Food and Drink

27 March 20173 August 2017

Soup Kitchen — Dutch Style

Soup Kitchens

As far as I’m aware, soup kitchens don’t exist as such in the Netherlands. We’ve just had elections, and the government is changing. Until now however, the government has been so pro free enterprise and privatization, the setting up of a government funded place, giving away something for free just didn’t happen here.

On the other hand, this country has very strong socialist values, and has a very strong commitment to helping the poor.

How do you rationalize both the idea of free enterprise and the need to help the poor? Basically, the government is going in the direction of only handing out money.

If you are poor, and need something to eat, the government gives you €5 and points you to McDonalds. If something happens to that money between the time they give it to you and the time you reach McDonalds, that’s up to you. Going to the supermarket instead, or spending it on cigarettes, are both possibilities.

Something similar happens if you need to sleep in a homeless shelter. These cost about €7/night, but if you want to spend the money on something else, and don’t get in trouble with the police, this is up to you.

Since I’m not on benefits, and I’m sure things are different in different places, what I say here may not be completely correct, but this is the general direction the government is taking.

Also, I should emphasize, not everyone is entitled to benefits, or there may be some strings attached. I think most cities insist all able-bodied people do volunteer work for benefits, for example, and if you are not recognized as being entitled to long term benefits, then your benefits are periodically cut off to encourage you to look for work. Unless you are recognized as a refugee, you are not likely to get benefits if you just show up from some other country.

Long Term Benefits

Fundamentally, long term benefits are not a lot different from short term benefits, they are just paid out on a monthly basis. If you show clearly that you are not able to manage your own money, then they force you to accept the services of a financial management company, at a cost of about €100/month. Those people who aren’t forced to accept financial management, can voluntarily accept it if they choose.

Most single people or couples get about €1100/month.

Financial management means, for example, you get €60/week (€10/day, but not on Sunday) in pocket money. This has to cover all your food, tobacco and possibly alcohol, and all other miscellaneous expenses like clothing or whatever. Your bank account is blocked, except for this pocket money, and you aren’t allowed to use any online or other banking services. Your rent and utilities are automatically paid, and in addition a lump sum is paid to finance a simple vacation in the summer (but again, this is cash and you can spend it how you want). Otherwise, if you need to buy something, you need permission from your financial manager, and they have to arrange the payment.

This is all my understanding, but like I said, I’m not on benefits, and don’t have any direct connection with these issues. It may also be different in different parts of the country.

As you can probably imagine, this is all pretty tough. If you aren’t able to make good choices between food and cigarettes, or just in general don’t have your life together enough to manage such a small amount of money carefully, you can get in trouble pretty quickly. I would guess most people can’t really manage, unless they have friends who can help out from time to time.

The Neighborhood

I used to live nearby, in the building above, called Hofgeest, and understanding the neighborhood is really key here. The neighborhood is called the Bijlmermeer or just the Bijlmer for short. Designed by an Italian architect, with very high expectations, and intended to become a sort of high class suburb of Amsterdam. It was once home to the mayor. Since I was born in Chicago, in the US, the closest thing I could compare it with was Cabrini-Green.

Basically, it turned out not to be a nice place to live. The population density was too high, and open spaces between the buildings intended to give a sense of luxury, became overgrown and full of muggers. The neighborhood was designed with complete separation between cars, pedestrians and bicycles, facilitated by elevated roads and underpasses. These elevated roads physically divided the neighborhood, and junkies moved into the underpasses, effectively controlling the movement from one area to another.

The city thought they had a clever solution, when they required low income people in Amsterdam to accept an apartment in the neighborhood, solving the neighborhood’s vacancy problem. In different stages, they also relocated junkies from the center of Amsterdam to this neighborhood, and over the years continued to make decisions like this which filled the neighborhood with behavior problems. They even at some point decided the neighborhood was really nice, except for these behavior problems, so why not relocate the behavior problems into their own building!

There were even discussions as recently as a few years ago of relocating drug addicts into their own building, ostensibly so they could be better cared for… Can you imagine a super high-rise building with nothing but drug addicts?

