Pittsburgh was swamped with 21 inches of snow this weekend. (We’re pretty sure you already know this!) Due to the un-plowed roads and sketchy public transit, Franktuary is closed today. If you trekked in to work and tried to come see us, drop an email to megan@franktuary.com for a consolation prize. See you tomorrow for $2 Tuesday!

Written by CORO Fellow Mykia Long on January 31, 2010.

As Franktuary works towards its mission “redeeming fast food one frankfurter at a time”, I’m on my own journey of discovering the importance of healthy eating and living. But I must say, I feel entitled to some overwhelming responsibilities since I’m learning so much about the manufacturing of foods consumed by so many Americans. Should I?

Let’s face it. Americans eat more than many other nationalities and much of our processed food is unhealthy; this contributes to the current obesity epidemic. Recent statistics show that up to 66% of the U.S. population is overweight or obese. These weight trends are even more pronounced among African Americans with 60% of African American men and 78% of African American women identified as overweight. (SOURCE: Netwellness.org)

As a Black woman from a lower class family, I can certainly understand the challenges of cultural and environmental influences on an individual’s diet. The availability, convenience, and cost of food plays a crucial role in a person’s health, as well as the eating habits we’re taught as children. The struggle continues on how to make nutrition a top priority, culturally and personally. Where do you start?

Through a light cloud of skepticism, I’m reading Michael Pollan’s #1 New York Times Bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I don’t doubt the fact that America is suffering from a national eating disorder, nor the despicable conspiracies between modern warfare and industrial agriculture. But the conflicts between the economical and biological logic of the production of such harmful products leave me with an overwhelming angst. Are these commercial food vendors really that greedy? How am I supposed to avoid all that Pollan claims is bad?? What do I do with all this knowledge now???

A trip to Garfield Community Farm provided some clarity on how I can serve as a valuable resource on my new-found journey. The neighborhood of Garfield in east Pittsburgh is over 80% Black and even with the emergence of residential developments and art initiatives, the low-income neighborhood still suffers from drugs, crime, and students falling behind on national tests. John Creasy and Kelly Dee lead the Garfield Community Farm and its mission is “to learn, teach and practice organic gardening and farming in the places that have been neglected and abandoned in and with the neighborhood of Garfield”.

This organization provides organic foods for the Garfield community at prices much cheaper than the closest grocers; but local families aren’t flocking to this accessible and affordable alternative. I plan to work with this organization with community education and see how I can use this knowledge and fulfill my moral responsibilities. However, I do understand that the logic behind this outcome goes far beyond the scope of eating healthy and supporting sustainable food practices, trust me. And it isn’t just Garfield; families across the nation are contributing to the unhealthy side of the food industry.

This example is a microcosm of a larger issue: our nation’s values don’t support healthy eating or a healthy planet. Efficiency, convenience, and a low price all trump biological wellness, from the industrial farmers with corn-fed cattle to the 13-year old boy in Garfield having Cheetos and pop for lunch. It has to stop somewhere…

We need an intervention.

Written by CORO Fellow Jon Harmatz on January 25, 2010.

Today at Franktuary we watched the movie Food Inc by filmmaker Robert Kenner. During the film, which specifically focused on the meatpacking industry and how cattle are raised, I was disgusted by the way food is produced in America. Along with raising cattle the movie discussed how human beings are being raised in a society where they have a perceived sense of choice at the supermarket. In today’s grocery store, we can get any type of food all year long but the days of the small family farm are almost gone. The food found in our supermarkets comes an average of 1500 miles away from large factory farms before it arrives at our table.

The misconception that large food companies want you to believe is that the food comes from local farms right to you. In order to emphasize this point, I just went to my refrigerator and looked at the margarine container that I used earlier this morning on my bread. The container said “country fresh” and there was a picture of a farm. I know for a fact that margarine is not a natural product so how could it come straight from a farm? Of course, this is not true. The margarine was made in a factory, not on a local farm near me and it’s certainly not “country fresh.”

