I started a Paleo diet.  And to be honest my intentions to diet where driven by vanity.  I had seen claims by friends that they lost a significant amount of weight in a short amount of time, and I hoped that I could see similar results.  Just in time for a trip south.  The riped beach body I had always wanted in a short 7 weeks.

Now I understand that this is ambitious, but hey apparently when setting goals, one should set lofty ones.

What is Paleo you ask?  Well it has also been referred to as the Caveman diet.  This way of eating essentially means you can eat as much as you want as long as you don’t eat the following:  Grains, Dairy, Legumes, Sugar and highly processed foods.  Easy right?

So one month in, how am I doing?

I did loose some weight.  About 4 lbs so far.  Not the big loss that I hoped for, but progress nonetheless.

I have struggled trying to do this on my own.  It is hard to try to cook two seperate meals at every meal time, and the temptation to cheat is great when all of the tempting foods are still out there.  I also travel for work, so trying to find Paleo meals in restaurants etc, is a challenge.

Now truth be told, I didn’t research this way of eating very much either, and I am sure that I am making a lot of mistakes.  But the fact that I didn’t have to count calories, or restrict the amount of food I ate appealed to me.  As I didn’t want to always feel hungry.

So while I cheated often, and while I would choose to conform to what everyone else around me was eating during meals with friends, family or colleagues rather than making a fuss, I have learned quite a bit.

For one, I am very aware now of all the “crap” that I used to eat.  Try to cut out sugar out of your diet, and you’ll see what I mean.

I also had some very bad snack habits.  It is easy to eat bread, crackers, candy etc to quickly quench hunger.  And I think that is where the problem with this diet is.  It is not that convenient (at least for me), you have to plan ahead.  You have to prep vegetables, you have to get used to choosing fruit instead of bon-bons etc..  I think the default for me at least has always been the quick and easy snack.  That had to change.

So my diet changes seem to have a positive effect.  I will also have to work at exercising more, as the weight loss came without doing anything more.  I am actually less active now than I have ever been, so more sit-ups and push-ups it is, and snow shoveling of course.

Now as an agvocate I have to weigh in on how I feel about this way of eating.

In my job, I interact a lot with Dairy Farmers.  I don’t dare mention that I am trying to avoid any and all dairy products in my daily eating habits.  I actually don’t really understand the rationale behind this in terms of the Paleo diet.

As a former grain farmer with a lot of friends in the industry, I don’t understand the grain thing either.

I think we do eat to much bread, starch etc, but to the best of my knowledge humans have been eating grains for over 10,000 years.

I also don’t quite get the legume thing…but it has been said that animals that eat right do not have issues with gas etc.  I am aware that there are ways of preparing legumes that minimize this, and I love Beans, but I am leaving them out of my diet for now.

Now the sugar and processed food thing makes total sense.  We eat to much sugar, salt etc..  And we eat to much junk.  Once again I think it’s the convenience factor.  And don’t get me started on all of the salt in foods…

But I also have to wonder what a diet that is designed around a sustainable food system would look like.  I don’t have the answers right now but will post on this later.

So in an effort to follow through on it, here I am with some of my thoughts.

I have said it often on this blog, that I feel that what’s needed is the return to real customer service.  Some interaction between producer and consumer.

In this world where detached customer service is king ( just try talking to a real live person, when you call just about any company now a days), in order for the primary producers ( i.e. farmers) to survive, they need to get good at one thing.  And that is to provide their customers with added value in the way of direct contact.

This is invaluable during a time where consumers are becoming increasingly aware that their food may or may not be produced locally.  Often consumers do not know what’s contained in the food they eat.

How refreshing it would be if they could look the producer in the eye and be assured that the food that they are serving their loved ones is safe.

I find it interesting how some of our food safety systems are designed around big industry.  A lot of the systems they have to put in place center around traceability.  How shameful it is for producers to take advantage of the anonimity that came with dropping of your animal at an auction mart, walk away with your cheque, and never have to worry about who is eating what you have produced.  This led to abuses in antibiotics, growth hormones and yes, shipping diseased animals ( i.e. BSE) all in an effort to maintain profits.  Until recently there was no traceback to the producer ( eartags have recently been introduced as a result of the lost markets due to the BSE debacle).

