Pomology

I learned a new word recently: pomology -- the scientific study and cultivation of fruit.

I came across this word while perusing the pages of Old Southern Apples: A Comprehensive History and Description of Varieties for Collectors, Growers, and Fruit Enthusiasts (rev. and expanded edition). This second edition of apple hero Creighton Lee Calhoun, Jr.'s classic book has become a go-to source for information on historic, heirloom Southern apples. (Calhoun is a legend in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina where he makes his home.)

While the book is a treasure itself, it pointed me to another treasure that resides deep in the belly of the USDA beast in Washington, D.C. -- the National Agricultural Library (NAL). This library is a huge repository -- way too much to explain briefly -- of American agricultural history. Lee Calhoun mentions the NAL because of the efforts that began in the late 19th century to identify and catalog thousands of varieties of American fruit. Here's a quote from Calhoun's book:

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) established a Division of Pomology in 1886 to collect and disseminate information to fruit growers. Almost instantly it was overwhelmed with boxes of fruit from the public with cover letters asking "what kind of apple (or pear or peach or cherry) is this?" By 1888, the Division of Pomology had received over 10,000 fruit specimens for identification!

Accurate depiction of American fruit became necessary to aid in the task of identification. With color photography a distant invention, the division hired a series of accomplished watercolor artists, beginning in 1887, to paint pictures of American fruit. But the time this effort ended around 1940, over 7,700 paintings had been made of fruits and nuts. Some of these paintings were reproduced in USDA publications such as the annual Yearbook of Agriculture, but most were filed away and faded from public view. . . .

The recent burgeoning interest in heirloom fruits has renewed the public's desire to see the pomological watercolors. A monetary grant from a private source in 2009 allowed the USDA's National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland to convert the watercolors to digital format and make the files available to the public.

In Calhoun's book is a section of gorgeous color plates of 120 selected heirloom apple paintings from the NAL collection. Each painting contains, in the lower left and right-hand corners, in handwritten script, the artist's name, the date, the apple variety, the apple's location, etc.

This amazing art was created not just for apples, but for a variety of American fruits. Making my way to the NAL website I found a treasure trove of these digitized original paintings of apples and other fruits. And some prints have been nicely reproduced on 8" x 10" matte stock, suitable for framing and available for purchase.

Here, for instance, are the four apple prints currently available for sale via the NAL web site. (I borrowed these images from the NAL site without permission.):

The NAL web site is VERY large and not a little complex. But there is so much to see that it is worth the effort. Here are some links:

•The NAL home page is here.

•The NAL collections page is here. (Overview of the archives including the pomological watercolor collection.)

•Overview of Items currently available for purchase is here, including the four apple prints above which are the only apple/fruit prints kept in inventory for sale. Any of the pomological prints can be purchased, but the ones not kept in inventory are more expensive as they require one-off printing.

•The pomological watercolor collection is here. (Scroll down to link to watercolors of various fruits.)

•The apple watercolors begin here.

When I spoke with a nice woman at the NAL she said their goal was to get all the scanned watercolors printed and into inventory for purchase at the lower price. Right now, the only four apples available for purchase as 8" x 10" color prints ($25 each) are the four above. On the Collections page you can see a number of other products they have for sale in the spirit of agricultural history: note cards, posters, etc.

For North Carolina apple growers, one of the best sources of heirloom apples suitable for our climate is Ron and Suzanne Joyner's Big Horse Creek Farm ("specializing in antique and heirloom apple trees") in Lansing (Ashe County), NC.

I am gradually coming to understand more about antique apple varieties. Estimates range from 5,000 - 7,000 for the number of apple varieties once available in America. Today, consumers find the same 6-8 varieties in their grocery store. Thus, the effort being made by many to find and preserve "antique" apple varieties.

I've never understood the "Johnny Appleseed" idea of spreading apple seeds all around the NE United States in the early 19th century, resulting in the aggressive spread of apple trees -- when all apple trees today are grown by root stocks, not seed. Here's what happened as I understand it: Apple seeds can be sprouted and trees grown, but the vast majority of the time the resulting apple will be undesirable in one or more ways. "Pippin" apples, those sprouted from fallen apples that sprout their seeds and produce a new apple, are usually not keepers and are not reproduced. (Many of these were used to produce alcoholic hard cider more than a hundred years ago.) When a "pippin" apple tree arose and was found by chance to produce a desirable fruit, its branches (a scion) would be grafted onto an existing root stock and a tree grown to reproduce the desirable fruit.

So -- apple seeds will produce apple trees and apples, but these random efforts only occasionally produce "keepers" -- which are then reproduced via grafting to preserve the variety. (Please correct me if this is not accurate.)

