Can Do! (Stop Wasting Food, For Your Own Good and the Planet’s)

Between years spent in service to the Siren, being a parent, and now working at a food bank, I seem to spend my whole life surrounded by food.  I’m not complaining; I’m bragging. 

But one question seems to come up again and again.  And again.  And it’s one of those things that I’ve come to slowly realize I’ve been completely wrong about my entire life.

Do me a favor.  Go into your kitchen, take a look in the cupboard, or look through your fridge.  Find some food that is expired.

You know, food that’s past the date printed on the package.  Expired.  No good.  Dangerous.  Something that you need to throw out right now before it gives you botulism.

I know you have some.  We’ve all got some.  Because none of us ever eat all the food we buy.  We always buy that extra can of soup, because it was on sale and we thought, “Hey, I might be in the mood for soup one day.”  Or your daughter begs you to buy those breakfast granola bars, only instead of eating those for breakfast she insists that you make her chocolate chip pancakes.  And like a sucker, you do.  (Just me?  Tell me it’s not just me.)

So, grab something, anything, that expired yesterday, or last week, or last month.  (Or last year…)

Now, don’t throw it out. 

Because, it’s not expired.

I’ve believed my entire life that the dates on food packages are expiration dates.  And I’ve believed that food past this expiration date is suddenly gross, unhealthy, even dangerous to eat.

I’ve been wrong.

Before I really dive into this, if you don’t mind, all this talk of food is making me hungry.  And I just made myself some noodles which I mixed with a little hoisin sauce and this spicy chili-garlic sauce that expired five years ago. 

I’m going to have a few bites.  If I die, this will be a very short essay.

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(Sorry, guys, no such luck.)

Because no matter what the date on the bottle might say, the food inside is probably just fine.

Those dates on the cans and bottles and boxes that we buy contain good information, no doubt about it.  But no one has ever bothered telling anyone who doesn’t spend their entire life working with food exactly what that information is.  And at the same time, those dates actually hide a terrible reality about our food supply that we are very, very good at overlooking:

We throw out too much food.

How much are we throwing out, exactly?

While no one is weighing it all, the USDA estimates that between wilted lettuce, uneaten leftovers, and canned goods left in the closet for a generation, Americans throw out about 300 pounds of food every year.  Each.  That’s every single person in this country.  And most of that 300 pounds you threw out was probably still edible, even probably still delicious.  (Maybe not the lettuce.  I’ve never described lettuce as delicious.)

Picture it this way: You go to the grocery store, buy three bags worth of groceries, and on your way out the door, you drop one entire bag in the garbage

That’s how much we’re throwing away.

“No way,” you’re saying.  “Not me.  I don’t throw that much out!”

Maybe you don’t. Or, maybe you do.  I’m not sure because I’m not watching your every move, paying attention to every meal you eat.  That’s Facebook’s job.

But on average, estimates of the value of wasted food work out to roughly $1,600 for an average American household per year.

That means you’re probably throwing out $1,600 every year.

And every can of food that is thrown out is not just a can of food, it’s also all the resources that went into growing the food, processing the food, packing the food, transporting the food.  Every single piece of food that we consume (or don’t consume) has a carbon footprint attached to it.  Now, estimates of exactly how much food waste contributes to global climate change vary, based on methodology, but the variations are somewhere between “really bad” and “even worse,” so the wide variance doesn’t really matter.  Under the study done by Project Drawdown, it turns out that changing our habits to reduce our food waste is the third most effective means of reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

(Yeah, I know.  Every time I mention Global Climate Change, someone has to chime in that it’s all a hoax by the Chinese, the climate changes according to natural cycles, and there is no scientific consensus about whether or not humans are causing climate change.  I’m just going to leave this here, and go back to talking to the grown-ups in the room:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/may/23/john-oliver-best-climate-debate-ever)

And it’s not just that we throw out tons of food every year.  We also have a problem with food insecurity.  At the exact same time that we fill our garbage bags with food, millions of people, families, children, retirees, have so little food and so little access to food that they often have to make terrible choices, like buying food or buying medicine, or feeding themselves or feeding their kids.  These are decisions no one should have to face.

Let me say this again:  Our country is throwing out billions of pounds of food.  And we are letting people in our country go without enough food.

It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

This raises a massive moral question: Are we so pre-occupied with income and profits and capitalism that we will let people go hungry because they don’t have enough money to buy food, even when we have plenty of extra food that will likely just get tossed out after it “expires”?

But even people who are food insecure will look at the date on a can of beef stew, see that it is past date, and throw it out.  It has been so ingrained in us, from an early age, that you need to look at expiration dates on food, that someone who is forced to regularly choose between buying food and buying expensive prescription medicine will throw out past-date food instead of eating it!

So you have economics, physics, and morality, all telling you the same thing:

Stop throwing out so much food!

And the solution starts with that date on that can of stew.

What does this date mean?

The date that ends up on a can of stew or a can of tuna or a jar of Grey Poupon is placed there by the food manufacturer.  

But of course.

There is no standard as to what these dates mean or how they are arrived at.

In practice, most shelf-stable food (packaged food that requires no refrigeration) could, probably, survive until our country becomes a Mad Max movie after our society collapses because we threw out so much perfectly good food.  BUT, leaving food on the shelf of a grocery store for years waiting for someone to buy it doesn’t make the money flow in, so manufacturers have to have some way of getting food to be taken off the shelves so stores have to buy more food to refill those shelves.

