I’ve posted versions of this piece each year at about this time. But maple sugaring season is so awesome it deserves a repeat.

Maple sugaring, 19th century style

Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup is perfect just as it is. Naturally sweet, it also retains trace vitamins and minerals, even antioxidants. It’s still sugar, so let’s not go crazy. But for pancakes or baking, or topping oatmeal or yogurt, there’s no equal.

Great lore, too: Legend has it that a Native American woman brewed up the first batch accidentally. Her husband, heading off to hunt one morning, yanked his tomahawk from the tree where he’d thrown it the night before. Sap ran from the cut and into a container at the base of the tree. The woman found the liquid, thought it was water, cooked in it and got a sweet surprise.

Over time the inevitable happened, and someone got the bright idea to make an imitation of the real thing. Real syrup’s high cost and limited availability no doubt influenced the shift, and early fake versions did contain a decent amount of actual maple. But, really, messing with maple syrup is just plain wrong.

I let my daughter taste the imposter in a restaurant once, because I wanted her to understand the difference, and thankfully she wrinkled her nose and went for the good stuff. (Food nerd alert: Yes, I bring my own maple syrup if we’re going out for breakfast. It’s just what I do.)

But even kids who haven’t grown up with real maple syrup can learn to appreciate it. And one way I guarantee you’ll get their interest is at a maple sugaring event.

Sap on tap

We’re fortunate in western New York to have Genesee Country Village & Museum, a living-history museum that also has a nature center. (And terrific summer camps.) So we get syrup with a side of history.

But you can find maple events throughout northeast North America. And now is the time — New York’s Maple Weekends are March 17-18 and 24-25, and most other states and provinces wrap up by late March, too. If you live elsewhere, but your region has maple trees and cooperative weather, ask around. You’ll likely be able to find maple events near you.  

Tools of the trade

But the best part is the sugaring camp set up to show how early settlers collected, transported and cooked down the sap — techniques that haven’t changed a whole lot in the last few centuries. The equipment is better, operations are bigger, but the end result is pretty much the same. So the girls get a small-scale, up-close view of sap boiled down to syrup, boiled further still to maple cream, and further still to maple sugar. Forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. No wonder real maple syrup is expensive. But so worth it.

Spoonfed is now on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

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We have a living-history museum nearby. One of those places with relocated old buildings and re-enactors who take you right back to the 19th century. During one visit, I was in the kitchen of a home churning butter with my daughter and chatting with another visitor, telling her we’d seen a pig-slaughtering pen being built at the village’s teaching farm. The museum, which used to sell its pigs every winter, had decided instead to start butchering them on-site.

I mentioned how, initially, I’d blanched at the idea of a killing pen, imagining a hand-to-hoof struggle and log walls awash in blood. But then the farm interpreter explained the process: how the pen lets individual pigs get comfortable in a small space and lets handlers control the pig’s diet in its final days, until a farmer goes in and quickly kills the pig.

As a vegetarian, I still found the process unsettling, but I could appreciate that it was humane, and that it had its place in teaching about 19th century agriculture. And that’s what I told the woman next to me at the butter churn.

At this point, the interpreter in the kitchen jumped in, telling me that people in the 19th century didn’t have the “luxury” of being vegetarian, and that she regularly has to explain to school groups that early Americans didn’t have the choices we have today. “Kids come through and they say, ‘You shouldn’t eat meat. It’s mean to the animals,’ ” she said. “I tell them, ‘Well, they had to eat animals or their kids would starve.’ ”

Yes, that’s true, I told her, but there’s also a big difference between how early Americans raised (or hunted) and killed their animals, and how most animals are slaughtered today. Perhaps she could mention that from now on as well?

“Oh no,” she said, “you can’t tell that to a kid.”

Hmmm.

We explain it to our vegetarian 8-year-old, and have for years. Surely someone can explain it to an omnivorous 6th grader. Many of these kids watch violent movies. They play violent video games. They engage in mock battle. They know where meat comes from. So tell me again: Why can’t they handle the truth about how most animals are killed for food?

