FARMER TALK NOTE: A hat tip is a Western gesture of tipping the brim of your cowboy hat in respect of another person. It's often interpreted as a general hello, acknowledgement of respect or thank you for a job well done.
In the last two months, the magazine has published two great articles. One summarizes the food debate's effect on American agriculture. The other highlights healthy foods that don't have to break the bank. As a farm boy that is going back to college, you can understand why these articles caught my eye.
Joel Kotkin's article America's Agricultural Angst digs into the details of why agriculture's goal to feed the world could be hurt by the local foods movement.
"Like manufacturers and homebuilders before them, farmers have found themselves in the crosshairs of urban aesthetes and green activists who hope to impose their own Utopian vision of agriculture. This vision includes shutting down large-scale scientifically run farms and replacing them with small organic homesteads and urban gardens."
Kotkin really did his homework on this article, and offered up the concerns many of us in production agriculture have been saying for years.
"Despite the perceptions of a corporatized farm sector, this entrepreneurial spirit remains. Families own almost 96% of the nation's 2.2 million farms, including the vast majority of the largest spreads. And small-scale agriculture, after decreasing for years, is on the upswing; between 2002 and 2009 the number of farms increased by 4%."
Kotkin's colleague Rebecca Rotkins followed up this month with an article titled Cheap Foods That Are Good For You. I hear it from my friends all the time. They represent everyday Americans in their 20s and 30s who are paying for student loans, home loans and even car loans and credit card debt. They are trying to put some money in the bank while feeding their young families.
We get discouraged by the high price of healthy and fresh foods. We want to eat healthy. We really do, but healthy foods seem to come at a cost.
Well, thanks to Rotkins we have some great resources to find those items that are healthy and fresh.
"You can get all the nutrition you need for much less money if you shop carefully. A cup of cooked navy beans has a similar amount of protein as 3 ounces of salmon, and is loaded with more magnesium, phosphorous and potassium. One large orange has almost seven times the amount of vitamin C and more fiber than a cup of raw blueberries, at a small fraction the berries' price this time of year. A $3 bunch of dark green, leafy kale is a big nutritional improvement on watery iceberg lettuce--but broccoli has just as many nutrients at half the price."
The article highlights the research of Adam Drewnowski, the director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, and also includes a list of Ten Cheap Foods That Are Good For You. The article mentions a nutrient index. I'm e-mailing Dr. Drewnowski to point you to that.
The only disappointment is Rotkins takes on a hint of skepticism with the value of hamburger and eggs in a healthy diet. It's no shock to me that those two items are a great source of nutrients on the cheap. Later, she acknowledges the reason for burger and eggs favorable rank.
"To come up with his index, Drewnowski ranked foods based on their concentrations of nine essential nutrients (protein, fiber, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, vitamins A, C, E). Foods also scored points for having low amounts of added sugar, sodium and saturated fat."
Forbes staff did great work on digging up some agricultural and food facts for their readers. I'll be checking out their Web site more often for credible stories.
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