While Some Eat With Their Eyes Others Just Don’t Eat

 

So we’ve been talking about things like fair trade, social justice, moral responsibility and the conscientious s capitalist. Often we get to arguing about where we should draw the line, who should decide what is ‘enough’, what is ‘too much’ and whether this is really just talk of pie in the sky.

I’ve never been involved in overseas or inner city missions and I live in one of the richest counties in the US. I own four automobiles, including my children’s. My house has cable TV and internet and air conditioning. We have three television sets, two computers, a dishwasher, washing machine and dryer, microwave oven, electric range, DVD players, XBox and PS2, multiple stereos and Lord knows how many defunct cell phones. We eat out at least a couple times a week and like to take drives in the country. I definitely would not hold myself up as an example of someone living a life of mere sufficiency.

So how am I leaving a bigger (or smaller) footprint on this planet than others? Where can I change? Honestly, I’m not ready to give up much, if any, of the things that I just rattled off. Other than turning the water off when I shave or brush my teeth, I can’t think of too many more ways in which I can make a difference. We’ve recycled for years and we keep a close eye on the thermostat and other appliances (because of the money). Now we look for certain labels in our garments or on our boxes, bottles and cans before we buy, but if they’re not available (or too expensive) we usually purchase what’s there.

But I waste quite a bit, and I always have. And most of you folks do as well – it’s just not in ways that are very visible. Some of you know I work in the culinary business and you probably can guess that my industry is responsible for a lot of wasted food. But before you start railing against McDonald’s and Red Lobster you must remember that they are driven by profits and none of them like throwing away food. The market (us) has demanded that a large line for waste be included on most food service P&L’s. If the operation is within budget then waste is not considered excessive. But it’s still waste. Nobody likes it.

The classic visible example of industry conservation has been the disappearance of the obligatory water glass. I remember years ago when (during a drought) we began serving water by request only. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who thought this was a personal affront. After all, how much can a glass of water cost? So you try explaining that it’s not just the 10 ounces of water in the glass, it’s the water used to make the ice as well as the water used to clean the glass (probably another 10-20 ounces).

Of course on top of that there is the energy needed to make the ice and run the dish machine. More soapy water goes down the drain, requiring energy demanding treatment or perhaps running off into the aquifer. The more glassware that’s used the more breakage occurs and the more glass goes into the landfill. More energy and resources are used to make more glasses. And don’t forget – half of the folks never touched their water, so it was often for nothing.

I used to spend an occasional shift working the dish machine just to get a feel for what was coming back from the dining room. This is how I found out that nobody was eating the dill pickle spear we served with all of our sandwiches. When I decided to pull the pickle off of the plate (and take 50 cents off the price) the uproar was loud and angry. Over a pickle. You would have thought the consumption of pickles was protected in our constitution. It was obvious that some people feel an entitlement to some things they become used to. Even fermented cucumbers that they don’t eat. (I stuck to my guns though – pickles ain’t cheap.) How many sandwiches have you seen come out with a slice of tomato, lettuce and onion on the side? I’ll bet at least half of those sides get tossed in the trash. But presentation is king and we all know that people ‘eat with their eyes’. But really they eat with their mouths and their mouths rarely eat the garnish.

Have you ever seen a salad ordered, with dressing on the side (dieters love this trick) but the server presented it dressed? I don’t know how many salads I’ve had to remake because of that unforgivable mistake. But then to see the same diner now take the ramekin of dressing and dump it all over the salad anyway…..jeesh!

How about the burger that should’ve been rare to medium rare and it came out just plain old medium rare? Many people who order in this fashion don’t have the correct nomenclature down. I’ve had customers who didn’t know the difference send their burgers back two or three times. At that point I would personally cook the burger and present it myself; just so all questions of doneness would be resolved. But two perfectly good hamburgers were now in the trash (or going down the drain).

