The Cleaner Plate Club

An op-ed in Today’s Times, Don’t Cry Over rBST Milk, by Dr. Henry I. Miller, ticked me off. Talking about rBST/rBGH - the artificial hormone that’s widely applied to dairy cows to get them to produce milk, Miller claims that:

Cynical activists have unfairly stigmatized a scientifically proven product that has consistently delivered economic and environmental benefits to dairy farmers and consumers. In a more rational world, they would embrace — and enlightened consumers would demand — milk with a label that boasted, “A Proud Product of rBST-Supplemented Cows.”

Regular readers already know my thoughts about rBST/rGBH. But I have to offer a response to Dr. Miller.

I’m sorry, Dr. Miller. You are a doctor? Really? Then surely you know about the problem with antibiotic resistance, which virtually every health expert in the world agrees is an increasing and deeply serious problem? And that it’s due to overuse of antibiotics?

And that one of the side effects of rBST/rBGH is increased mastitis in cows (that’s Monsanto’s own data there)? And that mastitis gets treated with antibiotics? Which means that rBST/rBGH use results in increased use of antibiotics? Which is contributing to the growing number of cases (in people) of infections by bacteria that don’t respond to antibiotics?

I’m surprised, but surely you must not know these things, Dr. Miller. Your op-ed didn’t mention antibiotic resistance at all.

As for the other health risks, it’s true that the link to cancer hasn’t been proven. What we know is that IGF-1 in human bloodstream is linked to cancer. We know that rBST/rBGH increases IGF-1 in milk. Some argue that IGF-1 in milk is destroyed by digestion, although some recent evidence suggests that it’s protected by the casein in milk.

Me? I’m exactly where I was before I read this article. I want to know how my milk was made. And because I’d like antibiotics to work for my kids, and their kids, and because I don’t like the ambiguity of the cancer research I’ve seen, I’m increasingly likely to buy my milk from dairies that don’t use rBST/rBGH.

You can call me a “cynical activist,” Dr. Miller. But really, sir, I’m just a mom.

Mike Hamm, the keynote speaker here at FoodMed 2007, nailed it yesterday. Noting that our diet is now the #2 reason why people in this country die (and it’s rapidly catching up to tobacco), he noted that we always frame this discussion in terms of personal responsibility. If you’ve got these challenges, it’s your fault. And, okay, that’s true, although there’s plenty of evidence that show how influenced humans are, beginning by age 4, by their environment (the fact is, the prime factor in what people buy is what’s available).

But, says Hamm, here’s the thing:

We force people to be heroes in order to be healthy. We force people to go to extraordinary lengths to not eat the junky food. How can we make it easier? How can we make it so that the default choice is the healthy thing to do? How do we begin constructing a society in which it’s easier to do the right thing?

He’s right. Think about what people say when someone’s lost weight: “how did you DO it???” Think about how people frame their relationships with food: like doing battle with the enemy. Think about how people talk about someone who’s actually able to be healthy in this world: “She’s my hero.”(or worse: they say “I hate her,” because she’s accomplished the seemingly impossible).

It shouldn’t take heroic efforts to do the things that every doctor recommends — to eat right, and move more. If it does take heroic efforts, then something is really, really f%$@ed.

There are several people here who are really working on creating an environment in which the default choices are the better ones. The guy behind this story, Preston Maring, is one of my favorites. He’s doing something. He’s an OB/GYN, who one day paused to wonder why his hospital was selling jewelry and handbags in the lobby.

“It made no sense,” he said. “It had no relation to our mission.”

So he started organizing weekly farmers’ markets on the hospital grounds. The first one opened in May, 2003, and was a stunning success; it felt like a block party, he says, and a strawberry vendor alone did $2,000 worth of business. Today, 38 Kaiser Permanente sites have weekly farmers’ markets on site, some sites have organized a CSA in collaboration with local farmers, and fresh, local healthy foods have come into the patient trays. Kaiser Permanente has gotten involved with organizing CSAs onsite at other employers, as well (today, a California auto plant gets Friday afternoon CSA deliveries, so the employees, mostly men, go home on Friday with fresh vegetables and flowers).

It’s so simple, really: this idea of bringing farm-fresh produce to people, rather than making them seek it out. Make it easier, not more difficult, to eat fresh produce. Again, kind of a “duh” factor, but there you are.

Dr. Lenny Lesser is another one who’s making the default environment a healthier one. He noted that 40% of hospitals serve some kind of brand name fast food in their restaurants. Comparing this to offering ashtrays in patient rooms, he did some research that confirmed that three out of ten more people are likely to eat at a fast food chain if that chain is located in a hospital on the day that they’re there…which, nationwide, totals about 5-6 million more people eating fast food each year.

