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Perennial Rye

Here’s a tray of perennial rye, part of Tim Peters perennial grains project.  Over the last few days I’ve been busy planting this out in the garden.  In part because it’s known this seed has a lower than average rate of germination, I’ve started it in the containers above before setting it out.

Like is pretty normal for me, I’m late.  Not only am I a bit late in the season, Tim says July or August is better, but in this case I’m also a year late.  I missed getting it out last year, because I was too busy.  This of course means everyone else doing this project will likely be a year ahead of me.

Since it’s a perennial plant, in fact it doesn’t really matter I’m a little late.  It will grow back again next year anyway.  The reason for getting it in a little earlier than I did was because the plants need to store up energy this year, in order to produce seed next year.  Because I’m late, I risk a lower seed harvest next year.

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Meat: A Benign Extravagance

As of the time of writing this post, a review of this book is the most read item on the UK Guardian Newspaper blog, Comment is Free.

While I find a lot to agree with in the underlying arguments, I have a lot of problems how both George Monbiot author of the review, and Simon Fairlie author of the book in question, present their points of view.

First Mr. Monbiot, apparently never a vegan himself, first says veganism is the only ethical diet, then changes his mind some months later.  Now he claims not only was he wrong before, but in fact veganism promotes factory farming by way of being left out of the debate.  What a load of rubbish.

I am not vegan, nor have I ever been, but how can you possibly claim in any way being vegan promotes factory farming?  The simple fact is we live in a world where non factory farm animal products are all but totally unavailable except to a small handful of people, like those that live on the very disfunctional sounding permaculture settlement Mr. Fairlie describes in his book.  If ethical animal products are unavailable, and buying any animal products at all means purchasing those of factory farm origin, how can you say it’s unethical to not buy or use them?

Next the suggestion the fat and protein from animals is somehow necessary for a healthy diet is seriously flawed.  The vast majority of vegans and vegetarians live happy and healthy lives, without the need of any animal products or food supplements.  The fact that people living on Fairlie’s permaculture settlement were purchasing such outside food suggests other problems than a lack of animals.

In fact, while his argument that animals are a critical part of the permaculture cycle is certainly true, this cycle could be maintained by raising animals and composting the dead carcases and by-products.  There is nothing in the animal products themselves that would have improved their diet or in any way reduced the need to import external food items.

The argument can certainly be made that there would be little harm in consuming animal products made under such circumstances, and like Fairlie points in roughly half the quantities currently consumed by the average person now.  The problem of course is that not everyone is willing to cut their meat in half, and given this some people will have to stop eating meat for the numbers to balance out.  There will likely always be the need for some people to be vegan and vegetarian, and these people are not ethically wrong.

Finally there are Fairlie’s comments about the UN report on climate change that showed meat contributed 18% of global greenhouse gasses.  Fairlie himself concludes this must be 10%, which is still a lot.

It’s clear there were some problems with how the figure of 18% was arrived at.  In fact it’s amazing any figure was quoted at all.  Apparently this was not a formal part of the report, but rather a number cited privately by the committee chair, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri.  Since he is the committee chair, his comments are a little more than informal, and have to be (and should be) considered official.

What sort of climate report would have omitted this figure in the first place??  The very fact this figure had to come out in the way it did suggests contrary to what Fairlie says about some strong initial bias against the meat industry, rather there was intensive lobbying on their part to keep these figures out of the report entirely.  In the end, even if 10% is what emerges, it’s a very damning figure.  Dr. Pachauri did the world an enormous favor by raising awareness and starting debate over the issue at apparently great personal expense.

Dr. Pachauri has received an enormous amount of criticism over his use of non peer reviewed information in the UN report, and I think this is very unfair.  It’s true, we depend on science to learn the truth on these matters, and peer review is a very important way of arriving there.  At the same time we live in a world where small groups of people control the funding that drives modern science, and the interpretation of facts can be grossly distorted with simple denials of fact, that lead to conclusions based on the lowest common denominator of what can be agreed or proved.  It’s important in these cases that peer reviewed science be used to enhance our understanding of the world, and not to stifle the truth.  In the absence of truly independent and unbiased science, it’s important the whole of what’s known be available for people to debate and discuss, and a best effort of truth be achieved with information from all reasonable sources, then documented for what it is.

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Bank Fees and Currencies in the US and Europe

Bank Fees

One of the things I was astonished at during my recent trip to the US were bank fees.  At least in the Washington/Oregon area, and I assume the rest of the US as well, they are everywhere!