Along with learning that most of the food products in a grocery store are not as fresh as I would like to believe, the workers are not treated as well as we would imagine. The movie specifically talks about how the meatpacking industry uses undocumented and illegal immigrants to work in their factories. The meatpacking plants send buses to Mexico in order to bring these workers to the United States to work in their facilities. Talk about herding cattle! Food Inc shows the industry herding people and treating people like they are just the dispensable property of the company they are working for.

The majority of the food that we eat nowadays is not healthy for us; it is not grown locally nor is it antibiotic free. I am worried that I will have diabetes by the time I am 30 years old. When I was younger diabetes was a rare disease: now, according to the statistics in the movie, one in three people born in the year 2000 will have diabetes by the end of their life. Diabetes is the inability for your body to process sugars because you overload your body with too much sugar. We can, however, do some things to change our eating habits and our food culture: we can buy local, buy fresh, buy organic, buy grass-fed beef and cut out all of the corn starches in our diets. Franktuary is working towards getting rid of all of the high fructose corn syrup products in their store in order to create a happier and healthier you.

Remember: Eat smart. Buy fresh and local. Your body will thank you for it.

If you haven’t noticed, our Locavore is talked about a lot.  Recently Mykia, one of our two CORO fellows, wrote a fabulous post about the importance of a diversified diet for beef and dairy cows.  Just yesterday, one of Pittsburgh’s finest food blogs, Burghilicious, higlighted Franktuary and the Locavore.

Surely, some of you are wondering what all the fuss is about.  “Does it really make sense to pay that much more for a hot dog, or is it just a marketing ploy?,” you might be wondering.  Well, friends, I believe it does make sense.  The reasons are many.

The following is the first of what I hope to develop into a series on the benefits of grass-fed beef.  This initial entry focuses on human health:

Franktuary’s relationship with Ron Gargasz Organic Farm enables the restaurant to offer an organic nitrate-free grass-fed all-beef frankfurter. Cattle raised entirely on field grasses produce a healthful balance of Omega-6 and Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), while their grain-fed counterparts do not.  The end result is a healthier steer, a healthier frankfurter, and a healthier customer.

Many people believe they should maintain a diet high in Omega-3 fatty acids by eating seafood or using fish-oil as a supplement.  They’re absolutely right, but they’re only seeing part of the picture.  More important than the amount of Omega-3 consumed is the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 digested.  The human body requires both of these EFAs, but does not produce them on its own. Trouble begins when they are consumed in skewed proportions.  Experts agree that a healthy Omega-6 to Omega-3 dietary ratio is about 2:1, yet the average American eats to a tune of 25:1!  This is because vegetable oils such as corn, safflower, and sunflower, found in almost all processed foods, are rich in Omega-6 EFAs with virtually no Omega-3 content.

At the same time American livestock is routinely fed corn in place of its natural diet resulting in suppressed Omega-3 content and poor animal health.  Wild caught seafood is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids because this type of fish eats its natural diet.  Sadly, salmon, a carnivorous creature, is beginning to be fed corn in farm-raised situations.  It’s only a matter of time before fish is pronounced less healthy than previously thought.

When EFAs are consumed in proper balance the human body is less likely to experience inflammatory diseases ranging from stroke to Crohn’s disease to cancer. Ron Gargasz, a 30-year veteran of organic farming, has studied the EFA content of his beef in conjunction with Penn State University and knows its healthful ratio to be the direct result of raising cattle entirely on their natural diet of field grasses. In doing so he is also able to keep his herd free of antibiotics, hormones, and pesticides.  You know the adage, “We are what we eat.”  Simply put, pasture-raised meats and their grain-fed counterparts are different foods entirely.

Additional Information:
Print: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, Chapter 14, Section 2
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, Chapters 10 and 14
The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith or Anticancer: A New Way of Life, By David Servan-Schreiber
Film: Food, Inc. or King Corn
Television: “Get Fresh with Sara Snow”, Episode 21: “Back to Basics”
Web: www.rongargasz.com – Pie chart data taken from this website
www.marksdailyapple.com/concentrated-animal-feeding-operations

I just enjoyed some bubble tea with a friend who told me she accidentally parked in an “Expectant Mothers” space while visiting some sort of retail center the other day.  She felt bad, realizing what she had done only when she was about to leave.  As you may have guessed, my friend is not pregnant.

