The strange and disturbing result of last year’s crisis with  salmonella tainted peanut butter is that there hasn’t been much change at all.  In fact, the criminal investigations into the now bankrupt Peanut Corp. of America (and its top executives) resulted in no charges whatsoever.  The outbreak was linked to 700 sicknesses and 9 deaths across the US.  It seemed like every product that had peanut butter in it was pulled off the shelves.

Major changes in food inspections methodology were called for nationwide.  Yet, food-born illnesses continue to grab headlines.

Under the scrutiny of media outlets everywhere, Georgia, home state of Peanut Corp. of America, got its act together super-fast.  It now requires regular food testing by manufacturers and that they report any contamination with 24 hours.  “Plants must open internal records to inspectors and detail methods to ensure that any contamination is destroyed before a product is shipped” (link).  However, an amendment to that bill lets companies bypass self-testing by submitting a “food safety plan” to the state.  It’s a step in the right direction, I guess.

Needless to say, Congress has been slower to react.  Well, more precisely, the Senate’s bill has stalled…like it has on health care, cap and trade, etc.:

On the federal level, a coalition of 18 groups including grocery and food industries and consumer safety organizations wrote a letter this month to Senate leaders imploring them to vote soon on the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. The House has passed its version of the bill, which would require food companies to develop food safety plans, require regular inspections of food plants and give the FDA more power.

Thanks, Senate!

***

A depressing question that comes to mind is Should we be thankful for the peanut butter crisis?  Many foodies and health experts have been clamoring for increased food safety for years.  And, some of those advocates say that without the salmonella outbreak we wouldn’t have this chance at really good reform.  Well, not to be ungrateful (and sarcastic), but I’m sure the families of the victims of the countless food-borne illnesses in the US are comforted by that.

My thoughts on this are similar to what I want done with health care reform; We need lots more focus on preventative action.  Why suffer through the flu when you can get a flu shot? Why suffer food poisoning when manufactures could keep the rats and bacteria out of the food in the first place?

How about it, Senate?

In a special interview with an intrepid 11-year-old, Obama explained how he was going to make school lunches both tastier and healthier.  Damon Weaver comes from a low-income school district in Pahokee, Florida, and has previously scored interviews with Dwayne Wade, a basketball star, and then-senator Joe Biden.  Weaver asks what many parents want to know, when will school lunches be tasty and healthy:

Weaver: Do you have the power to make the school lunches better?

President Obama: I remember when I used to get school lunches sometimes they didn’t taste so good, I gotta admit. We are actually seeing if we can work to at least make school lunches healthier, because a lot of school lunches, uh, y’know, there’s a lot of French fries, pizza, tater tots, all kinds of stuff that, uh, isn’t a well balanced meal, and so what we want to do is make sure that there are more fruits and more vegetables in the schools now. Kids may not end up liking that, but it’s actually better for ‘em. It’ll be healthier for them and those are some of the changes we’re trying to make.

Weaver: I suggest we have French fries and mangoes every day for lunch.

President Obama: See? That–and–you know–And if you were planning the lunch program it would probably taste good to you, but it might not make you big and strong like you need to be. And so we want to make sure that food tastes good in school lunches, but that they’re also healthy for you, too.

Weaver: I looove mangoes.

President Obama: You love mangoes? I love mangoes too, but I’m not sure we can get mangoes in every school, ‘cuz they only grow in hot temperatures. You know, there are a lot of schools up North where they don’t have mango trees.

[The rest of the transcript can be found here.]

The President’s sentiments about upcoming food changes jive well the First Lady’s philosophy on producing real healthcare reform and curbing the obesity epidemic, especially among children.  She has said, basically, that to get America eating right, our children have to eat right.  Reworking the nation’s school lunch program is a big part of that plan, and what Weaver’s interview shows is that the POTUS is actively working on the same platform for change.

