge customers significantly higher water rates than their publicly owned counterparts charge -- anywhere from 13 percent to almost 50 percent more, according to an analysis by Food & Water Watch, the advocacy group I direct.

To cite just one example, in 2005, the government of Tanzania canceled its 10-year contract with the British-based firm Biwater after two years of poor management and unmet obligations left people without water and the government short about $3.25 million. The East African country enjoyed some measure of justice in early 2008 when an international tribunal ruled that Biwater must pay almost $8 million in damages and fees to the state water utility in Dar es Salaam. Not coincidentally, the company had taken control of the city's water supply in a controversial, noncompetitive privatization process favored by the British government and the World Bank.

The answer to providing safe, affordable drinking water and sewer services to developing nations is not giant corporations. The World Bank and other IFIs should stop predicating their loans on privatization. These powerful institutions must stop forcing poor countries to structure their economies in a way meant to benefit multinational corporations, and instead prioritize public health and increased access to clean and affordable water for all people. Because water is, after all, a human right.

Join her in saying no to the water barons who seek profit at the expense of clean, safe and affordable water for all.

For more information about the water debate, check out our Private vs. Public page and other reports on our website. 

– Mary Grant

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