He’s pretty unequivocal about fast food chains: “They’re dangerous, because they kill us…” He also has some compelling research to show that walking out of a doctor’s office to see the Golden Arches clouds people’s judgement about how healthy it is. So he’s been joining the fight to get fast food out of health care settings.

There are others — people who are fighting to change the farm bill so that there are more incentives for people to grow, and sell, and eat health foods; people who are struggling to keep farms alive; people who are changing food service options in schools and vending machines.

What strikes me is how constructive these folks are. Whenever people talk about trying to make people healthier, trying to create healthier environments, they get accused of taking away choices. Or lifting all of the responsibility from parents and individuals. They get accused of…I don’t know. A kind of negativity and blame that doesn’t fly with most Americans.

But these folks aren’t simply wagging their fingers at food marketers. They’re not running to an attorney, or casting blame. They’re not trying to remove people’s choices. Rather, they’re trying to increase people’s choices — by improving people’s access to nutrient-rich options, where they might otherwise be greeted by only a fast-food world.

They’re actually creating a better, richer, more colorful world, while they’re at it.

So, in many ways, this is a typical conference. People are shuffling from room to room with their canvas tote bags. There are pens and pads of paper in the back of each room, coffee silently set up outside the sessions to enjoy during the break. Everybody is wearing badges, and people mutter an awkward “may I sit here” to strangers during mealtimes. The rooms are windowless, the PowerPoint presentations have lots of bar charts, and the sound system is not always perfect.

But for me, this is unlike any conference I’ve been to. I’ve attended my share of conferences, made strained conversations with fellow bag-toters, nodded off during many a plenary session. I’m not nodding off here. Instead, I’m pumped. This place is filled with individuals who are making the connection between three things that often seem totally disparate: the health of Americans, sustainable agriculture, and nutrition.

It seems a little nutty that more folks haven’t made this connection. I mean, every physician in this country knows about the dangers of antibiotic overuse and antibiotic-resistant pathogens. And yet how many of them are speaking out against the fact that 70% of the antibiotics that are produced in this country (and yes, the same ones that we humans need) are given to healthy chickens? Everyone in health care knows that food-related disease is approaching the top cause of death in the U.S.…and yet have you visited a hospital cafeteria recently?

People and institutions that are involved in healing should promote good health. And, yes, that includes promoting healthy food systems that will result in better health. There’s kind of a ‘duh’ factor here. Except that almost no one’s been talking about it. There are all kinds of reasons that they haven’t: because hospitals are struggling just to keep their doors open. Because physicians are trained to intervene in an individual’s health problems, not a society’s. It’s because we live in a world where personal responsibility has become a mantra, partly because solutions at any other level are too daunting.

This conference, and the folks who are here, and the work that they’re doing, is a start. I was really afraid that this conference would include only fringe types — men with beards to their toes, women in hemp shoes, and maybe the occasional attendee in a cape. (why a cape? I don’t know. Isn’t there always someone wearing a cape at fringe events?).

Not so. Sure, there’s the long-haired physician with a goatee. And the women might be wearing little less makeup, slightly lower heels, than the attendees of the adjacent lawyers’ conference. But for the most part, these are mainstream folks, making links that probably should have been made a long time ago.

The problem is that there aren’t enough of them. There are a couple of hundred people here, but I can’t help but wonder why there aren’t ten times that many. Or why there aren’t regional FoodMeds happening everywhere. Or why I’m the only blogger here, as far as I can tell.

(bloggers: join me next year. It has been so hard to choose: Do I want to attend the session where we talk about the nutritional benefits of sustainable food? Or the one about the farm bill? Do I learn about issues is beef, hog, or poultry production, or the impact of food marketing on health care? Next year, we can divide and conquer. Besides: the food here rocks).

As the sessions go on, folks are talking more and more about making the health care-sustainable food connection, by bringing farm-fresh, local foods into the hospital settings - to serve to patients, and to serve to staff and visitors. There are also plenty of great sessions that are specific to food, and why we should be concerned, and what we can do.

I’m not going to report on everything I attended (what’s more dull than attending a conference? Reading somebody else’s notes from the confernce, that’s what), at least not now. But I’m thinking, I’m musing, and I’m absolutely certain that we’re on the right track here. That track being away from processors, and toward real food, at home, in health care settings, in restaurants…wherever. The good news is that being here has shown me that there are lots of smart people at work on this.

As I speak - literally, as I type! - a guy who helps New England farmers distribute their produce is talking with someone from the Harvard School of Public Health about sourcing local food in the university setting.