In an era where kids are inundated with factory-farming propaganda from powerful groups like the dairy industry in schools and agribusiness lobbies at state fairs, our best defense is education. If we want to raise food-literate children, if we want them to think critically, to challenge the status quo — to make good choices when we can’t choose for them — we have a responsibility to tell the truth so others don’t co-opt them with fiction.

And how do we do that? For starters, by exposing kids to the kinds of farms and conditions we want to support. Take them to local sustainable farms and involve them in conversations with farmers at local markets. Show them where your meat, milk and eggs come from. Then keep talking. Since Tess was tiny, we’ve talked about the “happy cows” and “happy chickens” that provide our local milk and eggs. The “happy” thing seems trite, I know (really, how do we know they’re happy?), but it’s an effective shorthand for explaining that we get our food from animals who live outside and eat what they’re meant to eat (i.e., grass and bugs).

Of course this works pretty well with milk and eggs. Meat is trickier (since, um, the happiness ends), but even then I think kids are able to appreciate the difference between an animal that lived a good life and was killed humanely, and one that wasn’t. When I wrote about this topic previously, a reader told how she teaches her young son where meat comes from: “I make sure my son knows what animal he’s eating every time I serve meat. (I think, if you do eat meat, serving it on the bone goes a long ways towards bringing home the idea that you’re eating an animal as well.) … We’re teaching them compassion as well as food literacy.”

Picture books can be surprising allies. Some, like Ruby Roth’s “That’s Why We Don’t Eat Animals,” address the issue directly. Roth advocates for vegetarianism (and, I think, does so without judgment), but the book’s strength is how it presents factory farming in an age-appropriate way. Even omnivorous kids get a takeaway.

Then there are books where agriculture themes are secondary, but still effective. One example: In “Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken,” by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss, Louise leaves her farm for adventures abroad. At one point she’s captured and held in a cage with other chickens. She goes all Norma Rae and they break free with a rally cry: “Chickens do not belong in cages. Chickens must roam free.” To this day, it’s a favorite refrain in our house.

And for older kids? Resources abound:

“My Friends at the Farm,” a video from Farm Sanctuary, is billed as the first video “to introduce the realities of factory farming to children as young as 8 years old in an age-appropriate way.” I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ll be getting a copy soon.

Michael Pollan has a young readers edition of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” (Click here for an excellent review from then 13-year-old Orren Fox.) And Eric Schlosser has a kids’ version of “Fast Food Nation” called “Chew on This.”

The groundbreaking movie Food Inc. (which I reviewed here) is generally recommended for teens and older, but I know people who’ve shown it to kids as young as 6. Even if your kids are pretty ag savvy, I think it’s a little wonky for that age, and we still haven’t shown it to Tess (though it’s just a matter of time). But only you know whether it’s right for your family. For help deciding, check out these  kid-centric reviews from Common Sense Media and Parent Previews. For high school students, there’s a companion discussion guide from the Center for Ecoliteracy.

In 2010, then 11-year-old Birke Baehr generated epic buzz with this 5-minute TEDx talk, in which he dissects everything that’s wrong with our food system, including factory farming.

“The Meatrix Trilogy” cartoons borrow from “The Matrix” to take on factory-farmed meat, eggs and dairy, and the fast-food industry. It’s animation with some serious ammunition. The Meatrix Interactive 360 is a companion graphic that lets kids roll over images and click for details. The site also includes presentation kits, handouts and other resources for learning more.

Then there’s the now-infamous Chipotle video. When it aired during the Grammys two weeks ago, I loved its back-to-basics farming message. But I questioned (on Spoonfed’s Facebook page) whether the chain should be so self-congratulatory when it’s selectively sustainable. Readers helped me see the bigger picture (thanks, guys), and indeed the commercial has sparked a lot of discussion about factory farming. And that’s a good thing. It’s also entirely kid-friendly. So here you go:

What do you think? How much should we tell children about the dicier side of the food chain? What kinds of conversations have you had with your kids? Any other resources to share?