He and Michelle will have plenty of help;  Across the nation, parents and concerned citizens are joining the lunchroom revolution.  Marion Nestle, the nation’s food policy guru, tells us how to get involved:

The national model [for the lunchroom revolution], of course, is Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. If your dream is to have your school connect food production to eating, take a look at Berkeley’s Center for Ecoliteracy’s how-to guide, “Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment.”

Let’s not wait around for Congress to pass a bill.  Let’s work on changing what our kids eat *today*.

First, there was an article about  the food deserts in Chicago neighborhoods (link).  Then there was an article about how  agribusinesses are trying to trick unsuspecting consumers by using the meaningless term ‘natural’ (link).  And the third one, well it wasn’t about human habits, but if you put monkeys on reduced calorie diets it keeps them pretty healthy (link).  It could very well extrapolate to humans, given what overly increased calorie intake has done to society.

My Mom, so used to having me send her these types of articles via email and blog links, jokes about how these foodie issues are being “spotlighted in such an old fashioned medium as the printed newspaper”.

Indeed, I am really glad to see that food issues are finally getting their due in other mass media outlest.

Like Michelle Obama is trying to make abundantly clear, food concerns are heavily related to nearly every single problem we face right now.  The epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes is directly linked to how the cheap food is the unhealthiest.  The energy crisis is in no way helped by the the industrialized food industry reliance on oil for its pesticides and outdated machinery.  Very closely followed is, of course, global warming and the environmental crisis in general.  All that pesticide runoff and animal waste takes its toll on the land and the people living on and near it!

Again, I’m estatic that food policy and food research is getting more attention.  With these articles and others like them coming off the AP wires, the new documentary Food Inc.,  and Michael Pollan being almost famous, I think the food movement is really getting on the move.

Huzzah!

However, while he was working for the FDA, he did recuse himself from matters related to Monsanto and its bovine growth hormone, which they did approve the use of.  And, while he was working for the USDA he instituted HACCP (science-based food safety regulations) for meat and poultry against the full opposition of the meat industry.  He even made a speech about it to the American Meat Institute–his said the USDA would be more about consumer health and public safety than agricultural productivity.  (Funny how that objective seemed to slip away from the agency…)

Furthermore, according Marion Nestle’s Safe Food, Michael Taylor has (as of 2002, at least) a lot of high-minded priorities that are sure to please many food activists:

• A single agency accountable for providing consistent and coordinated oversight of food safety, from farm to table.
• Institution of Pathogen Reduction: HACCP, with performance standards verified by pathogen testing, at every step of food production.
• Recall authority, access to records, and penalties for lapses in safety procedures.
• Standards for imported foods equivalent to those for domestic foods.
• Food safety to take precedence over commercial considerations in trade disputes.

One would think that these goals would pervade the food safety system even without Mr. Taylor’s direction, and that seven years on there would be more progress on these issues inherent to everyday food safety.  Unfortunately, it is difficult to change the past.

Consequently, for us in linear time, we must focus on the future and watch closely to see if Taylor is true to his older self.  We can only hope that he gets right back to the business he started getting down to years ago.

***

P.S. Check out PoliticalFriendster.com for the many degrees of Michael Taylor.  Along with Monsanto, think tanks, and academia, it turns out that he is also related to Tipper Gore.

I had an addiction – - a habit worse to kick than heroin.  I couldn’t lock myself in a room and wait for the cravings to end. My parents supported the addiction.  Well, if not support, then I should say that they did not help to rid me of it, my self-destruction, because deep down I think they knew they had the addiction themselves. Child psychiatry was not a common practice during my day.  My parents would not have bothered anyway.  They loved to smother me with kisses.  Hershey kisses, that is.

I had an addiction to food.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  My mouth only stopped chewing to speak or to sleep.  I may have even slept walked into the kitchen a couple of times.  It was not a ‘comfort’ thing for me.  I did not go running to the refrigerator because some girl at school called me a bad name.  It seemed more like a chemical dependency on my part.  Of course everyone is dependent on the nutrients of food but for me it seemed to go beyond eating to survive.