Now, this is probably more than a little cynical, but it seems like they fully expect us consumers to do the exact same thing in our homes.  Oh sure, I want milk in my coffee, but that milk was dated for yesterday.  Throw it away!  Go to the store and buy more milk!

The thing is, food dates, be they called Best-By, Sell-By, Use-By, have nothing at all to do with food safety.  Food that has been sitting on a shelf for too long is not, by nature, unsafe.  The factors that contribute to making food unsafe have nothing at all to do with the amount of time the food is properly stored.  Food becomes unsafe only when something wrong happens to that food.  For example, if a pathogen is introduced into a food at any point in the manufacturing process, like salmonella, listeria, E. Coli.  Or if something in the manufacturing process goes wrong, like a can is not properly sealed.  Or if food is not properly stored, like if canned food is frozen, damaging the integrity of the can.  These things can make food unsafe, and it really doesn’t matter what the date on the package says in these cases.  The food is just bad and should not be consumed under any circumstances. 

How long does properly preserved shelf-stable food actually last?

A long time.  Canned food, including oysters, tomatoes, and mixed vegetables, were recovered from a steamboat called the Bertrand, which sank in the Missouri River in 1865.  They were opened in 1974.  No foodborne pathogens were present.  The food was still safe to eat.

Again, we are separating the idea of food quality from food safety.  Would century-old food taste good?  Probably not.  (Nobody actually ate the food from the Bertrand; they only tested it for bacteria.)  But about a quarter of the fresh food I cook at home doesn’t taste good, either.  (More, if you ask my kids.)  The point is that the food is safe.  It will not make you sick.  Will it taste funny?  Maybe, but that is why you have hot sauce. 

So, this whole issue around Best-By dates seems to have a simple fix, right?  Just get rid of the dates!

Not quite.  Best-By dates serve a legitimate purpose.  A couple, in fact.  In the event of a food recall (think salmonella-contaminated peanut butter), they can help consumers identify and dispose of unsafe food.  And yes, food will generally taste better if eaten before the Best-By date than it will if eaten, say, five or six years after the Best-By date.  Though, not THAT much better.

But we still call them expiration dates.

That’s what needs to change.  Not the language on the cans, but our language, our understanding, our mental attitude toward preserved food.

Because these are not “expiration” dates in any meaningful way.

My point here is simply this:  Before you throw out food, stop and ask yourself if you really need to throw it out?  Does it look funny?  Does it smell bad?  Is the can bulging like a squirrel trying to fit one-too-many acorns in its cheeks?  

If the answer is no, there is a very good chance that the food that you are about to throw out is safe, nutritious, and tasty. 

We’ve been conditioned by the food manufacturers to think about food in terms of freshness and expiration dates.  We need to learn to ignore dates and think about food in terms of social, environmental, and economic impacts.  Food is vital to health, it is energy, it costs money, and access to good food is a basic human right.

Worried about getting sick?  Practice good food safety in your home: wash your hands, wash your counters, store food properly, and don’t forget to wash your hands.

And the next time you catch yourself looking at a date and saying (or even thinking) the word, “expired,” stop and say, out loud, “It isn’t expired.”

You know those cans of “expired” food you pulled out of your pantry?  Don’t throw them away.  Instead, save yourself money by turning them into dinner.  Don’t be afraid.  They’ll taste fine.

And when you’re done, take the money you would have spent on buying new food and donate it to your local food pantry.  They can use it to save more food that would otherwise end up in a landfill and give it to someone who needs that food but can’t afford it.  Save money, save the planet, save another human being, and enjoy a delicious dinner while you’re at it. 

Expired has never tasted so good.

Never Underestimate the Maltese

The news cycle is a strange, fascinating, even scary place.  Especially these days.  What will it be today?  International nuclear crisis?  Foreign cyberattacks on democracy?  Terrorism?  Humanitarian crisis on the border?  The presidential election?

With the election coming soon, one name we seem to be hearing more and more is Mayor Pete.  We keep referring is this guy from South Bend, Indiana as "Mayor Pete" because no one, even in South Bend, has any idea how to pronounce Buttigieg.

That's because its Maltese.

It's actually a pretty common Maltese surname.  The Maltese probably have no idea why we're having such trouble pronouncing it.  Although, to be fair to Mayor Pete, if I was mayor, I'd insist people refer to me as Mayor Dave.  And no one has ever mispronounced my last name.  Literally, ever.

But that doesn't change the fact that we have a Maltese name making big news.  In a nation of immigrants, this shouldn't be a surprise, but it makes me realize how little I know about Malta.  I know it's famous of its...um...falcons?  And, um, Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin met there, right?  Oops, no, that was Yalta.  So, falcons.  Given this lack of knowledge, I started reading up on the history of the little island in the Mediterranean Sea.  If you think that's odd, then, Hi, my is Dave and we've obviously never met.

Maltese history, it turns out, is incredibly interesting.  It is mostly a history of invasion and occupation and foreign influence and perseverance.  This small island, less than half the size of Rhode Island (insert Rhode Island size joke here), has been invaded and occupied by the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Catholics, French, and British, among others. It is featured in the Bible and was the site of a key siege and standoff during the Second World War. Being right in the middle of a major trading route, and right between Africa and Europe, it has been a place of great strategic importance since the dawn of history.

Through it all, the Maltese people have adapted yet held onto their own identity.  They have endured, and their culture has endured.  Which is why Buttigeig doesn't sound French or English or Italian.  It is distinctly Maltese.