This post, inspired by another piece I wrote two years ago, is part of Occupy Our Food Supply, a global day of action (today) where advocates on the ground and online are rallying to raise awareness of how industrial agribusiness has co-opted our food system. I’m a twitter abstainer (for now), but if you’re inclined to tweet this post (and thanks if you do), the event’s hashtags are: #F27 and #occupyourfoodsupply.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

 This post is linked into Fight Back Fridays.

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PBS is showing the movie “Food Inc.” tonight. So I’m pulling out a review I wrote when the movie debuted. Have you seen the film? Planning to watch tonight? Maybe recording it to watch later with your kids? (See more about kid viewing below.)

You’ll never look at food the same way again. I promise. So watch (check your local listings here), then come tell me what you thought.

Food fight

Real food. Whether we grow it or just eat it, here’s my definition: Something that grows in the ground or grazes on it, then is harvested with care and left in as natural a state as possible until it’s consumed. By us. Hopefully with appreciation for where it came from.

I think about this subject a lot. Like all the time, obsessively. And I talk about it, too, which gets mixed reactions. Some friends share my passion. Others wish I would shut up already. The teachers at my daughter’s preschool graciously indulged our practice of supplying our own snacks every day. But the counselors at her summer camp gave blank stares when I suggested that blue ice pops were not real food.

So it’s no surprise that my husband and I found ourselves at a screening of the documentary “Food Inc.,” which showed at the Little Theatre in May as part of the Rochester High Falls International Film Festival. The movie, which has just been released nationwide, argues for a simpler, more transparent and democratic food system — instead of the overly mechanized and subsidized, oligarchic system that has taken its toll on our collective health and the health of the planet.

Thanks to industrialized agriculture, “the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000,” the food writer Michael Pollan says in the film.

Predictably, there are dark themes: the death of a 2-year-old boy who ate an E. coli-tainted hamburger; farmers intimidated into debt and out of business; chickens bred for breasts so large that the birds can’t stand; a family forced to choose cheap fast food over fresh produce because otherwise they couldn’t afford the father’s (diabetes-related) medicine; and a “hamburger filler” factory where animal parts are sanitized with ammonia and smooshed like fruit roll-ups.

But as people in the audience covered their eyes and cringed, I wanted to shout out for everyone to sit up, look straight ahead and face down the food on their plates. Then, maybe, hopefully, take a deep breath and next time make a different choice.

I’ve been encouraged by the growth of the local-foods movement in western New York, by the rise of so many new farmers’ markets and CSAs (community-supported farms). And by the new crop of idealistic — yet in no way naïve — farmers and producers who’ve embraced our agrarian roots and brought us closer again to food the way it was meant to be eaten.

But if enough of us vote with our forks, even Big Food will play along. With momentum and some loud voices, food policy could shift away from subsidies for monoculture crops like corn and soybeans and toward the development of diverse, sustainable agriculture, making healthy food the norm, no matter your address or paycheck.

Until then? Plant a garden or at least some tomatoes, visit a market, join a CSA, buy pastured meat and dairy, make some jam. And when it hits local theaters, see “Food Inc.” Popcorn optional.

For a little extra inspiration, check out this “Food Inc.” discussion guide from the Center for Ecoliteracy. It’s aimed at high school students, but, as I wrote in a previous post, there’s a case to be made for showing the film even to younger kids. Or at least for talking with them about the issues it raises. We haven’t shown our 7-year-old the movie yet, but we plan to soon. 

Need help deciding whether to let your children watch? Check out these kid-centric reviews from Common Sense Media and Parent Previews.

This post originally appeared on Spoonfed in April 2010, when PBS showed the film in honor of Earth Day.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

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Back from traveling. (Mostly) unpacked. (Mostly) caught up on work deadlines. Ready to get back to blogging. And I’ll start by sharing an article I wrote for the June/July issue of Kiwi magazine. It’s timely, about eating well while road-tripping. And though some of the ideas will be familiar to those who’ve read my Spoonfed posts about real food on the road and avoiding children’s menus, the article has new stuff as well. Good stuff. Tips, resources, all that.

Hope you’ve all been having summertime adventures of your own. It’s been great connecting with so many of you through the Spoonfed Facebook page (now more than 1,400 strong!). But I’m itching to get back in the blog game. More soon.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

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Summertime. When the living is easy, road trips entice, and that road is paved with fast food and greasy spoons. What to do, what to do.

