For more than forty years, scientists and environmentalists have been sounding the alarm about climate change. In 1975 Dr. Wallace S. Broecker, who first introduced the term “global warming,” published his landmark paper that modeled  the relationship between the burning of fossil fuels and temperature rise. It was also in the 1970s that ExxonMobil’s own in-house scientists conducted studies that raised red flags about fossil fuels and climate change. That suppressed report motivated ExxonMobil to launch a multi-million-dollar, multi-decade disinformation campaign—the effects of which we’re still living with today.

As the chorus of credible voices on climate change has grown ever louder over the years, scientists, environmentalists, politicians, concerned citizens, and the media have struggled to craft a compelling narrative to communicate to a skeptical American public both the short- and long-term impacts of climate change. Although nearly every avenue of communication has been tried, according to recent polling nearly fifty percent of Americans continue to reject the fact that climate change will affect them during their lifetimes.

Without a doubt, the effort to normalize climate-change denial has ramped up since Donald Trump captured the White House. Incredibly, at least twenty current appointees at major governmental agencies are climate-change deniers. Trump appointees at agencies vital to the health and safety of Americans, like the United States Department of Agriculture, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Housing and Human Development, have expressed in various ways their doubts about the human causes of climate change. Trump himself has muddied the waters by repeatedly denying and denigrating, through his off-the-cuff comments, the documented conclusions of the government’s own climate researchers, space agency, and military.

Listen to your stomach

What will it take to wake up doubting Americans to the greatest challenge humankind may ever face? Publication of the results of scientific studies have failed. Charts and graphs have failed. Dramatic videos of melting ice and glaciers and predictions about the coming devastation to coastal communities of sea-level rise have done little to change the minds of skeptics. Heart-rending photos of dislocated islanders abandoning their flooded homes and devastating videos of starving polar bears gain temporary traction but then are forgotten. Warnings about melting ice caps fall on deaf ears. Climate-disaster blockbuster movies fail to translate into real-life perceptions. Appeals to deniers’ better angels and the oft-repeated religious belief that Earth is a god-given gift to humanity that must be cared for and stewarded with care seem to yield only temporary concern. Entreaties about the responsibility to pass on to children and grandchildren a rich and diverse world—all have failed to break through the psychological barrier of denial.

If science, religion, ethics, love of family, or scare tactics have failed to convince doubters of the reality of climate change, what will? Could the answer to that question be that the disappearance due to climate change of some of our favorite comfort foods will do the trick? In other words, is the way to climate deniers’ minds through their stomachs?

Foods at risk

Some of America’s favorite comfort foods and kitchen staples may either be on the edge of extinction within the next few decades or their availability and affordability threatened by rising growing costs due to the effects of climate change, like changing seasonal weather patterns, drought, or temperature rise. It may be time to remind climate-change doubters that we might be looking at a world in which favorite foods like apples, avocados, bananas, chocolate, coffee, corn, beer, wine, honey, and much more may no longer be available or may end up becoming affordable only to the wealthiest among us.

Here are a few of the predictions:

Apples

The trees on which America’s favorite fruit grows need a certain period of winter chill to produce economically viable yields. Rising temperatures are disrupting the apple-growing season and causing apple trees to bear their fruit sooner. Rising winter temperatures will most likely force apple farmers to breed new cultivars that require lower chilling temperatures, which might affect yields and taste.

Avocados

90% of avocados grown in the U.S. come from California, and 79% of avocados in the U.S. are imported from Mexico. One pound of avocados requires 72 gallons of water to grow. Due to drought and increased costs of water, the cost of growing has increased significantly. Predictions are that the cost of avocados will continue to rise as water supplies become less predictable.

Bananas

The Cavendish banana, which is the commercially grown version sold in supermarkets, has been under a devastating attack by the Panama disease,  which taints the soil in which banana trees are grown. The fungus is rapidly spreading throughout Africa and Asia and could spread more rapidly as climate change encourages spread of the pathogens. According to experts, if the fungus spreads to South America, banana lovers can say goodbye to this staple unless scientists succeed in breeding a new, pathogen-resistant variety.

Cocoa

In the early 1990s, the fungal disease called witch’s broom knocked out 80% of Brazil’s total cocoa output. Today, scientists fear that fungal diseases could send the cocoa bean into extinction because of the plant’s limited genetic variation. The projected higher temperatures in West Africa also pose a significant threat.

Coffee

Researchers predict that by 2050, up to 80% of the land area suitable for growing coffee—particularly in Brazil and parts of Central America—could become unsuitable for growing due to higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns, all of which would pose a risk to the global coffee supply chain.