But I didn't actually want to talk about those Maltese, the actual people of Malta.  No, I wanted to talk about a different Maltese.

This one.

That's Tobey.  Tobey is a Maltese.  Okay, well, if we're going to get all lineage and pedigree about this, he's a Maltese-Silky cross, but hey, I'm an Irish-Scottish-French-German-Italian-Welsh-Virginian-Yankee cross, so I'm not one to split hairs.

The Maltese breed takes its name from being known as the preferred breed of choice for the royal families and nobles of Malta, going all the way back to the time of the ancient Greeks.  They were so popular there, they became synonymous with the island.  Like the island, itself, they tend to be small, somewhat overlooked, and almost always underestimated.

A few years ago, my wife called me at work one day to ask what I thought about adopting another dog.  With two kids in the house, including a super-active toddler, I was nervous about that idea.  It would have to be a pretty special dog: patient, gentle, easy-going.  I didn't think we would find a dog like that.  I was against the adoption.  Then, she told me his name was Tobey.

Toby, it happens, was my grandfather's dog when I was a little kid.  If you're the kind of person who believes in signs, this would seem to be a big one.  I'm not, but I said, Okay, let's meet the dog.

(Sidebar: I want to address the spelling of Tobey vs. Toby.  I liken it to whiskey or whisky: if there's a glass of it in front of you, who cares how it's spelled?  There, now let's move on, shall we?)

Tobey wasn't exactly like the other dogs we've rescued over the years; abused, abandoned, age unknown, medical history unknown, emaciated and starved.  Tobey was a loved, well-cared for, healthy (somewhat tubby) dog whose owners were in the impossible position of not being able to care for him anymore.  I think he liked us right from the beginning.

We needed to find a pretty special dog, and, it turns out, we had.

Tobey was constantly kind, patient, protective of Leo, alerting us to strangers coming into the house (or near the house, or driving by the house, or...), asking for belly-rubs, and cleaning up after us if we accidentally dropped any food on the floor.  His gentleness around the kids was nothing short of amazing.  He had the patience and gentleness of...well, let's just say I think most saints have the patience of Tobey.

Then, a few weeks ago, we noticed a change in Tobey.  He seemed to lose his energy.  And we thought, maybe he's getting old.  Then, he seemed to lose his appetite.  That was a bad sign.  We took him to the vet, who took some blood and told us Tobey was diabetic.  They wanted to start him on insulin, and to make an appointment for next week.  The next day, he refused to even drink water.  We took him to Tufts Veterinary Hospital, where they said he was in the middle of the diabetic ketoacidosis crisis.  None of those words sounded promising.

I can't say enough about how incredible everyone at Tufts was.  They called us, kept us informed of what was happening, how he was doing.  They talked to us when we visited him.  They took the time to get to know Tobey.  They treated him, stabilized him, and Tobey seemed to be on the mend.  Then, an ultrasound revealed some further complications:  It wasn't just diabetes.  Tobey had a tumor on his adrenal gland, spreading into his vascular system.  And he also happened to have a massive blood clot that could break loose at any time and cause a fatal stroke.  Three for three on the "How Bad Can It Be" checklist.

The vet took the time to explain how to give him his insulin.  I didn't bother explaining that my mom is diabetic and that I knew the drill pretty well.  Though when she asked if I knew what low blood sugar looked like, I kinda chuckled.  I also flashed back to a memory of being maybe five or six and my dad waking us up in the middle of the night and driving us to the hospital, with my mom acting weird and slurring her words until the doctors could take care of her.  Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

Finally, Tobey was home, on insulin, blood thinners, antibiotics (did I mention the pneumonia?) and anti-nausea medication.  But at least he was home.

But, we noticed, he still wasn't eating much.  His energy level was still way down.  He refused all food.  I pureed his food and spoon-fed it to him.  I had to force food and medicine into his body, hoping to keep him alive.  He actually, for the first time ever, bit me.  (I deserved it; I'd try to bite someone with their hand down my throat, too.)  Nothing was working.  He needed to go back to the hospital, get another ultrasound, see if they missed something.  And all I could think was the cancer was spreading, and that we'd need to soon say goodbye to our Maltese.

The ultrasound found his stomach full of liquid and his digestive system had become stuck.  They admitted him for a few more days, put him on some new medications, and Tobey, incredibly, bounced back.  Again, the doctors and staff at Tufts were amazing.  And considering the amount of money we ended up spending, I'm awaiting the invitation to the new hospital wing that they'll be naming after Tobey.

He's home again, now, on no less than eight medicines, but eating normally, barking whenever the door opens, pooping in the house, all the normal Tobey things that Tobey does.  And we're so glad.  Plus, he got a cool electronic sensor that tracks his blood sugar, which I'm pretty sure makes him a cyborg.

I thought the little dog was gone, too sick, too tired, too weak.

But I underestimated him.  I should have known better.

Usually, when I write one of these long, emotional posts that have nothing to do with beer, its ends on a downer.  I'm glad this one has a happy ending.  Tobey's doing fine and looking forward to going out on our new canoe a few more times this summer.

Never underestimate the Maltese.

Mr Claus Goes to Washington

It was a cold day in December.  Cold all over the country, but especially in Washington, D.C.  Cold enough for some idiot to rub his hands together and say, "Boy, whatever happened to global warming, huh?"  Because some idiot always says something like that on cold December days.