Road trip!

As a longtime vegetarian, I’ve been bringing food on the road for years, if only a few bananas and granola bars to get me through the gauntlet of golden arches. When we started traveling with a little one, though, I needed to think bigger (and beyond the dreaded children’s menu). Which is why I now spend more time packing food than clothes.

We can’t eat on the road exactly like we do at home, but we can try.

Drink up

A staple, no matter how long the trip: stainless-steel water thermoses. We fill them with ice and water when we leave and just keep refilling along the way. I like the insulated ones because they keep water cold and don’t sweat. I also whip up a blenderful of smoothies and fill a thermos. It at least gets us through to our first destination and possibly to breakfast the next morning. Then we have an empty thermos to use later if needed.

Cool it

For short trips, we bring just a soft-sided cooler and ice packs, then transfer food to a refrigerator at the hotel or, in a pinch, an ice bucket topped with a towel and set atop the air-conditioning unit. On longer trips we bring a small hard-sided cooler. I’ve been researching coolers that plug into the car lighter (and later into a hotel wall outlet), but I really want to see options in person, to better gauge size and capacity. So that purchase is on hold until I find a good source.

I also always pack a small cooler bag for day trips. Even in situations where we can’t freeze ice packs, like when we were on a weeklong cycling and camping trip, or if we’re staying somewhere without a fridge, the bag protects food from the heat. At least for a little while.

Portable kitchen

Just the basics: a small cutting board and a knife with a protective sleeve; forks and spoons; cups (which can double as bowls); a few empty food-storage containers; some plastic baggies and cloth snack bags; paper towels and wet wipes; dish soap and a dish towel; and compact fabric grocery sacks (for shopping). Oh, and a corkscrew/bottle opener. Just sayin’.

The food

I don’t go crazy with perishables, since we restock along the way, but it’s nice to have a small reserve. Typical fare: carrot sticks and red pepper strips, clementines, grapes and apples (pre-washed), cut cheese, hummus, nut butter and whole-grain wraps. Also bags of frozen peas and berries, which my daughter loves and which double as ice packs. In the past we’ve brought frozen Stonyfield Farms squeezable yogurts as an alternative to rest-stop popsicles. I don’t like the sugar, but they’re organic and the cows are treated well and pastured. My daughter doesn’t love them, though, so they’re off the list for this summer. 

Otherwise it’s things like nuts, seeds, raisins, other dried and freeze-dried fruit, trail mix, popcorn, granola bars, whole-grain crackers and cookies, and unsweetened applesauce cups. Also cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas if they’re in season. And still-green bananas. (If you’ve ever traveled with ripe bananas, you know why.)

For quick in-room breakfasts, I pack granola, unsweetened oatmeal packets, and whole-grain sprouted bagels or bread. Also organic milk or yogurt if we’ll have a fridge. Or sometimes I shop for milk or yogurt when we arrive. (We’ve occasionally brought shelf-stable boxes of organic milk, but we try to avoid them because they’re ultra-high-temperature (UHT) pasteurized, which basically obliterates the nutrients.)

If we’re staying someplace with a free breakfast buffet, we skip the highly processed spread, but still use the hotel’s toaster, dishes and utensils. For times when we do eat restaurant toast, I bring squeeze packets of organic peanut butter so we have a better option than margarine (fake food) or jelly cups (high-fructose corn syrup). Yes, these things occur to me. As my husband is fond of saying (fondly): “It’s not easy being you, is it?”

Basically, I pack a variety of things to serve as snacks and small meals. I don’t pack for the apocalypse. We have only so much room in the car, plus part of the fun of road trips is discovering local groceries and farmstands along the way.

Restocking

Sometimes those groceries and farmstands just pop up on the horizon, so we try to take full advantage when they do. Other times we go looking for them, which is when books like “Healthy Highways” come in handy. HH is geared toward vegetarians, but really it’s for anyone trying to eat better on the road. Organized by city within each state, it lists natural-food stores, as well as whole-food, organic and ethnic eateries. Each entry has full contact info, plus a highway exit number and driving directions. And you can get updates through the website. It’s a glovebox fixture.