I helpfully pointed out how one could argue all women, in a sense, are expectant mothers. I mean, really, the way many dogs (not the ones with mustard) are treated today it seems that there are a plethora of expectant mothers who aren’t actually pregnant.

Anyway, I got to thinking.  It’s a good thing those signs read “Expectant Mothers,” as opposed to “Expecting Mothers.”  If it were the latter I could park there with complete justification.  (And I happen to know I’m a 28-year-old male.) If anyone hassled me I’d just explain that I told my mom I’d meet her at the mall.  If I parked anywhere else, how would she know where to look?

All this leads to two very important conclusions:

1) It is vital for Franktuary not to be located in a shopping mall.
2) The Locavore may be the closest thing Franktuary has to a child, and it’s one well treated dog.

Written by CORO Fellow Mykia Long on January 18, 2010.

If you’re like most people, you probably eat lots of different foods: asparagus, bread, Skittles…just to name a few. But if you want to be a conscious carnivore, answer this question: what does your beef eat? Do you know its diet? What about your milk? Do you know if it’s healthy? I would hope so, because that’s a pretty intimate process – making the decision to ingest, savoring each particle, and then allowing those ingredients to serve as sustenance for your being.

I hadn’t thought much about this before visiting Ron Gargasz Organic Farm in Volant, PA (home of Franktuary’s famous Locavore). It makes sense though…what goes into the cow makes up its flesh and in turn goes into me (and many other meat and dairy consumers). What blew my mind was the fact that most beef in our country has a concentrated high-corn diet. Burgers in restaurants and steaks in supermarkets come from grain-fed cows housed in feedlots. A high-corn diet helps to produce rapid weight gain and isn’t that expensive since the government pays for part of its production; hence, farmers can get more bang for their buck with their cows solely eating corn and grains.

But there’s one big problem. Cows can’t digest corn.

Cows are ruminants, which means their stomach ferments grass and converts it into protein and fats. They are not physically equipped to digest grain. Replacing a cow’s diet with grain instead of corn poses a host of serious maladies, like the presence of E. coli, which can only be interrupted by a constant diet of antibiotics. Ugh.

Ron eliminates this problem, and feeds his cows on a poly-culture diet. Not only does he avoid corn and grain diets, which is surely boring to the cows and lacks a wide range of nutrients, he also feeds them with hay crops consisting of multiple grasses.

“I try to give them a mixed salad of forages…alfalfas, orchards, and drier hay when they’re near processing,” says Ron. “The more diverse I make their diet, the more minerals [are present in the products].”

All in all, grass-fed beef and dairy with a varied diet is better – for the animal, and for us meat eaters and dairy consumers.

P.S.: Happy MLK Day – it was intriguing to see the influence of diversity in another part of life.

Franktuary is proud to be hosting two students from the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs.  Mykia Long, from Michigan, and Jon Harmatz, from New York, are overseeing “the greening of Franktuary”, helping identify practices at the store that can be eliminated in order to leave less of a carbon foot print on the environment.  They will also be identifying problems with our customer service and implementing solutions.  Here is Jon’s description of their project goals:

“1.  HFCS Elimination: Franktuary will soon replace all products that currently contain High Fructose Corn Syrup with healthier alternatives.

“2. Composting Waste and Sourcing Recyclable Products: Franktuary is looking to institute a compost program to help break down materials in a more eco-friendly process for the environment.  Franktuary is trying to move away from Styrofoam cups and containers and move towards more eco-friendly materials such as reusable bowls and recyclable or reusable utensils.

