Chef Rick Bayless’ Stewardship Helps Farm to Table Take Flight

By Bob Benenson and Jim Slama, FamilyFarmed

Rick BaylessChicago on Monday hosted the annual James Beard Foundation culinary awards ceremony for the first time, and Rick Bayless — one of the city’s most decorated and highest profile chefs — was frequently on the stage as one of the event’s co-chairmen.

He has a long-running public television show (Mexico: One Plate at a Time), won the Bravo network’s Top Chef Masters competition in 2009, and has written several cookbooks, including More Mexican Everyday, which was just released on April 27.Famed for popularizing regional Mexican cuisine in the city at his Frontera Grill and Topolobampo restaurants, Bayless won his first James Beard award — Best Chef Midwest — at the organization’s inaugural ceremony in 1991, and his most recent this year for Best Podcast (The Feed, which he co-hosts with Chicago food critic Steve Dolinsky). In between, he received James Beard medallions as National Chef of the Year in 1995 and Humanitarian of the Year in 1998, and Frontera Grill received the organization’s Outstanding Restaurant award in 2007.

Yet it is Bayless’ role as a pioneer in helping establish a market for local, sustainably produced — and delicious — food in the Chicago region that, to advocates of the Good Food movement, is one of his greatest lifetime achievements.

Modern farming practices are killing us

Glyphosate is killing usAn alarming new study, accepted for publication in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology last month, indicates that glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide due to its widespread use in genetically engineered agriculture, is capable of driving estrogen receptor mediated breast cancer cell proliferation within the infinitesimal parts per trillion concentration range.

The study, titled, “Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors,” compared the effect of glyphosate on hormone-dependent and hormone-independent breast cancer cell lines, finding that glyphosate stimulates hormone-dependent cancer cell lines in what the study authors describe as “low and environmentally relevant concentrations.”

 

Pi Day of the Century

Pi DayThe Pi Day of the century, 3.14/15 is only a little over a week away. For a time now Pi Day has been all about fun and of course pie, but with the way in recent years, science and even reality itself have come more and more under attack, I’m thinking maybe this year it’s time for Pi Day to emerge as something more than just fun.

For so much of our history, the people of our country and the world have benefited greatly from the science-based reality that has shaped America’s future. Science may be based on numbers, but science’s actual value is in its humanity. It’s beyond doubt that through science and the honest representation of reality our lives have become safer, healthier and happier.

Yet today the very science that has done so much to reduce suffering in our lives is now under attack. From the climate, to vaccines, to Wisconsin’s own Governor Walker’s belief that there are more votes in denying evolution than there are in embracing it, clearly somewhere something has gone very wrong. There is more than enough blame to go all around for how we got here, but maybe this is one of those times that where we are is not nearly as important as where we need to be.

Maybe rather than a debate of our differences, what we need is a celebration of what we share. At Penzeys we think Pi Day could grow into just the holiday we need. There really is no time to lose to get on to celebrating the truth of science-based reality and the math behind it. And there is also no time better than now to get back to celebrating the kindness, compassion and the nurturing nature of our shared humanity that has always been behind the very best that science has brought to our lives.

In Pi, the number is all the value and beauty and wonder that is at the heart of the reality science holds. In the gift of a good slice of pie, the desert is all the kindness and compassion that our shared humanity encompasses. Pi Day really is ready to become so much more. And could there be a better day to relaunch Pi Day as the holiday we truly need than 3.14/15; the Pi Day of the Century?

So we are reaching out to our customers for help. We need your stories and a recipe or two. We already have good stories in the works for living with climate change, the value of vaccines, evolution, and the psychology/brain chemistry of why as humans we are so resistant to seeing the certainty of climate change.

Where we still really need your help is in finding an economist or two to speak to why our deficit spending has left our economy and our humanity in so much better shape than what Europe is facing today. And we could also use one more person with the knowledge to speak to the monetary cost and the human cost of sending to prison people who simply need treatment instead.

For recipes we are flexible. Pies are great but not necessary. Maybe you have another baked good you like to share. Or possibly you have a way you like to make some other circular item: a sliced carrot recipe, scallops are always popular, or even a beet salad that’s an old family tradition would do the trick. We really are flexible.

The important thing is if you have the science, or the numbers, or the knowledge that is needed for good policy making in the fields of economics or restorative justice please actually contact us. Don’t wait for someone else to do it. Just email a phone number where we can reach you and I will have one of our friendly writers give you a call.

It’s time to get off the sidelines. We can’t let science and all the goodness it can bring to our lives be a victim of our cultural wars. I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but the future really is at stake here. With your help 3.14/15 could be the turning point the world so very much needs.

We realize we are looking for a needle in a haystack here, and on short notice. If you know someone who fits what we are looking for, please forward this email to them, or better yet, give them a call.

Thanks,

Bill Penzey
[email protected]

Love At First Bite – The Ad Doritos Don’t Want You to See

Rainforests across Southeast Asia are being destroyed every day to make way for massive palm oil plantations, where workers, even children, are trapped in modern slavery to cultivate the vegetable oil. The clearing of these rainforests and peatlands are driving many species like the orangutan and Sumatran tiger to the brink of extinction, while also polluting the Earth’s atmosphere by releasing gigatons of greenhouse gases.

“PepsiCo has contributed $1,716,300 to oppose the passage of California Proposition 37, which would mandate the disclosure of genetically modified crops used in the production of California food products.”

Each year, PepsiCo buys 427,500 tonnes of palm oil. Given how high profile the Doritos Super Bowl campaign is, we’re using this opportunity to let consumers around the world know about PepsiCo’s irresponsible palm oil sourcing policy. there’s never been a better time to spread the message and make friends, family and colleagues aware of PepsiCo’s practices.

please sign the petition to PepsiCo

Taxing the Sun

Virginia Chapter Sierra Club

 

The State Corporation Commission’s latest attack on clean energy makes clear just how out of touch this body, charged with regulating electric utilities, is with the people of Virginia and the reality of climate change (“Power customers to see bill refund,” Nov. 27 news story).

In approving a standby charge, a tax on the sun, the SCC believes AEP’s claim that citizens who put solar panels on their homes are somehow shortchanging the rest of us.

This position could not be further from the truth, but it is consistent with the SCC’s recent attack on the EPA’s Clean Power Plan to reduce climate-changing carbon pollution by encouraging investments in efficiency, wind and solar.

When businesses and homeowners install solar panels, they actually save the rest of us money by deferring the need for AEP to invest in new power plants.

Sadly, Commissioners Mark Christie, Judith Jagdmann and James Dimitri care more about protecting utilities’ monopoly on electricity sales than about Virginians or the climate.

 

GLEN BESA

Virginia Director
Sierra Club
RICHMOND

Taxing the Sun was originally published on Rural Madison