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The Power of Grub:
A Practical Guide to the Real Food Revolution

By Anna Lappé

Over the past several decades, a revolution has been blossoming. You won’t see it advertised on billboards or broadcast on the nightly news, but still, it’s happening:

Across the country, millions of people are embracing a healthier relationship to food.

That might sound shocking in light of the soaring rates of obesity-related illnesses, or the double-digit profit margins of big-food companies, or the decreasing numbers of family farmers. While all of these statistics are true, a growing number of us are making the connection between our dietary choices and the health of the environment, farmers and farmworkers around the world, and ourselves.

Making the Connection
We know this movement is gathering momentum by the revival of local foods and farmers’ markets, the growing acceptance of ecological farming, and the flourishing of food sovereignty across the United States and around the globe. There are the good statistics, too: The majority of Americans say they’re concerned about the chemicals used to grow their food. Nearly half say they’ve bought organic food recently. Tens of millions of pounds of fair-trade coffee are sold every year. And the number of farmers’ markets in the United States has nearly doubled just in the past decade.

These choices that people are making about what they are eating are not a diet per se, at least not in the way most of us think about diets. (Although eating healthier, fresher food may indeed end up reducing our waistlines!)

Neither are these choices an inflexible set of principles, for nothing is more personal than what we choose to eat. No, this food revolution is different. It is made up of a set of choices we each can make, choices that have the power to transform our personal lives, our communities and our world.

Slowing Down
Let me explain a little further. I recently heard a speech by Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food Movement, devoted to the appreciation and cultivation of good food and good food-production practices. The movement, which began in 1986, now boasts more than 85,000 members in 100 countries.

In animated Italian — with the help of a skilled translator — Petrini shared his vision: Slow Food is the antidote to fast food, he explained. He stressed that we are not food consumers, we are food coproducers.

At first, I didn’t get it. In my Brooklyn apartment, I don’t feel like I’m producing much food of any kind, unless you count the mold occasionally growing on leftovers in the back of my fridge. But then I understood. What Petrini was getting at is what I’m saying here, too. Our consumption choices are production choices.

What we choose to consume drives the kind of food that is produced. The more we choose local, sustainably and fairly grown food, the more we create a market for such foods.

Grub for All
My coauthor and I like to call this food “Grub.” In fact, it’s the title of my new book with Bryant Terry.

To me the word conveys what these foods should be — down-home and simple, not precious and expensive. Grub should be for everyone, not just a privileged few. Here’s one of the best parts about Grub: What’s best for our communities and the Earth is also best for our bodies. And it is delicious.

“These connections are not just metaphorical,” said Tom Hampson, associate for congregational development of the Church World Service, which has developed “Just Eating: Practicing Faith at the Table,” a curriculum to help teach these values.

“There are real concrete links between the choices we make and the lives of people around the world,” said Hampson. “What we choose to eat and what we choose to buy will echo out in consequences for better or worse throughout the world. We have greater power than we think we have. We are not simply passive observers in this global system; we are participants.” 

Or, as long-time organic dairy farmer and activist John Kinsman likes to say, “Every time you spend money on food, you are voting for the world you want.”

It’s time we turn the maxim “you are what you eat” on its head: I am what you eat; you are what I eat. Welcome to the diet of interdependence. Welcome to Grub.

Going Grub
So how do we go about adopting a Grub diet —“casting our vote” as Kinsman says?

One of the best ways I have found is to take a hard look at what I am buying and where I am buying it. When you vote in an election, you know who you’re voting for, right? At least you see their names on the ballot. But when you shop at a supermarket, the name of the farmer usually isn’t on that apple you’re buying.

No, at a typical store, we usually don’t have that much information or control over what our dollar “vote” endorses. Most of our food dollar isn’t
going to the farmers, or to the workers who process our food or to the workers at the grocery store either. Most of that dollar goes to packaging, transportation and marketing, and into the pockets of big food corporations and the people who run them.

Shopping at a typical supermarket, you need determination and diligence to weed the “good” foods from the “bad.” So making smart decisions about where you shop may be one of the most important decisions of all. 

Farmers’ Markets and CSAs
As recently as the early 1970s, there were roughly one hundred farmers’ markets in this country. Today, that number is nearly 4,000. And new ones keep popping up all the time.

When we shop at farmers’ markets we’re choosing local foods from farmers we know, strengthening our regional economy. Most markets are “growers’ markets,” meaning sellers must have their hands in the dirt to have their stand on the street. So these food choices not only help local farmers, they also ensure you’re getting the freshest and often most delicious foods. Your produce hasn’t been bumped and battered along a sometimes multi-thousand mile journey to get to your plate.

Even better than knowing your farmer is joining your farmer in her work. For communities that want to support their local farmers further, community-supported agriculture (CSA) is the logical next step. Started in Japan in the 1970s by women concerned about pesticides in their food and brought to the United States in 1984, CSA is membership farming: You join a farm by investing at the beginning of the growing season. In return, you get fresh produce—sometimes dairy, meat, even cut flowers—throughout the year.

