Entries with tag "food"

GM maize in Mexico

President of Mexico, Mr. Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa:

This year you stand in a historical position to prevent irreversible damage to one of the World’s most precious resources: Mexico’s maize diversity. We observe that your Administration may be rushing to introduce genetically modified (GM) maize into the Mexican environment and we are convinced, from our understanding of the scientific evidence, that this move represents a disproportionate risk which should be avoided for the benefit of Mexico and the World. Joined together in our well-informed concern, we urge you to move aggressively to ensure that no GM maize is planted in Mexico, the Center of Origin and Diversification of this important crop. [...]
Read the full letter.

Posted on:
2009.11.11 -0600

Tags:
food , texts

Jesús León Santos: Goldman environmental price

Jesús León Santos receives the Goldman environmental price for his titanic work in Oaxaca. What did he do?

There's a region in Oaxaca, of more than 50,000 hectares, that has lost about five meters in height since the XVI century. The intensive breeding of goats, shepherding, the industry of lime production established during colonial times, and the intensive tree felling for the construction of Dominican temples all contributed to the sterilization of the region.

Jesús is transforming this heavily eroded and almost deserted region into the fertile land it once was. How has he done this? With the tequio (from nahuatl téquitl, work or tribute), a form of organized work for the benefit of the community as a whole:

  1. He founded the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca (CEDICAM).
  2. He and his community have built more than 2,000 km of ditches to retain rain water.
  3. The community has planted more than 2,000,000 trees.
  4. The community is rejecting the use of genetically modified corn because these present a threat to the corn diversity of the region.
  5. They are using local organic fertilizers that don't damage the soil.

Since 1994, the NAFTA has flooded the Mexican market with US corn. As a result, the Mexican corn has plummeted. Corn represents a fundamental role in the Mixteca culture, not only for being one of the basic foods for us, but also because it represents our identity as a people. There are many reasons that native seeds are sown. One of them is that these corn varieties can resist certain types of environmental conditions, like drought, cold, or poor soil.

CEDICAM always tries to value the culture of the Mixteca people, where natural resources still belong to everyone. I think this is a very good concept for humanity today [...] where there is community wealth and we value everything that exists among all of us.

Read the full story

Posted on:
2009.03.30 -0500

Tags:
food , people , texts

Eating Habits

...So violent a change in a culture's eating habits is surely the sign of a national eating disorder. Certainly it would never have happened in a culture in possession of deeply rooted traditions surrounding food and eating. But then, such a culture would not feel the need for its most august legislative body to ever deliberate the nation's "dietary goals" --or, for that matter, to wage political battle every few years over the precise design of an official government graphic called the "food pyramid". A country with a stable culture of food would not shell out millions for the quackery (or common sense) of a new diet book every January. It would not be susceptible to the pendulum swings of food scares or fads, to the apotheosis every few years of one newly discovered nutrient and the demonization of another. It would not be apt to confuse protein bars and food supplements with meals or breakfast cereals with medicines. It probably would not eat a fifth of its meals in cars or feed fully a third of its children at a fast-food outlet every day. And it surely would not be nearly so fat. Nor would such a culture be shocked to discover that there are other countries, such as Italy and France, that decide their dinner questions on the basis of such quaint and unscientific criteria as pleasure and tradition, eat all manner of "unhealthy" foods, and, lo and behold, wind up actually healthier and happier in their eating than we are. We show our surprise at this by speaking of something called the "French paradox," for how could a people who eat such demonstrably toxic substances as foie gras and triple creme cheese actually be slimmer and healthier than we are? Yet I wonder if it doesn't make more sense to speak in terms of an American paradox--that is, a notably unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily.
The Omnivore's Dilemma
Michael Pollan

Posted on:
2007.12.27 -0600

Tags:
food