Since my bank has some fees when I use my bank (ATM) card or credit card in the US, I was seeing fees added to fees, and it really added up!  During the 10 days we were there, we probably paid US$50 in bank fees alone.  It was a standard $3 to take a maximum of $300 from a cash machine (ATM).  Paying with a credit card often cost an extra dollar or two, especially to fill the tank in my car, and 45 cents or so extra for an ATM card.

From my bank, there were no direct fees to use a credit card, but on currency conversion I lost a few percent.  My bank charges about an initial $2 or so to use a ATM card in the US, plus a percentage, plus a few percent for currency conversion.  Including fees on each end, it cost about $5 to make a $50 purchase with my ATM card!

I could escape the fees on the US side by making a supermarket purchase with an ATM card, and asking for cash back, but I still paid my own bank fees for this.  In general, the cheapest way was for me to pay for things with a credit card, where I would only pay a few percent for the currency conversion.

One of the things I found very annoying was the cash machines would only give me $300.  If we were able to get $500 or even $1000 in one go for our $3 fee, we would have been able to get enough cash for our whole trip at the start and saved a lot of fees.

Here in Amsterdam, I can get €1000 (about $1300) in one go, if I use a cash machine from my own bank.  I’m not sure what these machines will give to foreign cards, but perhaps it’s closer to the $300 limit in the US.  I don’t think any local machines charge any fees for foreign cards, but I could be mistaken.

In any event, I don’t pay any fees to use any cash machine to withdraw euros, anywhere in Europe.  I also don’t pay any fees for an ATM card purchase.  I do pay a fee of about $25 per year on my bank account.

In the US of course banks make a lot of fees with overdraft or returned check charges.  This is where you pay for something with a check, and there are not enough funds in your account.  These fees are really exorbitant, and we don’t have these here.  By now all payments are electronic, we don’t use checks anymore, and if you don’t have enough funds the payment simply doesn’t go through.  Generally here you negotiate an overdraft limit with your bank, for this you only pay interest for the days your balance remains negative and otherwise no fees.

A few years ago I did see one ATM machine here in a McDonalds saying it charged a €2 fee.  This is the only machine I have ever seen in the Netherlands with a fee notice on it.  I didn’t see anyone using it that day, and I haven’t been back since so I don’t know if it’s still there.  I doubt they got much business, and I suspect under new EU regulations this isn’t legal anymore.

Currencies

As useful currencies, the US dollar and Euro have diverged in a way.

When the Euro was introduced, the value of the dollar and Euro were pretty close to 1 to 1 in terms of exchange rate.  In particular since Obama came to power, he made some policy decisions that led to a weakening of the US dollar.  For what it’s worth, I think he probably made the right decision at the time, but it does mean things have become a lot more expensive in the US and the exchange rate has fallen.  In fact the value of the US dollar on international markets has been on a decline for some time.  At the same time, the paper and coin currency hasn’t been updated to reflect this!

In my opinion, the dollar has become a really difficult currency for day to day use.  It’s very annoying for example to count $1 bills and pennies.  There is the long running debate over the $1 coin in the US, and really I think the time has come to start thinking about a $5 coin instead or in addition.  The usefulness of the penny ended decades ago, and it’s really time to get rid of that too maybe even together with the nickel.  Is it time to simply drop a zero off the end of the US currency, and reissue notes and coins in the same denominations?  It would be really handy if ATMs dispensed bills larger than 20s, and $100 as the largest note does not really fit in well with international standards.  In fact, maybe it’s time for a complete overhaul and rethink of the currency design.  These ergonomics are probably why most transactions these days in the US seem to be made with plastic.

On the other hand, the Euro has probably increased in value more than they expected at the time of issue, and has some problems because of it’s high value.

There are a number of cash machines in Amsterdam that will not dispense notes smaller than €50, which is about US$65.  You don’t make any friends here if you show up first thing in the morning at a farmers market with a €50 note in your hand.  Generally the stand operators simply can’t give change for them, until they’ve had a chance to collect some smaller money from other customers.  They can be a problem to spend other places as well.

The €500 note (worth about $670) also turned into a bit of a disaster for Europe, and even the €100 note (worth about $135) is a little difficult to get or use.

When first introduced, the €500 note disappeared as fast as they could print them.  Even now, they aren’t completely sure where they all went.  The last I heard they think almost half of them are in Spain.  When it was introduced, people exchanged it with their hoards of $100 notes.  It became the black market currency of choice.  With the €500 notes, it’s possible to carry something approaching $20,000 in a space the size of a cigarette package, making it very easy to carry over international boarders in large amounts.  After a year or so of printing them as fast as they could, only to see them vanish, I think they finally decided not to put any more into circulation.  There are now about 3 of these in circulation for every EU citizen.  They are extremely difficult to get, and if you have one your only option is probably to take it to a bank because I don’t think anyone else will accept it.