I can hardly remember a time when I had complete silence around me.  There was always a crunching, a slurping, or a sucking noise coming forth from my mouth.

Because of this “condition” of mine, it was difficult to play sports or be moderately active.  You can’t run with a sucker in your mouth because you could trip and fall and have the stick stab directly through to your brain.  The same goes for an unsuspecting carrot stick.  So, I wasn’t an active child.  One can rightly imagine my weight at the time.  Even if I had been eating vegetables and fruits all of the time, the amount of calories I consumed versus the ones I burnt off with activity scarcely compared to each other.  It was horrendous, but I enjoyed every mouthful.  The lemon meringue pie, caramel sweets, almonds, popcorn, sirloin steaks, baked sweet potatoes with cinnamon sugar on top—anything and everything was to be had, nothing to be denied no matter how strange it looked or smelled.

There weren’t many obese children being interviewed in the seventies.  I was one of the “lucky” ones.  My fifteen minutes of fame came when an eccentric millionaire decided to play mind games with the world and invite ten people into his “factory”.  My mother was caught up in the chocolate bar craze and was soon showering me with Wonkabars instead of Hershey kisses.

He was the owner of a well-known chocolate factory.  He lured children into his “house of candy”, making them taste his sweets.  Since there have been no lawsuits restricting my use of the actual names of people and places of past events, I shall use the real ones.  Mr. Willy Wonka, sole proprietor of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, placed five “golden” tickets inside five very special Wonkabars for five very special people.  The golden ticket invited the lucky finders to his factory and promised them a lifetime supply of chocolate.

My name is Augustus Gloop and I was the first of the five golden ticket winners.  Yes, the candy man certainly made me happy that day.  People came to speak with me for news broadcasts from all over the world.  For once people actually wanted to be seen with me while I was eating.  I suddenly had more “friends” than I knew what to do with.

But with this short lived fame there came a price.  The child protection agency took notice of my eating habits.  I was nearly taken away from my family.  Fortunately, we were able to procure a good family lawyer that convinced them to give my mother and father a chance to reform my gluttonous ways.  But that is another story for another time.

I can trace back my own recognition for a need to change to the most traumatizing time in my childhood, which took place only weeks after the interviewing episode.  I am only now, thirty years later, really able to openly talk of my experiences behind those doors of the spindly, old Willy Wonka.

The real doors were opened for me as the winner of a golden ticket.  We were allowed to bring one member of our immediate family to accompany us through the factory.  I chose my mother to come.  The directions on the golden ticket said that we had to be outside the factory gates promptly at ten o’clock.  I was there along with four other children and their chosen family members.  I was familiar with most, except the last boy who I had overheard won just the other day by pure luck.  Not that the rest of us won with anything else…except that Veruca Salt.  I had heard distasteful things about her.  The other two were Mike Teevee and Violet Beauregarde.

The entrance was the typical PR reception; smile and wave to the cameras and make nice with the public.  I should have known things were going to get worse when Mr. Wonka made the five of us sign a contract before we even began the tour.  I didn’t like the look of the small print, but figured I had nothing to really worry about.  What else did I have to do besides keep my arms and legs inside the vehicle at all time?

I was anxious to get going.  All the while I had been fingering the bag of chips in my pocket, anxiously waiting for a semi-private moment to get them out and chow down.  But how could I savor my chips when my arms were wedged up against my body as Willy Wonka led us into a miniature version of the Ames room–all the walls tilted at awkward angles.  Surely the maximum capacity was less than eleven, exactly what we had.  It was a fire hazard.  The room felt like it was closing in on me, crushing my lungs like an anaconda around its prey.  Being trapped in that small black and white room with nine strangers that included a wildly eccentric man was like being a tourist lost in the “bad parts” of New York City.

Through Willy Wonka’s labyrinth we continued.  Some wanted to go back already but Mr. Wonka assured us that “in order to go back you have to go forward.”  What a nut.  Stopping in front of a plain mahogany door, he explained that we were about to enter the nerve center for his entire chocolate factory.  He told us, amazingly, that, “almost everything you see is “eatable, edible.  I mean you can eat almost anything.”  This was the most fantastic thing I’d ever heard.