Local Harvest and the Eat Well Guide are web directories that let you search by zip, city or state (or Canadian province) to find stores, farmers’ markets and restaurants selling local, sustainable and organic food, either before you leave or, if you’re traveling wired, on the road. I also check the Edible Communities publication for areas we’ll be visiting. Farmers’ markets are worth finding not only for the food — on a recent trip we managed an in-room meal of market salad greens, cheese and sweet potatoes cooked in the microwave — but also because they’re attractions in their own right.  

Eating out

Of course there are times we just want to sit and let someone else do the work. So we check restaurant listings in “Healthy Highways” or the web directories, or ask someone for a recommendation. I also like the mobile app AroundMe for finding nearby restaurants in a pinch. It’s amazing how often there’s whole-food fare just a couple miles off the highway. But if all else fails, we do what road-trippers have done for generations: pick a place that looks good and hope for the best.

How do you eat on the road? Tales to tell? Tips to share?

Also check out page 52 of the June/July issue of Kiwi magazine for a piece I wrote about eating well while road-tripping. The article has tips like these for packing your own food and finding healthy fare along the way, but also for avoiding the children’s menu rut. (Examples: Order family-style and share. And don’t be afraid to ask for substitutions, even if it costs an extra buck.)

The original version of this piece appeared on Spoonfed last June.

Spoonfed is now on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, voices, viewpoints, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.)

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Fridays.

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Maple sugar
19th century style

Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup is perfect just the way it is. Naturally sweet, it also retains trace vitamins and minerals, even antioxidants. It’s still a sugar, so let’s not go crazy. But for pancakes or baking, or drizzling over oatmeal or yogurt, it can’t be beat.

Great lore, too: Legend has it that a Native American woman brewed up the first batch accidentally. Her husband, heading off to hunt one morning, yanked his tomahawk from the tree where he’d thrown it the night before. Sap ran from the cut and into a container at the base of the tree. The woman found the liquid, thought it was water, cooked in it and got a sweet surprise.

Over time the inevitable happened, and someone got the bright idea to make an imitation of the real thing. Real syrup’s high cost and limited availability no doubt influenced the shift, and early fake versions did contain a decent amount of actual maple. But, really, messing with maple syrup is just plain wrong.

I let my daughter taste the imposter in a restaurant once, because I wanted her to understand the difference, and thankfully she wrinkled her nose and went for the good stuff. (Food nerd alert: Yes, I bring my own maple syrup if we’re going out for breakfast. It’s just what I do.)

But even kids who haven’t grown up with real maple syrup can learn to appreciate it. And one way I guarantee you’ll get their interest is at a maple sugaring event.

Sap on tap

We’re fortunate in western New York to have Genesee Country Village & Museum, a living-history museum that also has a nature center. So we get syrup with a side of history. But you can find maple events throughout northeast North America. (Here’s a shortcut for my fellow New Yorkers.) If you live elsewhere, but your region has maple trees and cooperative weather, it’s likely you can find maple events near you, too. And now is the time — the season wraps up around the end of March.

At our maple sugaring outing last year, Tess and her best buddy sampled sap straight from the tree (it tastes like sweetish water), as well as syrup from maple, birch and shagbark hickory trees (the last one is made from boiling down the bark, not the sap). They had maple-glazed walnuts and maple snow cones (syrup over shaved ice). We skipped the maple cotton candy, but heard such rave reviews that we might taste it on this year’s trek. (And, hey, the cotton candy machine was invented in 1897.)

But the best part was the sugaring camp set up to show how early settlers collected, transported and cooked down the sap — techniques that haven’t changed a whole lot in the last few centuries. The equipment is better, operations are bigger, but the end result is pretty much the same. So the girls got a small-scale, up-close view of sap boiled down to syrup, boiled further still to maple cream, and further still to maple sugar. Forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. No wonder real maple syrup is expensive. But so worth it.

Have you visited a sugaring event? Tapped your own trees? Had other maple adventures?

The original version of this piece appeared on Spoonfed last March.

