Amy Campion | The Roving Locavore

Posts Tagged ‘Amy Campion’

Local Shrimp?

Posted in Seafood, tagged Alabama locavore, Alabama shrimp, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, Auburn University shrimp, domestic shrimp, eat locally, eat locally Alabama, farm-raised shrimp, imported shrimp, local seafood, locavore, roving locavore, shrimp and contamination on May 6, 2009| 4 Comments »

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Shrimp might be called a staple for many Americans. It’s often the seafood—or just plain protein—of choice for lunch, dinner, or cocktail snack because it’s sweet, nutritious, low in fat, and goes well with anything from mango salsa to garlicky oil. What’s not to love?

A few things. First of all, do you have any idea where most shrimp in supermarkets and restaurants comes from? Probably Thailand, from which the U.S. imported 182,371 metric tons of shrimp in 2008 (and where intensive shrimp cultivation is endangering the mangrove forests and everything that lives in them). Or maybe it’s from Indonesia, Ecuador, Vietnam, China, Mexico, or Malaysia. We import anywhere from 84,000 to 30,000 metric tons of shrimp from these countries annually. The energy demands of this shipping distance is one problem. Another is the environmental degradation that results from such intensive farming in these places. Then there is the problem of contamination. Mega shrimp farms are constantly fighting off bacteria and fungi with antibiotics—including those that are banned in the U.S. Heavy metals and other pollutants are also common contaminants. And do you recall the contamination scandals of recent years, when thousands of pets and Chinese babies died from ingesting melamine? The New York Times reported not too long ago that melamine is commonly used as a binding agent in the food pellets given to shrimp in China (and probably other places as well). During the occasional inspection of shrimp imports by the FDA, contamination is almost sure to be found. In another recent Times article about seafood from China, the reporter summed up the FDA report with these words: “Of the seafood that was refused at the border, filth was the top reason and salmonella was second, with shrimp accounting for about half of those.” And did you know that the FDA inspects less than 2% of food imports?

These are some of the reasons I’m so excited about the shrimp I can get at Auburn University’s fish market. The shrimp is raised in Gulf Shores, Alabama by the University’s Aquaculture department, whose programs focus on maintaining and restoring healthy ecosystems and running their businesses sustainably. (Another project of theirs I’m interested in is the restoration of the oyster beds around Dauphin Island, in the Gulf of Mexico.) Gulf shrimp are the only domestic shrimp available.

fish-mkt

The fish market, just outside of town, is open on Saturday mornings, and often sells out of catfish by 8:30. This past Saturday, it already felt like summer: the air was heavy, hot, and humid, and the sun was just burning off the haze around 10:00. We pulled up to the little shack with $27 in cash. The shrimp are frozen, and sold in huge bags. Jack wanted to prove his strength by lugging the bag to the car:

Who are you calling shrimp?

I like to cook these shrimp in all kinds of combinations. Last night we had it with cous cous and a mango-jalapeño and fresh herb salsa (with, yes, many non-local ingredients). I also like to sauté it with the local shiitake mushrooms now in season, which lace the sweet shrimp an earthy umami yumminess.

shiitake

Often, the simplest preparation is the best. Shrimp needs little more than to be sizzled in hot olive oil with crushed garlic and a dried chili for punch. Salad, crusty bread, and some light wine are the only other things you need for this savory meal.

Some links and other points of interest regarding shrimp:

Green Prairie Aquafarms, which delights in its oxymoronic name, and which I heard about from my friend Jim McKelly, who is working on a film about sustainability projects in Alabama, is an inland shrimp-farming business in the salt ponds of west central Alabama.

Auburn’s Aquaculture Department: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/fish/facilities/index.php

Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/business/29fish-web.html?scp=10&sq=shrimp%20contamination&st=cse

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Grass, Grain, and Beef

Posted in Meat, tagged Alabama beef, Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, Auburn Alabama beef, Auburn Meats Lab, beef health, eat local meat, eating locally, grain fed beef, grass fed beef, local beef, locavore, organic beef, organic meat, roving locavore on May 1, 2009| 4 Comments »

Beef Cattle in Pasture

If you like meat, you’d enjoy a trip to the Lambert-Powell Meats Lab store at Auburn University. They carry eggs, all kinds of cuts of beef and pork, fat packs of ground beef, and sausage in many varieties of traditional spice combinations, including chorizo and fennel-seed-dotted sweet Italian. (The smoked sausage is delicious grilled and smothered in spicy mustard.) They also occasionally offer grass fed beef, which I prefer to buy because it’s produced more sustainably than its conventional, grain fed counterpart.