I am more than willing to criticize our government for spending money we don't have, and for collecting taxes to pay for things that federal governments should leave to citizens and free enterprise. But I now find myself conflicted. The NAL archives are a store of history and pleasure for people like me, and while the digitizing of the fruit paintings was funded by a private donation, the library itself is obviously federally funded. If push comes to shove -- and it has definitely come to that with our bankrupt government -- I would have to conclude that things like the NAL would have to go if we can't pay for it. But for the moment, I'm glad it's there.

This short video is about Tom Brown, an antique apple hunter in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC/VA:

See No Evil

I recently finished watching the multi-part mini series Band of Brothers that originally aired on HBO -- the true account of Easy Company, perhaps the most storied military unit in the European theater of World War II. One of the most moving segments showed Easy Company moving into a German town that had been held by German forces who fled upon the Americans' arrival. In doing reconnaissance outside the town a squad of Easy Company soldiers came upon the shocking site of a concentration camp filled with dead and near-dead Jews, gypsies, and others. The American soldiers were shocked beyond speaking at the level of cruelty and barbarity they encountered. They had heard rumors of Germans rounding up "undesirables," but had not witnessed it first hand. And the German citizens in the town had turned a blind eye and done nothing (though they likely could have done nothing in the face of Nazi force). Easy company commanders forced every citizen in the town, 14 years of age and older, to go to the camp to bury the mounds of dead, help the survivors, and witness what their nation's government had sanctioned -- while the American troops began providing what food and medical attention they could. The segment was a grisly reminder of how it is possible for evil to be taking place in the midst of seemingly civilized and caring people -- or at least far enough away for most to be able to turn a blind eye.

In the modern animal rights movement, animals are often compared to those the Nazis deemed undesirable in the Holocaust. Ten billion animals are killed each year (in the U.S.; 60 billion worldwide, according to Kathy Freston, author of Veganist) at the whim of human beings who are stronger than the animals and who have the sanction of government and the majority of the population. Many in the population turn a blind eye and participate in the commercial raising and killing of animals because they like the taste of meat. That is their choice, of course. But I still believe many continue to support the commercial meat industry without knowing "what's going on just outside of town." Just as the Nazis put their concentration camps in out-of-the-way settings so as to hide what they were doing, so commercial meat farmers raise and slaughter animals behind close doors -- literally. The public is not invited and you will be turned away if your local organization wants to tour a commercial animal factory farm. That fact alone suggests the owners are not altogether proud of what they do.

Many courageous souls in Europe during the early days of Nazi rule -- Christians primarily, but others as well -- took an active role in fighting the atrocity of genocide. People like German pastor-scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood publicly against Adolf Hitler, and the ten Boom family in Holland hid Jews in their home when the Nazis began their purges. Bonhoeffer was hanged and the ten Boom family was found out and shipped to concentration camps where all but Corrie ten Boom died. They knew the cost before acting but did so anyway.

So today, activists of various kinds are doing what they can to expose the brutalization of animals raised for human consumption. And that includes some who go into the factories to film undercover videos and make them available to the public. Others, like Mercy for Animals, compile those videos and make them available to a broad audience; to all who are willing to look truth in the face and ask what part, if any, they are playing in supporting such a system.

Mercy for Animals has just released a new 12-minute video, Farm to Fridge, revealing what goes on behind the closed doors of some factory farms. The production values are excellent -- this is not just a collection of random, gruesome videos. But it is gruesome. Why? Because this isn't CGI footage compiled out of the imagination of an animator in Hollywood. This is video of what is happening today in factory farms in America. I encourage you to watch it -- and then do what you can not to support such a system. This will stop as soon as people stop voting with their dollars at the grocery store. And it will continue as long as people choose to see no evil.

Food for Thought

From the pen of Elisabeth Elliot in Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot (as cited in David Platt's Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream):

Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him, after all, so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?

China

If you plan on being around 10-20 years from now, you might find this talk on China interesting -- given at a TED conference in London. Especially interesting in the last minute of the talk: a picture comparing the size (gigantic) of a 15th century sailing ship in which a Chinese explorer made his way to the coast of East Africa compared to the size of the Pinta (tiny by comparison) in which Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic, also in the 15th century. Another picture is shown of a painting or tapestry from an early Chinese dynasty of people playing what appears to be golf. Point: what we (most Westerners) don't know about the history and culture of China (in particular, but lots of other nations in general) allows us to maintain an air of unjustified superiority in the West. (I recall having the same "Whoa!" experience when watching the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008).

Fast-talking, Funny, and Magic!

I have watched this at least 10 times, not to try to figure out the tricks but because I am mesmerized by this young guy's (James Galea, obviously an Australian) power to entertain, his confidence, his humor -- the whole package. I wonder why we haven't heard of him before? (Perhaps you have?)

Vegan Books #1 on Amazon

The #1 selling book on Amazon today is Kathy Freston's Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World. That's the second vegan book to hit #1 this month, the first being Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (Carr cured her cancer with a diet and lifestyle approach.) 

I'll refrain from editorializing about the implications for our culture -- I hope it's obvious.