Corn

As global warming progresses, corn yields in the U.S. (now at 300 million tons produced each year in the U.S. alone or 30% of farmland) could decrease by 30 to 46 percent and even up to 63 to 82 percent if faster warming rates occur. Corn is everywhere in the American food chain. From feed for beef, chicken, and pork to ingredients derived from the corn kernel that are used in a multitude of processed foods—Ingredients like corn syrup, corn oil, corn starch, ascorbic acid, acetic acid, citric acid, and more.

Honey

The documented decline and large-scale disappearance of honeybees linked to pesticide use and climate change points to the decline or total loss of honey production in the future.

Beer

Water and hops, the main ingredients in beer production, are under threat by the changing climate. Warming winters are producing earlier and decreased yields of hops. The National Resources Defense Council warns that between 2030 and 2050 the difficulty in accessing freshwater is “anticipated to be significant in the major agricultural and urban areas throughout the nation.”

Wine

Studies are beginning to show that temperatures in California’s wine-producing regions, like the Napa Valley and Sonoma, are becoming too high to grow wine grapes. Predictions of production loss in California over the next fifty years come in as high as a potential 85% decrease. In France, extreme weather, like hailstorms, drought, and heavy rain, are threatening the viability of some of the country’s most iconic wine producers.

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It’s official. Six years and two lawsuits after then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg first proposed a ban on plastic-foam products, New York City is now a polystyrene- (or Styrofoam- as it’s more commonly called) free zone. New York City’s ban includes all single-use Styrofoam coffee cups, soup bowls, plates, trays, and clamshell-style take-out cartons, as well as packing peanuts.

If you’re in the camp that thinks that a Styrofoam ban is nothing more than a tree hugger’s dream come true, think again. For New York City, which generates more than 14 million tons of trash each year with a tab of more than $2.3 billion for trash collection and disposal, the ban is an economic imperative.

It’s not just New York

As of 2019, the Big Apple joins a group of environmentally committed and financially challenged municipalities and counties across the country where Styrofoam already is officially banned—among them, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Miami Beach, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle. In California, more than eighty cities, towns, and counties are full in on the ban, with more to come. And that’s not all. A host of other major cities, like Chicago, Boston, Honolulu, and Philadelphia, as well as smaller cities and towns in red, blue, and purple states, currently are considering bans.

If you’re thinking this sounds like a movement that’s gathering momentum, you wouldn’t be far off the mark. You’d also be correct to assume that the road to Styrofoam-free zones has generated considerable pushback, particularly in the food industry.  After all, a ban on Styrofoam packaging will dramatically alter how restaurants and street food vendors serve food to the public. In places where the ban is in place, food purveyors will now be required to use biodegradable, environmentally friendly containers. And although biodegradable take-out containers are cheaper than ever, they’re still more costly than containers manufactured from traditional Styrofoam.

Costs

How much more costly is the question. Let’s look at the facts. On average, Styrofoam cups cost $25 per 1,000. Biodegradable cups cost approximately $100 for 1,000. For a business that uses 1,000 cups per year, the additional cost is $75 per year. For green take-out containers, the additional cost to businesses is approximately $140 per year on a count of 1,000.

On the other side of the spreadsheet are some troubling facts. First, there’s the issue of disposal.  Styrofoam products, manufactured from non-renewable fossil fuels and toxic chemicals, take a minimum of 500 years to biodegrade. Think about that. Then there’s the fact that 99.8% of Styrofoam products end up either in landfills or in the oceans where they sicken or poison wildlife. And did you know that Styrofoam products now account for an astonishing 30% of all of the waste in U.S. landfills? One estimate captures the scale of the problem on the micro level: One individual purchasing a disposable cup of coffee every day generates approximately 23 pounds of waste per year.

Health issues

Second, there are potentially harmful health issues that have flown under the radar for far too long.  It’s been known for many years that as polystyrene comes into contact with hot, greasy, or acidic foods, the chemicals and toxins used in the plastics’ manufacture can leach into the food we ingest and the hot beverages we drink. Five years ago, in 2014, the National Research Council stepped up and sounded the alarm by signing off on the National Toxicology Program’s conclusion that polystyrene should be listed as a human carcinogen.

Economics, health, and the environment. All will be positively impacted by the commitment of communities—large and small—across the country to ban single-use Styrofoam products. And in case we’ve forgotten, this is what commonsense, fact-based, and responsible governance looks like.

If you’re interested in learning more about the health issues concerning polystyrene, a good place to start is to take a look at the information provided by Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, a coalition representing 450 organizations and businesses and more than eleven million parents and professionals who share the goal of educating the public about health issues related to toxic chemicals.

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Donald Trump is making us sick—and I mean that literally. Some food experts are claiming that the recent outbreak of E.Coli contamination in Romaine lettuce may be directly linked to the Trump administration’s disdain for the Food and Drug Administration,  and particularly its health-ensuring regulations.

