Amaranth-Millet Polenta Recipe vs. Agrofuel Myopia: Intervene, Naturally

What's Behind My Variation on the Polenta Recipe?
As I mentioned last week, my recent (Yoga Meditation Retreat) menu plan hoped to be a loving, peaceful meditation, a silent manifestation if you will, of what I refer to as "thinking globally by eating region-ably." This to me implies employing as much local, fresh, organic produce and foodstuffs as possible and continuing to consider vigilantly the bigger picture, when choosing foods that come from elsewhere. My bigger picture analysis also seeks to promote a conscientious consumption that "naturally" (almost easily) intervenes in broader issues related to supporting sustainability in economic, social and environmental terms.

In this sense, of course, most of us are happy and aware that buying food grown close to home cuts greenhouse emissions from long-distance transport and that "organic" produce is both healthy for our families and preserves many of our most precious resources, not least clean water, in various ways. We also understand that participating in food cooperatives and supporting local farmers who are "doing the right thing" means investing in "food security," which helps to make these foods available to folks at various levels of income, in the long-term, and builds a better community on all fronts.

I see the local-global praxis of "eating regionably" as a reinterpretation of the wisdom in the old feminist adage, "the personal is political." More available to me as a daily strategy than merely mapping all of the ways that my actions here at home in San Diego impact others in my community and elsewhere, I begin, rather, by looking at where global processes intersect my own needs, choices and preferences in various areas of my life simultaneously. For a specific example, as US-Americans begin to consume processed foods more judiciously, preferring fresh foods for personal, nutritional reasons and local for its myriad sustainability virtues, many people are taking a moment to look at what goes into even "healthy" processed food. These include, in particular, soy, corn, and wheat--all primary actors in the centuries-old human drama called "Agriculture" now playing on the global stage. Not incidentally, more and more people in my world (and ours more broadly) are developing food sensitivities to these very foods.

The recipe below is followed by a discussion of the agrofuels boom, to which amaranth-millet polenta offers a healthy, "natural" intervention in several ways! I have nothing against corn, wheat or soy per se, but there is a lot to be said about how the advantages of certain mainstream agricultural practices fail to offset the palpable dangers of mono-cropping (e.g., how it affects small farmers and the biodiversity that is vital to longterm food security, and who benefits anyway?, etc.) not to mention the presence of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in our foods. However, one thing this is certain: our bodies are registering sensitivities that reverberate throughout our planetary organism!

Millet/Amaranth Polenta (with Ratatouille): A Mouthful of Biodiversity

Millet and amaranth are great because they are often easy on the systems of wheat (gluten) sensitive folks, especially those with celiac disorders, and all those seeking grain variety. Also, these grains are chock full of vitamins, Millet is especially good on the B's, and amaranth is "high in protein (15-18%) and contains respectable amounts of lysine and methionine, two essential amino acids that are not frequently found in grains" (see KR in Health & Beyond).

*Couple this with the "flavor-intensive" ratatouille recipe, previously posted, using fresh local ingredients.*

Ingredients

• 3¼ cups water, broth,or stock
• 1/2 cup rinsed millet
• 1/2 cup rinsed millet
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. In a medium or large saucepan, bring 3¼ cups liquid (water, broth, or stock) to a boil.

2. Add 1 cup of rinsed millet and return to a boil.

3. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan, and cook for 45 minutes. The texture is porridge-y, to say the least.

4. Pack the cooked millet into a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Smooth the surface of the millet using a spatula or spoon. Place wax paper over the millet, and chill for several hours or overnight. (This interim would be a great time to make a ratatouille, and read what I've posted below about agrofuels!)

5. Carefully remove the wax paper. Whereas polenta is easily removed from the pan by simply turning the pan over, it may or may not release from the pan as one congealed mass.

6. If it comes out in a mass, GOOD FOR YOU! Cut the polenta into ¼ to ½ inch slices, which can be sautéed in olive oil with or without a little butter. If however, your mixture remains mushy, sauté a large spoonful of the mixture pressing it into patty-lumps, which my sources inform me is the truly, authentic Italian way to prepare polenta!

Agrofuel: Is Ethanol Becoming the "Diesel of De-forestation"?

As we have seen recently, many US corn growers see ethanol production as a positive way to produce fuel at home and stimulate the domestic economy; however, there is a significant downside to shifting our fossil fuel-dependence to a reliance on ethanol, especially the dangers to the environment, food security/sovereignty issues, and biodiversity. If these issues are insufficient to sound the skeptic-alert about the promise of ethanol, yesterday's Americas report from the IRC arrived by email just in time to help me raise awareness that as petrochemical companies set their sights on agrobusiness, our governmental bodies, desperate to resolve our fuel crises, are proposing agrofuels as a longterm solution without considering that ethanol is merely a short term, 10 percent solution with heavy consequences including investing our future resources heavily in massive monocultural agriculture projects, dedicating subsidies to multinational corporations (rather than small or local growers) and committing to problematic, binding multinational dependencies as outlined in various recent, binational compacts.

"Monocropping genetically modified biomass is neither natural nor earth-friendly" (L. Carlsen, IRC) (Leer el artículo.)

Firstly, agrofuels "compete for land and resources directly with other agricultural products, especially food. . .[which is] a threat to the global food supply, to hunger alleviation, and to the aspirations of nations to feed and employ their populations—their ability to attain food sovereignty" (Carlsen, IRC-online). Some other obvious problems with the production of agrofuels on a global scale include endangering the very rain forests we need to "offset" the carbon emissions of our fuel consumption in countries such as Brazil (for sugar-cane), Ecuador (same), and Colombia (for palm oil).

Secondly, we need to look at the implications of international development in the so-called third world. The article, "Indigenous People Challenge Peru's Soy Highway," effectively describes the real costs of building an infrastructure to support the kind of global industrial agricultural complex that agrofuel production necessitates.

The conscientious critics suggestion, however, is not to abandon all hope in these alternatives, but to "reject the promotion of ethanol production based on corn and the advancement of biofuels within the . . .hyper-industrial and transnational logic

-- [which] will harm not just peasant families and rural communities, but also less powerful nations. In the long run, these "solutions" will be counterproductive for the very problems they seek to address. . .The path to follow entails the small-scale production of biofuels from diverse sources so as not to enter into conflict with food production nor fall into the cultivation of monocrops." (V. Quintana, IRC)

In sum, exploring the many tasty and salubrious applications for exciting grains such as amaranth and millet can help us to nourish our bodies, which--often through food sensitivities--are awakening us to the value of variety (otherwise known as biodiversity) to planetary health!