Would you eat a hamburger that was never part of walking, breathing cow? Apparently we’re not too far from that as an option. Stem cell research is allowing scientists to take two cow stem cells, put them in a petri dish, and grow cow muscle, just like the kind we normally remove and consume from an actual animal. Okay, in practice the process of growing meat in a dish is a little more complicated than that. But not in concept or result. Because the petri dish meat came from cow cells to start with, the resulting meat is, indeed, “real” meat.  You can read about it in an article in the May 23rd issue of The New Yorker titled, “Test-Tube Burgers.” 

Why would we want to eat meat from a lab? The article cites the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization when it explains “the global livestock industry is responsible for nearly twenty percent of humanity’s greenhouse-gas emissions. That is more than all cars, trains, ships, and planes combined. Cattle consume nearly ten percent of the world’s freshwater resources, and eighty percent of all farmland is devoted to the production of meat.” Then there are the well-documented problems of waste lagoons, use of antibiotics, and the treatment of animals in industrial meat production facilities. Add to all that the growing world population and the increase in demand for meat as countries like India and China get wealthier, and the current system for providing meat seems rather unsustainable. The petri dish offers a potential alternative that could mitigate or eliminate many of these issues. Perhaps the better question is why wouldn’t we want to eat meat from a lab?

There’s certainly an ick factor.  It’s similar to the notion, in the culture of the U.S., of eating insects, though they, too, offer an potentially excellent source of protein without some of the drawbacks of meat (something I blogged about a long time ago). But at least bugs are naturally occurring in nature. Meat in a lab wouldn’t happen without people and labs, which makes it more suspect – at least to me. The New Yorker article points out “lab-grown meat raises powerful questions about what most people see as the boundaries of nature and the basic definitions of life.” And yet, if lab meat could be produced in large quantities inexpensively (as they think will ultimately happen), could help provide food and good nutrition to people who can’t afford “traditional” meat, and if it could be done without many of the currently problematic impacts of meat production, what does refusing to eat it say?

I hesitate, but I think I would eat it. What do you think? Would you try lab-grown meat?

Nancy Michaelis

On Thursday mornings I often meet with the men in my church for breakfast and a Bible study.  It is a time of good fun and healthy conversation.  Last week one of the regulars forwarded this post by Tony Schwartz on the Harvard Business Review blog page.  The upshot of the argument is that if the richest 1% in the United States gave more of their money (see the post for the dollar and percentage increments) to aid instead of, say, purchasing a 200 million dollar yacht, we would exceed 115-189 billion dollars that the UN estimates is needed annually to meet the Millennium Development Goals.  The post elicited a good deal of reaction and spirited debate, much of which was in disagreement with the gist of Schwartz’s argument.

I can sympathize with the gut level injustice of so much money spent on something that feels so unnecessary while millions die each year (to say nothing of those who continue to live in devastating poverty) because they lack of basic necessities like food and water.  That said, I must say that I too find the argument (and Peter Singer’s thinking as well) not altogether compelling.  I wish that ending poverty were as simple as taking a yacht and turning it into food.

I offer the following thoughts in outline.  If something grabs your interest, feel free to comment.  If there is a bullet you would like to see further developed, let me know!

• It is not the man with the yacht that is the problem.  It is the system that allows for (and even encourages) such wide discrepancies.  (On this I highly recommend Joerg Rieger, especially his No Rising Tide.)
• Redistribution of wealth is part of the solution.  Whether it is in the form of generous donors or reforming tax and trade policy, in a global economy, money has to be distributed more fairly than at present.  This does not mean that everyone has to have the same amount of wealth and resources.
• All due respect to the UN and Jeff Sachs (and I know this sounds very arrogant), throwing large amounts of money at a problem has not been proven to be an effective solution (Bill Easterly has my back on this one).  The data from the Millennium Villages project is mixed at best.

1. One problem is corruption.  Will the money go where it is intended?  Somalia was recently in the news because leaders redirected nearly 80 million dollars intended for aid into their own personal bank accounts.  In Nicaragua, I heard a critic of the government declare “If you are a politician and you are not stealing money, you are not honest, you are stupid.”  In 2004, hospitals in Chad (relayed by Paul Collier in The Bottom Billion) received less than 1% of the intended funds (the other 99% simply disappeared!).
2. A second problem is that of absorption—can the receiving community put the money that is given to work?  Do they have the systems and structures in place to use the money effectively to address hunger and poverty?  Haiti is a prime example of how difficult it can be to absorb aid.
3. Both of these problems point to the need for systemic solutions.  Money alone will not fix bad governance or solve conflicts.  The various –isms (racism, sexism, and others) cannot be addressed monetarily.  Even in the Global North the income gap is still too often defined by these and other prejudices.