Specifically, the regulations in play in the Romaine lettuce issue are the ones pertaining to the safety of water used to irrigate and wash crops. Okay, I’m just going to say it: This is about poop, feces, pig shit, horse manure and other animal excreta — the sources of the E. Coli bacteria that have rendered Caesar salad an outcast in American kitchens and restaurants in 2018 and caused hundreds–maybe thousands–of people to vomit, have diarrhea even come close to death. .

It’s all happening, some food-safety experts say, because last year, Trump overturned Obama-era rules to test farm water for E. coli as well as for pesticides and other contaminants.

Let’s review.

According to EcoWatch, in 2006, a major outbreak of E. coli linked to Dole baby spinach was eventually traced back to water contaminated with cattle and wild pig feces. By that year, foodborne illness had become a full-blown epidemic, affecting 1 in 6 Americans. In response to that and many other outbreaks connected to foods such as peanuts, fruit and vegetables, Congress passed the landmark 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The law includes requirements that the FDA develop rules governing produce safety, including the water quality used to grow, harvest and pack produce.

But the FDA dragged its feet in implementing the rules. After numerous lawsuits from food-safety groups, the FDA decided to allow growers to phase in water quality and testing requirements between 2018 and 2022.

That sounded like progress. But then, Trump came along—Trump and his anti-regulatory business cronies and Big Agriculture political donors. That’s when things started going south for food safety, turning us backward, toward the good old golden, anything-goes days of the unregulated food industry of 100+ years ago.

Ecowatch reports that, “in March 2017, Trump announced billions in dollars of cuts to USDA and FDA, undermining their ability to keep our food safe. In November 2017, the Trump administration proposed a delay in enforcement of urgently needed rules aimed at keeping produce free from fecal contamination. Under the Trump administration’s delay, growers would not have to test water for E. coli contamination until between 2022 and 2014—11 to 13 years after FSMA’s passage.”

The Center for Food Safety says that, based on FDA estimates, delaying enforcement of the rule could lead to more than 730,000 additional cases of foodborne illness and countless deaths.

FDA’s own economic analysis estimates that those illnesses and deaths would cost consumers between $96 million and $822 million more than the industry would save from a delay in enforcing the rule. The groups point to at least seven deadly outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to produce, including cantaloupes, apples, cucumbers, and papayas, since the passage of FSMA in 2011. Some of those outbreaks might have been prevented if the water safety rule had been in effect.

At the Center for Science in the Public Interest, deputy director for legislative affairs Sarah Sorcher said:

“Americans deserve to know that their produce wasn’t grown or rinsed in water contaminated with animal feces. Testing water that is used to grow and harvest produce for E. coli will save both lives and money. Consumers should be outraged that the Trump administration intends to defy Congress by delaying enforcement of these safeguards for many years more.”

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Too lazy to compost? Yeah, me too. But with an emerging service, known as curbside food-waste pickup, people like us can feel less guilty and do some good, without doing much extra work.

It’s not available everywhere—yet—but some startup experiments and ongoing, city-funded programs may be demonstrating both the planet-friendly value of food-waste pickup and its workability.

Last week, in a suburban subdivision not very far away from mine, a waste hauler began offering free, curbside food-waste pickup as a pilot program. Homeowners who sign up receive a bright yellow bin in which to place food and yard waste. Republic Services will pick up the waste once a week and take it Total Organics Recycling, which also makes compost out of waste from restaurants, hospitals and local colleges.

Our area is a bit late to the composting party. People more enlightened than me have been composting yard and food waste for years, to fertilize their vegetable gardens, upgrade their flower gardens, or to nourish their lawns. But they are not in the majority: According recent studies, most household food waste goes from the kitchen to the garbage can and then to the landfill. Americans throw away an estimated 25% of the food we buy. And those compostable organics represent over 37% of residential waste, which is now the single largest component of what is thrown away in many landfills.

So what? It’s just garbage, right?

Actually, it’s much more. According to a recent report,

…when compostable materials break down in the landfill, they become powerful contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. They decompose without oxygen, in a landfill, producing methane, which is a major contributor to global warming.

In fact, landfills account for 34 percent of all methane emissions in the U.S. In addition to the production of methane, landfill contaminates soil, ground water, and pollutes debris in surrounding areas.

It’s a start

So, composting makes sense. But until recently, it was an individual household preference, quite prevalent in rural areas, but not very popular in cities. Starting around 2005, some areas began offering centralized food-waste disposal centers, where residents could drop off their compostable stuff. [New York City has been operating drop-off sites at more than 50 farmers markets for a number of years. More recently, drop-off locations were opened at subway stations, public libraries and other heavily trafficked areas.]

