Back on the Wagon with Half an Egg

I'm back from my Christmas hiatus and visit to the east coast, which included Christmas, New Year's, a blizzard and 50 degree temperatures.  And a lot of eating with my family, which means I do bend to their tastes, which has become more apparent to me now than ever.  I probably eat more processed and packaged food while I am home than I do the rest of the year.  I have made few in-roads with that.  I do still only drink fair trade coffee when I am home and made a few remarks about what my parents were feeding my niece and nephew.  But, perhaps it is not my place to say.  I did cook for my parents once -- the roasted beef and barley soup I featured a few posts ago, but my brother wouldn't eat it, he claimed it was too wet (duh, it's soup!).

But, I am back now and have to get back on the wagon--cooking the way that is important to me and making choices that reflect that.  And maybe figuring out a few ways to make my ways more appealing to my family my next visit home.  Yesterday I made my Mother's tuna noodle casserole, but with only organic, sustainable or local ingredients.  It was just as good, just as easy.  (Yes, I said tuna noodle casserole was good.  I love the version my Mother makes, except I use peas instead of carrots.  I know, it is crazy, but it is comfort food to me.)

Now I am baking cookies instead of working on my syllabi for the semester that starts Tuesday.  I found a new recipe for oatmeal peanut butter cookies.  I love oatmeal cookies and peanut butter cookies, so combined it is a no-brainer.  Except for one thing--the recipe must have been to make enough for a bakery to sell.  So, I wanted to cut it in half, but that left me with a dilemma--the original called for three eggs.  Do I use one?  Or two?  Or, do I do what I do in almost every situation (and about which I actually teach in my ethics classes) refuse to see it as a dilemma--isn't there a third choice?  Of course -- use half an egg!

Now you are thinking, is this woman really suggesting I use half an egg?  This woman who writes about ethics and food certainly can't be suggesting I waste something like half an egg!  No, I am not suggesting you waste something like half an egg.  Actually, I am suggesting you save that half an egg and use it in something else tomorrow.  Really.  That is what I am suggesting!  Half an egg can be used in an egg wash, an omelet, scrambled eggs, french toast, frittatta, or, in a small-batch baking recipe (I have included one of my favorites below).

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (this is the regular sized recipe for the cookies I baked today, photo above)
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter (creamy, regular not all natural)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 eggs (yes, really!)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
9 ounces chocolate chips (I used 9 ounces since that is the size package my fair trade chocolate chips come in)
white sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl cream together butter and peanut butter, add brown sugar, egg and vanilla.  Mix well.  Combine oats, four and baking soda.  Add and mix well.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop by rounded teaspoons onto baking sheet.  Flatten with fork or juice glass dusted with white sugar.  Bake 12-13 minutes.  Let cool on sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to wire rack.

Small Batch Oatmeal Cookies (for that darned half an egg!)
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons oatmeal
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons softened butter
half an egg :)
3 tablespoons raisins or dried cranberries or chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking liner (or, in a pinch, lightly grease the baking sheet).  Combine dry ingredients except for raisins.  Stir.  Add egg, butter and vanilla.  Stir to combine.  The dough will be stiff.  Add raisins.  Divide dough in half, separate by 4 inches on the baking sheet (they will spread during baking) and bake for 15 minutes.

Now I had better look over those syllabi!

Eggs

This recent massive egg recall stemming from one farm in Iowa reminds me of the benefits of buying from small, local farms where you can know the farmer. The particular farm in Iowa seems to be on everyone's watch list--it has been labeled a "repeat offender". They have had complaints about waste and pollution, complaints about health and safety, complaints about worker treatment and hiring illegal aliens, complaints about animal welfare, and I am sure the list goes on. And they have just paid the fines and kept on going not worrying about the consequences of doing so to anything else but their own bottom line.

I buy my eggs from the co-op or from the farmers market so I know what I am getting. I get some really pretty eggs with golden yolks and I have spoken with the farmers who raised the chickens in sustainable ways where the chicken gets to live a fairly reasonable chicken life before the eggs are laid and I get them home. I pay a lot more for them. Often more than 50 cents a piece. But they are worth it. Not only are the eggs better, but I prefer to pay my costs up front. Fewer externalities here.

This situation also reminds me that the FDA needs some teeth. Part of the reason they are ineffective is that they don't have the authority to do what they need to protect Americans from food borne illness. They need more inspectors and the authority to initiate and enforce mandatory recalls. And then we need a new farm bill that reduces the attractiveness of the option to have the kinds of factory farms and monocultures that these eggs came from and from which the vast majority of modern food borne illness outbreaks originate.