(Thanks to vegan.com for the news item.)

Earth from Above

A beautiful and fascinating collection of aerial photographs from the eye and lens of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The gorgeous photos were taken over a five-year period crossing six continents by air; pictures of how people live and how the earth is shaped.

Debt: A Non-event for the U.S. Congress

Under the current limit, the [U.S.] government can borrow another $234 billion, a ceiling that could be reached as early as March. Lifting the limit is usually a non-event: Congress has raised it 74 times in the past 70 years. (USAToday.com)

House Built Upon Sand

A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand.

Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (thanks to Joel Miller)

This Is a Test

I'm trying out a new blog posting interface tool called ScribeFire -- allows you to post from within your browser rather than from within (in my case) Blogger. It's a Safari extension, so you have to have Extensions enabled in Safari (5.0 or later). Go here to download and try it out. (Leave a comment if you have questions about installation and use. If you get it installed in Safari, look for a blackened quote-circle icon to the immediate left of the URL location window at the top of Safari [see the red arrow below]. Click on that and you'll get the ScribeFire interface window to open in Safari.) (Updated comment: I like everything except the leading -- the vertical space between lines of type. I don't see a way to decrease that in ScribeFire, which means you'd have to go into Blogger anyway if you want to tweak it. But the interface is actually cleaner and easier than Blogger's, IMHO.)

I Cried Laughing at This

Only in America . . .

That's Farmin'

What did I learn in my first season [of farming]? . . . That some farm days end in high-fives and others in tears. One night last spring it was the latter, brought on by utter fatigue and some now-forgotten frustration. Our neighbor Steve, who has farmed for nearly all his eighty years, pulled up in his truck as I was indulging in a good weep. He looked at my streaky face, asked no questions, passed a can of ice-cold beer out the truck window and said, 'Well. That's farming.' Then he drove off, to his own evening chores.

The words of Kristin Kimball from a 2005 essay on farming located here. (See more about the unique CSA she and her husband run at Essex Farm here.) I'm currently enjoying her book The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love. There's a short slide-show of Essex Farm with commentary by Kristin Kimball here. Note her comment about people being "hard-wired" to be agrarian. Her Harvard education must not have included the first three chapters of Genesis where the connection between "man" and "dirt" is laid out ("dust to dust").

America: At Point of No Return

David Stockman, former budget director for President Reagan, and now self-described libertarian, made some powerful predictions and recommendations concerning America's future in a recent interview. These two are a sample:

"It amounts to a failed opportunity to recognize that we are now at a historical inflection point at which the time has arrived for a classic post-war demobilization of the entire military establishment. The Cold War is long over. The wars of occupation are almost over and were complete failures -- Afghanistan and Iraq. The American empire is done. There are no real seriously armed enemies left in the world that can possibly justify an $800 billion national defense and security establishment, including Homeland Security. . . . Unless you have a profound change in foreign policy, you're not going to have the possibility of a radical change in defense spending. The later follows from the former. This is a profound disappointment that there's not even a debate -- a serious debate about dramatic change in our imperialist foreign policy and war-making establishment in this administration -- allegedly the most left-wing administration that we've had in modern time. I don't have much hope that what needs to be done will be done until it's finally forced on us by a world bond market crisis, which will happen sooner or later. . . ."

"We've reached a point of no return. The size of the government. The massive size of the deficits and the national debt that has been created. The precedents that have been established for bailouts and intervention in every sector of the economy. The K Street lobbying system which totally dominates the Congress. All of these are very unhealthy developments. And I'm not sure how they are going to be reversed or eliminated. It may be a permanent way of life. Then, if it is, it'll be both a corruption of democracy and a serious weakening of the private capitalistic economy."

I think his idea of down-sizing the military is a good one. My only fear is that the Congress would use the money saved to create more entitlement programs rather than paying off our debt. I don't read any smart people who agree with Fed Chairman Bernanke's lack of sheer terror (speaking for the whole administration) at the prospects for America's future. Most people who can add and subtract view the future in very dismal terms -- as if there could never be a collapse or revolution in America when it has happened to every country in history that used a fiat (paper money) currency system and a Keynesian-type approach (growth fueled by debt) to economics.

The most immutable law in the universe seems to be cause and effect, or, in biblical terms, reaping what one sows. It would be just like us to think it could never happen here.

Gunk or No-gunk?

This information is easily obtainable online, but thought I'd post it here as a quick summary in case anyone needs it:

I woke up last Saturday morning with pink-eye in my left eye -- have no idea how I contracted it, of course. Eyeball was red and it felt like there was something in my eye, and it hurt to rub the eye. I knew what it was, but couldn't remember the details, so here's the summary of what I found:

There are two types: bacterial and viral. Bacterial is the kind of pink-eye that glues your eyelid shut overnight with the crusty junk and is pretty uncomfortable. Because it's bacterial, it requires an antibiotic and thus a trip to "the doctor" for a prescription.