The drop-off centers have generally been successful in terms of local enthusiasm, but often on a scale too small to make a meaningful difference That’s when some counties and solid-waste districts starting investigating government-funded food-waste pickups—mostly motivated by a need to divert material from the shrinking space available for landfills, and to save money on trash collection—but also as an ecologically responsible service that could have long-term benefits.

Where are we now?

Government-supported food-waste collection is on the rise—although it’s far from standard operating procedure in most areas. In 2017, one nationwide study found curbside programs in 20 states, offering 5.1 million households access to curbside collection, a growth of 2.4 million since the previous study in 2014.

Drilling down a bit, the study reveals the variety of ways in which cities, counties and trash-collection districts conduct their food-waste pickup programs:

• Some offer their programs as “standard,” meaning organics collection is offered alongside trash and recycling, with no extra steps needed for residents to participate.
• “Opt-in” programs, require residents to sign up to receive food waste collection service.
• Mandatory programs, require all residents to participate. There are eight mandatory programs, half of which are in California.

And, exactly what qualifies, in these programs, as compostable? The 2017 study found that:

• All programs take fruit and vegetable scraps
• Over 90 percent accept meat, fish and dairy
• The majority take paper bags and uncoated, food-soiled paper [such as pizza boxes].
• Less than half accept compostable plastic products, such as compostable plastic bags, compostable plastic-coated paper products, and compostable plastic packaging and foodservice items
• Less than 25% of programs accept molded fiber containers
• About 7 percent take conventional plastic-coated paper

How to make it work

Food-waste pickup sounds logical and responsible, but is it doable? A 2017 study by M.I.T. looked at factors that push governments toward trying it out. The main incentive for starting a program, said the researchers, is being told that you have to do it. You need “an ambitious waste-diversion mandate at the state or county level.” [Example: Connecticut has set a statewide goal of 60 percent waste diversion by 2024, which has motivated West Hartford to initiate a pilot program of food-waste pickup.]

Obviously, it also helps—a lot—to have “a nearby processing facility that can handle the area’s food waste…and a pre-existing infrastructure for collecting and processing yard waste.”

Once a city or county has decided to give curbside pickup a try, getting it off the ground requires getting your trash hauler to buy in. That’s easier if your city or county already provides trash hauling or contracts with a single hauler, say the M.I.T. researchers. It’s also important to appeal to a trash hauler’s bottom line: They want efficiency—”maximum tonnage collected with minimum distance traveled.” So municipalities need to make it work for the trash hauler even before they can make it work for their residents and their own budgetary needs.

What makes people participate or drop out? In a study of their pilot program, Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works reported:

• Of the individuals not interested in participating, 67% of respondents said that the cost was too high, 27% already compost, 15% do not think they have enough material to justify participating, 14% do not have space for a third cart, 11% are not eligible due to the current geographic boundaries, and 2% had other reasons.
• No one identified that there was not enough of an environmental benefit to the program, which was a survey option.
•  Reducing costs to $5 per month would likely increase participation 38%.

As to getting households to participate, the best way is — here we go again — to make composting mandatory, say the M.I.T. researchers. That probably won’t happen in the beginning, as municipalities start with opt-in pilot programs. But, in the long run, it’s going to have to be compulsory if it’s going to work, and, unfortunately, mandates have political implications.

Who’s in?

San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver and New York have composting mandates. West Hartford CT, Milwaukee WI and many other areas have initiated pilot programs. Other cities, while not yet mandating food-waste composting, have established zero-waste goals for themselves. These cities—including Austin, Minneapolis, Oakland, Washington DC, Dallas, Takoma Park MD, Malibu CA, and San Diego—would seem to be moving, inevitably, toward area-wide, government-funded food-waste composting programs.

But wait, there’s more

But as high-minded—and ultimately necessary—as these goals and efforts are, there’s still more to be done. We can’t just rely on governments to get this job done. It’s clear that individual behaviors have to change as well.

The M.I.T. study asserts that success will also depend on motivating “waste generators”—meaning people, corporations and institutions—to participate in food-waste composting at high levels and to separate organic materials properly to minimize contamination.

At an even higher level, we need to figure out how to motivate ourselves to avoid creating wasted food in the first place. We need to to shop smarter, plan our food use more efficiently, and—bottom line — eat  more of the food we buy.

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Last week the German supermarket chain Edeka cooked up an unannounced demonstration of the diversity in the German food-supply chain by removing all products from countries other than Germany from the shelves of its Hamburg store.

The result? Shoppers were shocked to find aisles of empty shelves and a store devoid of the wide

selection of food choices they largely take for granted.
Edeka’s campaign surprised not just shoppers but also German and international media as well. After all, taking a stand on controversial political issues is not what’s usually expected of one of the world’s largest corporations. Headquartered in Hamburg with over four thousand stores, Edeka is the second largest supermarket chain in the world in terms of annual revenues. This is the kind of corporation that, at least in American terms, one would expect would play it safe when it comes to controversy.