In 1992, a few months before I moved out of the neighborhood, there was the Bijlmerramp. An Israeli 747 airplane crashed into one of the high rise buildings, killing many people. It hit one of the other buildings near where I was living, about 1 mile (1,5 km) away. This was really a watershed, and prompted the Dutch government to take the rebuilding of the neighborhood seriously.

Many of the high rise buildings were torn down, renovated, or individual low income rental units were sold as condominiums.

Buildings like the one in the background here:

Were replaced with flimsy looking low rise buildings like this:

Would you like to live in the orange one or the red one?

Many of the same anti-social residents still live in these new buildings, and music like gansta rap can be heard coming out of open windows.

As well as replacing the high rises with lower buildings, they’ve also now built large office blocks around the neighborhood, and many people commute into the neighborhood for work.

They have also built some more luxurious housing, and in a few places have let people build houses of their own design.

The People

In spite of all the anti-social behavior, this neighborhood has always had some of the warmest people. It’s also become a place for immigrants, and is a melting pot with people from all over the world. Even though it was always possible to walk around the wrong places at night and get robbed, it’s never had a huge problem with violence or aggressive people. There are very few guns or other weapons around.

When I lived there, about half the residents were on some kind of social benefit, and this probably hasn’t changed much.

Many people who live here feel very attached to the neighborhood, and wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Cultural Expression

One of the biggest shames about the neighborhood, and Dutch society in general, is how self expression is discouraged. If you’re an immigrant, and you move to the Netherlands, you’re supposed to forget your past and become Dutch. All the buildings in the Bijlmer are sterile in their design, and don’t lend themselves to self-expression. You are not allowed for example to paint your front door a different color from your neighbors, or publicly display something that represents your own culture individuality. Nearly everyone speaks native sounding Dutch, and mostly without any unusual accent.

The Dutch are really missing something very special by not allowing immigrants to freely express themselves.

Freedom of Expression

In one of the most dismal parts of the old neighborhood, where they tore down a notorious high rise called Develstein (Devil’s Stein — as in beer stein) and put up low rises, they left the old parking garage of Develstein behind. This neighborhood was lacking in places to buy food, and the residents dependent on fast food had to walk a long distance. The city of Amsterdam decided to establish the World of Food.

As well as establish the food court itself, they decided to subsidize some startup food stalls, run by people in the neighborhood. The inside looks a little rough, remember this is built into a repurposed parking garage, all the steel and concrete from the old structure is still there, and the floors slope:

What did I get on the day of my visit? I wasn’t very hungry, and just wanted a snack. I chose the stand with the man barely visible on the right, in the picture above, Hi Lo Rotishop. I ordered a bara, which is a type of deep fried bread topped with chutney made from papaya and habeñero style hot peppers. This is a pretty common snack here in the Netherlands, it’s a type of Surinamese food. I have never seen someone roll out the dough in front of me and make it fresh!

It was really good! Normally the topping is screaming hot, but this was not. It was a little hot, and had a really nice flavor.

On another day I was there without a camera, and I ate at Monrovia Childhood Memories, a stand selling Liberian food. This was also very good!

I guess many of the other stands are really good too, but these are the only two I’ve tried. I’m vegetarian, and some of the stands only offer meat. All of the stands seem to offer a cheap alternative, as well as a more complete serving for those with more money to spend.

The Future

On the days I was there, I was nearly the only customer. Not just at any given stand, but in the whole place. It’s not getting enough foot traffic to survive.

The city has said they will not invest any more money into it. The small startup stands have said they aren’t getting enough foot traffic to survive, while at the same time the larger fast food chains have said they want to invest more into the project. This means soon the small stands will be replaced by Mc Donalds, KFC and similar places.

So much for the small glimmer of hope, in a neighborhood full of disappointments… So much for free cultural expression. Get there and try it while you can!

11 March 201712 March 2017

Glyphosate ECI — Fake News

This is a follow-up post to one I made a few weeks ago.