The other kind (what I had) is viral -- no itching or crusty junk, just red and mildly uncomfortable. Because it's a virus, it pretty much just has to run its course. But all drugstores carry generic pink-eye drops that will help with the viral kind. Their purpose is not to kill the virus but to do "other stuff" that makes the pink-eye less uncomfortable. I picked up some of these drops early Saturday morning and used them 3-4 times a day on Saturday and Sunday. They definitely helped the discomfort (which was mild to begin with) -- they reduce the feeling of having something in your eye that you can't get out. By Monday mid-day I had pretty much forgotten about it (very little discomfort) -- used the drops a couple time anyway -- and by today things seem about 80 percent back to normal -- just a little pink left.

So -- the flow-chart model would say: If you have a pink eyeball and the crusty gunk around the eye it's probably bacterial and may require an antibiotic. Without the gunk and no itching or pain, it's more likely viral and will run its course. The OTC drops definitely seemed to help, though I don't know how or why.

Gunk or no-gunk -- that is the question.

(No, that's not my eye in the picture -- though that's about how my eye looked.)

Tears for America

I couldn't stop the tears from flowing this weekend watching and reading the reports surrounding the shooting of the Arizona congresswoman and other bystanders. As badly as I feel for those killed and injured, and pray for the recovery of the survivors, the core of my grief is for the America that has given rise to these increasingly frequent events. The country has never been perfect, of course—I don't have any such romantic misconceptions. But it seems that, in recent decades, we have changed a lot.

And I don't mean what it seems most commentators are talking about—that it's the vitriolic screeds from the Right and the Left that have created, and are nurturing, senseless acts of violence to convey a political message. The shooting in Tucson was less a political act than a spiritual act; the act of a young man with no moral compass to keep him from veering onto an immoral path.

But how does any modern American find and follow a moral compass, given the schizophrenic, double-minded messages that our culture conveys? The country's lawmakers say "In God We Trust" and fund chaplains for our lawmakers using taxpayer funds, but forbid the same spiritual influences for children and young people in pubic schools or officials in other public institutions.

We hold unaccountable a mother who chooses to kill her infant in the womb yet hold accountable those who kill people outside the womb. While I decry the horror of both, I find it a bit of a double-standard to be horrified at one and not the other when our culture has established dual standards for killing vis-a-vis one's proximity to the womb.

We applaud the commercial success of movies, television shows, and video games that use violence—shooting, maiming, killing—as their drawing card. I know the arguments for using art to portray the human condition, but when young people grow up in a culture that glorifies mayhem as we do, should we be surprised when they decide to to act out the fantasies they have grown up watching? (I was shocked recently to watch the videos, released by the WikiLeaks group, of the U.S. military helicopter attack on a group of "insurgents" in Afghanistan. The videos, recorded in graphic detail by the video cameras on the attack helicopters, recorded the conversations of the pilots and their ground controllers as they moved into position and opened fire from miles away on a small group of men, then did the same when a civilian van arrived to collect the dead. My point: the helicopter pilots' dialogue was akin to teenagers playing a video game—laughter, congratulations, and all manner of machismo overshadowed the sad reality of the loss of life, including injury to two young girls. Yes, it's the fog of war. But it's also war being waged by young adults playing real-time war games with million-dollar weapons after being raised to wage make-believe war in their living rooms with hundred-dollar video machines.)

We write financial checks as a nation that we have no ability to cash, yet are surprised when people write moral checks that overdraw their innate human accounts of morality and integrity. How is one different from the other?

Proverbs 29:18 says, "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild . . . ."

Psalm 33:12 says, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord . . . ."

Those top-tier principles (fill in the details as you will) suggest at the least that we have ignored the importance of a reason to be better than the events this weekend in Tucson suggest we are. It seems that as America, over her three centuries, has moved God to the periphery of her corporate consciousness, man's baser instincts have gained the upper hand. Sad as this weekend's events have been, they at least have caused me to consider any role I am playing in supporting or promoting values that work against what I know is best for the nation as a whole.

Our Daily Bread

I recently watched a most unusual and thought-provoking documentary titled Our Daily Bread, written and directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. Filmed in 2005, the movie garnered a half-dozen awards at film festivals in 2005-2006. As a born-and-bred American, I am under-exposed to European sensibilities in many arenas, not the least of which is filmaking. But this film was unique in that it relied solely on the visual art form, beautifully shot, to tell its story in contrast with most films which are filled also with words.