As much flack as the QSR segment gets for ‘supersized’ foods the real culprit behind huge restaurant portions is the Cheesecake Factory. They started this long lived national trend of plating up excessive quantities. Now everyone does it. Real American food, served real big under real big ferns. The funny thing is, probably the most productive and efficient cuisine is from France. French chefs became the best at what they do because they did not have access to cheap and abundant high-quality food. When you are serving cow spleen you better know how to make a good sauce

So maybe you don’t dine out, you do your cooking at home. Do you think that Superfresh is going to sell every one of those tomatoes or bananas or heads of romaine that they put out on display? What about the chicken, beef and pork that we pick through, putting those with the oldest dates to the bottom of the pile? Or the fish that must be fresh, fresh, fresh? (even though only frozen fish is truly fresh in most grocery stores or restaurants). The look of abundance is inviting and appetizing – think of each grocery department as a great big cornucopia of foods. To achieve that effect a lot more perishable food must be displayed than is prudent or necessary. The consumer market demands this look while the food markets’ dumpsters need to be emptied daily.

Many schools receive a Federal partial subsidy for free lunches they provide poorer students. In order to qualify for these subsidies each child must be served the mandated components of a nutritional meal, whether they eat it or not. So quite a lot of vegetables and fruit end up in many school’s trashcans. To demonstrate a higher level of respect for high school students it is required that they be offered a varied choice of entrees at lunch time. This means that more food is prepared than would otherwise be necessary (who knows what dish will move on a particular day and of course no one wants to run out of anything). Salad bars are being strongly encouraged, but of course salad bars and buffets are very wasteful – nothing can be saved from a self-serve line – even in restaurants or at catered events.

So, there seems to be much more to this problem of personal excess than meets the eye. And we have only touched upon three segments of one American industry. Maybe we can be more globally and locally responsible while saving some of our money as well.

http://www.p2pays.org/ref%5C06/05483.pdf

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/FoodReview/Jan1997/Jan97a.pdf

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/19990402c.asp

Birds of a Feather; Environmentalists and Fundamentalists

Many of today’s environmentalists are concerned about the state of our planet and if it might be too late to fix things.  Apparently the problem we face is that the greatest threat to our planet is mankind itself, and with our depraved nature there is little hope for the future.

The general consensus among this group is that early in the Earth’s history the world was pretty much perfect. Man even knew how to live harmoniously with  all of nature. This changed when man’s arrogance, pride and selfish tendencies began to exact their toll on the natural balance. War, famine, pollution, poverty as well as natural disasters became the norm. Now the Earth is worse than it has ever been and apocalypse looms on the horizon.  The extinction of humanity may be inevitable and in fact a good thing for the rest of the world.

Many of today’s Christians are concerned about the fate of the Earth and don’t believe that there is any chance of saving it. The problem apparently lies in the fact that man is the root of the problem and his depraved nature leaves little  hope for the future.

The general consensus among these folks is that early in the Earth’s history the world was perfect. Man even knew how to live in harmony among all of God’s creatures. This changed when man’s arrogance, pride and selfishness brought sin into the world.  War, famine, pestilence, poverty and natural disasters became the norm. Now the world is worse than it has ever been and apocalypse lies just around the bend. The inevitable extinction of most of mankind will be the result and this will pretty much be a good thing for the world. 

So what’s the beef?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Two Bottles of Adam’s Ale, Please! (Don’t Drink the Water)

I love it, I love it, I love it. I work in the food industry and for years one of my pet peeves has been the conspicuously ’sophisticated’ tastes of some of my clientèle. You know who I’m talking about; the gourmand who would ask if the beef was prime (at what I was charging? c’mon), the aesthete that would send the trout back to have the head removed, the bar denizen who would call for Absolut in his Bloody Mary (who can tell, with all the Worcestershire, Tabasco and horseradish?).

But the ones who really got my goat were the bottled water drinkers. Convinced that tap water was going to kill us all (too many chemicals, likely tainted, or even recycled urine) they would lament the fact that I did not carry their brand of designer water. After giving in to market demands (I’m not a complete fool, there is some nice profit to be had off of this never ending fad) I would daily receive complaints that I was not carrying a specific brand. But who could keep up? In the nineties there was a new boutique water coming out every week. (Some went better with quiche than others did.)