I denounced my anxiety for the long awaited bag of chips.  There were promises of much better things to come.  My innards roared.  My mind screamed, “Let me in.  I’m starving!”  Or did I say that out loud?

Willy Wonka opened the door.  Before I could even see inside, the intoxicating aroma of the finest chocolate filled my nose.  My mouth salivated at the thought of the precious dark, milk, and almond jewels lying in wait.

Everywhere, there was stuff and nonsense that tantalized my senses.  My eyes, nose, and stomach pulled me forward, demanding that I eat, eat, eat.  The room was full of color; a rainbow of flavor had exploded onto everything.  It was a candy garden.  Gummy bears grew on peppermint leafed trees alongside chocolate and cream mushrooms.  There were groves of buttercup flowers filled with sweet tea.  All was to be tasted.  All was to be mine.

I ran as quickly as my pudgy legs could carry me from one thing to another.  Pulling things off trees, licking the flowers.  I couldn’t be stopped; my heart was beating so quickly I thought it would positively burst within me.  I came upon the Hope Diamond of Willy Wonka’s factory.  A chocolate river!  I bent down to scoop some into my hands.  Absolutely wonderful!  It was frothy and delicious, like the best hot chocolate in the world times ten.  No, a million!  I bent down again.  I couldn’t help myself now.  It tasted so good.  I wanted to stay there forever slurping up the phenomenal concoction.

But, oh no!  I stooped too low!  I was slipping!  The candy rocks could not support me as I grabbed at them.  That Charlie kid tried to help me, but it was too late.  Something was pulling me under.  I was being sucked down into the chocolately depths by I know not what.  I was most assuredly done for.  I apologized for everything I had ever regretted in my life.  I apologized to a billion kids in Ethiopia for all I had eaten in my life time twice over.  I tried to picture my mother and father, beaming with pride for me with tears in their eyes.  My epitaph: Augustus Gloop—He had his cake and ate it too.

There was a light.  Not under my own will, I gravitated towards it, slowly at first but then picking up speed as I went along.  The tunnel of light grew and grew until I could fit into it.  I began to climb up the tunnel of light, but stopped.  Looking around I saw the bright colors of the world I had just left.  ‘What is this?’  I had thought to myself.  I could see them looking towards me.  All of them were aghast except Mr. Wonka.  He stared blankly towards me, calmly eating candy.

“Help!” I exclaimed.  “Help!”

It began to hurt.  The unknown force was shoving me harder than before.  But to where, though?  The pressure was mounting.  I knew I couldn’t go much farther.  My shoulders were already wedged too tightly into the tube.  Something was building, growing steadily below me.  POP!  I went flying up and up, and I was in darkness again.  The tubing took a left, went up some more, turned right, and dipped downward.  I was tumbling down a slide…into the hands of…little orange men with green hair…

*  *  *

I don’t remember much of anything after that.  I’m told I passed out from shock. After finding out that I was fine, my mother barely spoke to me for a week.  I was sent home in shame.  We weren’t going to receive the lifetime supply of chocolate—there was some breech in the contract.

The airplane seats were again too small—one more brick in the wall of humility.  My body remembered being squeezed almost to death in the chocolate tube and shuddered.  On the flight home I vowed never to eat more than one plateful of food at one sitting ever again and to lose weight, too.

Once home I began a strict regimen of daily habits.  In the morning I awoke at six to go walking for at least a half an hour.  I ate a healthy breakfast of toast, orange juice, one fried egg and a bowl of cereal.  Lunch consisted of a casual sandwich, fruit, some crackers, and a thermos of milk or water.  After homework in the afternoon I would go for another walk.  Dinner was a lean portion of whatever my mother had prepared that day.