So yes we have a traceback system in place now, but we also have an industry that was largely built on anonimity, and large scale production.  Is it still going to make sense in a few years, to ship our animals to Ontario, or the U.S. only to bring the meat back here?  At what point will the price of fuel make that proposition prohibitive?

A lot of producers out west, got caught by the BSE crisis.  When the borders closed, they found themselves with no local slaughter capacity left.  They had relied on the U.S. for so long that they couldn’t react quickly to take care of the animals that needed to get processed domestically.  They frantically tried to build some slaughter facilities, but all to late.

Also our “friendly” government didn’t help matters much by imposing some food safety rules, that were designed for factory style slaughter houses, on these local and small upstart abattoirs.  When I was growing up my uncle would sell his animals to the local butcher who processed maybe one large bovine per week.  The animal would literally be led to slaughter on a halter right into the abatoir that was attached to the butcher shop.  People could see the animal walk into the shop. The butcher knew that he could trust my Uncles quality, and my uncle in turn knew that if he was going to keep his market, he would have to provide him with a good quality product both now and in the future.  If he had a “downer” cow, he wouldn’t take it and drag it down the butcher, and expect him to take it.  No, he knew that any diseased animals where best disposed of to the pet food industry, and kept out of the human food chain.  This tightly controlled system worked very well, and provided high quality meats to the butchers customers.  There was no anonimity for the primary producer.  The butchers customers knew where the meat came from, and would know where to go to seek retribution.  And it is probably that fact that is a concern for producers now a days.  But since the advent of the traceability system, producers are responsible for their products anyways.

So what is my solution?  Smaller, local processing.  Production that meets the consumers needs and tastes at a local level.  Consumers involvement in where their food is produced ( I love the idea of consumers purchasing their pork, as weanling pigs, and being involved in the farm as shareholders of that pig ).  What a great and novel idea.  Of course then consumers will have to come to grips that their meat might have had a name at one time.  It would seem that the anonimity works both ways.  Some consumers would rather pretend that their meat magically appears cut and wrapped at the grocery store, rather than coming to terms with the process that’s involved in slaughtering and processing their beloved strips of back bacon.

As an agvocate I am all about promoting agriculture, and finding ways to break through the misinformation out there.  It’s time to get this conversation going.  We can’t afford to hide anymore.

I took this site of the air for a while to ponder whether or not to continue with this, in light of some privacy concern issues.

A friend of ours had her identity compromised recently, and it just made me think.  I also wonder how many people base their opinions on what they can find out about a person on the internet, and since I sometimes rant with no regard of the consequences on this blog, I wondered what the impact of my actions online might be to my “real life”.

I am curious if anyone out there has experience with this, or if you have similar concerns…

Feel free to comment…

Global Warming anyone??? the past 100 years 4 different climate trends have been reported by Journalists.

* NASA Goddart Institute reports Earth cooled 0.7 degrees in 2007.

Of course y’all, can’t be as phat as me…

I actually hope that the debate will continue, and that we will continue to reduce our pollution, and as a result our consumption.  We are seeing great strides being made in terms of our reduction of plastics, but there are also some scary signs that we’ve already gone to far.

And there are some great strides in terms of residential wind turbines, electric cars etc.  I hope that we can figure it out in due time.

People are rioting in the streets because they can’t afford to buy food, and here in North America, we are paying our farmers to throw it out…

On top of that we are saying to the farmers and processors that it can’t be put into human food, as that may raise the ire of the folks in the U.S., as they may cry foul and consider this an illegal subsidy.  I am appalled at the current state of affairs.

It’s stupid politics that got us into this mess, and now politicians continue to make it worse by rubbing it into the poor peoples faces by composting thousands of pounds meat, or by feeding it to Ms. Smith’s Pet Chihuahua.  Man I am upset over this…

We are really out of touch with our food, our food producers, processors and distributors, and a huge tidal wave of change seems to be coming at us, faster than we can adapt.  For another viewpoint on this please look at Rob Patersons post on the issue.  We both agree, that local is best, and that in order for that to work, we need to re-establish relationships between the consumer and the producers.