The distinction between grass fed and grain fed beef is pretty simple to explain, but the differences in the effects of these two production methods on the environment and human health are drastic. Here’s how Heidi Finegan, the Research Associate in the Department of Animal Sciences at Auburn, describes the differences in the production methods:

Grass fed beef is just that, beef that is grown only on forages (the term “forage” encompasses many grasses and legumes). Most beef you buy in the grocery store is finished on grain and considered “regular beef” by many consumers. Generally, beef cattle are raised alongside their mothers in a pasture until they are weaned at 6-8 months of age, weighing around 500-550 pounds. After weaning, they will remain on grass until they reach about 800 pounds. At this point, they will be shipped to the mid-west to enter a commercial feedlot where they will be “finished” on a grain diet until reaching harvest weight at 1000-1200 pounds. This usually takes around 100 days and the average age of harvest beef is 18-22 months. So, the main distinction lies in the fact that some cattle never have grain and are marketed as “Grass fed” while feedlot cattle are grain fed.

Even though the grain-finished method is preferred by the beef industry and many consumers, because it takes less time and results in the flavorful white-fat marbling familiar to meat-eaters, it entails many problems. I won’t go deeply into them, but let me offer a brief list to get your imagination going on some consequences of raising beef on an industrial scale: e. coli, antibiotics, manure “lagoons,” mass-production-style slaughter (or would that be destruction?), fossil fuels, fossil fuels, and more fossil fuels. This week, Jane Brody wrote about beef in her weekly column for the New York Times, and proposed that “a reduced dependence on livestock for food could help to save the planet from the ravaging effects of environmental pollution, global warming and the depletion of potable water.” She quotes Dr. Barry Popkin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, who says that, “in the United States, livestock production accounts for 55 percent of the erosion process, 37 percent of pesticides applied, 50 percent of antibiotics consumed, and a third of total discharge of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface water.”

And we all know that meat consumption contributes to the high rates of heart disease in the U.S.

Grass fed beef offers many advantages. Heidi says that:

Grass fed cattle are easier to manage, are more cost effective to the producer, and play a key role in sustainable agriculture. Properly managed grazing patterns can help maintain soil productivity and keep forages in healthy conditions where they can protect soil from erosion and fix nitrogen. Local producers can also cut out shipping and delivery costs by keeping cattle on their own property and not sending them to Kansas or Texas. Some negatives to grass fed productions are that it will take a longer amount of time for cattle to reach optimal harvest weight and as the animal ages the tenderness and quality of meat declines.

Some would dispute the point about quality. Many foodies claim that there is a terroire aspect to grass fed beef—that the particular qualities of the forage and soil come through in the meat, and that the flavors of California- and Vermont-raised grass fed beef are different. The distinctness of the flavor of grass fed beef may also be a result of contrast. If you’re used to the water-bloated mass-produced steak from the big chain supermarkets, this beef will be a new experience. Perhaps nutritional content affects flavor too: grass fed beef contains less saturated fat, and more antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids than grain fed beef. Heidi also pointed out that beef is high in zinc, vitamin B, and iron.

If you love a juicy steak, it seems that the best way to go is to buy grass fed, and only on occasion. But grass fed beef is not widely available yet, so when we just need to celebrate with steak and red wine, I’ll buy grain fed New York steaks from the Auburn meats lab. At least I know it’s local and raised with education in mind. My favorite toppings for salt-and-pepper seasoned burgers are Colemans mustard, a tomato slice, and fresh basil leaves. For steaks, simplest is best: I rub them all over with a fresh rosemary sprig (then stick some leaves in the fat-crevices), sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and grill to mid-rare.

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Strawberry Season!

