Imagine you are sitting at a dinner party with a large group of people. Course after course is brought to the table and the guests keep eating and eating. Food flows freely yet despite the amount, many participants just don't get enough. No matter how much they eat, two-thirds remain unsatisfied. Collectively, the group gets fatter and fatter, and no one stops eating long enough to figure out what's really going wrong.
Sound strange? Unfortunately, it's not - the example is playing out all across America. Two-thirds of U.S. citizens are overweight, quickly moving to three-quarters of the population. Even at epidemic proportions, not much is being done to change course. We just keep eating through the discontent on to diet-related illness like diabetes and heart disease. And in the process, not only are we trashing the health of our body, we are trashing the health of the planet.
So who or what is responsible for this absolute mess? Look no farther than the Standard American Diet - high in fat, sodium, corn syrup, and ingredients we can't pronounce. According to Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming, (Gibbs Smith, 2008), the perpetrators of this system are "monster marts," corporate food conglomerates who seem to have forgotten that people are actually eating what they sell. Forget fruits and vegetables with true flavor and nutrients, our industrial food system buys bloated and bland produce grown in lifeless soil and hires "seasoning professionals" to dress it up and sell it as "value-added" product. By supporting the system we have turned our Standard American Diet truly into its acronym: SAD. And no matter what makes it onto your dinner plate tonight, guess what one of the main ingredients will be? Oil. And I mean petroleum. From the wheat fields waving to the manufacturing and moving about of all our boxes and bags, our Standard American Diet has become a global-warming diet, too.
What Is the Global Warming Diet?
D-I-E-T is a four-letter word. No one likes diets. Diet foods are boring, flavorless, and unsatisfying-words that describe this global-warming diet to a tee. It's a machine-cuisine we are eating today, and it takes about 500 gallons of oil per person each year to produce it. Talk about a greasy spoon-we emit similar amounts of carbon dioxide eating as we do by driving! U. S. government research shows that our chemical fertilizer and pesticide-based food system contributes close to 20 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions.
Cool Cuisine: The Ultimate Low-Carb(on) Solution
What if the answer to these problems is a cool cuisine, increasing not only health of people and planet but ultimately, our satisfaction? To obtain this, start by determining the carbon foodprint of your next meal. Consider these questions:
- How far do I travel to buy food and how do I get there?
- How much food am I buying-will I eat it all?
- What kind of food am I buying-is it plant based or animal based?
- Geographically, where is my food coming from?
- Is my food organic? Do I know the farmer?
- How processed is my food?
- What kind of packaging is used for my food?
- Do I buy too many processed foods that need to be frozen or refrigerated?
- How am I disposing of the food and packaging waste?
How can a Cool Cuisine help the environment?
Soil is the first thing to look at when assessing the health of our agricultural system. In the United States, 22 billion pounds of fertilizers are used on our soil each year, just to grow the grain to feed our livestock. A daunting number hard to conceptualize, 22 billion pounds is equal to 18.3 million average size cows all piled up on top of each other! This plethora of petroleum-based poisons is polluting our soil and killing off one of the best indicators of soil health - soil microbes. One tablespoon of healthy soil is reported to have 9 billion microorganisms in it, and an acre of healthy soil may well contain 900 pounds of earthworms, 2,400 pounds of fungi, 1,500 pounds of bacteria, 133 pounds of protozoa, and 890 pounds of arthropods and algae! This abundance of microorganisms is key; where we used to think chemistry (nitrogen, phosphorus, etc.) was the indicator of healthy soil, we now know that biology is actually the kingpin. By reducing the amount of pesticides and fertilizers, and increasing the factors that induce microorganism growth such as cover cropping and composting, a Cool Cuisine assists in the development of a high-vibe soil, teaming with life. And carbon-rich soil is sponge-like and able to hold more water, an essential quality during times of high heat and drought.
Water is also a key resource for agricultural health, and increased conservation is a second important outcome of eating a Cool Cuisine, vital when considering international projections. Both the World Watch Institute and the United Nations estimate that every country in the world will face water shortages by 2020. This is especially problematic for agriculture because three-quarters of the world's freshwater is already committed to growing food (in the United States that figure is 85 percent). In the U.S., much of the water used to grow half of all the fruits and vegetables is stored in the California Sierra snowpack. Our global-warming diet is a contributing factor to future warmer winters with less snow and more rain, reducing the Sierra's natural winter storage capacity. Results could be a quicker winter runoff with possible serious flooding, followed by potentially devastating summer droughts. Want to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and aid in a reversal of this unsettling trend? Start eating a Cool Cuisine.
Global Warming - Best Thing for Culinary World?
A cool cuisine reduces overall carbon footprint by using fewer animal products, processed foods, bottled water, and creating less food and packaging waste, while using more fresh, organic, seasonal, and locally grown whole foods. The healthful benefits of eating this way are nothing new, and now we realize it helps the planet too. But that's not all - personal satisfaction is the main entrée on the table. Did you know global warming could be the best thing to happen to the culinary world in a long time? That's because solutions lead to more nutrient-rich food, better flavors, and a deeper relationship to food and the entire process of "being fed."
If the ultimate motivator for eaters is pleasure, then good tasting food is essential when sitting down to eat. Why would an organically grown, global-cooling cuisine taste better than foods from a global-warming diet? For the chef's perspective, let's compare organic soil to a really good sauce. You can have the blandest tasting thing in the world (think tofu) and make it taste good by marinating and cooking it in a really good sauce. Growing plants in healthy, carbon-rich soil is like simmering them in a delicious Bordelaise sauce. The plants select and pull in all the complex elements found in organic soil in the same way that you select and incorporate ingredients from your spice cabinet. Like a well-stocked kitchen, organic soil has more variety for the plants to choose from.
This same comparison helps when looking at the nutrient density of our food. It's the soil microbes that bring the trace minerals/nutrition from the soil to the plant. The plants utilize trace elements to build their immune systems in the same way we eat food and take mineral supplements to build ours. In healthy soils, microbes have been stimulated, and the soil has more to offer plants. If the soil includes trace minerals, plants will "order it" from the microbes. Then when we eat the plants, we get the benefit, too.
Another reason why organic fruits and vegetables taste better than those that are conventionally grown is because the produce doesn't become "bloated" with water like produce grown with chemical fertilizers, which causes rapid growth. Slower-growing plants have time to develop thicker cell walls and therefore need to hold less water. The flavors are more concentrated; such as those found bursting thrudry-farmed grapes or tomatoes. Organic produce also consistently scores a higher brix number (a measure of sugar content) than conventional produce does. Though the "whys" for this are still to be studied, some scientists say it relates to the health of the soil and the amount of carbon held within it.
Flavor and health are important motivators, however the only things we truly care about in life are those we have relationships with, so it's time to deepen our motivation around, and relationship to, food. Cooking and eating are two of our most primal human pleasures. In Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming, we propose that eating is not only about feeding our stomachs, it is about feeding our heads and hearts as well. To increase true satisfaction from daily dining, try learning where your food comes from and how it is grown. Find out more about your local food system. Visit neighboring farms and get to know the farmers; broaden your perspective about what it means to eat. And while you're at it, improve your cooking skills. All of this can bring years of increased motivation, satisfaction, connection, and culinary joy. Along the way, you will also have a significant impact on the health of yourself and of the planet. By doing so, your pleasure and satisfaction can become even greater, as you start to deeply understand and feel what it means to be truly fed.
*Laura Stec is a San Francisco Bay area chef, educator, and author of Cool Cuisine - Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming. For more, visit www.globalwarmingdiet.org.
Subscribe to