It’s clear that the social provocateurs and the out-of-the-box marketers hiding out in Edeka’s corporate offices made sure that the messaging to shoppers and the media would be clear, unambiguous, and thought provoking. Prominently displayed near the empty shelves were signs that cleverly signaled the dual messaging on diversity that the corporate giant aimed to communicate to its customers. With signs that read  “Our range now knows borders,” “This is how empty a shelf is without foreigners,” “This shelf is pretty boring without diversity,” or “We will be poorer without diversity,” Edeka squarely thrust itself into the simmering debate in Germany and abroad on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy for refugees from the war-torn countries of Africa and the Middle East.

Edeka’s surprise display of solidarity with the reality of diversity and the changing face of German society in light of Germany’s acceptance of more than one million refugees and asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Eritrea, and Albania was met with decidedly mixed reviews.

Commenting on the controversial campaign, a spokeswoman explained the corporation’s motivations. “Edeka stands for variety and diversity. In our stores, we sell numerous foods which are produced in the various regions of Germany.  But only together with products from other countries, is it possible to create the unique variety that our consumers value.”

Hailed by many for its social and political boldness but dismissed by others as a cynical marketing ploy, Edeka joins other international retailers like America’s Kenneth Cole shoe company and Britain’s United Colors of Benetton in exploiting their commercial bully pulpit to try—often with clever humor—to tip the scales toward a more tolerant and just social compact.

I, for one, applaud Edeka for this gutsy move, for getting out in front of a difficult issue, and for planting a marker that tells its customers just where this corporate giant stands. We need more cleverly conceived campaigns like this one—especially in America and especially now.

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Farmers’ market season is in full swing here in the Northeast. And for this devotee, the season of fresh local produce can never come soon enough.

This is the season I long for throughout the barren winters when supermarket produce trucked and flown in from fields far from the Hudson Valley leaves my cooking juices as well as my taste buds in the doldrums. Put simply, farmers’ market season reawakens my interest in food. Now that the season is here it’s possible to indulge in exquisite meals in which the starring role can be taken by the simplest of preparation methods – peeling, cutting, and tossing with a bit of fruity olive oil and some freshly picked herbs from the garden.

Lest anyone try to convince you differently, the fact is that taste, freshness, and healthiness are inexorably linked. At my local farmers’ market I almost exclusively buy organically grown produce. Although there are skeptics who have been known to deny the efficacy of my taste buds, I swear by my ability to taste the residue of pesticides even after thoroughly washing and peeling conventionally grown fruits and vegetables.

But taste is just the beginning of why health-conscious consumers should be thinking about whether to purchase conventionally grown produce or make the slightly higher investment during your farmers’ market season to purchase organically grown produce.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment, provides sobering, science-based research that can help families make smart choices about the food we purchase and consume.

This year when EWG conducted their annual analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data, they found that nearly 70 percent of the samples USDA tested of the 48 types of conventionally grown produce were contaminated with the residues of one or more pesticides. Researchers at USDA found an astounding total of 178 different pesticides and pesticide breakdown products on the thousands of samples analyzed.

You read that last sentence correctly. Let me repeat: 178 different pesticides and pesticide breakdown products were found.

One of the questions consumers should be asking is what are the health effects of the astounding number of chemicals we’re ingesting via our food supply? The truth is that contrary to popular belief, it’s been proven that pesticide residues remain on fruits and vegetables even after they’re washed and, in some cases, even when they’re peeled.

What does that contamination mean for the consumer?

The pesticide and chemical industry have been telling the public for years that pesticides, growth hormones, and antibiotics in produce, in dairy products, and in meat, fish, and poultry are “nothing to worry about.”  If that false reassurance reminds you of another industry that promised their products would do no harm you wouldn’t be far off the mark. We should never forget the years of promises and lies broadcast by the tobacco industry.

The question is: Who should consumers believe when looking for answers about the safety of ingesting pesticides? The independent doctors and scientists or the industry that profits from agribusiness’s addiction to pesticides, growth hormones, and antibiotics?

Here’s Dr. Philip Landrigan, Dean of Global Health and Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, sharing the health industry’s conclusions about pesticide exposure in the most vulnerable – our children.

Even low levels of pesticide exposure can be harmful to infants, babies and young children, so when possible, parents and caregivers should take steps to lower children’s exposures to pesticides while still feeding them diets rich in healthy fruits and vegetables.

If you’re looking for guidance on which conventionally grown fruits and vegetables to avoid in terms of pesticide residues and help with making informed decisions about getting the most healthy “bang for your buck” when making decisions about purchasing organically grown produce, look no further than the Environmental Working Group’s annual scorecards. They’re called the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen.

