Evaluating our food supply -- and how we feel about it

Photo by Randi Workman, via ksl.com

Perhaps more compelling than the question "Do we know what is in our food?" is pondering, "Do we want to know?"

My thoughts have thus ranged after a recent TV news story in my neighboring city of a woman reporting she found a snake head in a can of green beans. The woman was working with teenagers in their church kitchen to prepare a meal for senior citizens and noticed the snake head when they lifted beans out of a slow cooker. She threw the beans out and notified the store, which refunded her for the 30 cans she purchased. The manufacture  withdrew that particular lot from the marketplace.(Click here to read story.)

The gross-out potential of such a story is high (as Indiana Jones would say, "Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?"), and unsurprisingly people flooded an online comment board with plenty of "Ewws!" and "I'm never eating green beans again!" Others shared stories of their own less-than-appetizing finds inside commercially prepared products -- such as a starling in a can of spinach and a mouse baked in bread.

Er, excuse me while I regroup.

OK, are we back?

Such anecdotes can make one swear off ever buying processed food again! Eww, eww, eww! Other commenters were nonplussed and pointed out that it's unrealistic to expect a completely clean food supply. After all, these normal-Joe commenters said, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows certain levels of insects in the food we buy.

Sure enough, the FDA's Defect Level Handbook lists acceptable levels of what the organization deems "natural or unavoidable defects in foods that present no health hazards for humans." It's an interesting read, although please don't do so over lunch! And while I'm always on the prowl for good Scrabble words, I could have gone my entire life without learning a new one from this document: excreta. 

Here's a sample for a pantry staple, peanut butter. Measurements in the right box indicate maximum acceptable level.

The FDA handbook glossary defines aesthetic as "offensive to the senses." No kidding.

All of this certainly motivates me to grow as much of my own food as I can. Yet, interestingly, I believe my experience raising food tempers my response and broadens my perspective. I know that snails slobber on tomatoes. I know that grasshoppers and birds -- and all sorts of things -- poop in the garden. I wash produce, cut out blemishes and move on. I've bottled apricots, handling each one individually, and still not seen the tiny white worm until it ended up floating in my sealed jar. (That time, as my first foray bottling, I threw the jar contents out, but now I would just pick out the worm.) I've pulled a daddy-long-legs off my dinner salad, no big deal. I know certain things are unavoidable even with food that I closely inspect and handle every step of the way. 

Back to the story of the snake head, consider that those people didn't notice it right away either, when they opened the can. The woman found it later when pulling the beans out of the pot. 

I don't like dwelling too much on my food and think these stories of animals in products are the memorable, icky exception to the rule. In the name of not starving I choose to give the benefit of the doubt that growers, processors and regulators are doing the best they can. In the end I appreciate these thoughts from people who chimed in on the snake-in-a-can story:

CSI: Raspberry patch

Raspberries are fairly easy to grow, but they can fall prey to certain pests and conditions. Here's an incident report from recent activity in my patch. 

 

1. The evidence: Shredded ripe berries next to next to untouched unripe berries.

Further investigation: One morning after picking a few berries I was surprised to notice little black bugs scampering inside the bowl of fruit I'd picked. I hadn't seen them on the outside the berries at all when I harvested. I looked more closely as I picked the next few, and lo and behold, it was like clowns piling out of a Volkswagen.

The culprit: Beetles that go by the name picnic or sap. These 1/4-inch long bugs are attracted to ripe, decaying fruit initially, but once drawn to the garden can also harm unripe berries. Since this beetle doesn't damage the plant, it is more a nuisance than a hard-core criminal. 

Control through regular harvest and removal of decaying berries. (Source: askextension.org.)

2. The evidence: Multiple reports of dry, wilted leaves.

Further investigation. Pay attention to the scope and spread of wilted leaves to be able to pinpoint the perpetrator. For instance, the above picture shows some dried leaves in the middle of an otherwise healthy cane. It was most likely caused by water stress at the time those affected leaves unfurled. Pluck off the dried leaves and you're good to go.

In contrast, the picture below is of thoroughly dried out cane, surrounded by other healthy canes. Such isolation suggests the presence of a pest within the cane, not a widespread water or soil issue. A raspberry cane borer is the likely suspect. The adult females poke holes in the canes in spring and lay eggs. After the larvae hatch they tunnel downward toward the roots to overwinter. (Source: organicgardening.about.com).

Control by removing affected canes. Discard or burn rather than compost, to ensure any critters inside the canes don't get out on parole for a new generation of pests next season.