Also, as I type, the guy who started farmers’ markets at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout California (and is now bringing local healthy food and 100% fair trade coffee into the buildings) is talking with other health care leaders.

Can you see it? Connections being made? Leading to healthier institutions, a healthier country, a healthier you?

And none of them — not one — is wearing a cape.

Hey, guys. I’m here. FoodMed 2007, the intersection of food, the environment, and health care. I stumbled across these guys a while back, and knew I was meant to be here. I’m actually here as a member of the press. That’s right, folks, I’ve got a press pass, and I’m not afraid to use it.

The people who know me personally are shaking their heads now. I can just hear them:

You? A member of the press? You haven’t been to journalism school!

Come on, Ali, your kid eats sand!

Well, all of that is true, even the sand part, and that’s the beautiful thing about the blogosphere: I am a member of the press because I believe I am. It’s the democritization of the media! It’s the destruction of the media! You choose!

I say I’m the media, and so I am. I’M THE DECIDER, PEOPLE.

Anyhow, I deserve this press pass, if only because I drove through blinding rains and falling tree limbs and a freakish hail storm to get here.

This is my kind of conference. The coffee is fair trade, the creamers are organic, and the meals are locally-sourced. The exhibitors are folks like Tallgrass Beef, and the Rainforest Alliance. The handouts are statements about the farm bill. The Harvard Book Shop has a table, where they’re selling books by Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Francis Moore Lappe, and the like.

And I’m psyched that this conference is happening. I’m psyched that there’s a tiny segment of the health care market that’s actually thinking about things like one of the main reasons that our antibiotics are increasingly failing us is that 70% of the antibiotics made in this country are given to healthy chickens.

It’s a small conference. It should be bigger. But I’m here. I’ve got a press pass, and I’m not afraid to use it.

One of the top stories in today’s New York Times could scare the bejeezus out of any sane eater. The news isn’t surprising, and it’s not even new:

China recently closed 180 food plants, and inspectors there have uncovered more than 23,000 food safety violations. According to the story, food makers were using industrial chemicals, dyes and other illegal ingredients in making a range of food products, everything from candy to seafood. Think this only affects the Chinese? Read on.

The crackdown is long overdue. The news actually started with the pet food recall earlier this year, in which potentially thousands of pets died from eating pet food tainted with melamine and cyanuric acid. Some investigation into the scandal revealed that the toxins had entered the human food chain, as well. Millions of Americans have eaten animals — including fish, chicken, and hogs — that had consumed tainted feed. Then they found the stuff in American-made (from imported ingredients) feed for fish and shrimp that we humans eat. The FDA was worried enough to stop imports from China on ingredients bound for everything from ramen noodles to breakfast bars.

Oh, yeah. And they found that 900,000 tubes of toothpaste from China were contaminated with a poison found in antifreeze. And that three states banned imports of catfish from China that had been treated with antibiotics. And that vitamins from the country have been contaminated with lead and bacteria. While we’re on the subject, should we talk about the green tea imported from China that was contaminated with alarming levels of pesticides? This is to say nothing, of course, about other kinds of items, like Thomas the Tank Engine trains, or tires.

(In the wake of all this, a former top Chinese regulator was recently sentenced to death for his lax standards.)

I can just hear you out there: Geez, why all the xenophobia? What’s Ali got against China? The problem is that we’re all eating lots more food from China, where chemical use is high, and regulations are lax. Food imports from China are zooming, according to all kinds of sources, including this great, if troubling, NPR story. Here’s a bit from it:

Shaun Kennedy of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense says no country is increasing its food exports faster than China.

“China has increased overall its food imports to the United States by over 20 percent in the last year alone,” Kennedy says. “Going back three years, we have doubled our agricultural inputs from China.”

China has become the leading supplier of many food ingredients, such as apple juice, a primary sweetener in many foods; garlic and garlic powder, a major flavor agent; sausage casings and cocoa butter. China now supplies 80 percent of the world’s ascorbic acid — vitamin C. It’s used as a preservative and nutritional enriching agent in thousands of foods. One-third of the world’s vitamin A now comes from China, along with much of the supply of vitamin B-12 and many health-food supplements, such as the amino acid lysine.

China’s got the worst record in the world for blocked food shipments into the U.S., it’s true. But the problem is bigger than a single country that wants to capture the market. We’re all kind of complicit in this system.

It’s about money, plain and simple. Manufacturers — and I’m talking U.S. companies here — are driven not just to make a profit, but to make ever-increasing profits. A consistent, steady profit isn’t enough. Shareholders want growth, growth growth (just look at how they talk about Conagra).

Meanwhile, we Americans like our food cheap. More than that: we expect it to be cheap.