The Dirty Dozen

• Strawberries
• Spinach
• Nectarines
• Apples
• Peaches
• Pears
• Cherries
• Grapes
• Celery
• Tomatoes
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Potatoes

Key Findings on the Dirty Dozen from the Environmental Working Group Study

• Nearly all samples of strawberries, spinach, peaches, nectarines, cherries, and apples tested positive for residue of at least one pesticide.
• The most contaminated sample of strawberries had twenty different pesticides.
• Spinach samples had an average of twice as much pesticide residue by weight than any other crop. Three-fourths of spinach samples had residues of a neurotoxic pesticide banned in Europe for use on food crops – it’s part of a class of pesticides that recent studies link to behavioral disorders in young children.

The Clean Fifteen

• Corn
• Avocados
• Pineapples
• Cabbage
• Onions
• Sweet Peas Frozen
• Papayas
• Asparagus
• Mangoes
• Eggplant
• Honeydew Melon
• Kiwis
• Cantaloupe
• Cauliflower
• Grapefruit
  

Key Findings on the Clean Fifteen from the Environmental Working Group Study

• Avocados and sweet corn were the cleanest: Only 1 percent of samples showed any detectable pesticides.
• More than 80 percent of pineapples, papayas, asparagus, onions, and cabbage had no pesticide residues.
• No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four types of pesticides.
• Multiple pesticide residues are extremely rare on Clean Fifteen vegetables. Only 5 percent of Clean Fifteen vegetable samples had two or more pesticides.

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Trump’s wall could affect your weekly trip to the supermarket. Instead of getting Mexico to pay for his pet project, as he loudly promised during the presidential campaign, Trump is now floating a 20 percent tariff [“border tax,” as he calls it] on all goods imported from Mexico. That’s going to ding you in the shopping cart.

I called my local supermarket today and spoke with the assistant produce manager, Steve. [He works for Dierberg’s, a high-quality, locally owned chain with 25 stores throughout the St. Louis region and Metro East–Illinois region.] I asked him to list all of the fruits and vegetables that—right now, at the end of January in the Midwest—are imported from Mexico.

Topping his list was avocados. That’s a big one all over the US, according to USAID: Currently, the U.S. imports 78 percent of Mexico’s avocado production.

Okay, so if you’re not a regular guacamole maker, that’s no big deal, right? But avocados are only the beginning.

Steve the produce guy then scrolled a little farther down his Excel spreadsheet and found some other items that the rest of us shoppers buy regularly. He reported that most of the varieties of tomatoes in his store also came from Mexico: Beefsteaks, Comparis, Cherubs and others.

That observation also fits national statistics: USDA says that 71 percent of tomatoes sold in the U.S. come from Mexico. Overall, the US imports $4.9 billion in fresh vegetables per year.

He also noted that essentially all of his supermarket’s strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are imported from Mexico at this time of year. And he’s right on trend there, too: According to US Trade Representative statistics, the US imports $4.3 billion in fresh fruit per year. We also bring in $1.4 billion in processed fruits and vegetables from Mexico. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mexico is the biggest exporter of fresh produce to the U.S. by far, responsible for nearly 70 percent of our vegetable imports and almost 40 percent of fruit imports. (USDA data from 2015 places the number at 44 percent of all U.S. fruit and vegetable imports.)

So, I asked Steve, if Donald Trump imposes a 20 percent tax on these imports, would you raise your prices by 20 percent as well?

“We could,” he said. “And that would hurt.”

But there could also be trouble in the snack food aisle, as well as in the beverage department. The US imports $2.7 billion in wine and beer from Mexico, and $1.7 billion in snack foods. Under the Trump tariff plan, your tacos-and-Corona parties, as well as those wine-and-cheese events, are going to be pricier. And if you’re fond of tequila shots, they’re probably going to cost more, too. [The U.S. imported over $1.3 billion worth of beer from Mexico last year [Statista, 2016] And we import about 79 percent of Mexico’s total annual exports of tequila [Tequila Regulatory Council, 2014]

Did I mention that 15 percent of all sugar consumed in the US comes from Mexico? Think of all the items on your supermarket shelves that have sugar as an ingredient. Then consider what the manufacturers of those items are going to have to do if sugar costs them 20 percent more. Trump’s scheme will be hitting your wallet when you reach for the Coco Crispies and when you grab a family-size pack of Oreos. You could get a double whammy on jars of pizza and spaghetti sauce, where more pricey tomatoes and more pricey sugar co-mingle.

A 20 percent tariff might, indeed, generate much of the estimated $15 billion cost of Trump’s wall, if you add up the total value of the food imports, plus all of the non-food items we import from Mexico and multiply by .20.