Fake News

Fake news is on people’s minds at the moment. It’s a very powerful tool for controlling public opinion and manipulating politics. It’s been around for a long time now, only people are just starting to see it for what it is and it’s becoming less effective. Social media platforms like Facebook have recently been criticized for spreading fake news, especially during the recent election campaign in the US, where some people blamed it for influencing the outcome and unfairly favoring Donald Trump.

Glyphosate European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the weed killer Round-Up, is a disgusting chemical. There’s no doubt about this. Of course it should be banned. The root of the problem however is not a single product that we all hate so much, but the entire industrial food industry, who develops, markets and uses a chemical like this.

The issue at stake is the ability to patent glyphosate. It has now been on the market for 43 years, and the patents have all expired. It’s not profitable to sell any more, and no one is using similar but more profitable products, because glyphosate is too cheap and is widely sold as a generic product. It’s simply time to ban glyphosate, like traditional light bulbs and square TV screens, so the food industry can make more money by selling expensive alternatives.

Bayer already has a patent on a very similar product, called glufosinate, and there are many other products in the development pipeline.

The other part of this ECI, that the process of approving chemicals like this should be reformed, has no political meaning. To reform something might be a good thing, it might make matters worse and it might mean nothing at all. It’s just not something tangible like ban glyphosate is. Since there are no known independent groups, that might be able to stand up to the food industry and lobby for a positive outcome, it’s reasonable to assume a reform process like this could make matters much worse.

To support this campaign, and this ECI, is simply to support the food industry.

Good Side?

There are a number of risks associated with running an ECI. The most obvious is that you may get far fewer signatures than expected, making your cause look like it doesn’t have much support. There are also several other risks. I was involved in discussions on a possible ECI, so I have some experience with this.

ECI’s are very expensive to run. In general the advice is that it may cost as much as €1 per signature, so by starting an ECI you are pretty much committing to spending €1,000,000. This however is assuming things go well, and you are sponsoring a fairly popular initiative. If you are struggling to get signatures, you may have to spend a lot more money for a positive outcome. For example, if you have to pay a student legal minimum wage to collect signatures, you may have to pay €10-25 per signature, or more.

An ECI is a 1 year process, and cannot be stopped. You simply have to see it to the end. It’s very possible you get in the middle of it, and find yourself having to throw good money after bad, in order to avoid an embarrassing outcome.

It’s reasonable to assume the food industry will pay whatever they need to to get this passed, and a lot of money will be spent in the process. No independent organization, with good intentions, has this much money to spend on something like this.

Keep an eye on how the money is spent. For example, there are openings now advertised on the internet for country managers in Romania and France. Think about who is spending that money, and why.

Infiltration

If you support an activist organization, who is promoting this ECI, you should ask yourself what’s going on. You should ask them why they are supporting industrial agriculture, and think about the answer they give you.

Most environmental and activist organizations receive large financial support from corporations, or the worlds wealthy families, and as a result try to promote their interests. Maybe these are causes you don’t need to support any more?

Have a look at the ECI page on the Internet, and all the organizations who have let their logo be used for promoting it. At the very least these organizations were very careless, and at worst there are bad intentions. If you know these organizations, talk to them and find out the reason.

Above all else, talk with others. Talk with the people gathering the signatures and their organizations. Explain the situation to others who might give their signature. Talk about where the money is, and why it is being spent.

Together we can stop fake news in activist causes, and we can put pressure on activist organizations to support our causes, instead of telling us what to believe and support.

update: 12 march

Analysis of the Text

Subject-matter: We call on the European Commission to propose to member states a ban on glyphosate, to reform the pesticide approval procedure, and to set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use.

Main objectives: Ban glyphosate-based herbicides, exposure to which has been linked to cancer in humans, and has led to ecosystems degradation; ensure that the scientific evaluation of pesticides for EU regulatory approval is based only on published studies, which are commissioned by competent public authorities instead of the pesticide industry; set EU-wide mandatory reduction targets for pesticide use, with a view to achieving a pesticide-free future.

