WORD OUT! The Blog to Build a New Society

Scientists at Holland's Eindhoven University have successfully cultured meat for the first time. According to The Sunday Times, cells extracted from a live pig were incubated and grown in a laboratory into a sticky muscle mass. From the article:

“You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals,” said Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University, who is leading the Dutch government-funded research.

Post and his colleagues have so far managed to develop a soggy form of pork and are seeking to improve its texture. “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue,” Post said.

“We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there. This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it.”

The scientists predict that their breakthrough could lead to the availability of laboratory meat within five years. While some embrace the development, others are skeptical.

Citing Eight Ways In-Vitro Meat will Change Our Lives, H+Magazine foresees the success of Frankenburgers, but the comments section of the article tells a different story - readers are concerned about the unnaturalness of "trans ham", the potential unintended health impacts of eating artificial meat, economic repercussions for ranchers, taste issues, and more.

Of course this recent development could cost PETA a cool one million dollars - that's the amount of the prize the controversial animal rights group is offering to the first successful company to bring in-vitro meat to market by June 30, 2012.

We'd like to know what you think. Would you put Frankenmeat on your fork? Or would you rather leave it in the lab? Tell us how you feel in the comments section below.

For less drastic methods of improving animal welfare, check out Building an Ark: 101 Solutions to Animal Suffering.

FarmFolk/CityFolk is a non-profit society that works with farm and city to cultivate a local, sustainable food system. They develop and operate projects that provide access to and protection of foodlands; that support local, small scale growers and producers; and that educate, communicate and celebrate with local food communities.

FarmFolk/CityFolk Heroes is a 6 minute video homage to 27 sustainable farmers and city growers featuring photography by Brian Harris and music by Liona Boyd.

New Society Publishers is a sponsor of the 2010 FarmFolk/CityFolk Calendar - consider buying a copy to support this organization's great work!

To learn more about food security and sustainable, local agriculture check out Independence Days and A Nation of Farmers

    

Today is World Food Day, as declared by the United Nations. This year's focus is Achieving Food Security in Times of Crisis.

From the UN website:

At a time when the global economic crisis dominates the news, the world needs to be reminded that not everyone works in offices and factories. The crisis is stalking the small-scale farms and rural areas of the world, where 70 percent of the world's hungry live and work.

With an estimated increase of 105 million hungry people in 2009, there are now 1.02 billion malnourished people in the world, meaning that almost one sixth of all humanity is suffering from hunger.

On the occasion of World Food Week and World Food Day 2009, let us reflect on those numbers and the human suffering behind them. Crisis or no crisis, we have the know-how to do something about hunger. We also have the ability to find money to solve problems when we consider them important. Let us work together to make sure hunger is recognized as a critical problem, and solve it.

Sharon Astyk, author of Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation just posted an excellent quiz entitled How Food Secure Are You? - an opportunity for you to evaluate your food security and your basic preparedness for an emergency in the areas of Water, Food Storage, Evacuation Plans, Health, Family and Community.

Did your score on the quiz leave something to be desired? (I know mine did.) Check out Independence Days for a comprehensive guide to becoming increasingly self-reliant and food secure in uncertain times.

My ten year old has a strong interest in found food. This dates from many years ago - I still remember his squeal of delight at the advanced age of 2 when he pulled a stale bread crust out of a neighbor's garbage on the breezeway of our co-op in Vancouver. He was thrilled to be providing for himself. I knew then that his hunter-gatherer instinct was strong.

Fortunately, his interest these days is a bit more sophisticated - last night he asked if he could make "fresh tea". He spent a happy half hour unearthing gloves and picking nettles (carefully) from out back, and then topping up his basket with the lemon balm that's currently staging a full-blown riot around the front porch. He stuffed his bounty in a pot, covered it with water, and boiled the whole mess, then strained it and used it as a vehicle for milk and honey. He informed me that it tasted "perfect". And it did.

What's really exciting to me about my son's desire to forage and his fascination with growing things he can eat, is that it bodes well for his taking responsibility for some of his own food sources in the future. I believe that it's vitally important to foster this curiosity and appreciation for where our food comes from. Because more and more, in the age of Peak Oil, I believe that our food will come from our own back yards.

In A Nation of Farmers, Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton coin the term "Bull’s-eye Eating", where the center of the target represents food produced at home, and each succeeding ring represents food produced at a greater and greater distance. The object, of course, is to concentrate your meals as close as possible to the middle of the target, with food from the outer rings reserved for those items consumed only rarely or in smaller quantities or as special treats. They also write about the need for 100 million new farmers in America - 100 million new producers in our food system, which far from being a new idea is actually a return to human norms in a time before industrial agriculture took over.

What are some of your ideas for rejuvinating your local food system? We'd love to hear about them in the comments below.

These days, dandelions feel like the bane of my existence. With their tenacious taproots that seem to go all the way to China, they are harder to get rid of than zucchini bread in August, and they come in a seemingly endless supply. So it was nice to come across this article on Straight Goods by Lynn Jones of the Ottawa River Institute, reminding me of 9 reasons to get excited about this yellow harbinger of spring. From nutrition to medicine to ecological benefits, the lowly dandelion has many properties that make it a valuable plant.

For example:

You can make dandelion wine from them. I'm told that about one gallon of flowers makes a gallon of wine. One recipe I saw recently called for lemons, limes, oranges, ginger and cloves in addition to dandelion blossoms.

Yum! Check out the full list here.

Using native wild plants is a really great way of getting more food secure. Robin Wheeler examines this topic and many other approaches to keeping your larder stocked in lean times in Food Security for the Faint at Heart . She suggests:

1. Buy at least one good wild food book to have at home as a reference.
2. Learn at least ten new wild plants in the next month.
3. Plan one outing with friends to identify wild plants.
4. Harvest and taste at least one new wild plant a week for a month.
5. Find at least one plant food that you can learn to store for later use.

One of my favorite wild plants to harvest is the stinging nettle we have on our property. It makes a fabulous soup with potatoes, carrots and onions, is an excellent substitute for spinach in a veggie lasagna, and best of all the more I harvest it the less chance there is that one of the kids will run in complaining that their legs are "on fire" because they ran through it witout paying attention.

What kind of wild food do you harvest? Tell us about your favorites in the comments below.

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