“3.  Store Accessibility: Franktuary will be rearranging the store so that it becomes more handicapped accessible for people who are disabled. Individuals in wheelchairs cannot currently reach the garbage in order to throw out their waste, and throughout the years many patrons have commented requesting easier access to the wastebaskets. Franktuary’s Coro Fellows are in place to see if there are any changes that can be made with the store to make it easier for the customer. Please, if you have any feedback — especially about trash experience — we would love to hear it.  Please e-mail us at emailus@franktuary.com.”

The fellows will be posting a blog each week they are with us, so check back soon!

Ho-ho!  It’s been a while since Franktuary has made use of its blog.  Sorry about that.  I’ve been busy reading Pooh Bear and avoiding Heffalumps.  I’ve found time for some other things, too.

About those other things…  Franktuary is putting the finishing touches on its 2010 business expansion plan.  Perhaps it should be subtitled, “This Time We Mean It”. Anyone interested in perusing?  Shoot an email to tim@franktuary.com.  One look at Appendix 3b (although my personal favorite is Appendix 2) and you’ll suddenly understand the title of this post.

You know what marks the 20th of every month?  Sales tax due.  Possibly I’m grappling with forces far more sinister than any Heffalump could ever be.  Woo-hoo!

Here we are, in our brand new internet digs.  We hope you like them.  Be a dear and let us know if anything isn’t working properly, will you?

Newsweek has embarrassed itself this week, publishing an article by an author with a sophomoric take on food and a distasteful sense of humor.  Here’s what she thinks.

I wrote a letter to the editor.  Most likely it won’t be published, so here’s what I think:

“Jennie Yabroff’s ‘No More Sacred Cows’ dramatically understates the nutritional differences between grass-finished meats and their grain-fed counterparts. Simply put, they are two different foods.  I can attest to this as both the owner of a restaurant and a battler with Crohn’s disease.  The moral argument is much trickier, but if it is not wrong to eat ‘the cheap, mass-processed, hormone-stuffed burgers and steaks that constitute 80 percent of the meat sold in the U.S.,’ it is still risky.

The vast majority of nutritional arguments against eating meat disappear when livestock is allowed to consume its natural diet and grow in a comfortable environment.  Some of the most compelling evidence for this is the radically different Omega-6 to Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acid ratios found in pasture-raised meat and meat from Commercial Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). All foods may not be equally healthful, but whether vegetable or animal, the sourcing matters far more than the substance.  It’s a shame more people don’t realize this. It’s tragic that some of the most destructive foods we can eat are also the most accessible.

Additionally, to make the claim that the life of a pasture-raised steer is likely not ‘ultimately better for the cow’ demonstrates a shocking lack of research by the author. For omnivores and vegetarians alike, it can be an uncomfortable realization that to sustain your own life something else must die. Above all, hunt, forage, farm, and eat with respect and gratitude. Smugness has no place in the food chain or at the table.”

Hello, friends. Franktuary’s website is about to undergo a major overhaul. In a word, beware.

Blog entries may be sparse over these weeks preceding the new year. When you visit franktuary.com your computer may spontaneously erupt, spewing magma, volcanic ash, and a mysterious mucopurulent substance from Silicon Valley. If the latter happens we are very sorry, but with computers one never knows.

Seriously, we anticipate a smooth transition, but should there be any complications rest assured that we haven’t forgotten about you. We’ll be here, just like we’ve been for the past five years, when the new site goes live. Hopefully you will be too!

Of course, while our internet presence evolves, we will continue to be open out there in the “real world.” So, what are you waiting for? Come say hello and see us for lunch. Trust me, Locavores taste better in “real life.” From Monday until Friday, between 10 and 3, Franktuary is the place to be. If your boss tells you otherwise, offer to take him out for lunch (at Franktuary) as a holiday gift. Bosses are people too, and deep down they want to leave the office just as much as you!

For those of you who rely on the internet to keep you in the know, follow Franktuary on Twitter. Even as our website transitions, you won’t miss a beat.

Finally, Franktuary will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. A New Year’s Eve decision is pending. And before signing off, I would be remiss not to thank the organizers of Handmade Arcade for a fabulous 2009 event. So, thank you, team HMA. Here’s to Franktuary and Handmade Arcade reaching new heights in 2010!