Our Daily Bread is a documentary—but it contains no narration, no interviews, no commentary, almost no words at all. The only verbal content is the low murmurs and occasional conversations of agricultural workers in their settings. The movie visits the production facilities of a dozen or more European commercial agriculture enterprises, both meat and produce, and films what happens there. Its goal is not to shock—there are some scenes shot in meat processing facilities, but not to offend. Rather, the film shows, in silent scene after scene (save for the sounds of mechanized production), what the food INDUSTRY looks like in its automated, commercial, modern incarnation. The word "system" barely does justice to how the organized, detail-oriented Continental conglomerates (the native stock that gives us BMW's and Mercedes, Swiss watches, and high-speed trains that run on time) have made food a commodity that is produced like a, well, like a Swiss watch.

One marvels at the organization until, as the movie progresses, the lack of "life" begins to be worrisome. There are no farmers seen in the movie, only silent, detached workers who monitor systems with a dispassion that becomes a bit depressing as scenes switch from setting to setting.

Europe has a marvelous history and tradition—especially France—of hands-on farming as American apostles like Eliot Coleman have studied and commended, but there was none of that portrayed in this film. Yes, the film is purposefully one-sided—not to deceive, but simply to portray that side of how food for the masses is produced in the modern world.

The film is 90 minutes long. I highly recommend adding it to your Netflix queue and watching it as a means of broadening your perspective on "food" in the modern world. (The official web site for Our Daily Bread is here, along with trailers.)

Seismic Shift in Food and Eating

Despite some opening snide and snarky caricatures of vegans, this Salon.com piece goes on to praise President Clinton's brand of veganism -- seemingly healthy, enjoyable, and very much doable. The author concludes:

Change doesn’t happen overnight, either for individuals or nations. But it is happening, in unexpected corners. Even my own local grocery story in a low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood -- a place that sells pork rinds at the checkout -- has in the past year added organic produce and a wide aisle of exotic grains. Trust me, the day you can find red quinoa at the C-Town, there's a seismic change going on out there.

Change seems to be happening everywhere except in Christendom as exemplified by the two large, resource-rich Christian churches I have attended in recent years, neither of which felt that classes on "stewardship of health vis-a-vis food/lifestyle" was a good fit for their congregations. But perhaps raising the issue with their leaders will count as a seed that might yet sprout and bear good fruit.

How Does Your State Value Animals?

From the Humane Society of the United States web site -- a new report:

The HSUS has released its 2010 "Humane State Ranking," a comprehensive report rating all 50 states on a wide range of animal protection laws. See where your state stands. Hover over map for state summary or click on a tier to view humane state ranking and score out of 65. PDFs of detailed state ranking also available.

Not surprisingly, my home state of North Carolina, the nation's largest pork producer, ranks 32nd out of the 50 states and District of Columbia.

Good Boy, Stanley!

With thanks to the Not One Sparrow blog:

You Had to Grow up There

It's an Alabama thing. Since the Bear Bryant days, football in Alabama -- at THE University of Alabama -- has ascended to the status of religion:

If Jesus Had Been Born in 2010

Shame on Smithfield Foods (and Paula Deen)

Smithfield Foods is the world's largest factory-farm producer of pork products with massive facilities in my home state of North Carolina, the nation's leading pork-producing state. And Paula Deen is Smithfield's leading celebrity chef, promoting all their products. I say shame on them both. I confess to being embarrassed for the South, and humanity in general, whenever I see or hear of Paula Deen being interviewed on TV. Her saccharine Southern/Savannah schtick is more than I can abide. And her unwillingness to disassociate herself from a company like Smithfield makes her all the more in-credible. Smithfield (as do all factory meat farms) has an incredibly poor record of worker care at their food plants, and I heard a caller on an NPR show once ask Paula Deen why she didn't stand up for the abused workers at the company she was representing -- and the NPR host quickly interrupted the call and saved Paula from having to answer.

But this post is more about Smithfield than Paula Deen. HSUS (the Humane Society of the United States) just posted an undercover video shot at a North Carolina Smithfield pork plant. I'm posting the shorter version (3.5 minutes) of the video (below) which has some commentary from the HSUS representative Paul Shapiro. The longer version (8 minutes) shows more footage but without any editing or commentary. I hope you'll watch both.

These videos are not blood-'n-guts videos that show stomach-turning brutality. The purpose for HSUS shooting this undercover video and publishing it is specific: to draw attention to Smithfield Foods' failure to comply with its own stated intentions of doing away with hog gestation crates (see below) and join other major meat producers in the U.S. and Europe in banning (at least partially if not totally) these horrific factory means of raising pigs. The video shows what the life of sows is like who spend their entire life (except for when they deliver piglets) in one of these crates.

I'm posting this information because I don't think the average American has any idea that the ham or pork that Paula Deen promotes with her down-home style is the product of pigs raised in gestation crates. They don't know how pigs are raised -- no clue -- and if they did know I don't think most consumers would like it.

There are two issues going on in this whole discussion: (1) Eating animals at all and (2) Animal welfare -- how the animals that people eat are treated. In other words, it's bad enough that sentient beings are raised for the sole purpose of satisfying the taste buds of the very people commissioned to care for them, but it adds insult to injury when their brief existence is treated as disrespectfully as Smithfield (and some others) treat it.