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Fridays.

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You know those people who think children are too young to understand the consequences of food choices? Or, worse, those businesses, lobbyists and marketers that treat kids like they’re too dumb to appreciate or deserve real food?

This is for them.

And for the rest of us? Well, 11-year-old Birke Baehr is our kind of kid. His five-minute talk, given as part of a TEDx event in Asheville, N.C., last month, is a rally cry for sanity and a rousing anthem to good food and good sense. Enjoy.

Birke (who also has a Facebook fan page) mentions all the research and reading he’s done along the way. A great place for kids to start is Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” young readers edition, which I happen to be giving away this week. Click on over for a chance to win. (But hurry! Entries close at midnight EST on Wednesday, Sept. 29.)

Update on Sept. 30: The giveaway has ended (winners here), but I know this post is getting a lot of traffic (go, Birke!). So if you’re new to Spoonfed, welcome. And if you like what you see, I’d love it if you’d click up in the right-hand corner and start getting posts by e-mail or RSS feed. Good conversation and good karma all in one.  

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays, Fight Back Fridays, Vegetarian Foodie Fridays and Wholesome Whole Foods.

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I realize that state-fair food is a category unto itself, a passionately defended paean to Americana and summertime. And to criticize it could cause a distracting uproar. Some might even offer me their fried-fave-on-a-stick with instructions to make it disappear right up my behind.     

Dumpling to go

So I’ll just say that we did not partake of the many fried delicacies during our trek to the New York State Fair. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t eat food-on-a-stick. Witness the tasty organic dumplings we ate on forks on the way. And you think I’m no fun.   

But there was another side to fair food that caught me by surprise. Sure, I knew there would be buildings full of cows, pigs, chickens and other farm animals. And I knew that many of those animals — despite the wholesome, gee-whiz facade — had come from or were destined for the industrial food machine that spits out the giant corn dogs being sold steps away. And yes, I went anyway. We’d never been. I write about food and agriculture. I wanted to see it for myself.   

What I wasn’t prepared for was the propaganda with a capital “P.” Big old greasy shtick-on-a-stick. And most of it aimed at kids.   

The most blatant was in the quaint, barn-themed “education center” sponsored by New York Agriculture in the Classroom, under the title “Dairy Fact or Myth.”   

Ponder these two “facts”:   

“Only happy, healthy cows give milk.”   

TRUE. “In order to produce high quality milk, farmers must provide their cows with a clean, dry and comfortable place to live, and plenty of food and water.”   

The whole truth: Even stressed-out, crammed-tight, poorly fed cows give milk. In fact, it’s the foundation of our country’s dairy industry. I wish it were true that only happy cows gave milk, because then we’d have a nation of pastured, sunlight-soaking bovines. But right now? Not so.

Happy cow. Grass. Fresh air. But, oops, it's a statue!

On a related note, a nearby chart cheerfully detailed cows’ ability to “serve as food recyclers by eating the leftovers of the food manufacturing process that would otherwise go to waste.” I suppose they get points for honesty. Many cows do indeed eat food waste. But that doesn’t mean they should. Or that it’s good for them. Or us.   

“Even very large farms are family owned and operated.”   

TRUE. “According to the USDA, 99% of all U.S. dairy farms are family owned and operated.”   

The whole truth: Just because a farm is owned by a family doesn’t mean the practices are sustainable. It doesn’t mean the animals are treated well. But this is what the dairy lobby wants us to think when it promotes the idea of the “family farm.” And since the vast majority of milk in the U.S. is bought and packaged by a few big corporations, most dairy farmers have to play by corporate rules or lose business. When you look at it like that, family ownership doesn’t really matter much, does it?   

(For another example of how Big Ag co-opts the “family farm,” check out the farmer image campaign announced during this year’s Illinois State Fair. Behind the campaign: Illinois Beef Association, Illinois Corn Marketing Board, Illinois Pork Producers Association and Illinois Soybean Association. One big happy family.)   