But, if Trump gets his way, when you’re at the checkout counter looking at your receipt; as you load your paper, plastic or reusable bags into the trunk of your car; and as you look at your household budget and wonder why you don’t have as much left over at the end of the month, don’t forget that some of the extra cash you left at the supermarket helped fund a chunk of Trump’s wall. How do you like them tomatoes?

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Maybe you’ve been following the long-simmering controversy about labeling food products for GMOs (genetically modified organisms). If you haven’t, now is a good time to pay attention because one of the world’s largest food conglomerates—that would be Campbell’s—has just thrown a new twist into the GMO pot. In fact, Campbell’s recently announced turnaround might just prove to be the watershed moment the anti-GMO movement and vocal consumers have been hoping for.

Campbell’s, a long-time opponent of GMO labeling, is breaking ranks with its biotech and agribusiness cronies and the powerful Grocery Manufacturing Association (GMA) to become the first major food company to label its entire line of products for genetically engineered ingredients. (That portfolio includes Campbell’s iconic soups, Pepperidge Farm cookies and snacks, Vlasic pickles, V-8 beverages, Prego pasta sauces, Swanson broths, and more).

Campbell’s new policy is in answer to consumers’ demands for transparency and reflects the economic realities of the impending enforcement of the first state-labeling law to take effect this summer in Vermont. To put it bluntly, it looks like Campbell’s is conceding defeat in the fight to establish mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Here’s how Campbell’s CEO Denise Morrison’s dropped the bombshell on January 17th:

Today, consistent with our purpose, we announced our support for mandatory national labeling of products that may contain genetically modified organisms (GMO) and proposed that the federal government provide a national standard for non-GMO claims made on food packaging.

Campbell’s announcement must have sent shockwaves through the industrial food complex because up to this year the company had been marching in lock step with the powerful anti–GMO-labeling lobby. That group was composed of a who’s who of America’s food giants—corporate titans like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Nestle, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Land O’Lakes, Del Monte, Cargill, ConAgra, Ocean Spray, and Smuckers.

Along with Campbell’s announcement backing a federal mandate for labeling came a second bombshell: that the company would “withdraw from all efforts led by coalitions and groups opposing such measures.” It was as recent as 2012 that Campbell’s deposited $265,000 into the anti-labeling lobby’s war chest. That pile of cash eventually tallied up to the mighty sum of $46 million, which America’s corporate giants sank into the campaign to defeat Proposition 37 in California (the first salvo in the fight to defeat state-mandated labeling of foods for GMO ingredients). And although Campbell’s contribution was a drop in the bowl compared to Monsanto’s more than $4 million and DuPont’s more than $3 million, the new year’s turnaround by Campbell’s could be a game changer.

Remember that the corporate bullies won the first battle in 2012, when California voters narrowly defeated Prop 37. Where California failed, however, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine succeeded. In May 2014, Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law Act 120, one of the country’s first mandatory, GMO-labeling laws. Act 120, which becomes enforceable as of July 2016, requires that all foods offered for sale in Vermont must be labeled for GMOs if the food is “entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering.”

It looks like tiny Vermont sounded the alarm on the future of GMO-labeling and one corporate food giant finally is listening.

Addressing the question of why the sudden turnaround: Here’s Campbell’s Morrison again:

We are operating with a “consumer first” mindset. We put the consumer at the center of everything we do. . . . GMO has evolved to be a top consumer food issue reaching a critical mass of 92% of consumers in favor of putting it on the label.

And Campbell’s has broken ranks even on the issue of the cost of labeling. Addressing the canard that labeling for GMOs would increase costs for consumers, in an email response to the Organic Consumers Association, Campbell’s spokesperson Tom Hushen wrote:

To be clear, there will be no price increase as a result of Vermont or national GMO labeling for Campbell products.

Campbell’s words and actions certainly appear to support the obvious economic benefits of a single federal labeling law rather than the higher projected costs of complying with a patchwork of state labeling laws. Campbell’s will be looking for guidance from the USDA and FDA for a single, federally legislated mandatory labeling standard. In sum, Campbell’s—unlike the rest of the food giants—has seen where the wind is blowing on GMO transparency and has decided to take the lead.

However, lest GMO opponents get too excited, it’s important to point out that Campbell’s is not conceding anything on the health dangers of GMOs. Here is spokesperson Tom Hushen of Campbell’s reaffirming his company’s unwavering commitment to GMOs:

We still believe GMOs are safe, and we continue to believe that they play an important role in feeding the world.

Clearly, for GMO opponents hoping to eliminate genetically modified ingredients entirely from America’s food basket, the labeling battle may have been won but the war will still go on.

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The lack of a comprehensive, government-provided safety net in America means that non-profits have to resort to bragging and begging to provide many basic services. The political season crystallizes this issue better than anything, but in a society with as much capitalism as America, it’s apparent almost everywhere.