There are a lot of people who (today) are not going to stop eating animals. But I believe many of those same people are not brutal, uncaring persons; that they would prefer that the animals they eat are at least treated with a measure of respect while they're alive. And all it would take for that to happen is for people to stop buying Smithfield food products and tell Paula Deen to stop making herself rich on the never-ending waves of suffering animals.

Here's what people need to know about how pigs are raised in factory farms -- and some of the terms used in the video that will help you understand the process:

1. General: a female sow lives a pregnant life until slaughtered, interrupted by brief sessions in which she delivers the current litter of piglets. She lives her entire life in a 2' x 7' gestation crate, except for when she is moved to a farrowing crate where she gives birth. She is then artificially re-inseminated and moved back to the gestation crate to await the delivery of the next litter in four months. This is the life of the average sow in a factory farm for 3-4 years, after which she will be slaughtered. A sow is basically a piglet factory. Female piglets go into the same work as their mothers, while males are raised for semen harvesting and for slaughter.

2. Gestation crate: Sows are isolated in these crates to prevent them from fighting with one another which they would do if they were kept in an open area. They fight because of being crammed into artificial indoor environments where they can't exercise normal nesting and hierarchical behaviors. The gestation crates have only enough room for a sow to stand or lie on her side. There is no room to turn around. The crates are set atop slatted floors through which excrement drops into a removal system below the crates. Sometimes (as the longer video will show) if a sow delivers while still in the gestation crate, piglets can slip through the excrement slats and fall into the waste removal system below. (The millions of gallons of hog waste generated by hog factory farms in North Carolina is a continual eco-threat to the eastern part of the state where these plants are located. Anytime there is heavy rain, or a hurricane, the threat exists for the hog waste lagoons to overflow and spill untold amounts of waste into local fresh-water sources, fouling them for weeks at a time. This has happened more than once since I've been living in NC.)

3. Farrowing crate: a slightly larger confined area with a solid floor where the sow can deliver her litter. The sow is moved from the gestation crate to the farrowing crate when she is ready to deliver. Still, there is no room to turn around -- only room for the sow to lie on her side so the piglets can nurse immediately after birth until they are separated from the mother.

4. Insanity: think about what it would be like for a female human to be confined the way a sow is, with the sole interruption in her existence being childbirth and re-insemination. Losing one's mind would not be a surprise -- and that's what animal scientists observe happening to sows in gestation crates. Their confinement in wholly unnatural facilities leads to wholly unnatural behavior. If it's true that we are what we eat, then I wonder what the long-term effect is on humans of eating flesh that has been under immense stress (marinating in adrenaline and other hormones for several years) its entire life.

Even if you consume animal products, I hope you'll consider the steps you might take to force producers like Smithfield and celebrities like Paula Deen to do away with gestation crates and create a more humane environment for the animals they raise. That's a long way from the perfect solution, but every little step helps.

The HSUS video:

Nitric Oxide and Endothelial Cells (How to Prevent Heart Disease and Dementia at the Same Time)

I've referenced Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's work on preventing and reversing heart disease several times in this blog. (Search for "Esselstyn" for previous posts using the Search engine in the left margin.) He is well-known for laymanizing (my term for putting science in layman's terms) the critical link between oil/fats, nitric oxide, and the endothelial lining or arteries.

In today's Happy Healthy Long Life blog post this connection is further explained on the basis of newly published research. In her typical clear and thorough fashion, medical research librarian and plant-based proponent (and Esselstyn fan) Debby explains the new research and why the same diet/lifestyle factors that promote heart health also may prevent dementia by keeping blood flow to the brain healthy. (She doesn't mention this in her post, but the same applies to erectile dysfunction for men since the healthy version of that event is dependent, at least in part, on vigorous and sustained blood flow which is dependent on open and elastic arteries which are dependent on nitric oxide and a healthy endothelial lining in the arteries. Or you could just take a pill and hope you don't land in the ER after four hours! But I digress.)

Debby's entire post is worth the few minutes it will take to read it. If you don't have time for that, here is the take away in terms of diet and lifestyle — what stimulates the endothelial cells to release ample supplies of nitric oxide:

What impairs the supply of nitric oxide?

It's a Catch-22. Nitric oxide is diminished by all the usual suspects--the cardiovascular risk factors--like high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high homocysteine, high CRP (marker for inflammation), insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and smoking. These culprits impair the delicate endothelial cells' ability to produce ample nitric oxide.

What role does diet play in this endothelial cell/nitric oxide story?

Here's how Dr. Esselstyn explains it: "The basic understanding we all need to accept is that with every meal of oil, dairy, or meat we eat, within minutes there is damage & injury to the "life jackets" of our vascular health--which is the single layer of endothelial cells that line all of our blood vessels. The endothelial cells produce the "magical gas" called nitric oxide which keeps our blood vessels relaxed, prevents our white blood cells & platelets from becoming sticky, and prevents the growth of plaque--the dread "hardening of the arteries".