Not a live birth, but still a star attraction

So, OK, I find the whole ag-education claim behind state fairs dubious, anyway. If you want your kids to see farm animals, well, visit an actual farm. Or a farm-animal sanctuary. It makes me sad to see animals cooped up and gawked at. It’s why we don’t do circuses or animal acts, and why, though I’ve come to terms with zoos because of their conservation work, I don’t really enjoy them. And thank god the New York State Fair doesn’t have live birthing exhibits like the one in Minnesota co-sponsored by one of the largest industrial pig farms in the country. Or like the one in California where a panicked pregnant cow was shot to death this summer.   

But here’s the thing: When a group like New York Agriculture in the Classroom (NYAITC) presents information, kids and parents assume it’s true. And why wouldn’t they? The program does a lot of neat things. It gives grants for school gardens, provides classroom resources and sponsors a student art contest to promote local agriculture. (I wrote about our experience with that contest here). But the fact is it’s funded not only by Cornell University and the New York State agriculture and education departments, but also by the New York Farm Bureau, which is an agribusiness lobbying group. And that makes things messy.   

Here’s another example: NYAITC posted a question on its Facebook page, asking for chicken-themed books to share with second-graders for an ag-literacy week highlighting the poultry industry. I asked if picture books would work. The reply: “as long as the (books) portray a realistic and positive look at all sides of the poultry industry.”   

Smart chickie

I responded with a recommendation for “Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken,” by Kate DiCamillo and Harry Bliss (which I wrote about here). I explained the relevant plot point — how Louise rallies her fellow chickens to break free of a cage — and added something like: “I’m not sure what you mean by a realistic and positive look at all sides, since what’s ‘realistic’ isn’t always ‘positive,’ but second-graders certainly would benefit from learning that chickens should be raised outside, not in cages.”   

I say “something like” because I can’t remember the exact words. And I can’t check the page, because my comment was deleted.   

When I e-mailed someone from the group to find out why, she told me NYAITC censors its page “to be sure we aren’t distributing propaganda” or presenting “extremist” data as “agricultural reality.” Later, when I asked how she could deny that inhumane and unsanitary conditions are indeed agricultural reality, I got the end-run: “Quality agriculture exists on all scales and we protect them at AITC by trying to make sure all farms are represented fairly.”   

Fair enough. Just because a farm is big doesn’t mean it’s bad. But, really, when is it ever good to pack chickens in so tight that they can’t act like chickens?   

Never. The answer is never.   

Now back to the fair. Lest you think it was one big downer, let me say there were some up notes, too, like displays on farming techniques through history, a New York produce stand and two on-site restaurants serving local food. The New York honey and maple industries were well-represented. And on the non-food front, our 6-year-old loved the exhibits on tree and water conservation, and the woodworking and fiber-arts demonstrations.   

And, finally, there was “Dairyville 2010,” the 800-pound butter sculpture showing a small dairy farm on one side and, on the other, a town powered by the farm’s cow manure. At least that was a nod to sustainability. And after the fair, the butter was to be converted to biofuel for a nearby college’s buses. Good stuff.  

Propaganda? Not so much.

But the best thing of all? Turns out that state-fair butter sculptures were created by the dairy industry as propaganda to combat competition from margarine makers. Which is some delicious irony now that we know butter rules and margarine drools (as my daughter said this week in her new first-grade slang).   

Now it’s just a matter of time before all this sustainable-agriculture “propaganda” shows itself for the truth it is.  

The NYS Fair is over for this year, but plenty of other fairs are under way or still to come. Did you go to a state fair this year? In years past? Any thoughts on kiddie propaganda and all that unfair food?  

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays, Fight Back Fridays, Vegetarian Foodie Fridays and Wholesome Whole Foods.

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Victory climb

It’s the height of summer. Berry season. We’ve been picking and freezing great quantities of strawberries and blueberries. Raspberries are next, if we can catch them before they’re gone. Then the blackberries begin.  And that’s got me thinking. 

About Block Island, RI, one of our favorite places on the planet, about the blackberries that grow wild there, and also about our daughter, because Block Island is a childhood-summer kind of place, all beaches and bikes and possibilities. So I hope you’ll indulge a bit of nostalgia as I share an essay I wrote two summers ago. It’s about food. And kids. And other things that matter. 