“mandatory reduction targets” A target is an approximation. A mandatory approximation? This won’t have much meaning in practice. If these mandatory approximations are EU-wide, even estimating them will be a big challenge, and local authorities may not have the authority to enforce them.
Banning one herbicide by name, glyphosate, will not benefit anyone. There are many others with other names, both on the market and under development.
“approval is based only on published studies” This means taking into account public opinion is explicitly ruled out. Also unpublished studies will not be considered, for example when the manufacturer or patent holder refuses to give permission for a study to be published. Published studies nearly always reflect the wishes of the company that pays for them, which in this case will be the one seeking the approval for marketing the pesticide.
“competent public authorities” In the era of privatization and industry self-regulation, these are controlled by the food industry.
There is no pesticide industry. Pesticides are sold together with seeds, and are part of the food industry. Barring the pesticide industry from participating doesn’t accomplish anything.
“a view to achieving a pesticide-free future” This is like a view to achieving a future free of nuclear weapons. We certainly all hope it happens, but the chances are pretty small. This statement has no political meaning.

2 March 201711 March 2017

The BBC and their Fake News Problem

I’m probably one of those people Donald Trump referred to recently as ‘Obama’s People’. I don’t work for Obama, am not any sort of henchman, don’t know him personally, don’t have anything to do with him except I broadly supported his term in office, and certainly don’t like anything about Trump.

I don’t know what the BBC was thinking when, referring to this comment by Trump, they proudly proclaimed in a headline “…Trump Blames Obama for Protests and Security Leaks“. In fact Trump was blaming ‘Obama’s People’, and probably not Obama himself or his henchmen. Is this a mistake? The BBC’s lack of understanding of Americanisms? Fake news?

In the context of the BBC recently being excluded from a presidential news conference, this almost looks like an attack on Trump. The idea of excluding the BBC or any major news organization in this way is unconscionable, but this headline makes the BBC look very clumsy, even like they are trying to fabricate news.

Over the last month or so, the BBC has launched an attack on fake news. This is not only on it’s headline news service, but for example visiting classrooms and talking with children about things like an old newspaper article proclaiming the arrival of UFOs. The BBC has not only themselves declared something of a war on fake news, they’ve taken it upon themselves to define what exactly fake news is. Their overriding message is trust major news outlets like the BBC, and trust peer reviewed scientific research. Be suspicious of everything else!

As a blogger, I really find all of this, and all of it’s inherent contradictions, completely unacceptable. For all intents and purposes, there are no independent scientists in the world any more. All peer reviewed scientific research has sponsorship, and someone is paying for a particular focus and specific outcomes. If a study doesn’t have a desired outcome, it can be discarded, modified or ignored.

For a few years now, the BBC accepts ’embedded advertising’. In plain and simple terms, this means the BBC accepts payment to write specific items, even what some of us might call ‘fake news’. These are stories no ad blocker can save you from, and usually there’s no disclaimer to warn you. Just like banner advertising, these fake news items are mixed in with real items, to make it as hard as possible for readers to tell the difference.

In many ways this has been a major aspect of this blog, not creating fake news, but rather spotting it in main stream press, and identifying it. One of the main sources of fake news is the food industry, and the BBC has always been one of my favorite places to look for it.

It’s always been a focus of mine, to avoid posting any information I thought was wrong or misleading. Bloggers are sometimes euphemistically referred to as pajama journalists, sometimes in a derogatory way, like we are unprofessional people you can’t trust. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have the resources or commitment professional journalists have. At the same time, I think, as a whole, you are less likely to find fake news on blogs than you are on major news sites. You need to of course make use of webs of trust, and pick and choose your blogs carefully.

An interesting thing has also been happening. Since I started blogging, the public has on it’s own become more aware of fake news. Almost so much so, there’s less reason for me to be so active.

So let’s consider a recent article on the BBC, Swedish mum’s battle against sugar goes viral. First, the reason this was supposedly viral was a few thousand likes on Facebook, not really viral in my opinion. Secondly, the core reason why this mother seemed to be against sugar, was in connection with her child’s behavior. The BBC was very quick to point out that no scientific and peer reviewed connection has been made between children’s behavior and sugar. The BBC then went on to make a number of claims themselves, some sort of vaguely citing research, and others making their own assertions.