So we’ve got downward pressure for low, low prices, combined with upward pressure for higher, higher profitability. Something, somewhere has got to get squeezed. Food quality gets squeezed. Now, we’re at a point where safety is being squeezed.

People talk about the “race to the bottom” in all kinds of other areas — sneakers, pants, computer chips. A pair of cheaply-made dungarees is one thing. But this stuff that we ingest, and feed to our kids — this stuff that gets absorbed into our very bodies — seems quite another. We’re not eating sneakers, or pants, after all. This is the stuff that keeps us alive.

So what can we do? Ah, it’s the same old advice. You know it, you don’t need to hear it from me. Less processed food, more meals from scratch, buy locally, blah blah blah. You’re bored with the advice by now. Of course you are. We all are. And yet the advice seems to get more important every day, with each new thing that we read.

Blech.

I repeat, for those who did not hear me: blech. Because I’m starting to think we might all be better off eating sneakers…

We’ve been eating lots of greens in our house — our CSA has heaps of lettuce, which we’ve been whipping up with freshly snipped herbs (also from the CSA) and buttermilk ranch dressing. We buy the dressing bottled, but if I were feeling really wholesome and ambitious, I’d try making it with this recipe.

I’m always a little challenged by main-courses, though. They just seem so complicated at times — so much forethought. So much planning. These are not things that come naturally to me. As everyone who knows me can attest, they’re just not.

Can I tell you how many nights we failed to plan ahead? And so wound up missing family dinners, because the cooking took too long? And had to throw some sort of crap at the kids, anything, really, to fill their bellies — you want tortilla chips dipped in maple syrup, you got it! — because they were hungry and tired and whining and needed to go to bed? And then wound up eating our homemade dinner at 10pm in front of the TV? No, I’m not virtuous. No, indeed.

That’s why I’m taking a nod from Barbara Kingsolver (whose new book is terrific, people. Just terrific) and turning Friday night into pizza night. Says Barbara:

Routines save time, and tempers. Friday nights are always pizza-movie nights…We always keep the basic ingredients for pizza on hand — flour and yeast for the dough, mozzarella, and tomatoes (fresh, dried, or canned sauce, depending on the season). All other toppings vary with the garden and personal tastes. Picky children get to control the topping on their own austere quadrant, while the adventurous may stake out another, piling on anything from smoked eggplant to carmelized onions, fresh herbs, and spinach. Because it’s a routine, our pizzas come together without any fuss as we gather in the kitchen to decompress, have a glass of wine if we are of age, and talk about everybody’s week. I never have to think about what’s for dinners on Fridays.

She just makes it seem so…simple. And I’ll confess - while I have spent the better part of the last year going to a post-gymnastics Thursday evening homemade pizza party at a friend’s house, I have almost never actually engaged in the business of making those pizzas. So, now that gymnastics is over for the year, my pizza-eating will shift to Fridays, and I’ll be cooking up the pizzas in my own kitchen.

Here’s the thing: it’s easy. It’s really, really inexpensive if you make it from scratch. You can make it from fresh, local ingredients. And kids can participate in the making.

Best of all, everyone is willing to eat it.

Kingsolver’s recipe, along with some tips, can be found here. There’s also a really great post about making pizza, with photos, here. But here’s what I did:

Pizza Dough (the bread machine version) - this is enough for 2 pies.

Dig out the bread machine you got as a gift and haven’t used for a long, long time. It will need a wipedown, because it’s dusty. Mix together the following ingredients:
1 package yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
3 + cups all-purpose flour (you may need to add a little more; mine was sort of sticky and wet, so I just added flour until it seemed to be the right consistency)
Set the bread machine to pizza dough, and let ‘er rip. (Note: my bread machine takes 1 hour, 40 minutes to make dough. Since many of you don’t have an extra hour and 40 minutes after work, you may want to whip up the dough the night before, place it in the fridge overnight, and then let it sit out on the counter during the day. To avoid having it dry out, cover the top of the bowl with a wet cloth, covered with a plastic lid to seal in the moisture).

Sprinkle some flour and/or cornmeal onto a baking stone or pan. Roll the dough into a circle, and bake in a preheated 375-degree oven for about five minutes, to get it to harden somewhat (otherwise, it seems to get mushy).

The pizzas:

Spread the following on the crusts in this order:
A tad of olive oil
Tomato paste, if you’ve got it
Fresh tomatoes or canned, and/or pizza sauce (For the two pies, I used 1/3 of a can of Muir Glen pizza sauce, then froze the rest of it for future pizza nights. Plus, I sliced a single tomato, thin, and put that on, as well)
Somewhere between a 1/2 pound and 3/4 pound of mozzarella, freshly grated
Fresh cut oregano

I also had some Crowdie cheese from a local cheesemaker, so I added that (and, man, that was good). Here’s what it looked like before cooking:

Bake in oven until cheese is melty and just starting to bubble.