• The way forward involves a comprehensive approach.

1. Political advocacy, first by voting, then by weighing in on proposals (if you have not already, please join the e-advocacy network!) is essential.  Our budget priorities should match our values.  As the saying goes, a budget is a moral document.  We need a budget that fully funds those programs which support those who are poorest and most vulnerable.  We need a trade policy that is not at odds with our aid objectives.  We need an energy policy that does not trash the planet.
2. Educate ourselves and others about the root causes of hunger and poverty.  Check out this list of books I’ve found helpful to get started.  Host and attend forums on poverty.  Read good blogs (like this one!).  Think hard about how a lifestyle (for lack of a better term) choice or a candidate or a policy impacts those who are poorest and most vulnerable.
3. As my priest says, give time, talent, and treasure (yes, a comprehensive approach does cost money).  Our choices do matter, and I think that the choices we make as a community (however broadly we want to define that) matter even more.

These are my first thoughts.  What are yours?

-David Creech

A bowl of chewy bread is placed in front of us, with a green bottle whose label, the size of a bandage, modestly identifies the town where this white wine was produced. Next comes a wooden plate of chopped octopus drenched in oil and dusted with paprika. A few thick toothpicks are our utensils, and for an hour and a half we nibble, chew, sip, and sigh with pleasure in the company of an Irish Franciscan nun.

In our backpacks we carry breakfast and lunch: bread baked in the last town, cheese, yogurt, oranges, chocolate, pears, dried ham and sausage, all made in this province or this country, Spain.

When it’s time to eat, everyone sits down! Nobody is walking around eating like Americans do. We sit too, as often as possible, because my friend and I are completing the last third of the Camino de Santiago, the 450-mile long ancient pilgrim path across northern Spain. Subtracting a couple of quick bus trips, by the time we reach Santiago we will have walked 228 kilometers or 141 miles over 11 days, up mountains, through valleys, along rivers in chestnut forests, and down the streets of cities big and small.

Slow food has been the reward for having sore feet. How delicious, at the end of a 20-kilometer day, to tuck into real food produced by the farmers whose tractors, cows, and pigs we evade on dirt tracks. So much more enjoyable than gripping the steering wheel with one hand while clutching a styrofoam coffee cup or a plastic wrapped something –something shipped a few thousand miles—with the other!

Astonished by the abundance around us, I read up on Spanish agriculture in an internet cafe. After absorbing lots of facts about exports and imports, farm land fragmentation and concentration, humid regions and arid regions and so on and so forth, it finally hit me: on our pilgrimage we are experiencing an informal local food culture that exists alongside and within officially tracked Spanish agribusiness. These farmers don’t just produce for export. They also feed their neighbors.

Where I have lived, that’s not so true. All those soybeans and corn in Illinois go somewhere else. California rice and tomatoes are exported. Lots of farmers in the Skagit Valley, where I live now, raise seeds for others to grow the next year. Sure, we have farmer’s markets and CSA farms, but they are still the exception. The fruit, bread and yogurt in our stores have generally traveled a long way. And they taste like it!

Eating my way across Spain is reminding me that local food culture matters. Food that is shipped can be food without flavor. Food that is shipped is also food that can’t reach us when fuel isn’t available or a natural disaster like the floods along the Mississippi, as Nancy pointed out in her last post, interrupts delivery. For maximum food security, some portion of our food supply needs to be produced near by. And why shouldn’t we be able to savor the abundance of our own region, and say to visitors, these peaches came from that field, those cows made this milk?

As a pilgrim, I’m getting to participate this strong local food culture. When I get home, I’m going to be intentional about getting to know whatever food culture surrounds me. As for those sore feet, they are just part of the journey, says Lutheran theologian and writer Martha Stortz, who walked the Camino de Santiago last year. Fortunately, a little glass of the local vintage takes away a lot of the pain!

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

So my last post pointed to what I perceive to be a ever growing crisis.  Dennis’ comments showed at least one area where we can find more food… by limiting our waste!  Here is a brief YouTube clip from über-genius doctor and numbers guru Hans Rosling (Watch it! The video is 4 minutes well spent!).  Maybe there is hope!  Thanks to Mark in Montana for drawing my attention to it here.

-David Creech

I’ve been watching the news of the Mississippi river flooding with interest. In any immediate way, it has nothing to do with me. I’m hundreds of miles away, going about my days. But at the same time, the news coverage gives me pause beyond the horrible fascination of watching a disaster.