Eventually the big beverage boys decided to get in on the act and Pepsi and Coke both came out with their own brands of bottled water. Why not? They could charge much more than their soft drink product. The water market was so upscale that the typical consumer wouldn’t even touch the cheaper brands. Gads! Not only that, it was cheaper to produce because it was essentially cola without the stuff that made it cola – carbonation, sugar, flavorings, preservatives and dyes. Still, many of these companies did find a way to sneak a fair amount of chemicals into this ‘pure’ beverage.

Bottled water has become such a status symbol that no self respecting business, professional organization, civic group or lobby would dare hold a meeting without a cooler full of bottles chilled and waiting for the program to begin. Ah, the poor old board room water pitcher. Where are you now?

It is de rigeur to provide bottled water at charity marathons and bike-a-thons and the Gatorade coolers are now filled with….Gatorade. The upwardly mobile athletes at these events typically vote Democrat, are health conscious and would choke at the idea of consuming the more dangerous variety of water that springs forth from the walls of every home in America. Something they have in common with the old John Birch Society, I guess. If only they knew.

According to an article in ‘American Demographics’:

Indeed, some 86 percent of Americans harbor concerns about the quality of their tap water, while 32 percent think their water is not as safe as it should be, according to a survey of 1,021 adults released in April by the Water Quality Association (WQA), a group representing makers and sellers of home water treatment systems. The concern rate goes up to 90 percent among Americans with kids under 12. According to a 1999 report by the National Environmental Education and Training Foundation (NEETF), 91 percent of Americans cook with tap water, but only 75 percent actually drink it. Meanwhile, 65 percent take steps to drink purer water, either using filtration or distillation methods or by drinking bottled water. (Hmm, maybe)

Women constitute the majority of bottled water drinkers: 45 percent of 18- to 34-year-old women and 44.6 percent of 35- to 54-year-old women drink bottled water, according to BMC/MediaLink research, compared with just 35.3 percent and 34.5 percent of their same-age male counterparts. As one might expect, bottled water use climbs with income, says Gary Hemphill, senior vice president at BMC. Use also spikes at the younger end of the core group. Some 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t think their water is as safe as it should be, according to the WQA survey, and 41.4 percent of the group drink bottled water regularly, reports BMC.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_2001_Oct_1/ai_79052846

I guess that it would be safe to say that the typical bottled water afficianado is fairly young, educated, fit, financially successful and concerned about their health as well as the environment. After all it is the well informed and sophisticated that are the first to identify and address those threats that many choose to ignore; pesticides, global warming, second hand smoke, the ozone layer, high fat diets, overpopulation, carcinogens in meats, fruits, fish, vegetables, bouillabaisse, high tension wires….and good old tap water.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070726/hl_nm/pepsico_aquafina_dc_1

 

You probably aren’t surprised that I am more than a little amused. Finally it is being revealed that the Emperor has no clothes. Under extreme pressure, Pepsi Cola is agreeing to post it’s water source on it’s packaging. And guess what that source is – the faucet. That’s right, both Pepsi’s Aquafina (nice Italian name) and Coke’s Dasani (even nicer- could be Italian, could be North African but whatever- it’s someplace hip) use the same dang water that most of use to wash our dishes (and our toes) in- Adam’s Ale. It’s even the same water that goes FLUSH! for most of us at least a couple times a day. The very same water I use to keep my petunias and my Fescue fresh and colorful as well as my sidewalk clear of grass clippings.

I might be going out on a limb here, but I bet that if you check the ‘fridge of just about any overly worried environmentalist that you will find a bottle or two of designer agua. Then check out the lackadaisical Joe Shmoe’s ice box and you’ll probably see a couple a liters of Dr. Pepper and a partial six pack of Bud. And it turns out that Joe might be the better steward!

And according to the article even those companies that claim to use spring water are only shipping water in from regions that are known to have reputations for ‘good’ tasting water.

Thank God! Now I can stop buying Perrier for my cats.

Jetsam: Nature’s Sad Litter

My wife and I recently took a vacation in the southern Caribbean. It was our 25th wedding anniversary and the first time the we had been outside the country together (unless we count Canada).