That’s it. Easy. And inexpensive! Even using local farm-fresh cheeses, the whole thing couldn’t have come to more than $10 for the two pies:

$2.19 for a 15 oz can of pizza sauce - and we only used a third of it (so that’s about 73 cents), plus about $6 worth of good-quality cheese, plus the dough ingredients, a single tomato, and a tad of olive oil. And, even at these prices, we still had plenty of leftovers for Sunday night’s dinner and two lunches for Merrie. We’re talking pennies a slice, for what’s a pretty darned good, and wholesome dinner. I love it when that happens!

Merrie loved it - she loved grating the cheese, rolling the dough, spreading, and sprinkling, and she even said “We made this crust? Wow. It’s really good!”

We would have it again. In fact, we will…on Friday.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re trying to eat better, trying to feed those kids better, and you’re finding it difficult.

And some of you never feel full. Or you find yourself eating even when you’re not full. And what you find yourself eating? Not always so good. Ah, yes. This is because you live in America, land of processed food in boxes, of omnipresent vending machines, of gas stations that stop selling gas, because the real money is in snacks. It’s also the land of high fructose corn syrup.

I have two high fructose corn syrup challenges for you. Here’s the first:

Challenge #1: Pick up random items in the grocery store. Soft drinks, sure. Even things like juice “cocktails.” And while you’re at it, try tomato sauce. Ketchup. Cookies. Crackers. Soups. Yogurt. High fructose corn syrup is in lots of these items, perhaps most. Indeed, a remarkable number of products contain high fructose corn syrup.

Is that a problem, you wonder? Maybe. No, wait. What I mean is Yes, definitely, but it may or may not be for the reasons some think.

High fructose corn syrup (HCFS), this thing that we eat an average of 63 pounds of each year, is a corn-based sweetner. It’s heavily processed, using various mechanical processes and the addition of at least three enzymes. The end product has a higher fructose content than table sugar (HFCS is generally 55% fructose and 45% glucose, though apparently the fructose content can be higher. Cane sugar’s ratio is 50/50). That difference may be important. Or it might not.

But wait. First the “why?” Why so much HFCS?

Food manufacturers love the stuff, because it:

1. Mixes easily with other ingredients.
2. Extends shelf-life of processed foods.
3. Helps prevent ice crystals and freezer burn.
4. Helps breads to brown, and it keeps them soft.
5. Is as much as 20% cheaper than other sweeteners, thanks to our agricultural subisidies.

So, what’s the problem? Dr. Mehmet Oz, author of You: The Owner’s Manual, made big news when he appeared on Oprah and told audiences that they should stop consuming HCFS. Dr. Oz says that the higher fructose content means that our bodies process HFCS differently than other sugars:

One of the biggest evil influences on our diet is the presence of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a sugar substitute that itself is a sugar found in soft drinks and many other sweet, processed foods. The problem is that HCFS inhibits leptin secretion, so you never get the message that you’re full. And it never shuts off gherin, so, even though you have food in your stomach, you constantly get the message that you’re hungry.

Lots of folks, from the Weston A. Price Society to the AARP have said similar things, noting the very strong correlation between HFCS and obesity. Here’s Nina Planck’s take:

Intake of high fructose corn syrup grew by more than 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, far exceeding changes in consumption of any other food. The rise of corn syrup mirrors the increase in obesity. Fructose also raises insulin, blood pressure, and triglycerides…stop eating all forms of industrial corn.

Others argue that the problem isn’t HFCS itself, but rather the added calories that would come from any sweetened foods. The New York Times reported last year that the folks who made the original HFCS-obesity connection have sinced backed off from it.

Here’s what Marion Nestle has to say:

I view corn sweeteners as an especially inexpensive and ever present form of sugar(s), but nothing more sinister…if corn sweetners have anything to do with obesity, it is surely because processed foods are loaded with them, and lots of people are eating lots more of such foods.

In other words the problem may be that there’s something inherently wrong with HFCS, and how a body processes it (it gets converted to fat faster, and your “I’m full” mechanism gets shut off). But it may simply be that this otherwise harmless ingredient is associated with crappy, low-nutrition foods that people eat in huge amounts (there’s a great article, covering research into both theories, here).

My take on it: Who cares? Let’s just not eat it.