Is there anything we can eat to insure that our endothelial cells will have the raw materials to produce this healing nitric oxide?

Beans & leafy greens. Load up on kale, collards, Swiss chard, bok choy & beans and you will be well on your way to healing the linings of your blood vessels. Ditch the meat, dairy, & oil. And be sure to include a daily bowl of oatmeal while you're at it--with its nitric-oxide increasing avenanthramides.

The Un-education of American Teenagers

On the NBC Nightly News program tonight, Brian Williams reported on the just released results of the 2009 edition of the PISA test—Program for International Student Assessment. The PISA is administered to high school students in countries around the world. In 2009, 470,000 students in 65 countries took the test. 2009 was the first year that China participated.

First, the bad news. American students ranked "average" compared to 34 similarly developed nations. Out of the 34 countries, America scored 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math. America's scores were slightly higher than on the 2003 and 2006 tests, so there has been improvement, but still ranked far below nations like Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong (Singapore), China (Shanghai), and even Canada. China (surprise, surprise) scored highest of all nations in math.

In an article about the PISA results on the NBC web site, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said (in part), "We have to get much more serious about investing in education."

I almost laughed out loud! For years, America has spent more money per child on educating than any other nation. Among the 2009 country-participants, only Luxembourg spent more than the U.S. Estonia and Poland scored about equal with the U.S. on the tests while spending half per-child of what the U.S. spends. The problem is obviously not money.

The video accompanying the news piece spoke volumes to me. The video of a class session in a Chinese high school (public? private? I don't know) showed neatly groomed teens sitting at desks arranged in careful rows listening attentively to an instructor who was at the board explaining math. The students all wore matching sweatshirt-type tops with a logo of some kind on them. Very impressive --

The video of an American high school class was less so. Students at desks arranged rather haphazardly -- I won't say the kids were slouching, but there was a marked difference. And of course, they were all dressed differently. ("Self-expression," I guess we call it.) One shot showed the very obese upper arm of a girl being raised to ask or answer a question. (Didn't see any obese kids in the Chinese class.)

I have to say that I was shaking my head at the end of the news report having seen the video segments. I can only say that I am profoundly grateful not to have children I love in America's public school system that is dominated by the NAE union whose top priority is teacher/administrator tenure and retirement, weak accountability, and maintaining the status quo. We've been talking about education reform in America for years -- and yes, there have been some improvements as mentioned above in terms of international rankings. But until public schools once again become centers of education instead of centers for social experimentation and interaction among culture-infected teenagers, progress will surely be slow.

Like many, I grieve for what America has become -- from the very early days when young teens were required to know Latin and Greek before entering Harvard, to the present. But there are bright spots . . .

The last feature on the broadcast was about a trio of beautiful, poised, and amazingly talented young African-American teenage girls from Chicago—three cousins who call themselves the SugarStrings—who play classical music on violin, viola, and cello. They've been performing together for six years—the feature showed them giving a concert at a local predominantly black grammar school where the children were clearly enthralled with the music. (Encouraging to see the children's matching school shirts!) The SugarStrings were amazing. They began playing at ages 5, 3, and 3 at the prompting of parents and grandparents. You can see the NBC segment at this link (look around for the SugarStrings segment.)

I'm not naive enough to think that China has it all together and America doesn't. But in the decades to come, I don't see how "average" is going to compete with #1.

Backyard Deer

Looked out my back window this morning to see these four deer feeding on the acorns beneath a large oak tree in my neighbor's yard -- an adult and three adolescents. Hard for me to imagine where they live. The woods in the background of these photos are a buffer about 50 yards wide and maybe 500 yards long with houses on all four sides of the woods. I can't imagine they live in that area alone. They fed on the acorns and grass for about a half-hour, then when the juveniles started getting restless and playing, mom gathered the brood and retreated back into the woods.

A Challenge to the Red Cross

I've been giving blood to the Red Cross on a regular basis for several years. At the most basic level, it's because of the simple words of Leviticus 17:14: "For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life" (ESV). That is obviously true physically, but the spiritual implications are even more profound. The reason animals were sacrificed and their blood poured out as an atoning sacrifice in the Old Testament was to graphically illustrate the giving of an innocent LIFE for a guilty LIFE. The innocent animal's blood was shed so that the blood of the guilty human could remain un-shed; so his LIFE could be spared. This was preparatory and temporary for the ultimate blood exchange yet to come. This physical-spiritual sacrificial substitution motif culminated, of course, in the Lamb of God, Jesus of Nazareth, shedding His innocent blood in place of the "guilty" blood of human beings. He gave His blood (His LIFE) so that my blood (my LIFE) could be saved.