Congress was debating some bill.  What the bill was and what the debate entailed is not important to this story, since it meant only that some old Senator was standing in front of the CSPAN cameras and talking while everyone else in the chamber was… well, they we’re doing much of anything since the chamber was nearly empty.  No one cared to listen to speeches.  They’d reappear when they needed to vote.  It was politics, and politics was a brutal game of trying to pretend that you cared about other people while working very hard for only yourself.

The door to the Senate chamber burst open.

In general, the door to the Senate chamber did not burst open.  It did not burst closed.  It did not burst at all.  The door to the Senate chamber was closely monitored, guarded, and surrounded by high levels of security.  No one ever entered the Senate chamber unless they were a Senator, and they would never, ever “burst” into the room.  Something like that was unheard of.

It would not be the last unheard of thing to happen that day. The man who entered towered above the Senators, standing at least six foot six.  He was immense, bulky, though certainly not what any reasonable person would call “fat.”  He was dressed in perfectly tailored suit, entirely red, with an immaculate white shirt and bright fire-engine red tie.  The remarkable suit almost distracted from the man’s equally remarkable beard, which was bright white and flowed down from his chin, obscuring his neck entirely.  He was perfectly bald on the top of his head, though he was so tall and held himself so erect that no one could see the top of his head.

This man was a complete stranger to all of them.  He was no Senator, no politician, not even a citizen of the United States.  No one in that chamber had even see or spoken to this man before. And yet, they all knew him.  And they let him approach the center of the chamber.  He was, they all knew, Santa Claus.

Santa strode to the front of the Senate chamber.  The CSPAN cameras were following him, broadcasting his every move live over the air.  The chamber hung in breathless silence.  The big man in the red suit intoned, “I need your help.”

No one moved.  No even dared to blink.  He continued, “For many centuries, I have made a home at the North Pole, building a place to allow me to work year round in relative isolation, with Mrs. Claus and my team of elves, of course, to fulfill our mission to spread Christmas joy to every child on the planet.  Now, we find that our home is in extreme danger.   The climate is changing, warming.  The ocean waters are thinning the ice upon which my home has been built.  Soon, perhaps this year, perhaps next, it will break.  My home, the place where I work, the place where Christmas wishes come true, will sink into the ocean.  You have done this.  The human race has done this.  And you must fix this.  I cannot do it, not by myself.  So, I have come here, to ask you to help me.  Help me save the environment, and Christmas.”

And with that, for once, the world responded.  Perhaps it was the direct appeal from Santa Claus himself, showing himself fully to all the world for the first time in many centuries.  Perhaps it was simply another miracle of the holiday season.  Within days, the U.N. was packed to bursting, humming with excitement, as every nation on the planet came together and signed the greatest document in human history.  Not only would they work together, not only would they reduce their carbon dioxide and work to protect the environment, but they would even fund massive new technologies to help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  New scientific discoveries would be funded, new industries create, trillions of dollars spent to create tens of trillions of dollars in economic activity, millions and millions of jobs, all around altering the Earth’s climate.  Yes, they would continue to change the climate, as human beings had been doing since the beginning of the industrial revolution, but now they would do with the specific goal of fixing what they had nearly broken beyond repair.

And they celebrated, as one, the entire world together.

Or, almost the entire world.

In an office building, on the fifty-seventh floor, overlooking a polluted harbor, two men sat.

“Senator,” the older man began.  The other man, who was a Senator, cut him off.  He was one of the few people in all the world who could cut the older man off and not pay dearly for it.

The Senator said, “You’re not happy.  I know you’re not happy because you never call me up here when you are happy.  I imagine you’re unhappy about this new focus on fixing the world.  You’re in the wrong business for that sort of thing, and this is likely to cut into your billions of dollars in profits.  And now you want me to do something about it.”  He took a sip of whiskey from the glass tumbler in his hand.  “Is that about right?”

“Just about.  Can you help?”

“I think I can do something.  You see, this all hinges of everyone loving Santa Claus.”

“Of course.  Who doesn’t?  He is the symbol of Christmas, after all.”

“Exactly.”  And with that, he finished his whiskey and departed.  The Senator had an enormous amount of work ahead of him.

Within hours, the Senator appeared on the largest cable news network.  He cried, “This Santa Claus is no Christian!  He is destroying Christmas.”  He held up a Christmas wreath.  “What does this have to do with the holy and sacred birth of Christ?  Nothing!  Get rid of it!”  His face was beet red.  But he was nowhere near as angry as he appeared to be.

He’d been planning this for a long time, bothered at how many people embraced the commercialism of Christmas, while waging legal battles against the sacred religious meaning.  But he had to choose his moment.  This was it.

“And this!” he shouted, holding up an iconic picture of Santa Claus in his big red-and-white suit.  “This is NOT the meaning of Christmas!  Do not listen to this man!  He is destroying the most holy day of the year.”

His rants were soon all over all the cable news networks.  All over the Internet.  All over the world. They had nothing to do with climate change, but Santa Claus now had everything to do with climate change.  And the Senator’s attacks had their desired effect.  Support for fixing the climate evaporated, like water vapor rising off a rapidly warming ocean.

The Christmas decorations came down.  Christmas lights disappeared from houses.  Christmas trees were left on the sides of roads or burned in massive bonfires.  Christmas presents were unwrapped and returned, ungiven.  Store that once were willing to stay open late suddenly announced that they were closing early.  Major companies began announcing layoffs.  And the image of jolly Santa Claus was wiped away.

And so it was that on the night before Christmas, no one anywhere could be found reading their children “A Visit from St. Nicholas.”