And low and behold George W. is helping by spending 200 million in Food Aid (how much is he spending daily on shooting at war-weary Iraqis?).  Well if you google it you will find that he’s spending about $720 Million a day on the war, or about $500,000 a minute.  A lot of it is unaccounted for, and a lot of that money goes to Halliburton, but that’s a whole other rant.

Anyway, lot’s of food for thought in this post ( unfortunately that doesn’t provide much nutrition…), right now I don’t know what to say anymore, cause I am far to wound up.

It seems that the farmers in Argentina are not going to go down without a fight.  They are deliberately shorting stores and customers to ask for better prices and fairer conditions.  I say, good for them.

North American farmers should take heed.  This kind of solidarity would certainly help their cause.  I am certainly anything but a pro-union, or a pro-strike kind of person.  But until grocery shelves are empty up here, no one will take notice.

Power to the People I say…

As I was visiting the Eastern U.S. this weekend at a place that was rife with Boston and New Yoik accents, it made me think whether or not people in these huge urban centers had any idea where their food came from.

At a discussion later that day, someone remarked that it would be impossible for folks in Boston to live according to the 100 mile diet since there is not enough agricultural land in a 100 mile radius to feed them all.  Think about that!  We truly have become very far removed from the one thing that sustains us…FOOD!

Now 20 years ago when I read Gary’s book,  I was inspired to start a a career in agriculture, as I truly believed that I would help to feed the world, and that the only way to ensure that we wouldn’t run out of food was to use scientific advancements in crop genetics, nutrition and health, in order to increase yields and in an effort to keep bread baskets full.

Now we either all did our jobs very well in the late 80′s and throughout the 90′s and early 2000′s, or people just didn’t eat, but all of a sudden our efforts were rewarded with huge surpluses of food.  Prices plummeted, farmers went broke, processors told employees to “Do more with less”, we all had to work harder, work longer hours for less return.

Some people burned out, farmers commited suicide, things were truly tough, and it seemed that Gary’s prediction of empty grocery carts was false.

Now all of a sudden we seem to be having the perfect storm, grain supplies are at their lowest in over 30 years, prices for grains are way up.  So is the erie prediction of food shortages finally coming true?  CNN seems to think so. 

So are things going to be all positive on the farming front now?

Well, I think we truly are just at the cusp of a major agricultural revolution.  For starters the primary producers have the opportunity to be in the drivers seat for once.  Unfortunately, many won’t take the opportunity, and big corporations will reap most of the rewards of a problem that they caused.  What?  Am I blaming corporate greed yet again?  Well partially, you see “back in the old days”, corporations as well as governments used to store grains so that they would have nearly a 6 months supply.  Stores and Warehouses were kept full.  Now they are down to less than 30, because we have become experts at supplying grains to these corporations 24/7, and “just in time”.

Because of the great organizations such as the Canadian Wheat Board, and the provincial crop insurance system, farmers have to declare their yields almost as soon as they are done harvesting.  Therefore it is very easy for the powers that be, to determine what volumes are out there, and to set a price ( usually a low one).  Farmers are unable to keep their “cards” as it relates to crop inventory close to their chests, and must therefore take whatever they can get.  Also a lot of lenders now demand that you have some income every month to service operating loans.  So it is becoming necessary to deliver grain year round ( once again aiding the corporations desire to keep their inventories low, while necessitating farmers to store and deliver more).

So what’s the solution?  More value added processing at a local level ( and not just more ethanol plants).  This year, farmers should hang on to some grain, rather than selling it all at record prices to take some short term profit.  Farmers should short the market even more, and use a measured approach going forward.  Farmers should pressure organizations to give them some advanced price and volume contracts for future years, so that they know what they are getting before planting.   And yes, I ‘ll say it again, they need to change the wheat board, to remove the marketing stranglehold it has on farmers.  Not to mention the huge amount of money they eat up with bureaucracy and red tape.

Maybe just maybe as people remember who it is that is growing their food, will they finally realize that the guy growing the grain, needs to make a living as well.