We need a new food culture in America. We need one that cares about the food in a myriad of ways from personal health to health of the plants and animals that make up our food to the health of the planet and the health of our communities. I have been reading MFK Fisher's wonderful collection The Art of Eating lately and came across this: "In America we eat, collectively, with a glum urge for food to fill us. ... We are as a nation taste-blind." She said this decades ago, but it still rings true. Most Americans eat to feed a biological need, not to savor the flavors possible. We need to act to make her remark false--learn about the Farm Bill at www.usda.gov and the FDA at www.fda.gov. Maybe write a letter, maybe talk to someone else you know. Maybe choose a little differently the next time you are buying something to eat. At the very least, at least for right now, know where your eggs are from.

Lunch at the Co-op

I just love Spokane's new food co-op--the Main Market Co-op. One of the things I like the most about it is the excellent selection of healthy, local, sustainable prepared salads and sandwiches at the deli/take-out area. Now that the weather is good, there are four tables outside to eat at and the larger, communal table inside. But here's the thing, yesterday, when having lunch at the co-op with a friend, we sat outside. While I was waiting for her to come out I wondered if the level of comfort people had developed from eating together at the communal table would be affected with the four picnic tables. Color me thrilled when two women asked to join us at our table. I had the faro salad which is a new favorite, a fruit salad with spinach, a scone and an all natural, cane sugar sweetened gingerale. It was a good lunch. The prepared salads are made right there in the real kitchen in the store by real chefs. I can feel good about this food.

Another thing I like about the co-op is that they share a lot of the same values about food as I do. So, it is easy for me to shop there. They do a lot of the thinking for me. I still read labels, but have less to worry about. Nothing in the place has high fructose corn syrup for example. Lots and lots is local or bio-regional, including much of the bulk food section (including flour) and there are a whole host of local producers that are members of the co-op sharing a stake in the store.

Having a co-op or another store that has similar food values as you do is a great way of making it easier to eat more ethically. It cuts down on confusion. And if it is a co-op and you join as a member owner, then you have some clout when making suggestions. A place where local producers know their products will be show-cased is good for the local economy as well and gives those producers another venue to sell their products -- be it produce, meat, cheese, milk or eggs.

This past spring at the MMC's first real member meeting we had a chance to hear from a local egg producer. A question was raised about the co-op's location -- it is very close to the downtown farmers market and the off-season farmers market. This egg farmer said that he was happy to have the Main Market right where it is--he has another place to sell his eggs reliably and it meant something to him that there was a store wanting to stock the kinds of food he thinks are important and that they were able to pay him a fair price. He even teared up a bit. Let me tell you, seeing an older man, who works hard on the land, tear up in front of a bunch of city-slickers at the co-op meeting is something I will not soon forget. He was encouraged by the people at the meeting, taking an interest in what he does and wanting to make sure that the co-op was not hurting his livelihood. This was justice in action.

This is the hard story to tell about eating ethically. We have few like him left. To have a sustainable, ethical, and secure food system we need to have more of these small producers and more places in more cities like the co-op to bring the small producers usually superior products to those who want them and will pay the premium for them. It is encouraging to me that over 500 food co-ops opened in America last year. I just hope some of them have the ethical values our little own Main Market Co-op in Spokane has.

First Post

It has been a while now that I have been interested in ethical eating. I have taught about it, written about it, lectured about it. Seems only right to start blogging about it. Everyone else is blogging, why not me?

So here it is. An attempt to write about food and the values that it helps us express. Food is more than about nutrition and biology. It's about how we nourish our bodies and our souls. It's about how we connect with others and the earth.

Summer's the time when it is sometimes the easiest to eat ethically -- the bounty of the earth is all around us. And it is also sometimes the hardest -- graduation parties and cook-outs with others who might not share our ideas about food. Ethics is always about competing values, and here it comes to the fore again.

But since it is the time when people are growing their own, going to the farmer's market and enjoying seasonal foods, it is the time for me to start sharing about what I think about the ethics of food since so many people keep asking me how I got interested and how I think about it. Let the gustatory journey begin!

About How I Got Into the Ethics of Eating

I got interested in the ethics of food from an unlikely route. I am not a vegetarian, am only an accidental environmentalist (mostly because I am interested in the ethics of food), and I am not a farmer. I am a good cook and I do like to cook. But I got interested in the ethics of food because I am an applied ethicist. That's right, a full-fledged PHD holding ethicist. I teach philosophy, mostly applied ethics--and that's how I got interested in the ethics of food. I like to have concrete ways to live my values and to let my students know they can live theirs, too. Making choices about food is something we all do and we can do more or less ethically.