And that’s my High Fructose Corn Syrup Challenge #2: Stop consuming things with high fructose corn syrup. Just swear it off. I can almost promise you that you’ll lose weight and feel better. It’s possible that this is because there’s something inherently evil about the stuff. Or maybe it’s simply because by making HFCS a no-no ingredient, you will eliminate about 90% of the junky foods that would otherwise wind up in your shopping cart.

If nothing else, think of high fructose corn syrup as a giant red flag that says “I’m heavily processed! I’ve lost most of my nutritional value! The people who made me took the cheap way out, because they care more about profits than quality! You don’t want to eat me!”

Seriously. At the very least, you’ll avoid a boatload (or rather, a cartload) of unhealthful things. And, who knows. If all that research bears out, you might (1) decrese the amount of triglycerides (fat) released into your bloodstream, (2) increase the hormones (insulin, leptin) that give the “I’m full” signals to your brain, and (3) decrease the production of hormones (ghrelin) that increase your appetite and hunger. In other words, you might be less hungry, and what you eat will convert to fat less readily.

Currently, there are plenty of label readers, like this one, who go out of their way to avoid the stuff. It’s even got its own category on 43 things.

A warning: it’s harder to avoid than you might think. I recently picked up a carton of Newman’s Own lemonade at the food co-op. The second ingredient? HFCS (Paul, baby. You disappoint me).

For a great, different perspective (literally) on HFCS? Check out this Sprol post (I love this guy. He gets one of my tags for the thinking blogger meme).

The History of Gastronomy

A short, feel-good video - not earth-shattering, but fun…and they’ve sure got the right idea.

Regular readers will recall that Andy Dunham, the Hardest Working, Most Eligible Organic Guy in Iowa, told me recently that if people can only buy two things locally/organically, eggs should be one of them. He assured me that there was a profound difference between sustainably raised eggs from healthy local chickens and anything you can find in a grocery store.

He’s not the only one. Michael Pollan writes convincingly about the rich eggs from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms, noting that nearby pastry chefs attribute quasimagical properties to Salatin’s eggs.

I wanted to put it to the test myself. On Saturday, I bought two sets of eggs, cooked ‘em up, and did a blind taste test to compare them. The first set came from our small, organic CSA, Caretaker Farm (look, here it is). The other were the cheapest I found in the supermarket.

The rules: make scrambled eggs from each batch. All factors except the eggs’ origin are exactly the same — same exact amount of butter, same exact amount of milk, same pan. Have people (in my family, and Jenn’s) taste them, without knowing which was which. For reasons that will soon become known, this required that they shut their eyes as they eat. Can they tell the difference between the eggs?

The short answer: these are not the same eggs.

Difference #1: Price. Okay, price-wise, I’ll admit, these aren’t the same eggs at all. The pastured eggs from Caretaker Farm were $4.00/dozen. The cheapest eggs in the supermarket were less than half that cost ($1.59/dozen, medium size, with my supermarket card).

(It should be noted that at a farmer’s market on the same day, a local farmer had been selling farm-fresh eggs for a mere $2.00/dozen. I passed these up, though, since this farmer keeps the chickens confined to protect them from coyotes. They do have plenty of room to move about, and on any other day, I would have bought these. However, for the purpose of this experiment, I wanted eggs from chickens that I know have been outdoors).

Difference #2: The color. Another difference in the eggs became obvious as soon as I started cracking them. They looked totally different. Check this out:

First is that they didn’t have that weird squiggly white thing that comes off the yolks, but what stood out most was the color. Can you see the difference in color? Don’t know how it looks on your screen, but in real life, the color difference was profound. The pastured eggs were much darker, far more…I don’t know…vibrant looking, I suppose. That difference continued after the eggs started cooking:

And even once they were cooked:

The supermarket eggs really did look like a washed out version of the pastured eggs. And it turns out that they are, at least nutritionally speaking (which brings me to Difference #3: Nutritional Content). Studies vary, but they seem to consistently indicate that pastured eggs are much richer in omega 3s, have a better omega 3 to omega 6 ratio, and significantly higher amounts of vitamin A, vitamin E, and beta carotene.

When you really start to look into it, the $4.00 eggs start to look like a nutritional bargain.

Could you actually taste the difference, though? Here are the results.

Merrie (age 5): Licked her lips after each bite, declared confidently “I like both, but #2 [the farm-fresh] is better.” She then skipped off to play with Sophie. Conclusion: pastured.

Blair: “They definitely taste different. I’m not sure I like one better than the other, but #2 definitely [again: farm fresh] has a stronger flavor. Maybe #2.” Conclusion: can tell difference, but if there is a preference, it is a slight one for pastured.

Hannah (age 3, and she couldn’t have been cuter trying to hide her eyes behind her hands, even though she just couldn’t help peeking): “Yummmmm.” And then: “Yummmm…” Conclusion: no preference.