As the months progressed my walks turned into jogs and my jogs into runs.  Their length increased to sometimes even an hour and a half.  I was becoming lean and fit.  I received compliments about my weight loss everywhere I went.  We had to keep shopping for new clothes almost each month.  I felt better about myself than I had in years.  I wanted this to go on.  I loved the way I looked and the way people saw me.

*  *  *

Both my breakfast and lunch became solely fruits and vegetables.  At dinner I took an even smaller portion of the main dish.  I kept smiling as I ate less, ran faster and farther and lost more weight.  Soon I was down to one hundred and forty pounds, but I felt I could do better.  I began to do crunches and push-ups before and after my runs.  Over the year my runs had lengthened from only one mile per day to seven.  My weight was bouncing between one-ten and one-twenty.  My smile was broadening but others’ smiles were diminishing.

During gym one day I fainted.  My parents were notified and took me home.  This event seemed to assure them of something they hadn’t wanted to admit.  They checked me into a local hospital, diagnosing me with anorexia nervosa.  Upon examination at the hospital I weighed merely one hundred and three pounds.  The hospital technicians strapped me down into the bed.  Overweight nurses waddled around me now and again assuring me that I was not being harmed in anyway.  “This is for your own good.”  The good came with machines hooked up to me so the doctors could monitor my every bodily function.  They made me watch videos about healthy lifestyles and listen to doctors give speeches on how to lose weight and gain muscle without going overboard.  But, all that they told me I should do, I had done.  I had done it perfectly.

Tubes reentered my life.  I was fed through one until I had gained an appropriate amount of weight.  Then they watched me eat after I was off the tube.  I felt like I was in prison, especially after I was released early for good behavior.

After leaving I was eyed very closely.  My mother and father took turns making all of my meals and watching me consume them.  At school they had teachers make sure I ate what they had packed for me.  A few weeks passed in this manner.  My mother had told me if I ate well I could go back to my exercise routine.  I did just that.

*   *   *

During the next three years I was hospitalized twice more.  The second time I nearly died.  I had kidney damage because the malnutrition was a disruption to my body’s fluid and mineral balance.  My heart rate was irregular and the glands around my neck were swollen with stones in my salivary duct.  According to our family doctor, these are all the “medical dangers associated with anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating disorder”.

They put me back on tube feeding, this time for several months, and made me go to classes that helped people like me.  I was able to talk to other people about it.  I told them about my transfer from my old addiction, the one that had nauseated me at the mere thought of it during the last years, to the more recent obsession.  When I saw an obese person eating I would shudder and refuse to eat anything more that day.  Eating with my family was a daily torture.  I had to develop a cough, an allergy to the air around the dining table so that I could cough my food into my napkin.

I had felt out of control and helpless to do anything about my problem, my fixation, my addiction concerning weight, but now I know there is better for me.  I don’t have to hide my food away, barely half eaten.  My new friends and I accepted my past and helped me to see a better future with a healthy median.

Now, I’m eating regularly and teaching aerobics classes down at the YMCA.  When I see obese people, I don’t shudder.  Instead, I feel the pang of knowing what it is like.  Food is an enjoyment with friends and family submersed in conversation.  Life without the scale in the bathroom is better.  And, when I see someone heading down the roads I took, I make sure to show the kid what it took me years to realize.  I let the kid know to take it easy with himself and to take things in moderation, not to the extreme—that sometimes, as the truism turned cliché goes, there really can be too much of a good thing.

Two men have been given the death penalty for their involvement in China’s contaminated milk scandal.

The former boss of the Sanlu dairy at the centre of the scandal was given life imprisonment.

They were among several sentences handed down by the court in northern China, where Sanlu is based.

Yes, those involved in the melamine scandal should be punished harshly for selling milk products known to be contaminated, and for causing the deaths of 13 babies and making 300,000 other children seriously ill (link).  Still, after reading about this I had several reactions. I felt repulsion at the severity of the punishment for the people involved and confusion about the lack of direction from China’s govenment.  The court ruling raises other issues too:

Issue #1

Life sentences and death sentences will not change the fact there is little to no real food safety oversight in China’s factories.  Using scare tactics is not a long-term solution. (See the approval ratings of the Bush administration and the failure of McCain’s campaign.)

