So, recently all of us at Franktuary have had the opportunity to see a film called FRESH.  It’s really something every one of you should watch.  It’s amazing what happens when things in nature eat what they’re designed to eat, and we’re no exception.  In fact, since we’re at the top of the food chain, it’s of particular importance.  Whether plant or animal, everything that we eat (and everything its consumed) needs to have itself been properly fed if we have any chance of eating as we should.  And since we provide the nourishment for virtually everything we eat before it becomes food, it’s safe to say we reap what we sow.  It’s a heavy topic.  I invite you to give a film like FRESH a chance, do some research, and draw your own conclusion!

Also, you still have a few days to vote for us in Pittsburgh Magazine’s Best Restaurants Poll.  Help us become “Best Downtown Lunch Spot” three years in a row!  Stop reading and vote!  Really, why are you still here?

Finally, as a hockey fan, I am endorsing Jamie Langenbrunner and Chris Drury as a Presidential ticket.  Sounds crazy, until you check out my sound logic:

Langenbrunner-Drury 2012! These men know about successfully skating on thin ice while routinely crossing red lines and blue lines for the sake of a common goal. Proven ability to come from opposing camps and work together as one.  Solid foreign relations experience, forward-minded yet strong on defense, and proven leadership skills, too. Plus, with Tortorella in the cabinet there is guaranteed Torts Reform.  Sounds like a big improvement to me!  GO USA (at least the contingent in Vancouver)!

Sadly, the time has come and we must say our good-byes. The last six weeks in this enlightening and frank-ful environment has been a tremendous learning experience for my partner Jon and me on so many levels.

As Coro Fellows, we’re always learning about the relationships within the sectors of public affairs (business, nonprofit, and government). The business sector is usually distinct from the others since it seeks to fulfill a single bottom-line, a profit. However, Franktuary’s double bottom-line of educating their consumers as well as making a profit sets them apart from many others in the sector. Their role as a business highlights the many responsibilities they must juggle, such as business expansion and waste sorter effectiveness, while trying to make a profit and promote healthy lifestyles.

Our projects and conversations with farmers, Franktuary’s staff, and others have given us a great opportunity to observe the workings of a small for-profit business and gain some expertise in food systems and sustainability to articulate to others. These experiences have also provided a deeper understanding of food creation processes, sustainable agricultural practices, and other means to encourage a healthful community.

Through our research, interviews, and film/reading assignments, we leave Franktuary having developed a nutrition manual for Franktuary’s staff, assisted in the transition to all recyclable/compostable products, and helped to develop a full-scale recycling composting program for their restaurant.

As we move forward in our next endeavors, we’ll always be grateful for our exposure to a profitable and honest business promoting a healthy community.

We’ll miss you Franktuary…

Do cows eat grass? Is it important to have “fresh” foods in one’s diet? Why has our food become processed?

Yesterday at Franktuary we watched the movie Fresh. Fresh provided answers to those three questions above. Many Americans don’t seem to care about what is in their food or how their food is raised. All they seem to care about is both how quick and easy it is and how cheap it is. The movie discussed how even though we are looking for cheap, quick, and easy food to consume we actually do get what we pay for. Foods that are as cheap as McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s do not have as much nutritional value as when you buy organic, free-range, hormone-free food.

For example, cows are not carnivores, and are not created to eat dead matter like vultures do. Yet many feedlots feed their cows dead cow parts mixed with sugar and molasses. Cows are supposed to be able to graze the land. When I was five years old, in kindergarten, I was taught that cows say “moo” and eat grass; they eat grass because they have four stomachs that are made to digest grass. However, we now feed them dead cow parts and corn-based sweeteners. I guess my kindergarten teacher was only partially correct: cows do say “moo” but now they are cannibals, or at least human beings are turning them into cannibals.

Humans are now feeding chickens dead chicken scraps, the leftovers of industrial chicken processing. The very reason chickens have beaks and claws is because their appendages are made to scratch bugs from the grass and eat insect larva from cow manure, thereby cleansing the pasture of harmful bacteria. Chickens are not meant to eat leftover chicken parts; they are designed to be “nature’s clean up crew”, and they perform their job remarkably well on farms where healthy practices are in effect.

Humans also pump our food with too many antibiotics. Every time I go to the doctor and receive antibiotics (I get chronic ear infections) I am told to complete all of the antibiotics because if I don’t the bacteria will create a resistance to the antibiotic and it will not work for me anymore in the future. I am worried that we will make antibiotics become obsolete within society because we put antibiotics in our food. If we keep eating antibiotic pumped foods we will prevent our bodies from using those antibiotics to fight off our own infections.

We are not smart enough to outsmart nature but we are smart enough to work with nature and change the way food is currently produced. Some individuals already are doing this within their own communities. Fresh takes a tour of Growing Power Farm, free of antibiotics and pesticides in inner city Milwaukee, which is helping to feed and educate the community.

Right now America’s mainstream farming practices do not treat animals and the earth with respect. It is important that we let animals eat their natural diets with plenty of outdoor living space and not overuse antibiotics; otherwise, Mother Nature will take care of the situation for us, and we won’t like that.

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.

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’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.

“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!