You might think that bragging and begging are opposites, but they have a symbiotic relationship. Just look at the pitch from virtually any politician. First they tell you how great they are; then they want your money. Some are so brazen that they forget to brag; they just beg for the money.

The United States leans much more towards capitalism on the socialist – capitalist spectrum.

Non-profit organizations play a very large role in trying to fill the gaps in what government does not provide, everything from feeding the hungry to making available basic health care services for women. Because non-profits do not have the power of taxation, they are forced to raise most of their money through donations. Very few contributions come unsolicited, so this means that by default, non-profits need to ask.

The world of soliciting donations among non-profits is extremely competitive. Citizens who have the means to contribute must ask themselves questions such as, “Should I give to the food pantry or to the art museum or the symphony? Should I give to a local hospital or to a national organization seeking a cure to cancer?” Where political questions are involved, one might ask, “should I give to an organization that supports my views on reproductive choice, or should I give to a candidate of my choice?”

In some countries, most or all of these goods and services are paid by the government. For instance, in Norway, two-thirds of revenues of political parties comes from the government. In the United States, the fabric of the safety net is woven so loosely that individuals would be left to starve to death if it were not for the work of food pantries. In times of economic hardship, donations to food banks diminish, and they cannot meet the demand. This happens despite the best efforts of food pantries to appeal to the kindness, the generosity, and the concern of the American people.

Food banks or shelters for the homeless can go wanting while colleges and universities with endowments in the billions are hauling in more largesse from citizens than ever.

This is where the bragging is most apparent. Colleges and universities as well as other large charitable organizations such as hospitals or the American Red Cross spend tens of millions of dollars to shout out the message of their accomplishments. Whether their successes are real or imagined does not matter, they have a story to tell and the better they tell it, the more money they will take in.

It’s a two-step process. As the non-profits are touting their accomplishments, they are actively engaged in seeking more money for their coffers. We have to ask why, in a country that spends far more on health care than any other country, hospitals are constantly asking for more money. Before they can come begging, they have to arm themselves with the fanciest of brochures, television advertisements, and invitations to galas where they rake in money like a political candidate.

Not only does the United States provide less in necessary social services to citizens than most other industrialized nations, but we have what must be the largest Venn Diagram of the brag-osphere and beg-osphere. What does it say about the pleasantness of our society when we are saturated with so much bragging and begging? While it’s unfair to expect that an individual or organization will never engage in bragging or begging, we clearly have it in excess.

It is the currency of so much of our realm. It would be inappropriate for me to ask organizations to unilaterally “cease and desist.” However, it’s important that we are aware of how our culture is so tainted by the phenomenon.

If we look on the political spectrum, we find that once again it is Republicans who bear the greatest measure of responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves. If the federal government was empowered to cover the basic needs of all individual citizens in the country, there would be far less bragging and begging. All of this is just one more reason why our society requires fundamental and structural change. We are fortunate that progressives are trying to move us in a direction of more justice and less blathering.

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According to Carol Adams, the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat, “Meat is a symbol for patriarchal control.” Meat has been historically associated with gender since the age of hunter/gatherer societies in which meat was a valuable economic commodity, and those that controlled its distribution could maintain power. This established a pattern in social relations, which a social theorist would argue establishes a “social structure.” According to Adams, “one’s maleness is reassured by the food one eats.”

However, the social pressure males feel to reinforce their gender identity through meat has some very serious consequences. Females, traditionally considered second-class citizens in the various patriarchal societies throughout history, have been delegated what the particular society in question designates as “second-class food,” which is nearly always vegetarian. Despite the fact that pregnant and nursing mothers actually have a greater need for protein than their male counterparts, the protein needs of men are often prioritized and women starve at a disproportionate rate to men in third world countries today, as a direct result.

Throughout various patriarchal societies, such as Mbaum Kapu, women are restricted from certain meats, such as chicken and goat, and are punished if they choose to consume them. Conversely, foods designated for female consumption, such as eggs in the Nuer culture, are not eaten by males and are considered undesirable and effeminate. These are examples of the direct consequences of the genderization and sexualization of meat and the meanings associated with it.

Examples of the consequences of the genderization of meat also exist in American history. American policies regarding food rationing during wartime reinforce ideas connecting meat to masculinity: The government reserved meat for the masculine ideal, or the soldier/warrior. During World War II, on average, soldiers consumed two and a half times more meat than the average civilian. This policy is based on the superstition that in consuming the muscles of other creatures, the consumer is given strength. This has led to the traditional belief that men require meat for strength and, as a result, the consumption of meat has become a symbol of male dominance and a way to sustain strength, and by extension, social power. In this way, the federal government has reinforced ideas about meat and gender, as well as meat and power, forging meat as a symbol of the patriarchy. Meat has become a tool of gender identity in our society, which has serious consequences for women and animals.

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