“If CSAs didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be here,” says farmer Dave Perkins, who with his family tends to 17 organically certified acres near Madison, Wis. Like the thousands of CSA members across the country, their 800 members pay an annual flat fee up front that provides the Perkinses with essential capital to run the farm. In return, their members receive fresh food throughout the harvest season, and thanks to recent partnerships with area farmers, eggs, meat and goat cheese too. The Perkinses also host fun events so that their city-locked members can enjoy the countryside, with annual “U-pick” festivals, corn boils, pesto fests and pumpkin-picking parties.

Labels: What’s in a Name?
The next step in adopting the Grub diet and casting your vote is making sense of the labels and guidelines that stores use to categorize foods. The marketplace is flush with these labels—“hormone-free,” “pasture-raised,” “fair trade.” It’s enough to make your head spin!

Organic
Since 2002, the United States has had an official certification and requirements for organic farming production, though we lag far behind the organic production levels in most of the other 108 countries with certified organic farming. Italy, which is roughly the size of Arizona, has nearly five times as many organic farmers as the United States, and 100 times the percentage of available farmland devoted to certified organic production. As we choose organic products, we help the United States catch up with much of the rest of the world, and encourage our farmers to get off the treadmill of toxic chemical use. 

Grub on the Grill: Recipes by Bryant Terry
From Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen

Zealously embracing dietary models can back us into a corner. When considering health reasons for choosing Grub, we needn’t be hard-liners. We all have specific body constitutions, cultural foodways and personal tastes that determine which foods work for us—no single way of eating is perfect for everyone. In fact, because our bodies are so dynamic, no single diet is perfect for any one of us throughout our life. Our relationship with food should be fluid, shifting as we change.

Eating healthfully requires that we move beyond obsessing over food pyramids and nutrient content and expand our notion of what “healthy eating” really entails. I used to be a food militant and saw food merely as fuel that I needed in order to be healthy and robust. I lost touch with the joy of eating and soon realized that food should not be utilitarian; it is meant to be enjoyed. Our meals should be healing, but should not resemble taking medicine. Our diets should be spontaneous, flexible and creative.

Afrodiasporic Cookout Menu
Grilled Corn and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil (recipe included)
Shrimp and Veggie Kabobs with Mixed Herb Marinade
Fresh Green Beans with Garlicky Citrus Vinaigrette
Good Grilled Okra (recipe included)
Ginger Beer

Grilled Corn and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Fresh Basil
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Inactive Preparation Time:  1 hour
Cooking Time: 20 to 25 minutes

This dish is inspired by “Okra, Corn and Tomatoes,” a southern classic. In August heirloom tomatoes are at their peak, and you can easily find them at farmers’ markets. Health food stores and some conventional grocery stores carry them as well.   

4 ears corn, silks removed, husks left on, and soaked in cold salted water for 1 hour
1 3/4 pounds heirloom tomatoes of varying shapes sizes and colors
16 basil leaves (preferably purple), each leaf torn into a few pieces
Best quality extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Preheat grill or broiler. Remove corn from the soaking water. If grilling, place the corn on the grill. Close the cover and grill, turning frequently with tongs, until cooked thoroughly, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove corn from grill and let cool.

If broiling, place the corn about 6 inches from the heat for 20 to 25 minutes, turning occasionally, until cooked thoroughly. Let cool.

Remove husks and cut the kernels off the corn cobs. Place in a bowl and set aside.

Cut the tomatoes in various styles to enhance presentation—halves, quarters and slices.

Divide the corn and tomatoes evenly among 4 plates. Divide the basil evenly on top, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and black pepper.
 
Good Grilled Okra
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Select smaller pods, as they’re more tender and less slimy. Refrigerate okra and use within a few days.  

Eighteen 12-inch wooden skewers, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes

1 pound small-medium okra pods

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Coarse sea salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat grill or broiler. Wash the okra under cold running water and dry with paper towels. In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, the cayenne, and black pepper and mix well. Add the okra to the marinade and toss to coat. Thread 5 to 7 okra pods onto 2 skewers each (to keep okra in place).

If grilling, place the skewers on the grill and cook until browned and slightly crisp, 3 to 4 minutes per side, turning with tongs frequently.

If broiling, place the skewers about 3 inches from the heat and broil until browned and slightly crisp, 3 to 4 minutes per side, turning with tongs frequently.

I have had okra prepared in every way imaginable: My grandmother used to pickle it for the winter; my mom would sauté it along with corn and juicy tomatoes from our garden; and when I lived in New Orleans I always ate it in seafood gumbo, where it is used as a thickener. But grilling is, by far, the best way that I’ve ever had it. This whole meal was inspired by those crispy, purple “lady fingers” on skewers. (Yes, there is purple okra!)  
Since okra is a native African plant (historians believe it originated over 10,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia) and is used in
African, Afro-Caribbean and African-American cuisine, I created recipes for this menu that draw inspiration from dishes that I’ve
eaten from different parts of the African Diaspora. Enjoy this meal at an afternoon cookout with family and friends.

Bryant Terry