David (who was stuffed up with either raging allergies or a bad head cold): “I don’t know. I can’t tell. Maybe #1 [supermarket], but I don’t know why.” Conclusion: supermarket, although he was stuffed up enough that he couldn’t detect any flavors, of anything.

Jenn: “Number one [supermarket] seems to have less natural egg oils somehow.” (I kid you not, she said this). “They seem squeakier, whereas #2 [pastured] seems denser.” She also noted that #1 was “fluffier,” probably because there was less to them. Conclusion: if you like “fluffy” (non-dense) eggs, then supermarket. But if you want stronger flavor, pastured.

Sophie (age 6): “I like them both. Can I have some more?” Conclusion: no preference.

Then it was my turn. I shut my eyes, and Blair fed me the two sets of eggs, three different times (switching the order). I hadn’t tasted the eggs during the cooking process, so I really was “blind.” Each time, I chose the pastured eggs. I’ll note that my preference wasn’t strong. It’s just that the pastured eggs were a little…eggier. Conclusion: pastured.

So, there’s the fourth difference we noticed that morning: Taste. Every adult, save for the ones whose tastebuds were shot, noticed it.

The whole thing left me wondering whether pastured eggs are fundamentally more satisfying…to the point that we need to eat fewer to be “satisfied” (since there’s more nutrition packed into smaller amounts). I’m not sure quite how you’d test that in any kind of controlled way, but if I stumble across any research, I’ll let you know.

I’m told that the difference in flavor becomes even stronger as you add other ingredients (herbs, etc.). And by the way, the secret to the perfect scrambled egg? It’s apparently a double boiler.

Incidentally, it turns out I’m not the first to try the Egg Smackdown. And, oh, yeah, if you want to know more about eggs — including the questions to ask when you’re choosing your perfect egg, Expat’s got it all.

After the taste test was over, before digging in and eating what remained, the adults sat for a moment, looking at the pan, admiring the rich, golden color of the pastured eggs. The color was so intense it almost didn’t look real — like, if I’d gotten them in a diner, I might say “oh, my goodness, what is wrong with these eggs? They don’t look normal.” That’s how accustomed I’ve become to the washed-out color of eggs from factory-farmed chickens.

“Just look at that color,” Jenn said.

“Yeah,” I murmured.

Then Blair piped up. “That,” said my husband — my darling partner who is so frugal that he recently wrapped duct tape around his 9-year-old boots, in a desperate attempt to reattach the peeled-off soles, because he thought he could still ‘get a little more wear out of them’ — “is the color of money.”

We nodded. Then we shrugged and happily gobbled up what remained, everybody reaching first for the good stuff.

I’ve been tagged a couple of times by fellow bloggers, and until today, this blog has probably been earning a reputation as the place where tags go to die. But I’m going to try to crawl my way out of that reputation, beginning right now.

Last month, Lauren over at Pretending to Farm (best photos of llamas you’re ever gonna’ see. The woman’s animals have personality) tagged me with a “Five Things” post. I like the idea, since I GET TO TALK ABOUT MYSELF (me! My favorite subject!). Since this is a food blog, though, I’m going to try to keep the focus on food. I’m going to try. So here goes with Five (Somewhat) Food Related Things About Me.

1. I Was an Egg-in-the-Hole Prodigy. To my memory, the first thing I ever learned to cook was an egg-in-the-hole. I like to believe I was making them before I could walk, but my mom would probably say that’s not exactly true. I still occasionally make them, though it’s pretty much always for Merrie these days.

Recipe: take a piece of bread. Place it on the counter, take a smallish drinking glass, and press the glass into the bread until you have successfully cut out a perfectly round hole. Heat up butter in a pan. Place bread in pan. Crack an egg into the hole. Cook like you’re cooking a fried egg. You can either discard the round piece of bread that you cut out, or just grill it slightly in the butter as the egg is cooking. Depends how hungry you are. When you’re done, you’ve got an egg-in-the-hole.

It’s fun to say, too. Egg-in-the-hole. Egg-in-the-hole. Egg-in-the-hole. Egg-in-the-hole. Actually, when you repeat it often enough, it starts to sound sort of dirty.

2. I Can’t Get Even One Fact Right. Okay, now I’m going to contradict fact #1. Maybe. Depends on what you call cooking. The first thing that I recall making in the kitchen was in fact what my cousin Kevin and I called “cookie dough.” In fact, it was butter and sugar. Yes, folks, when I was a kid, I used to mix up a stick of butter with a big pile of white sugar, and then spoon it, all of it, directly into my mouth from the bowl. I can even remember the bowl: a big 70s-style bowl, with brown stripes running around the side. Yeah. Butter and sugar. Thinking about that, about how satisfying it was then, even though it’s gross now, makes me think that kids may just actually require a boatload more fuel than any of us realize. Fatty, carb-ridden fuel.