The Senator stayed late in his office that night, looking out his window, which looked eastward, toward Stanton Park.  He held a glass of Scotch in his hand and stood at the window, enjoying the site of urban darkness.  No Christmas lights.  No Christmas carols.  No Santa Claus.

Around midnight, he heard a cough behind him.  Startled, the Senator spun to see a man with a long white beard in a perfectly tailored red suit sitting at his desk, in his chair.

“You think you’ve done something good,” Santa said.

The Senator replied, “I have.  I’ve stopped you from stealing the meaning of Christmas.”

Santa seemed to consider this for a moment.  “And what is, in your opinion, the meaning of Christmas?”

The Senator scoffed.  “The birth of the Savior, of course!  What do you think it is?”

The man in the beard and red suit shrugged.  “So, on December 25^th, you celebrate the birth of Jesus.  And where did you find out that he was born then?”

“It’s in the Bible!”

“Is it?  Where does it say, ‘On the 25^th day of the twelfth month,’ or something like that?”

“It doesn’t.  The date was passed down by tradition.”

Santa nodded.  “Tradition.  Not exactly the best thing to go by.”  Here, he reached into his suit jacket and somehow extracted a massive book from inside the perfectly tailored suit.  “I have a record of every birthday of every child ever born.  It, uh, helps me keep track.  And I know exactly when your Savior was born.  It was not on December 25^th.”

“So we shouldn’t celebrate?  Because of what?  A clerical error?”

“Oh,” Santa said, putting down the book and standing up, “quite the contrary.  The point is not about who was born this day, but rather what we celebrate this day.  Look.”  And he pointed back to the window.

The Senator turned and stared off into the darkness beyond.  Something, far distant, seemed to twinkle.  What was that?  A fire?  No, too steady.  He saw more, now, and saw that they were all different colors: white and yellow and red and green and blue.

All over the city, Christmas lights were coming on.

“When we celebrate the birth of Christ, we celebrate what humans have always celebrated at this time of year,” Santa Claus said patiently, as though explaining something to a child.  “Light, in a time of darkness.”

More lights came on now.  It seemed as though, with Christmas day finally here, everyone who had been rejecting decorations of Christmas had decided that now was the time to bring them back, to turn the lights back on.

“Does it matter if Jesus was not born on Christmas Day?” Santa went on.  “Does it matter if he wasn't born in Bethlehem, he didn't sleep in a manger, if there were no shepherds, no wisemen, no gifts, no star?  Of course not!  That misses the point entirely!  You are not celebrating the birth of a person.  No, you are celebrating the birth of Light! Christmas is about celebrating what people have always celebrated in this dark, cold month: light in darkness!  Humans have a most peculiar tendency to turn things upside down.  So during the darkest, coldest, most depressing time of the year, when it seems like the days will never get any longer, and the nights just drag on and on, and the only sign of green are evergreen trees with needles that at are as painful as a cactus, you all decided to throw a bunch of lights on the trees, wrap everything in bows, and sing joyful songs at the top of your lungs!  You give gifts to people for no reason!  It’s completely nonsensical, and that makes it magnificent!  Because where there is darkness, you celebrate light!  And knowing there is light in this world, and in our lives, no matter how dark things may be, I daresay that is the true meaning of Christmas.”

Outside, the world seemed completely aglow in sparking multi-colored Christmas lights.  They stood in silence and watched, as the world awoke from its darkness, like the Sun rising, but the Sun stayed well below the horizon for some hours more.  And yet, there was light.

I’d like to say that the Senator’s heart grew three sizes that day, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, he lost his next bid for re-election, had difficulty finding work, and ended up as a used car salesman in Perth Amboy.  

Santa, meanwhile, moved his workshop to the South Pole, where there was solid ground under the ice instead of warming ocean, and he continued to work to fight climate change alongside bringing joy to children everywhere. And every December, he looked up at the southern sky, which was full of light and sunshine, and got his reindeers ready to bring light to darkness, joy in the face of despair, hope in times of hopelessness. He knew it didn’t always work.  But it was always worth trying. 

Because even in the darkest places in the world, the light was always somewhere.

Support SNAP! Or, Hungry For History

This week, I'm joining with many politicians, advocates, and SNAP supporters in Massachusetts to take the SNAP Challenge, to live on $4.56 per day for food, all week long (the state average for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as Food Stamps).  Also, no eating out, and no beer.  No, not even a homebrew.  Then, we hashtag stuff like #MASNAPChallenge, #supportSNAP, and #ihatehashtags, and #hashbrowns.

Why?

And it all has to do with farmers.

Now, I love farmers and farms.  The highlight of the summer for my daughter is going to farm camp (which I'm pretty sure is me paying the farm to use her as free labor, but I'll let that go).  We love our CSA, and farmers markets.  Farms are great!

Farming runs in the family.

So what do farms have to do with the food stamp program?

I’m glad you asked.  Or, I’m glad I pretended that you asked, for rhetorical purposes.

Starting during the Great Depression, Congress created the Farm Bill, designed to help farmers by protecting them from instabilities in crop markets.  This help has taken different forms over the years, including low interest loans, crop insurance, subsidies, etc.  The original Farm Bill wanted to also help farmers by guaranteeing consumers would buy their food, so it had built into it subsidies for people who couldn't afford to buy the food farmers were producing.  This was the beginning of the Food Stamp program, which would later become SNAP.  And every five years, SNAP is reauthorized and refunded as part of the Farm Bill.