3. The evidence: Holes in leaves. Again, look for different calling cards. Bite marks from the exterior of leaves signal grasshoppers. 

Holes in the middle of leaves, particularly those that go around the leaf's veins, come from caterpillars, such as the larvae of the raspberry sawfly or the raspberry fruitworm beetle. (Source: http://www.omafra.gov.on.)

Control all of these with hand-picking or an easy DIY bugspray, featured here.

By the way, the yellowing of these raspberry leaves is easily corrected through addition of iron to the soil.

4. Circumstantial evidence: Birds!

Control through netting or frequent visits from my favorite kind of raspberry thief:

Conclusion: Patrol your patch regularly and remove and destroy canes whose wilting leaves show signs of insect intruders. Harvest berries before they get overripe and attract picnic beetles to the decaying fruit. Sporadic leaf munchers won't affect production in an otherwise healthy patch, but you may chose to use insecticide or an organic spray.

Quail detail

As much as I think quail are charming little birds, I don't like the damage they cause in my garden. They were sneaky ... at first. In early summer I occasionally noticed a depression in the ground about three inches deep and the diameter of a salad plate. No vegetable starts were disturbed, however, so I didn't fret. It could have been caused by a burst of water from the hose, for all I knew. As summer advanced I saw new holes everyday. From what? Finally, shed feathers shed some light. Ultimately I got a sighting: this brazen specimen hung out in the garden while we ate a picnic lunch nearby. He behaved quite well, I thought.

Ah, to lull me into complacency. Up to this point I still thought quail were pleasant additions to my landscape. I was stymied but smiled when I found an egg in a garden hole one morning.* The quail went from charming to harming (tsk, "harmful") in my book the day I found holes right up against my tomato plants, exposing their root balls.

Hardly any of my bean seeds sprouted, and I wondered if the quail were responsible for that, too.

To thwart the birds I used a pile of black plastic netting, draped loosely in layers over my bean patch and around the base of tomato plants. I figured that if I spread the netting out in a single layer over the soil, the birds could still peck through the size of the grid to get the seeds. A mass of netting, on the other hand, offers 3-D protection that doesn't ensnare emerging seedlings. Besides, it was simpler than cutting and staking.

Standard conical tomato cages won't deter digging animals because the openings at soil level are still so wide. It's better to create a barrier on the ground that goes all around the plant.

I know the quail still visit. Mostly I hear them before I see them, with their helicopter-sounding takeoff a far noisier giveaway than if they just stayed put. Silly birds. These garden measures haven't hurt them but established boundaries. I love when a group of them do a frantic single-file march down the lawn or sidewalk, each following the leader's curlicue path. They are cute. As long as they play nice.

* The egg was broken the following day. Great, another critter.

Squash Bugs

I have given a name to my pain, and that name is squash bug. If you aren't familiar with squash bugs, they are angry, petty little pests that are just trying to get revenge by eating, and killing the squash plants in your garden. They are mad that they have a dumb uninspired name and they insist that in this world of political correctness we call them what they really are "Squash Insects." The term bug is just insulting to them.

Blurry image of squash bugs. It's hard to take pictures of the bugs as they curry away at the first sign of movement

You might think that I am anthropomorphizing a little too much but trust me, these bugs are out for me and trying to voice their displeasure with a vengeance. The sad part is that it is the innocents that have to suffer. My zucchini is taking the brunt of their abuse, but they also killed two of our pumpkin plants and are trying to take out my acorn squash as well.  

Plant damaged by squash bugs

I found some good information on squash bug at this link managed by the Colorado State University extension. It gives good information on the life cycle of the squash bug and it lists some  methods for getting rid of the pests.

Squash bugs are very hardy so the best way to get rid of them is to check your squash leaves early in the spring. You will see patches of eggs on the underside. I just squish the eggs and wipe them off of the leaves.

Squash bug eggs on the underside of leaf

If you don't catch them early, one of the best methods I have used to get rid of them is to lay small boards or cardboard at the base of your squash plants. Many of the bugs will hide under the boards at night. If you check under the boards early in the morning you can kill them using organic squishing methods.

According to the CSU article you can also spread Diatomaceous earth/pyrethrins applications around the base of the plan. This is an organic method, but I can't vouch for it as I haven't used it. There are also insecticides and pesticides that might work but I am not a fan of them as I want my bees to be safe.

What do you do to rid your garden of the vile squash bug?

~Michael~