I think for most people like me, ordinary sugar is a normal part of our diet. It is a minimally refined product, mostly coming pretty directly from sugar cane or sugar beet. It is a hunger suppressant, can help people eat less and avoid weight gain. It’s been around for a long time, longer in fact than many diseases like diabetes and obesity have been major health concerns.

On the other hand, many of us find reason to be suspicious of newer formulated sugars like those found in processed foods, or sugar substitutes like aspartame. Many of these have a different effect on hunger, some seemingly stimulate hunger and cause us to gain weight. The introduction of some of these on the market, notably aspartame and high fructose corn syrup, seem to coincide with the obesity and diabetes epidemics we have now. Many of us also do not feel scientific research on these products have been taken seriously, often being incomplete or ignored.

There also seem to be strong commercial issues behind this topic. Sugar has been around a long time now, and is no longer covered by patents. It’s not commercially interesting any more. The food industry would like to sell us more profitable alternatives.

Is there some reason the BBC is suddenly so concerned with our health? Could it be the BBC is generating their own news? Was the BBC paid to write articles like this? Is this fake news?

I think the BBC needs to get it’s act together, and address it’s own contradictions.

6 April 20156 April 2015

Secrets of Pickles, Kimchi and so on

I bought a pickle crock a few months ago, and after a few batches of normal pickles, I put in a batch of kimchi a few days ago. You might think I’m being trendy, and maybe I am. One thing for sure is I really love home made pickles, and don’t know how I’ve lived for so long without them or what took me so long to start making my own!

Making your own pickles is very easy.

There’s an astonishing amount of misinformation about pickles on the Internet! For years we’ve been told they are dangerous, and if you can them you have to add so much vinegar it makes them impossible to eat, and then cook them in a canner until they are a mushy mess. None of this is true. There are virtually no cases of people getting sick from fermented pickles. It’s also not necessary to can them in order to preserve them or to make them safe.

True pickles are made without vinegar, because the fermenting process creates lactic acid which together with the added salt, is more than enough to preserve them and keep them safe.

I think I’ve spent hours looking for a good kimchi recipe, because most of what’s on the Internet completely misses the point of how pickles are fermented, and the recipes simply can’t work. I’ve heard lots of people who tried to make kimchi say ‘oh, it didn’t work for me because I didn’t wait long enough.’ That’s what I said the first time I tried! People who say this are simply using the wrong recipe.

Vegetables Without Sprays

For pickles you have to use organic or unsprayed fruit or vegetables. Yes — you can pickle fruit too. Pesticide residues, as well as changes in bacteria balance and so on will interfere with the fermentation process.

Anaerobic Process Under Water

This is critical to making pickles. Under water. Room temperature.

Whatever it is you are fermenting has to be submerged under water, and since most vegetables float, some sort of weight is necessary to put on top to keep it submerged. This process will give off gas, and exposure to oxygen should be minimized, so either you need some sort of airlock or you need a jar with a tight fitting lid that you loosen every few hours. If you forget to loosen the lid it will explode! You have been warned.

If your pickles are exposed to oxygen when they are fermenting, a little mold will probably form on top. This is harmless and can just be removed.

Any vegetables not completely covered with water will rot during the fermenting process, and should be removed.

A ceramic pickle crock is not very expensive, and very handy. These have a built in air lock on top, that you can just add a little water to. The air lock will let the pickle gasses escape, and prevents oxygen from entering. Pickle crocks come with purpose made weights, that hold the contents below the water level. With a pickle crock you are unlikely to have mold problems. Also pickle crocks are usually partly made from unglazed ceramic, which can’t normally be completely cleaned, and will hold some of the pickling bacteria from one batch to help inoculate the next. If necessary, the unglazed parts can be sterilized in boiling water.

A common mistake is to buy a pickle crock that’s too small. You might think you could never eat 10 liters (2.5 gallons) of pickles, but they will lose volume as they ferment, and will taste very good once you’re finished! They will also store a long time. It is true, when making speciality pickles, like beet relish or similar things, that 10 liters might be a little on the large side.

If you find a recipe for fermented pickles or kimchi on the Internet that doesn’t have this step, it won’t work! Pickles cannot be fermented in the refrigerator!

