#117 | Viewer Discretion is Advised
Michael Pollan Was Right
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I'm Bruce Cole, Publisher of Edible San Francisco. If you’re new here, welcome to Eat.Drink.Think., a newsletter spotlighting seasonal recipes, the latest SF Bay Area food news, poetry, and more!
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Lots to unpack this week so let’s get right to it.
😈 Spy Cams In Pork Slaughterhouse Gas Chambers
Animal rights activists captured hidden-camera video inside a carbon dioxide “stunning chamber” in a US meatpacking plant. The gas chamber manufacturer claims that their systems can stun as many as “1,600 pigs an hour and that the “stress-free” experience for animals improves the quality of their meat.” But Jim Reynolds, a vet and professor at Western University’s College of Veterinary Medicine who has served on the American Veterinary Medicine Association’s panel for euthanasia guidelines says otherwise after viewing the video: “Those animals suffered terribly. They suffered horribly. It was absolutely a violation of federal law. They were not stunned. It was inhumane.” 🎥 Viewer discretion is advised. Wired
By The Numbers: To put this in perspective, yesterday (January 20) there were an estimated 485,000 hogs slaughtered in the U.S. Not all of those hogs are slaughtered using the methods above, some probably endure even worse harvesting methods. Details on the enormity of the pork industry are here in the USDA’s National Daily Hog and Pork Summary. Under normal circumstances, the death of 485K+ animals in a day would be considered a mass extinction event, right (and what’s the sound of almost half a million hogs squealing?) But sadly, in this case, it’s just business as usual. And we’re not even counting chickens (millions slaughtered every day).
Is that enough to make you consider eating less meat?
Meanwhile, It’s the Same Old Song and Dance:
Define Hubris: Pat Brown, the founder of Impossible Foods, predicted in 2015 that “his company would “take a double-digit portion of the beef market” by 2024 before sending it into a “death spiral.” And now you know the rest of the story: Fake Meat Was Supposed to Save the World. It Became Just Another Fad. Bloomberg
But What About Cultivated and Cell-Based Meat You Ask? “Since 2010, investors have plowed $2.6 billion into the industry; more than half of that came just last year. But funding for all sorts of projects is drying up, and investors are likely to be more skeptical of moonshot projects that may take decades or more to turn a profit.” Bloomberg
Bottom Line: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan was right all along. NPR
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
If you work in the restaurant industry, you’ve no doubt had to take the requisite $15 food-safety class before beginning your employment. All well and good in the name of safety and preventing food poisoning, with thought-provoking questions like:
To wash hands correctly, a food handler must first:
A) Apply soap.
B) Wet hands and arms.
C) Scrub hands and arms vigorously.
D) Use a single-use paper towel to dry hands.Well, guess what? The funds from these tests most often go to ServSafe, the fund-raising arm of the National Restaurant Association. The same NRA that has been lobbying to defeat increases to the minimum wage at the federal and state levels, including the subminimum wage paid to tipped workers like waiters—for decades. Per the New York Times, “more than 3.6 million workers have taken this training, providing about $25 million in revenue to the restaurant industry’s lobbying arm since 2010.”
Off With Their Heads
The Washington Post editorial board authored a blistering critique of the FDA early last week. It recommended that food should be withdrawn from the agency’s jurisdiction (the FDA has overseen the “safety” of the U.S. food supply for a century). Ultimately, this would require an act of Congress, which we all know will never happen, because, obviously.
The editorial board cited the reporting of Helena Bottemiller Evich, then at Politico and now publisher of FoodFix (which we recommended to subscribers in our last newsletter). Here’s her comprehensive report on the staggering ineptness of the Food and Drug Administration: The FDA is failing to meet American consumers' expectations on food safety and nutrition.
Happy Lunar New Year (January 22nd)!
🏮 We don’t usually celebrate the Lunar New Year other than to maybe order some Chinese take-out 😬. Still, we came across this recipe for Buddha’s Delight from Bay Area cookbook author Kristina Cho, whose debut book Mooncakes and Milk Bread, won two James Beard awards and was described as an instant classic by The New York Times. Her recipe features dried bean curd, bean thread noodles, and shitake mushrooms and looks mouthwateringly delicious. It’s Cho’s version of Jai, a vegetarian dish traditionally eaten by Buddhist monks and commonly eaten on the first day of the Chinese New Year. Well, that’s what we’re gonna do too. Get the recipe for Buddha’s Delight on her blog: Eat Cho Food.
Cooking With Flo, Bitches!
🔪 You Can Lead A Cook To The Cutting Board But: “The number one thing I hear from our clients is ‘I learned how to use a knife,’” said Sarah Nelson, executive director of 18 Reasons, an MSF provider in the San Francisco Bay area. She has discovered that her clients are more likely to try new vegetables if they are given a recipe and practice prepping them in a group setting.” The Washington Post
Don’t Call it a Comeback: MSG’s been here for years! The seasoning everyone professes to hate is being used by chefs in restaurants and home cooks more than ever. Kenji Lopez Alt on the myth of the “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” CBS News
The Lowdown on the Korean Food Scene in SF via Clara and Eddo of Queens (on Ninth Ave.):
Congrats! Bon Appetit named Dontaye Ball of Gumbo Social as one of the most anticipated restaurant openings of the year. Currently in pop-up mode at the Outer Sunset Mercantile Market on Sundays (37th and Ortega), Ball is opening a brick-and-mortar location in the Bay View this spring. More on Gumbo Social in this story from Forbes: The Battles, Barriers And Big Breaks Of 8 Black Bay Area Chefs. Plus, here’s the Gumbo Social Kickstarter.
For Your Listening Pleasure
Did you know over a million copies of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat have been sold?!?! Yay Samin!
On repeat this week: Just a Song Before I Go by CSN at the Cow Palace, c. 1989. RIP David Crosby 🙏.
That’s all for this week.
We’re outta here.
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The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
―Jack Kerouac
Ugh, back to no more pork for me!
We occasionally indulge in pork from the ranchers at our local farmers market but definitely avoid commodity pork that makes its way through industrial slaughterhouses, which sadly is also void of any fat and flavor.