Issue #2

These court rulings seem to say that China is taking these crimes very, very seriously.  Yet, at least five parents of melamine-sickened children were arrested for planning to hold a press conference over the matter (link).  Their mixed message is confusing and does not lend to an image of China making strides to ensure public awareness and safety.

Issue #3

The story of the melamine crisis broke in September, quickly followed by global recalls and global criticism for China’s cover-up (note that they had known about it even during the Olympics).  Why did it take so long to investigate and prosecute those involved in the melamine food chain?

Part of the reason for Issue #3 is conflated with Issue #1:  Their slowness is due to the fact that they do not have any good nationwide safety plan.  Even with recall after recall of lead contaminated this or that, China is not on their game when it comes to safety checks.  Yes, China is a big country, but so is America and we tend to get it right most of the time.  Either that or scandals get even more hushed than in China…Dissecting that is for another post, surely.

Issue #4

The parents sought to hold a press conference to address the fact that the government promised to pay for their medical bills, yet it is ignoring the cost of treatment received before the government began its official investigation.  To be considered are two factors:  One, the court is charging the chairwoman of Sanlu Group (maker of the formula powder) $2.9 million and fining her corporation $7.3 million.  Secondly, China has had economic growth in the double digits for the last several years and a surplus in liquidity (many nations are sadly in debt to China, including our own).  China should pay not only out of a sense of guilt or moral integrity, but because they have the money to do so.

*******

Where is China going from here?  What policy reform are they doing in order to prevent such major catastrophe from happening in the future?  Can the people of China feel safe when their government is reluctant to pursue and resolve crises like this?

Thanks to the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, these businesses are able to donate food to nonprofits with minimal liability.  Signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, it allows litigation against donators only in cases of gross negligence.  According to the letter of the law itself, neither individuals nor organizations will be held accountable for damages from “apparently wholesome” or “apparently fit” foods (link).  It makes sense–if you needed a scientific laboratory in order to identify all contaminated goods, it would be a financial burden for donors and a significant barrier to making donations.  The Emerson Good Samaritan Act makes sure that good will does not entail great cost.

California State Senator Jenny Oropeza is picking up where Senator Emerson left off by (re)introducing a state bill that will make it even easier for customers of catered events to donate leftovers.  With the bill, customers will be given the decision to have the caterer donate excess food to a food bank or take it home themselves.  Last year, caterers and restaurant associations opposed the law because of unclear liability safeguards.  This time, Oropeza is working with industry representatives to form the language of the bill.

“The food donor is always worried about liability,” [Robert Brooks, a Santa Monica resident and the proprietor of Tru Grub Catering in Venice], pointed out. “If restaurants and caterers were assured that they would not be liable for any food that they wanted to donate and that there was explicit language that spelled that out, I think they would be more likely to support the bill.”

In the meantime, Oropeza encourages her constituents to do what she does — purchase extra canned goods at the grocery store and donate them to a food bank or soup kitchen.

“For those of us who can afford to do it, it would really make all the difference in the world to a needy family,” the senator said, “especially during the holiday season, with so many families finding themselves in very difficult financial circumstances”

Your Voice in Sacramento

What could Burger King’s PR people be thinking? Probably that if they produced something outrageous, everyone would write about it, as I am now doing. Burger King spent a fortune to go to the ends of the earth and ask people who supposedly had never eaten a hamburger before whether they preferred a Whopper to some other unnamed hamburger. The results are to be announced tomorrow (Monday). Want to hazard a guess as to how this brilliant study will come out?

It’s hard to know what’s worse: the poor quality of the sponsored science, the offensiveness of the “Whopper Virgin” concept, or the condescension to the people living in those remote areas. As they say in PR, ink is ink.