Pickles Need Salty Brine

It might be technically possible to make pickles without salt, but that’s defeating one of the important reasons for making pickles in the first place. Salt is a preservative, and pickling foods is a way of preserving them. Pickles with minimized salt content will have a very short shelf life.

The pickling process requires an astonishing amount of salt. A typical recipe with 2-3 Kg (5-6 lbs) of vegetables may need as much as 5-6 Tablespoons. The amount of salt is not usually very critical, so some people add more or less and often don’t measure it. The salt needs to be very pure, without iodine or minerals, as these will cause the pickles to brown.

How can it be that so much salt gets added and the pickles are not ruined? Even for people who normally salt their food, this seems like a lot of salt. The trick is that the salt stays in the brine, and draws the water out of the vegetables. Of course pickles are a little salty, but this is mostly because they are in salty brine. Adding more or less salt to the batch as a whole, won’t significantly change the salt content of the pickles themselves, and if you discard the brine virtually all the salt gets discarded with it. If you think the pickles are too salty after making them, you can rinse them then if necessary.

By starting with fresh vegetables, and salting them, they often have enough water in them to make their own brine. In this way, a minimum of flavors are lost. It’s very common to need to add a little water or brine, but you want to keep this to a minimum because it will dilute the flavors.

If you see a recipe on the Internet that calls for first salting the vegetables, then rinsing and discarding the liquid, look for another recipe! This is not how fermented pickles are made.

Storing Pickles

The fermentation process occurs at room temperature, and slows down considerably at cooler temperatures. This is mostly the issue for storing pickles, stopping the fermentation and keeping them from getting too sour. The salt and lactic acid in pickles are very effective preservatives, and when stored in a cool place like a refrigerator or root cellar, they will keep a long time. Ideally, they will be kept as close to, but above, 0C/32F as possible. The salt content will provide some protection from freezing, and a light freezing won’t harm them. Canning or deep freezing are also possibilities, and will stop the fermentation process, but will also change the texture and flavor of the pickles. Canning has the advantage of being able to store the pickles at room temperature or transport them easily.

Pickles will keep longer if they are stored covered in brine.

If you have a pickle crock and a root cellar, the traditional way is to just put the entire crock of pickles in the cellar for storage.

Special Issues for Kimchi

Kimchi needs a special kind of red pepper flake powder called gochugaru. This is milder than normal red pepper powder. This can be bought online or at Asian groceries.

In traditional kimchi the basic ingredients are scallions, garlic, gochugaru, napa cabbage, daikon radish, salt and if you aren’t vegetarian also shrimp or fish sauce. The spices are made into a paste, with a little added water, then rubbed on the cabbage with the salt. This is then fermented at room temperature for about 3 weeks. The cabbage has enough natural fermentation bacteria and doesn’t need any added inoculant, and it probably has enough water it doesn’t need any added water or brine.

Beyond the traditional ingredients, many people also add ginger, carrots and other things.

Ignore all the recipes out there that call for salting and rinsing the cabbage, or making the kimchi in jars without liquid in the refrigerator!

3 December 20143 December 2014

This is Your Brain on Beer

If you grew up in America in the ’70s or ’80s, you certainly know this ad that was played on TV. Even then it was very controversial, and no one really took it seriously, but it was an important part of the mindset that led to the war on drugs. It was part of this vague, pseudo-science, that in effect was to make young people believe cigarettes were the only safe drug to use.

We’ve just had a similar ‘education campaign’ in Europe, that led to the drinking age being raised in several places, including Holland. This happened even over the objections of parents of young people, the majority of whom wanted their children to continue to be able to buy alcohol. Drinking damages the brains of young people, was the rallying call. Isn’t it time we grew up, and stopped this kind of nonsense?

A recent study now shows no statistical correlation between alcohol use in young people and brain development. How is this study different from all those other studies in the past that showed young brains were damaged? Well, previous studies concentrated on young people who had signs of dependence on alcohol, and who often had other psychiatric problems. This latest study focused on a typical cross section of the population, and compared young but otherwise normal drinkers with their non-drinking counterparts.