And as long as we’re on this culinary tour through my past. I’ll mention that when I was just slightly older, I was a big fan of making crepes and chocolate chip cookies. I made crepes after school, and baked Nestle Toll House cookies on Saturday nights. I always made sure that I had the cookies in the oven before Silver Spoons came on the TV. The good girl in my 7th grade self was smitten with Ricky Schroder (don’t you laugh about that one. The kid was dreamy, and you know it. Once I even dreamed that Ricky came to my middle school, and we walked through the cafeteria holding hands, and I felt all warm and proud and love-struck. Of course the bad girl in me was also sort of devilishly taken with Ricky Schroder’s smart aleck best friend, played by Justin Bateman. My bad boy crush later played Michael Bluth on Arrested Development, one of my all time favorite shows. Curse you, Fox Network executives, for canceling that one).

3. I Can Be a Bad Influence, But I Do Keep Promises. I used to convince Jenn, over at Breed ‘em and Weep (come back, Jenn. Come back from your sabbatical. We are lost without your words, dear. Simply lost.), to skip class by promising her brownies. But only if she skipped class. I always delivered, too. Ask her. Oh, the knowledge she missed while chowing down on my made-from-scratch-but-easy-as-a-mix brownies. Want the recipe? Here goes (I’ll confess: it’s from the back of the Bakers chocolate box, but it’s still the best combination of easy/tasty that I’ve tried):

4 squares Unsweetened Chocolate
3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter or
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)

Makes about 24 brownies

4. One of My Dirty Little Secrets: I have a thing for sour candies. Especially Sour Patch Kids. Even though there’s something sort of creepy about them (eating children! What monstrous candy executive came up with that idea? And yet I feel strangely compelled to eat them. I can’t help it. I just love the pucker).

5. In the Don’t Try This At Home Category: I once kicked a guy’s rear-end in a donut-hole Hour of Power. The rules: eat a donut hole a minute until you drop. I’ve had other Hours of Power, the drinking kind, back in my day. But this one was all donut holes. These weren’t moist chocolate-glazed Munchkins, either. They were enormous, dry, bready things from an Iowa supermarket – each one, like a stale, crumbling mini-loaf, and we realized that the hole-a-minute rules were going to have to bend when neither of us had finished chewing our first one long after the first 60 seconds had passed by. My opponent stopped at 18. I believe I got to 36, and then regretted it. Another guy came along and downed an impressive fifty in the second half hour. The whole thing was really quite gross. My opponent and I later dated, although that turned out to be something of a Don’t Try This At Home experience, as well. Because it turns out we continued competing, through the whole darned relationship. Though never again with stale, bready Hy-Vee brand donut holes. I learned my lesson that night.

You know what? I’m enjoying this. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MYSELF. So I’m going to throw a few more in there, just for good luck:

- Fondest food memories come from my grandmother’s garden. Shucking fresh corn, shelling peas in the height of summer. My grandmother (whom we called Om, because she was into yoga, decades before it became popular) whipped up delightful things with her harvest, and I believe that it was her influence that was my first stop on my good-food-is-really-good journey.

- I vomited the first time I ate hummus. Apparently I expected it to be cake frosting.

- I consider anchovies the most divine pizza topping, though I rarely find anyone willing to share this kind of pizza with me. I live with this. Just don’t ever ask me to share a pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza with you. The thought makes me feel like my five-year-old-self just got my first taste o’ hummus.

- If I could eat only one thing forever, it might just be in-season tomatoes. Or maybe fresh baked brownies. It’s a toss up.

- I love dining alone in a restaurant. I just love it. Have always loved it. Almost never do it. If you see me dining alone, do not feel sorry for me. Wave, and say “lucky you!”

Now, with your permission, I’d like to tag some folks whom I don’t think have done this kind of thing, probably because they’re just not the tagging types. That’s okay, karmically speaking, I’d prefer that tags die on their blogs than on mine. Anyhow, to the following, I say “you’re it.”: Vikki (because she’s funny and she wears short pants), Amy (who’s lovely daughter will be in Merrie’s class next year, and it’d be nice to move past the small talk quickly), Matt (because I know he lives in Iowa, appreciates good food, reads great books, and gardens, but I don’t know much more), and — in a desperate plea to get her to return to blogging, but allso beause after 18 year of friendship, I’m curious about what there is that I don’t know — the aforementioned Jenn.