My blood, it goes without saying, has no atoning power. If it did, the Red Cross wouldn't hound me with phone calls every 50-odd days to come back and give again. Those who received a transfusion of Kruidenier blood would rise whole and healed and my blood would be in constant demand. Such, alas, is not the case.

I give blood purely for the physical help it may provide to another—someone in need of LIFE as a result of surgery or an accident. My blood is the most valuable physical possession I have. Nothing else I own is able to keep another person alive and convey new LIFE to someone who might otherwise die. So when I tithe my blood (give away one of my 10 pints) every 2-3 months, it's just another way to stay in touch with Jesus' "better to give than to receive" viewpoint (Acts 20:35). (And I confess: I would much rather be a giver of blood than a needer of blood.) (But giving blood is also healthy from what I have read. It deletes accumulated iron stores in men who don't lose blood monthly the way women do, and giving a large block of blood at one time stimulates fresh blood reproduction in the body. Out with the old, in with the new.)

Now -- to the point of this post. I have worn my curmudgeonly hat to give blood on more than one occasion, yesterday being one of those days. I never leave home with the hat on, but I find it has assumed its cranial cap once I have finished giving blood and I'm invited to "have a snack" -- the post-operative way the RC has of thanking you for coming in and getting your blood sugar stimulated so you don't faint on the way out the door and end up needing back the blood you just gave. As usual, after donating blood yesterday, I was invited to sift through a Trick or Treat-like collection of junk snacks and have my choice of a soda. Which would mean, if I availed myself of these offerings, my remaining blood would be less healthy upon leaving the Red Cross venue than the pint I was leaving with them.

Another reason I give blood regularly is because I believe it's in pretty decent shape and might actually be a healthy addition to the average person's body. But I am always amazed that the Red Cross -- an organization in the business of promoting and saving lives, offers their donors nothing better to build up their donor's health than soda and processed, trans-fat laden junk food.

Yesterday, there were a couple of volunteers my age who were helping man the "recovery" area. When I was offered soda and a snack, I opted for a bottled water and no snack. (This is where I found the curmudgeonly hat had appeared.) I said to the two guys (I've learned to do this in a laughing, winsome way so as not to offend), "No thanks. You know, it always amazes me that the Red Cross offers snacks to people that make their blood worse than it was before they came in. You'd think they would want to set a better example."

The guys chuckled (they knew I was right) and one of them started rifling through the box and came up with a "granola bar." I said I'd seen that bar before and passed because it was full of trans-fats (hydrogenated oils), which set in motion a couple minutes of label reading. The granola bar went back in the box and this time a packet or raisins was extracted. I said that looked better: "Let's see what's in it." We immediately began looking for a couple of lines of ingredients on the label and I couldn't seem to find a list. Suddenly I realized why: The ingredient list had only one word in it—Raisins. No cane sugar, no added anything. So we cheered and all three of us had a packet of raisins.

There have been a couple of instances when the blood donation was held at a church and some of the church members (I assume) had baked fresh goodies for donors to sample: cookies, brownies, and the like. But even then, there would always be the Red Cross staples of junk-food snacks and soda (sometimes small containers of fruit juice) for the hard-core American donors to feed on. Even though the homemade snacks were probably not particularly healthy, they were a step in the right direction. And even though I didn't eat them, I thanked the volunteers for providing them.

So my challenge to the Red Cross is this: In keeping with your commitment to sustaining LIFE by collecting blood, how about matching it with a commitment to building better blood among your donors. How about setting a better example by providing fresh fruit and fruit juices for donors to snack on (or, at least, "healthy" cookies, etc.) after they give blood. (Or asking your host organizations to provide it.) I'm in the habit of taking along a banana or apple to eat, along with one of their bottles of water, after donating. But I know most folks aren't going to do that. So here's hoping the Red Cross will continue not only their good work of service in so many ways, but grab a small opportunity to increase the quality of the blood they hope to collect and dispense to those in need.

We Need a New Word

Now that 7-Eleven is selling vegan food, you know the movement has been co-opted and it's time to find another word to replace "vegan." This is not news, of course -- other (better) words have been used in place of "vegan" for a while now, "plant-based" and "nutritarian" being two good examples. The point is that one can be a vegan by living on Twinkies and Ho-Ho's and potato chips -- but that's not exactly what the vegan movement has stood for, at least on the nutrition side.

The same has happened to "organic." Once the USDA took ownership of that term, it began to be used by corporations selling dog food and shampoo and other things that were never part of the movement. So a lot of old-school (and many new-school) organic farmers refused to participate in the USDA system (which basically disallows use of the word "organic" unless you're certified by the government) and created new labels: "Beyond Organic," "Natural" and others.

It's the life-cycle of good ideas: message > mission >movement > monstrosity > monument > memory > new message.

Of course, it's good that healthier choices of food are being offered in 7-Elevens -- which is actually not a huge accomplishment. Here's hoping some of the regular 7-Eleven clientele will try them.