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Portland/Vancouver Farmers Market Reviews

No pictures for this post unfortunately, but on my recent trip I visited two farmers markets in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon.  Even though these are in different states, they are actually about a 20 minute drive from each other, just over the state line.

Before I went on my trip I searched the Internet for information, preferably reviews, of area farmers markets and strangely didn’t come up with much.  Is it just that no one thinks about doing a review for something like that?  Every farmers market I’ve ever been to has been different and had it’s own atmosphere.  I really think some are a lot better than others, usually for different reasons, and I think it’s helpful to know which are the best to visit.

Both markets were not what I would think of as very crowded.  I think there are probably a lot of people living in the area who haven’t discovered them yet, which is a real shame.

Vancouver, WA

Of the two markets, this was probably my favorite.  I went on Saturday, which probably didn’t make much difference, but they are only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I liked this market because it was very simple and straight forward.  The prices seemed good, as was the quality of most of the vegetables.  The day I went I couldn’t find any interesting cheese to buy*.  I was also looking for some mushrooms, but the one stand that sold them didn’t have very nice looking stock.

One of the best stands was Martinez Family Farm, a Mexican family in the back of the market.  Not only did they have nice vegetables, but they also sold some cooked snacks.  Their deep fried vegetables were very good.  If you go to the market, make sure to look for this stand.

This market was much smaller than the Portland one, and much plainer.  I think if you go to this market and are not used to farmers markets, you might find it a bit intimidating.  Supermarkets for example spend a lot of time making their produce look tidy and clean.  Most of the stands at this market didn’t invest a lot of time in this, which could lead the shopper to think there was a problem with the quality.  I can assure you, this was not the case.  For example, there were a few stands selling mostly non-food items, that for some reason also had a big basket of green beans.  I didn’t see any reason why anyone would not want to buy the green beans if they were interested in them.

Many of the stands at this market had signs up encouraging you to taste samples from some of their bins, for example the cherries or other small fruits.  Other stands had cut up fruits to sample.

Portland, OR

This was also a great market.  I went to the Saturday market, on the Portland State University campus.  In this case, I can imagine the different markets in different locations would be different.  In the case of this market, students were very visibly present, both buying and selling.

In this market, while there was lots to buy at reasonable prices, you need to keep a closer eye on the price of what you buy.  I bought a few startling expensive, but ordinary looking items, before I realized this.  In particular, some of the stands were run by students who weren’t farmers, and seemed to have their own motivations for being there, and were selling at their own prices.

This market had a quad area in the middle with live music.  A few stands sold prepared food, so it was possible to sit down for a nice lunch of market food.

The website boasts as many at 250 stands, and while there were probably less than 200 stands on the day I was there, there was still a lot.

I bought some nice cheese there.  There were also a number of stands selling more exotic and speciality vegetables.  There was quite a lot of meat to be had, as well as some non food items.

I think this is a nice market to go to if you are looking for a fun afternoon out, but the Vancouver one was better if you wanted to get down to the business of buying vegetables.

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*[update]: After writing and publishing this I got an email from Dee Creek Farm, who wanted to know why I didn’t see their stand at the Vancouver market on the day I was looking for cheese.  That’s a good question, and I don’t know.  In addition, since they also have a stand at the Portland market, I think they are the ones I bought cheese from the following week and thought was very good.

If you’re at the Vancouver or Portland markets and want some cheese, be sure to look for them!

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United Airlines: Atrocious Meal Service

I was just in the US, something I posted about earlier.  Somehow, I always seem to end up on United, and I’m often not very impressed with their food, but it’s really gotten very bad lately.

Vegetarian Food

I don’t eat meat, and you would think a vegetarian meal would be possible on a flight with meal service.  Especially on United, since almost every flight I’ve been on in the last several years has offered two main entrees, one of which was vegetarian.  Usually the stewardesses can be found working the isles during food service, saying ‘pasta or chicken?’ to each passenger in turn.

The problem of course is that they tend to run out of vegetarian meals first, and if you are a vegetarian seated in the back of the plane, you may end up without a meal if you don’t make arrangements in advance.  You have to ask yourself why, if they often run out of vegetarian meals first so often, they can’t stock more of them to begin with?  For whatever reason this doesn’t seem possible.

I remember flying as a kid, and getting a vegetarian meal reserved on the spot by just asking a stewardess to set one aside for me, but for whatever reason they don’t do that anymore.