Disasters are impressively good at causing or exacerbating hunger. The immediate causes are obvious: if your house is under water, where do go? Where will you get food if roads, grocery stores, and restaurants are under water, too? How do you get potable water if the water treatment facilities aren’t functioning? This is all well known. Infrastructure destruction gets lots of attention because it’s so dramatic; it makes for good TV. But as I watch, I can’t help but recognize how little separates me from hunger. We in the U.S. rely on our infrastructure so completely, yet on a daily basis, I rarely acknowledge it. It’s just there, reliable and ubiquitous. Until it isn’t.

The longer-term impacts are equally problematic, and usually so quiet. I can almost guarantee I won’t hear anything about this flood by September, but it will still be a current event in the sense that its effects will not have ended. Besides people’s homes, how many businesses have been flooded? How long will it take them to reopen, as insurance claims are filed and renovating or rebuilding is done? How long will people be out of their jobs as they wait for companies to reopen? Even worse, how many businesses will not survive an extended closing? And how many didn’t have insurance to start with, taking the risk of establishing a business (or home!) in an uninsurable floodplain location? Some won’t even try to start again. What are the tax implications to already strapped states if a swath of their industrial base isn’t functioning or even goes away? How many years does that impact last, and how does it affect the public as governments make budget decisions? There are so many ways a disaster changes the economic situation, and therefore the hunger and poverty situation.

Then there are the direct and long-term environmental impacts to hunger as a result of flooded farmland. Some of this country’s most fertile land is currently covered in water – just in time for the spring planting. As the flood waters drain, in some places topsoil will be washed away. In others, soil will be contaminated by whatever the river picked up along the way. Will there be long-term consequences to field productivity and, consequently, food supplies? Productive, arable land is obviously an important factor in hunger (especially as the global population increases; see David’s last post), and one we don’t think too much about in this very fertile country.

So many things that impact hunger from one seemingly localized and distant flood (albeit a big one)! One thing disasters make clear: fighting hunger is so much more than giving people food.

-Nancy Michaelis

Two studies caught my interest last week.  The first, from the UN, estimates that in October of this year, the world’s population will exceed 7 billion. If the current trends continue, in 12 short years (before my daughter is in high school!) there will be 8 billion human beings on our island home.  It is now estimated we will surpass 9 billion sometime in 2041.  Rather than plateauing, the UN estimates that human population will continue to increase past 10 billion sometime in 2081.  Most of the population increases will be in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.

The second, in the journal Science (for a quick overview, here is the NYT article that grabbed my attention), interpreted data to demonstrate that we are experiencing decreased yields of corn and wheat in some regions of the world.  (Other staples appear to be more or less unaffected.)  The authors attribute the lower yields to higher temperature, suggesting that as the world gets warmer yields of these basic staples will continue to decrease.  The authors note that in some ways the increased carbon in the atmosphere is helping plants grow more food, thus offsetting some of the impacts of climate change.  The authors do suggest that as the temperature continues to increase the yields may decline a a more rapid rate.

In other posts I have noted how climate change presents problems to subsistence farmers: since the rains are less predictable, small subsistence farmers are increasingly unsure when to plant.  If they plant too soon and rains do not come, they lose their crop.  If they plant just prior to a heavy rain they risk losing their crop as the seeds are washed away.

In a world with decreasing food yields and more mouths to feed, effective and decisive responses to hunger and the environment are desperately needed.  In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus famously said, “… do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”  In light of these two reports, I’m feeling like tomorrow’s problems are actually today’s.

-David Creech

This morning I received an email from George Johnson, retired pastor and former director of the ALC Hunger Program (the predecessor to ELCA World Hunger).  His thoughts were so provocative I felt they should have a broader audience.  George asks some hard questions that I suspect will elicit a variety of responses.  I suggest we have a dialog.  Feel free to leave comments below.  On to the nuggets:

+ Why do we Lutherans continually talk about the presence of Jesus in the sacraments but seldom talk about his presence in “the least of these?” Does one carry more grace than the other? for Lutherans? Why not say in our liturgy….”Come to the table and experience the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine, and then go out and experience the presence of Jesus in your neighbor.” Is that not more biblical?

+ When we say that ours is a ministry of Word and Sacrament are we focusing on a phrase that is easy to say without any responsibility on our part? Would it be just as good to sum up our ministry by saying…Word and Service?” When that is our calling and ministry then the world will sit up and listen. It worked for Jesus. Why not for his disciples?

+ I am constantly waiting for my Lutheran Church to talk as much about the poor as Jesus did. Not nearly as much is said in the scriptures about the sacraments as it said about bringing good news to the poor. We need not neglect grace in our proclaiming good news to the poor. Our pastors will notlikely do this unless they see and hear it from our bishops and churchleaders.

Let the conversation begin!

-David Creech