The last Farm Bill was from 2013, and it is set to expire in September.

Congress in writing the new Farm Bill right now.  And they have some ideas about how to "improve" it.

Because SNAP is aimed at helping people with little money to spend, it is seen as a welfare program, a way for lazy Americans to live off the government’s dime, when they should be starving in the street like characters from a Dickens novel.

The biggest challenge to SNAP from the Republican-controlled House is a massive budget cut, coupled with an increase to work requirements.  All of which is aimed at kicking people off of the program for being lazy. Except most of them work already. And don’t get me started about work requirements for food benefits.

Oh, see, too late.  You got me started.

Picture it: Ireland 1845.

Beautiful country. Full of farms that grew wheat and barley, raised cattle for dairy and meat. Irish butter was prized over in Britain, tons of the stuff exported every year.  And those big farms were almost all owned by English landlords, who employed Irish laborers to work the fields. The English had learned some decades ago that a curious vegetable the Spanish had brought back from South America, the potato, was the perfect thing to encourage the Irish to grow for their own food.  Because it required very little land, but provided enough yield for Irish families.  Which was good for the English, who wanted to keep as much land as possible to themselves.

Let me repeat one part of that: The potato came from South America, through Spain, before it made its way to Ireland, pushed on them by the English so the could be kept (barely) above starvation, just healthy enough to work the fields. There is no traditional Irish food involving potatoes.

Like to be clear about that. That point gets lost on lots of Americans.

So 1845 rolls along and something odd happens to the potato crop. Part of it fails on account of some kind of fungus. Darn shame, it’ll be a tough winter, but next year will be better.  Except next year wasn’t better.  This was the beginning of what we now call the Irish Potato Famine, because we’re not in Ireland.  In Ireland, it is called simply the Great Hunger.  And it caused great hunger indeed for the Irish, up to a million of whom starved to death during those years, with millions more fleeing Ireland to other places where food was more available, most notably America.

But calling it the Irish Potato Famine is just the right description, because it gets across the necessary information.  It was a potato famine, which affected the Irish.  Exclusively.  The only crop that failed was the potato.  And because of English policies to make the potato the staple of the Irish diet, the only people who suffered were the poor Irish, who could not afford to buy any other food.

Because make no mistake, there was PLENTY of food being grown and produced in Ireland during the entire period of the famine, almost all of which was being export to England, to be sold for profit.  While the Irish starved to death.

This is the picture of a real person named Bridget O'Donnell, with her children, during the famine.
It is not, as you might think, part of a Walking Dead prequel.

There were, early on and to the credit of certain English government officials, attempts to help the Irish, mostly by importing American corn to feed the hungry.  Yeah, I’m not sure why, either, but that’s what they did.  They exported Irish food and imported American food.  But at least they tried to help.  But then, there was an election, and as sometimes happens in election, the balance of political power shifted.  And the new administration in London banned further imports of food and refused to give food to the people who were dying from a lack of it.

Instead, they demanded that food should only be given to those who could work for it. Put in a day's worth of labor, receive just enough for a day’s meal.  But so many people showed up to work that there weren’t enough jobs, so starving men were set out to the middle of nowhere, to build roads that served no purpose, just to force them to work so they could be justified in being paid enough to not starve.  And if they happened to not have the money to pay the men immediately? Too bad for the laborers, who would continue to starve, but still be forced to work, now for no pay. Men died on these roads, owed a weeks wage and without any food in their bellies.
Those roads, built by starving laborers, and serving no purpose whatsoever, are the Famine Roads, and you can still find them all over Ireland.

No one of Irish descent (which, according to everyone on St. Patrick’s Day, is EVERYONE), who knows anything of this dark chapter in Irish history (which is now all of you) can possibly support work requirements for a food program without abandoning your morality and your humanity. 

Food is a human right.  Saying you can’t have it because you’re not working hard enough to deserve food is, at best, a crime against humanity.

And that is what the Congress of the United States is debating.  Seems like it should be a short debate.  Instead, you get this: “No more loopholes that create disincentives to work.”

I can almost hear the esteemed Senator Ebenezer Scrooge, pronouncing, “Have me no prisons?  No workhouses?  Those who are badly off must go there.  And if they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

You want to get people working?  Great!  Have a nation-wide, well-funded job training program.  But don’t tie it to getting enough food to not go hungry.  Don’t punish people who are poor for being poor.  And don’t blame them for it, either.  You want more people lifted out of poverty?  Great!  So do I!  Raise the minimum wage!  But don’t blame poverty on laziness, demand work for the right to eat, all the while doing nothing about the fact that no one can survive on low wage jobs, even working full-time.

The Farm Bill is trying to force the debate in the wrong direction, and we need to speak up about the right direction it needs to be going in.  And that is what the SNAP Challenge is meant help do.  To remind us that we all have a voice, and we all have stake in this, and we're all, all of us, in need of some help every once in a while.  And most of all, food is a human right.  

(It really is.   It’s even in the Declaration of Independence. “And are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”)

(No, I’m not talking about the Pursuit of Happiness, though food does make me happy.  I’d stick it more in the “Life” category.)

So enough with the history lesson.  Call Congress.  #SupportSNAP.

And #hashbrowns.

The Ghost of James Madison

Seems like our nation is headed (dare I say...again) toward a Constitutional Crisis.  The President, in the midst of an investigation into his campaign for the White House, has started tweeting some rather surprising things about the scope of the Constitution and the office of the presidency, including the idea that the president cannot be prosecuted because he can pardon anyone he wants, including himself.  There's only one thing to do at a time like this.