To be assured of a vegetarian meal on United, you have to book this at least a few days in advance, and you have to specify exactly what sort of vegetarian meal you want.  You have to choose between things like a diabetic meal, a Halal (Muslim) meal, a western vegetarian, a vegan meal, a lacto-ovo meal, an Asian vegetarian meal, and so on.  Even at this stage, it’s not possible to order a ‘normal’ — what everyone else gets — vegetarian meal.  For what it’s worth, I usually end up choosing Asian vegetarian, and it’s usually Indian food of some sort.  Other choices usually end up being a very dry, tasteless and processed vegan meal, or perhaps one that’s nothing but cheese and eggs.

Processed Foods

In the past these special meals on United used to be of pretty good quality.  It’s always an issue that they tend to apply dietary restrictions above and beyond what you stated, for example insisting vegetarians must eat margarine with their bread, even though many like me would prefer butter as it’s a more natural food.  Nevertheless, these kinds of things are small issues, and considering how difficult it can be to cater to everyone’s dietary needs, I don’t need to be too picky.

The real problem now however, is these special meals tend to be almost all highly processed foods, intended for long storage, emphasizing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  I can’t say anything about the regular meals, because I don’t get a chance to eat them, but the special meals no longer have any fresh or ‘local’ ingredients at all.  If there’s fruit, it’s canned fruit.  The only exception might be a little iceberg lettuce in a salad.  It’s always necessary to read the ingredients on label of all the foods, to make sure you aren’t eating total crap, especially if you want to avoid HFCS.

Considering all the places United flies, it really makes you wonder why they can’t source a little true local food, or at least something fresh from time to time.

For the beverage service too, it’s nearly all based on HFCS.  If you don’t want something to drink with HFCS, it’ll probably be alcoholic, water, milk or orange juice.  This is not really a selection most people would consider acceptable.  Especially since orange juice itself is very processed, and known to contain an unusually high level of pesticides on average, when compared to other foods and drinks.

Reading the Labels

Some of the common things in United meals are just a total mix of crap.  For example their vinaigrette must be reduced fat or something, and the ingredients are just a long list of chemicals.  Many things are not labelled!  For example, the jams and jellies are not labelled, and have the distinctive taste of HFCS.

The breads tend to be really processed and come in little plastic packages.

There was a bread on my outgoing flight with a Dutch sounding name that I forgot, that supposedly comes from Holland, but it’s made with HFCS.  While some foods are made with HFCS here, it goes by different names like glucose-fructose syrup, so it’s unlikely to truly be a Dutch food if it has HFCS and is labelled as such.  In any case, it wasn’t a name I recognized.

Here’s a bread that was served on my return flight:

This picture makes it look big, but this was really a small cocktail sized piece of bread, about 2″ or 5cm on a side.

And the ingredients label on the back?

So, does Rubschlager or United Airlines really think someone who ordered a special meal, is obviously concerned about and trying to figure out what they are eating, is really going to want to write them a letter while 39000 feet in the air travelling across the Atlantic?  Even if I did write them a letter, I would still never know what I ate or could of ate, because they have a number of different lines of breads and this one isn’t labelled as to which one it is.  I suppose if I write them, I’ll have to send them their piece of bread back, so they can make a visual inspection.

Even on their website, they don’t list the ingredients.

There is virtually no country in the world where it’s legal to sell unlabelled food like this, it’s only because United serves this in international airspace that they can get away with it.

The Entree

So besides excessively processed breads, jams and canned fruit, what comes in a specially ordered meal on United?

I ordered an Asian vegetarian meal, and on my outbound flight the main entree was a serving of cooked white rice and a serving of peas next to it.  No sauce, no spices, absolutely nothing besides rice and peas.  It also had a totally inedible salad, with equally totally inedible dressing and a half canned peach.

The return flight was a little better.  In this case there was a very small serving of Saag Paneer, with a few pieces of cheese as well as a small serving of vegetable curry.  It also came with  a serving of yoghurt,   It was not terribly exciting, but not that bad.  What was funny however was, a few hours later when the snack was served, they decided at that point I couldn’t eat dairy products.  Since the regular snack came with butter and a serving of yoghurt, instead they served me something different with margarine and apple sauce.

Message to United

Your meal service is a disaster.

In an age where people increasing expect to eat freshly prepared food, and the dangers of eating HFCS are becoming more well known, you are serving processed crap full of HFCS.  You don’t even offer a realistic possibility for people to avoid HFCS if they want to.

Would it really kill you to offer a fresh piece of fruit instead of a half a canned peach?

Why don’t you honestly label the foods you serve, or better yet serve unprocessed foods that don’t need to be labelled?

Even on your domestic flights, where you offer meal boxes for sale, you only offer processed foods full of chemicals.  What you offer is also not very suitable for vegetarians.

How about charging us $5 more when we book our flights, and invest this in improving the meal service?

How about making possible for vegetarians to reliably make use of the standard vegetarian meal option, if this turns out to be the best alternative?