yearofplenty

Amazing New Google Books Ngram Search Tool - Foodie Index, Fast Food Index and More

The geniuses at Google have put together a search tool that allows you to search through a good portion of the books they've scanned into Google Books. Here is how it works:

The service draws on the absolutely massive Google Books corpus. Google estimates they've scanned and OCR'd more than 10 percent of all the books ever published, and they use about a third of the total books in the tool.

Language and book publishing trends are tricky things to nail down. For example, just because a word comes into more frequent use does not necessarily mean that the concrete realities we attach to those words in today's language have become more important or popular. But they do provide fascinating data points to consider when assessing cultural trends.

I did a few searches related to the content of this blog:

Below is the meat index comparing usage of the words chicken, beef, pork, and turkey (1900-2008):

 

Here's an "industrial agriculture" vs. "organic agriculture" throwdown (1940-2008):

 

Below is the fast food index showing the rise of pizza, hamburger, and fast food (1940-2008):

 

Here's what I'll call the foodie index showing community garden, farmers market, and csa (1900-2008):

Below is the vintage food index showing use of victory garden, pickling, and canning (1900-2000):

 Finally the ag index showing frequency of farm, farmer, and agriculture (1900-2008):

The Vendovores Dilemma - New Vending Machines for Carrots, Hydro Lettuce, and Live Crabs

First there were the carrot vending machines pretending to distribute junk food in HIgh School cafeterias.

Then there was the vending machine that grows and distributes hydroponic lettuce.

Now along comes the live crab vending machine.

I wonder what's next?

World Comparison - Fresh vs. Processed Food Consumption

This is old news but I came across this handy chart put together over at the NY Times that illustrates the comparison of US food consumption vs. the rest of the world. Along with highlighting the US dominance in the processed foods arena, there are several other interesting points of comparison.

I was surprised to see how much bakery goods make up the diet of Mexicans, mostly because I've never been a big fan of Mexican baked goods.(Deleon Foods being the exception.) Japan and France are the winners in the sauces/dressings category. China eats more vegetables per capita than the US, Spain and France combined. The chart makes a note that rice sold loose and un-packaged is in the fresh foods category. Both Brazil and China beat out the US in consumption of meat and seafood. Considering the availability of inexpensive fresh fruit in the U.S. I can't figure out why our consumption would fall behind most of the world. Maybe southern climates have a leg up on us with year round tropical fruit.

Click through to see a comparison of fresh and processed foods in pictures from the amazing book Hungry Planet. I usually use those pictures in my Powerpoint presentations when sharing about our experience of eating locally.

Latest from Michael Pollan - Food Movement Rising

Picture: Wild Bolete mushrooms gathered with some friends last summer
at Mt. Spokane. It's mushroom season again.

In case you missed it, Michael Pollan is out with his latest article at the NY Review of Books. The article is a good summary of where things are at right now with the food movement. The paragraph below has a personal resonance;

It would be a mistake to conclude that the food movement’s agenda can be reduced to a set of laws, policies, and regulations, important as these may be. What is attracting so many people to the movement today (and young people in particular) is a much less conventional kind of politics, one that is about something more than food. The food movement is also about community, identity, pleasure, and, most notably, about carving out a new social and economic space removed from the influence of big corporations on the one side and government on the other. As the Diggers used to say during their San Francisco be-ins during the 1960s, food can serve as “an edible dynamic”—a means to a political end that is only nominally about food itself. (emphasis mine)

Erik Samuelson @pubpastor recently described me on Twitter as "Pastor and Foodie," but the truth is I'm kind of a Foodie flunky. My dirty little secret is that for someone who talks about food a lot, I don't cook much and while I like a good meal, I'm not much of a food connoisseur. I love growing all kinds of food and I love eating fresh seasonal foods but when it comes to the intricacies of fine dining I'm less interested. (Lovitt Restaurant being an exception)

When I think of Foodie I think of my friend Kevin Finch. As many of you know I'm not the only Presbyterian pastor in Spokane who is engaged with our region's food community. Kevin leads an organization called Big Table that helps care for workers in the food industry, he has been a restaurant critic for the Spokesman Review among others and has a really discerning palate. That's what I think of when I think of a Foodie. (check out Kevin's blog Traveling Feast)

I'm one of the folks that Pollan describes as being drawn into the food conversation by "more than food." I tend to approach it through the lenses of land, sustainability, community, faith and justice. I wouldn't say it's "only nominally about food" but for me it is about much more than that.

What drives your interest in the food movement?

City by City Infographic of Food & Drink Expenditures

This is a great infographic from the folks at bundle.