-Marion Nestle

The “documentary” at BK’s website makes the case that this PR stunt is really a scientific experiment.  However, the accompanying taste-test videos makes it looks like nothing more than well-funded mockery:  One man is faced with a double Whopper and a no-name burger.  With bewilderment, he stares at them both.  He doesn’t know what to do.  Then, suddenly, he makes a grab for one.  It’s the Whopper.  But, he’s picked up only the poppy-seeded bun.  Nomming gleefully, he is triumphant over the strange foods set before him.

The whole going to the ends of the earth thing is sham, though.  They say in the documentary that they order food at a local Burger King and then go as far as they can in fifteen minutes (so the food is still fresh off the grill) to find their virgin.  If you’re fifteen minutes away from a Burger King, you are most certainly not out of civilization’s grip.

And, if Burger King had truly been on a scientific quest, they should recognize the pitfalls in their tactics.  Meaning, the validity of the taste test itself is questionable.  First of all, demand characteristics, where participants act the way they think the researcher wants them to act, was probably at play during their ‘research’.  With attention showered upon them, how could they disappoint the nice men with cameras?  Secondly, given that the burgers came hot and fresh from a BK bag, it’s safe to say that it was also not a blind taste test.

But, how does this derision and bad science sell a burger to the Westerner watching the commercial?  Well, like Marion Nestle points out, it does get your attention.  If BK can do that, they probably figure their work is mostly done.  You know that you can “have it your way” without going to ends of the earth.

Chef Friese also echoes my own sentiments about the home-cooked meal.  That the modern, take-out and delivery family sees cooking meals as a chore is a detriment to our civility.  Dinner has become something that takes time away from other precious activities instead of a time for the family.  By relying on restaurants, parents are instilling a negative perception of cooking and bad eating habits.  Going to KFC may be easy, but its true cost is the loss of family togetherness and responsible dinners.

Jane Goodall, scientist turned environmental activist, has seen first-hand the forests restored by local indigenous farmers growing the prized shade-grown beans (link). Flying over Tanzania, Goodall saw the crippling deforestation that has occurred around the Gombe National Park since her studies began. She also saw that because of the deforestation there were starving chimps and people, and she knew that she could not save the chimps or other wildlife without helping the local people.

Heeding the Forests Now Declaration, she and others began a multilevel process of reforestation, water and sanitation projects, microlending for women, and so on. However, once they found that some really great coffee was growing up the local mountains, they had another strategy to pursue: There could be a real market for the shade-grown coffee that could create a sustainable agricultural economy for the people around Gombe. However, they did not have roads or local infrastructure in order to profitably grow and sell the coffee.

Goodall convinced some coffee roasters in Seattle to come and try the beans, and, also, because they liked it, help market the coffee. Within five weeks Green Mountain Coffee Roasters had begun investing in Gombe infrastructure and farming tools. Now, thanks to the coffee initiative, the local people are setting aside 10-20% of their land for reforestation and forest protection. And, they are doing it so that the trees form a continuous corridor, letting chimps once isolated between deforested patches of land move farther and communicate more than ever in their lives. The development of the forests also encourages biodiversity and the maintenance of bird populations that would otherwise be lost (link).

Plans like the Gombe’s have been enacted throughout the world from Costa Rica to the Amazon. But, is shade-grown coffee just for the birds? Many coffee experts believe shade-grown coffee is fuller in taste and aroma:

Shaded conditions create a cooler setting and, like coffee grown at a higher altitude, the growth of the bean is slower. This creates a denser, harder bean, and that is what roasters and coffee experts like for quality coffee.

Few studies have actually tested the effect that shade has on coffee quality, but one study in Costa Rica confirms the beneficial effects of shade on quality. When tested for all the “organoleptic” qualities: acidity, aroma, body, aftertaste, etc.-a shade canopy induced quality improvements in most categories.

Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center

So, the annoying guy at the coffee shop is paying a few cents more not only to have a much better cup of coffee, but also to support reforestation, bird and chimp life, and third-world economic development as well.  Shade-grown coffee: does the world good.