We hadn’t planned to take the stairs down the cliff to the beach below. It was late, we’d been cycling all day and our daughter’s bedtime was near. She’s 4. There were what, 150 steps? We heard other people tallying as they returned to the top. There might actually be 200 steps or more. It didn’t seem like a good idea. Tiny, tired legs and all that. 

But the coast beckoned. This island, its calm beauty like a salve, had relaxed us all, released us from the stress of my husband’s job loss and made everything simple. Our daughter, reveling in her vacation liberation (staying up late! ice cream every night! muffins for breakfast!), begged to make the descent, so we did. Even when the stairs gave way to a slippery cascade of rocks and slope, she trooped on. 

There were many beaches on the island, most more accessible than this. But here island lore hung in the mist as waves crash-caressed the rocky shore. The cliffs we’d just descended mirrored the arc of the waves, clay silhouettes curved up and under against the breathless blue of ocean and sky. In pictures, our daughter is dancing, making funny faces as salty hair whips across her cheeks. She is windswept, we are swept away. 

We see the blackberries on the return to the top. On the way down we’d been cautious, watching our daughter navigate the steps, staying always within reach. But the ascent is victorious. She bounds toward the top, leaving us to notice the dense clusters of blackberry bushes along the stairs. I’m sure she’d take the steps two at a time if her legs would carry her. 

They’re delicious, the blackberries. Small and tart-sweet. When we start noticing them elsewhere on the island — along roads, in shoreline thickets, on restaurant menus, everywhere — I can’t shake the feeling that they’re telling me a story. 

Maybe it’s all this communing with nature, the way my daughter’s face lights up bright and proud after she collects a handful to share with us. Or the way sweet fruit and ocean breezes stir up a perfect moment that amplifies, grows mythic, comes to define a summer. 

Then I learn that blackberries symbolize generosity and wealth, healing and protection. A few weeks before our trip, my husband had started a new job, following his second layoff in as many years. When he lost his job, I bought him a money tree plant, more because of silly superstitious why-not than anything else. And he did get that new job. And now there were these portentous blackberries. Everywhere. A new beginning? 

The honey we buy at the island farmers’ market comes from blackberry blossoms. Our daughter the honey enthusiast — who’d eat it by the bowl if we’d let her — wants to know why bees like blackberries. For the same reason we do, I tell her, because they taste good. 

I don’t explain that it’s actually more complicated. Blackberry plants can self-pollinate. They can bear fruit without help from bees. But to get the best fruit? That takes two. The bees do their dance. The blackberries grow ripe and plump. And — if you believe even a little bit that blackberries can tell a story — the universe sets things right. 

Island find

What are your favorite food memories? Especially the ones that aren’t really food memories at all…? 

This post is linked into Real Food Wednesdays, Fight Back Fridays, Food Revolution Fridays, Vegetarian Foodie Fridays and Wholesome Whole Foods.

A new Spoonfed post is coming very soon. (So much for stockpiling posts before vacation.) In the meantime, I’m participating in a new monthly blog carnival sponsored by Healthy Child Healthy World, a non-profit that is all about protecting kids from chemicals where they live, play and learn (food included).

This month’s theme, “Splendor in the Grass,” explores ways to inspire kids to connect with nature, sans pesticides and other nasties. My contribution is a recent post called “Clean food and dirty kids,” about how mood-boosting bacteria (found only in healthy, organic soil) is a good reason for kids to get up close and personal with their food. Other bloggers submitted posts on everything from non-toxic lawns to backyard habitats. Here’s the full list. And a few of my favorites:

• “The most expensive egg we’ll ever eat” is Rookie Moms’ riff on the family’s new chickens.
• Adventures with Three Girls takes on green yards and a weed-eater named Delilah.
• Almost All the Truth tackles two words: muddy kids.
• (Apparently I have a thing for chickens.) Mommy Goes Green talks safe lawns and the wonders of something called Chickity Doo Doo.

For more on Healthy Child Healthy World and how even small changes can make a big difference, check out the group’s video, “A Wake-Up Story”:

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2011 Christina Le Beau