We spent a lot of time exploring the small island, including those remote and barren parts that see relatively few tourists. We spent one morning on the rugged east coast, where large lava outcroppings relentlessly battle with gigantic waves, waves rolling thousands of miles unchallenged from across the Atlantic Ocean. A new sun glinted through fast scudding clouds as the pewter sea threw itself violently upon the rocks. Salt spray coated our sunglasses and camera lenses. The ceaseless wind roared in off the water, allowing nothing more than the occasional cactus any kind of purchase. It was exhilarating.

Until we crested a rocky escarpment and took in the long, narrow, sandy bay below. The tremendous breakers funneled in between rocky capes of hardened lava, their power compressed and intensified. Over the centuries they had swept a broad fan of ivory colored sand deep into the island’s interior. Among the rocks and pieces of driftwood lay an immense garbage dump of bottles, clothes, furniture, toys – the discarded trash of mankind. The litter lay in deep and topographical layers, periodically strewn upon the beach.

Where did all this debris come from? It seemed unlikely that the islanders, who so desperately needed tourist dollars to sustain their economy, would tolerate this wholesale littering. My wife suggested that perhaps it came from ocean going vessels, dumping their trash over the side. Maybe, but there was junk on this beach that did not jive with any picture I had of a sailor’s kit – baby dolls and toys, women’s clothing, laundry detergent bottles, plastic garden tools, tennis shoes….this beach looked like a disaster area.

And then it occurred to us; these weren’t items that people had just flippantly cast away. These were things that people had lost, things that they needed, even loved. These things the sea had taken from them.

It was now obvious that this beach was a natural repository for the relics of human suffering. As the hurricanes batter the islands and coastlines of the Caribbean and Gulf they leave in their wake devastation and destruction. But they also take away. As their tidal surges recede, the inventories of both families and businesses are pulled out to sea. It has to go somewhere and much of it must end up on beaches around the world, like those of this island.

While at first we were angry over the what we took to be the contemptable behavior of our fellow man, now we were ashamed of ourselves. We had judged harshly and emotionally, solely upon this ‘clear’ evidence of man’s disregard for nature. The litter was not the result of the selfish actions of ‘American Consumerists’ or capitalist profiteers. This beach was a silent monument to the suffering of millions of our brothers and sisters, most of them too poor to escape nature’s wrath.

A lot of people have taken to pointing their fingers at people they blame for destroying our planet. It is taken for granted that mankind has defeated the earth, that because of our efforts, accidental or otherwise, the planet will succumb to a less than gradual death. Drastic measures need to be taken, they say, even if they are at the expense of individual liberty and freedom. All of us will need to tighten the belt.

There is little doubt that the human race needs to improve its stewardship of the planet. Most of us need to do a better job at working towards this goal, but with kindness and compassion. It is all too easy to throw the first stone, making monsters out of the rich and the well off. But it is rarely the rich or the well off who have to pay a (relatively) big price for their efforts. Many of those environmentally concerned people who now are calling for personal sacrifice can easily afford to pull in the buckle a few notches without feeling too much pain. But most of the people on this Earth do not have that luxury.

If we try to turn the environmental problems facing us into esthetically acceptable spiritual challenges, (with all of the inherent noble sacrifices) while writing off the possible economic side effects as merely the self-serving rants of unsophisticated capitalists, then we could be consigning the majority of or our world’s poor to even more hardship.

Instead of getting behind solutions that just ‘feel’ right, perhaps we should dig a little deeper and look for other answers that might work, without demanding more from our neighbors than from ourselves. Perhaps if we look towards furthering God’s kingdom in a more holistic and all encompassing fashion, rather than obsessing on single issues, then many of the problems we face today will work themselves out.

10 Questions about Global Warming

Here’s a neat little 10 question quiz to test what we really know about global warming. You may be surprised with the results.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

Now I know a lot of you will insist that this test is put out by the vast consumerist/carbon spewing/capitalistic profit mongering conspiracy of the Evil West, and perhaps it is. But will someone please dispute just the answers to the test?