Let me introduce you to some more members of my family.

The Irish side?  No, they deserve their own post.  Indeed, they deserve their own ballad, as I regale you with songs of the Hurley brothers and their bar, or the Irish immigrant you joined the army and volunteered to fight the Germans in World War I just to gain his citizenship.

Nope, we're going back to Virginia for this one.

I've already introduced you to my great-great-great Virginian grandfathers Joseph Pavy and John Self III.  But I've only just begun.

You see John Self was also married to Sarah "Sally" Pavy, who was the niece of Joseph Pavy.

Our families were very...um...close.

Anywhooo, Sally was the daughter of Joseph Pavy's brother, John Pavy, who was married to a woman named Jane.  Jane happened to be the daughter of a guy named Samuel Madison, who was the son of Ambrose Madison, who was the son of Henry Madison.  Henry was the brother of another Ambrose Madison, who happens to be the grandfather of James Madison, Jr.

You know, the father of the Constitution and the fourth president of United States.

This guy.

I know, it was a long walk.  So, I'm not descended from this guy, but at the very least, I should be getting an invite to the family reunion.

And at said family reunion, I think Jemmie and I will get along famously.  We're both a little on the nerdy side (the history books don't mention this, but he was a huge trekkie), and neither of us got our faces put on money (yet).  And I think he would have some interesting things to say on several recent subjects.  With the help of powers from beyond the grave, I will now summon the ghost of my relative, the man who created the form of government that we are still united under, President James Madison.

Yes?

Oh, hi.  Wasn't expecting this to work.  How's the afterlife?

Terrible.  Jefferson and Hamilton are still getting all the attention.

So, I don't know if you've been following what's been going on, or are even aware of Twitter, but--

Yeah, the President is claiming he has the power to pardon himself to avoid impeachment and prison.  This is what happens when you stop teaching ancient Greek in schools.

So, can he?

The idea is both ridiculous and repugnant.  Let me explain this in the simplest terms.  The Constitution is pretty clear on this matter.

I even blogged about it

The President cannot use his pardon power to save himself from impeachment.  Article II, Section 2 clearly says that the President has the Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.  End of story.

Why all the capital letters?

They looked nicer in cursive.

But he could still pardon himself to keep himself out of prison, right?

No.

But several legal scholars say he can.

Who are you going to believe?  Some random legal nerds, or the supreme legal nerd?  I'm the Ghost of James Freakin' Madison!

Look, we never intended to make the President immune from the law.  Rather, we allowed that the President cannot be prosecuted for criminal offenses while in office, but maintained that he be subject to such courts once out of office.  If he is impeached, and then removed from the presidency, the law will continue to apply to him and he can be prosecuted.

So he could pardon himself for that?

No. Because once he is removed from office, before he is tried in a criminal court, he's no longer President and has no pardon powers.

But he could pardon himself while still President, if he knew he was guilty and liking to be impeached, right?  Like Ford did for Nixon, before he could be brought up on charges, only he'd do it to himself.  That's at least possible, isn't it?

When I wrote the Constitution--

You didn't actually write the whole Constitution.  There was a convention.  Lot of people contributed.

I know what I did.  I was there.  Very well.  When I guided the structure of the Constitution...  Good enough?

I'll allow it.

I had two key concepts that I knew would make all the difference for this new republic.  The first was that sovereignty must not lie with the individuals states, or else true union would be impossible.  The power must lie in a strong centralized national government, a government which derives its power from the will of the people that it governs.

The second concepts is the no man should be King here.  No one is above the law.  All must be equal before the law, and the law, created by the people that are in turn governed by it, shall be the highest authority.  To give anyone the ability to pardon his own crimes would be to place him above the law, and that is unconstitutional.  To even suggest it is treason.  Only the most guilty, the most seditious, most power-hungry of evil men would even attempt such a thing.  Yet, he is welcome try.  I believe that my Constitution, with all its flaws and all its amendments, will stand the test of even that.

It's managed pretty well for 231 years.  Let the Pumpkinhead of the United States try to up-end it.

Farewell, My Siren

My friends, we need to have a conversation about coffee.

Coffee shops continue to be the places where our society tends to gather, to set aside time to meet, and talk, occasionally even do business, serving much the same function that taverns served in years gone by. And as such, they deliver a kind of social experiment, or a kind of metric (albeit total arbitrary) to allow us to view our society as a whole.

Which is why calling the police on two African-American men sitting in a Starbucks turned into much more than the end of a career for a store manager. Because nothing that happens with Starbucks turns out to be only about Starbucks.

No matter when you might read this, whether just after I wrote it, a year from now, five years from now, or in the middle of the desolate post-apocalyptic nuclear desert that used to be America, I guarantee two things:

1.     There’s a Starbucks near you.
2.  There’s someone boycotting Starbucks.

Starbucks is the every-target, the easy punchline to jokes about liberal snowflakes, corporate monstrosities, tree-hugging hippies, and American white privilege. Whether you're a conservative talking about liberals and their social agenda, or a liberal talking about environmental damage and corporate greed, Starbucks makes a great villain. Partially, it makes an easy target, because the company is usually swift to not fight back, to not defend itself in the face of ridiculous criticism, like that the quarter inch of space left in the top of the cup is actually cheating the customer, instead of being a reasonable amount of room to leave to prevent severe hand injury.