...we examined major U.S. cities spending habits when it comes to groceries and restaurants. Of note:

• Austin, TX, residents spend almost twice ($6,301) the US annual average for dining out.
• In fact, five average Detroit households (the nation’s lowest spenders) can eat on one Austinite’s food budget.
• If Manhattan were its own city, it would be No. 1 for food spending ($13,079) and No. 1 for share of food budget spent on restaurants (59%).
• In Atlanta, dining out accounts for 57% percent of the city’s average total food and drink spending annually, the highest in the US and 28% higher than the US average.
• Denver residents allocate 22 percent of their daily spending to food, more than any other big city in the country.

Too bad Spokane didn't make the list as a "major U.S. city." I noticed Boise is on the list. For a breakdown of Spokane's spending go here.

New Wearable Fast Food Feedbags

Why Pay More for Good Local Food?

This is one of the questions we get a lot. People want to know if what we are doing is more expensive, as if the answer to that question might bring into question the whole operation. Here is how Barbara Kingsolver addresses this issue of food and cost in her book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle";

Grocery money is an odd sticking point for U.S. citizens, who on average spend a lower proportion of our income on food than people in any other country, or any heretofore in history. In our daily fare, even in school lunches, we broadly justify consumption of tallow-fried animal pulp on the grounds that it's cheaper than whole grains, fresh vegetables, hormone free dairy, and such...It's interesting that penny-pinching is an accepted defense for toxic food habits, when frugality so rarely rules other consumer domains. The majority of Americans buy bottled water, for example, even though water runs from the faucets at home for a fraction of the cost, and government quality standards are stricter for tap water than for bottled.

Kingsolver can be a little overbearing in her commentary, but I think she makes a good point. Eating less food and better quality, fresh food might be the most simple and powerful answer to our public health issues. It's been a good policy change for the Goodwin family public health initiative.

Salmonella Primer

The farmers and I were chatting at the Farmers' Market today about the outbreak of salmonella in our public supply of tomatoes. I've been learning about food borne illness as part of the Master Food Preserver class and thought it would be worth offering a little primer. This comes via the "You Can Prevent Food borne Illness" publication available through WSU extension.

Two similar groups of bacteria, Salmonella and Campylobacter, are normally found in warm blooded animals such as cattle, poultry,and pigs. These bacteria may be present in food products that come from these animals— such as raw meat, poultry, eggs, or unpasteurized dairy products. Salmonella also may be present on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Rinse all fresh fruits, including melons and vegetables, thoroughly under running water before preparing or eating them. It is true this will not remove all microorganisms, but it will reduce the number present. Pathogens have been isolated from a wide variety of fresh produce, and outbreaks of food borne illness have been associated with many types of produce—cantaloupes and tomatoes, for example. If the skin of the fruit or vegetable is contaminated, the pathogens move into the fruit when it is sliced. Removing the skin or rind reduces the risk.

Here's the more official run down.

Salmonellosis and Campylobacteriosis Bacteria: widespread in nature; live and grow in intestinal tracts of humans and animals.

Examples of foods involved: Raw or undercooked poultry, meat and eggs. Unpasteurized dairy products. Contaminated raw fruits and vegetables.

Transmission: Eating contaminated food, or contact with infected persons or carriers of the infection. Also transmitted by insects, rodents, farm animals, and pets.

Symptoms: Diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps and vomiting. Infants, elderly people, and immunocompromised persons are most susceptible. Severe infections cause high fever and may even cause death. In a small number of cases, can lead to arthritis and Gullian-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder.

Onset: 1–5 days.
Duration: 2–7 days.
Prevention: Cook foods thoroughly. The bacteria are destroyed by heating the food to 140F for 10 minutes or to higher temperatures for less time— for instance, 160F for a few seconds. Chill foods rapidly in small quantities. Refrigerate at 40F. Wash hands, work surfaces and equipment after touching raw meat or poultry.

BusinessWeek On the Changing Food Marketplace

BusinessWeek is out with a lengthy article on how the food marketplace is changing because of consumer interest in local sources. Here's a choice quote:

It's a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept.

Say what you will about capitalism as an economic system, it knows how to listen to people's consumer choices. The article reminds me of the power and significance of these choices. One of the most powerfully political things we do is buy stuff and few things do more to shape our community than these decisions.

"Stop Eating Thoughtlessly"

Here's a video from www.ted.com about the decisions we make around food. Mark Bittman lays out a simple argument that we should eat half the meat we are currently consuming and more veggies. Toward the end he sums up his little lecture by saying we need to "stop eating thoughtlessly." At about 7:40 he comments on the "hip locavore" movement and goes on to tell the story of how we got into our current food dilemmas.