Posted in Fruit, tagged Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat local Georgia, eat locally, eat locally Alabama, Georgia locavore, Georgia strawberries, local strawberries, locavore, organic strawberries, strawberries and chemicals, strawberries and pesticides, strawberries dirty dozen, strawberry season on April 24, 2009| 5 Comments »

Over the next few months, I’ll be lucky enough to follow strawberry season north, as we go from Alabama, through New York and Massachusetts, to Vermont, where we’ll look forward to going to the strawberry festival at Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford. Here in Auburn, we had our first local organic strawberries yesterday, from Miles Berry Farm, in Baxley, Georgia. Jack found a Siamese twin:

Kids love strawberries, and for that reason, it’s particularly important to buy the organic ones. Strawberries are at the top of the list of “the dirty dozen”—the fruits and vegetables most likely to be contaminated with pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide residues. Here’s what Cindy Burke writes, in her meticulously researched book To Buy or Not to Buy Organic:

Some organic growers joke that conventionally grown strawberries are so full of chemicals, you could grind them up and use them as pesticide. But pesticides are no laughing matter. Sixty-five different pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides are registered for use on strawberries.
Strawberries are the most chemically intensive crop in California. Most commercial strawberry growers use methyl bromide, a toxic, ozone-depleting chemical, to eradicate all fungus, nematodes, microorganisms, and weeds, effectively killing every living thing in the soil where strawberry plants are grown. For the remaining growth cycle, the berry plants are drip-fed chemical fertilizers. Because methyl bromide can cause poisoning, neurological damage, and reproductive harm, the EPA classifies it as a Toxicity Category I compound, which is a classification reserved for the most deadly substances it regulates.
Nonorganic strawberries are highly likely to contain pesticide residue after harvest. When the Pesticide Data Program releases its annual list of produce samples with residues that exceed tolerance levels, strawberries appear more often than any other fruit or vegetable. (84-5)

Wow!

Perhaps the best way to enjoy (organic!) strawberries is just to bite into them and slurp up the juice. During rhubarb season, clearly, it’s pie time. When I visited Spain in high school, the three sisters in my host family ate strawberries and cream for dessert every day.

But strawberries can be delicious additions to savory fare as well. A classic salad consists of arugula tossed with goat cheese, strawberries, and a tangy vinaigrette. A surprising appetizer can be made with a variation on this theme. Here’s a little recipe:

Toast thin slices of baguette and drizzle a few drops of olive oil on them.
Spread goat cheese on the slices.
Top with thin slices of strawberry and a few leaves of rosemary.

When I make this later today, aside from the bread and olive oil, everything will be local. I’ll use my Georgia berries, goat cheese from Fromagerie Belle Chèvre in Elkmont, Alabama (217 miles away), and the rosemary Jack and I planted out back.

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The Roving Locavore’s Ellipse Philosophy

Posted in Philosophical, tagged 100 mile diet, Alabama locavore, Amy Campion, Amy Campion food, eat locally, eat locally in Alabama, food miles, locavore, roving locavore on April 24, 2009| 2 Comments »

The Locavores of the San Francisco Bay area (www.locavores.com) define locavorism as eating food that comes from within a one-hundred-mile radius of home. Having lived there, I know the bounty and variety of sustainably raised food that can be procured within that radius—including everything from lamb to Tomales Bay Sweetwater oysters, and from goat cheese to Meyer lemons. Many locales are much more limited when it comes to locally-produced food, so I prefer to think of the radius as more of an ellipse that can wobble this way and that, embracing the cherries or chicken from a bit farther afield.

Here’s an example of the ellipse philosophy in practice. When we lived in Chestertown, Maryland, I belonged to a food co-op. Once a month, we’d unload cases of food in Jenn Hicks’ garage, and divide it up. One item I always purchased was chicken. This was not just any chicken, but the most chickeny tasting chicken, which was sustainably raised by the Amish community in the region. I dream about the taste of that chicken. Here in Auburn, I haven’t been able to find local chicken, so I stretch my locavore-ellipse to reach Springer Mountain Farms in Georgia, 190 miles away. Their chicken is delicious and sustainably raised; the farm is also the first chicken farm in the world to be certified by the American Humane Association. It is worth those extra food-miles.

Another kind of stretch, or trade-off, can be made for local food that isn’t certified organic. For example, Auburn University’s meat sciences program runs a shop, behind which is a sloping green hill where black steers stand around munching grass and swishing their tails. The shop sells grassfed beef, pork and student-made spicy pork sausage, and eggs. None of these products are certified organic by the USDA, but they couldn’t get much more local. My house is about a mile away.

It’s strawberry season in southern Georgia, so I stretched my ellipse yesterday when I bought a pint of organic berries at my local natural food store, Dayspring. The strawberries came from Miles Berry Farm, in Baxley, Georgia, about 240 miles away from Auburn. To hear more about these berries check out my strawberry post.