In part because Starbucks is so ubiquitous, with all the jokes and parodies that implies, it is also a convenient mirror to reflect on ourselves, an easy frame to tell our stories. So, if you want to tell a story about people struggling to survive on minimum wage, go to Starbucks! Want to talk about poor nutrition and its contribution to obesity?  Starbucks! Religious freedom? Grab a cappuccino and tell me how oppressed you are!

And through it all, your local barista tops your caramel macchiato with a skillful cross-hatch-double-swirl pattern like it’s no big deal.  Starbucks is the company you either love to hate or hate to love, or both.  And for approximately 7 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, and 5 days, it was also my chosen place of employment.

If you ever stop in, tell them all I say hi.
Then, ask them if they've found the secret treasure I buried in the basement.

Up to now, I’ve been completely silent on the topic of Starbucks, not wanting to incur the wrath of the Siren.  But now, I’m free of any restraints on what I can say.  Which means I am free to say a few things. 

But not about the company, or the people who work there.  I still have enormous respect for a company that manages to be as progressive as it is in light of its need to produce profits in a very competitive marketplace, or about the baristas who work there, or really any coffeehouse, who must regularly endure some of the worst that humanity can toss at them. In contrast to recent news items, my experience has been of a company and a culture of being open and welcoming, in which all are treated with respected and dignity, and when something is truly wrong, I’ve seen the people there act swiftly to address it.

Yet Starbucks is also a microcosm of how our society treats those who provide simple services to us.  It’s a measure of how we treat people who we (using a very broad definition of “we” and not meant as an attack on any individual) deem inferior to us in some way, shape or form, particularly on the socio-economic spectrum.  Service workers, earning minimum wage, doing jobs that “we” frequently believe require no specialized skill set. 

This is a lot harder than it looks.  And it looks pretty damn hard.

So instead, let me address all Starbucks customers, past, present, or future, and let you know what you should never, ever do when ordering your drink at Starbucks.  Because, regardless of who is protesting Starbucks this time, these are the real crimes:

1. Puppuccino

Ever heard of a Puppuccino?  It’s a cup of whipped cream that someone decided to order for their dog.  Then, they posted it on the internet, which loved it (because, you know, “dog” + “internet” = “my day is wasted”).  So now, people will walk into a Starbucks, any Starbucks, and ask for a Puppuccino, and actually expect the barista to give them a cup of whipped cream.  If you want a cup of whipped cream, you should have to ask for a cup of whipped cream.  We know you don’t have a dog.

2. French Vanilla

This is a big one here in New England, home of Dunkin Donuts, and the subject of much controversy even in my own store.  There’s no such thing as French Vanilla at Starbucks.  This is important and bears repeating, in all caps:  There is NO SUCH THING AS FRENCH VANILLA AT STARBUCKS. 

It’s called “vanilla.”  It’s a flavor, derived from a variety of orchid.

In order to make it “French” you need to add another flavor, in this case usually hazelnut.  Now, they can make a coffee with vanilla and hazelnut.  Or they can make a vanilla coffee, which is what you probably thought you were ordering in the first place.  Or they can make you stand there and ask you which of these varieties you’d like (so with hazelnut, or with toffeenut, or with caramel?) until you get tired of the third degree and just order a butterbeer Frappuccino instead.

And speaking of butterbeer fraps…

   
3.  Ordering anything on the Secret Menu

I really, really hate this.  

Want to know why?  It’s not because these drinks are a pain in the ass (though they certainly are).  Baristas are paid to make drinks that are all a pain the ass.  No biggie.  Is it because they are all gross, containing two-three times as much sugar as the already overly sweet frappuccinos?  Nah, that’s on you.  You want something that full of sugar, that’s between you and your waistline.  No, the problem is that no one actually orders these drinks right.

Do not walk into a Starbucks and order a “Butterbeer Frappuccino,” and expect any response other than, “A what?”

Even the stupid Secret Menu web sites will let you in on the fact that these are not standard drinks, and they tell you how to order them.  But that never seemed to stop anyone from walking up to the counter and demanding a butterbeer Frappuccino, and getting a serious attitude when I didn’t know how to make a drink that I’s never been taught how to make and that follows none of the standard conventions of Starbucks drinks!

(And no, I'm NOT putting a link to that secret drink recipe. Because dammit, do not order a butterbeer frappuccino!  Ever!)

Please, Starbucks offers thousands of drinks, most of which are full of sugar, and none of which involve copyright infringement.  Just pick one and move on.  Make the butterbeer on your own time.

4.  “Triple Espresso Over Ice in a Venti Cup”

If this one sounds weird to you, good.  You're not one of the people this is aimed at.  You should feel better about yourself.  

It works like this:  You order three shots of espresso, over ice, in a large size cup.  You then proceed over to the condiment bar and fill the cup with milk from the milk pitchers.  You now have a iced latte for a fraction of the cost.  I could have used several examples for this behavior.

“Doppio espresso macchiato in a tall cup with foam up to the top.”  (This is a dry cappuccino.)

“Venti hot coffee, and put like two inches of steamed milk on top.”  (We call that a misto.)

Look, I know, Starbucks isn’t cheap.  What do you expect?  It’s a Starbucks.  The brand is not exactly synonymous with saving money.  Over the past few years, my favorite buzzwords there were “super premium,” because describing our products as “premium” wasn’t good enough to justify the prices we charged.

You want a cheap cup of coffee, go somewhere else.  You want Starbucks?  Pay the price and be happy about it.

5.  Coffee in the trashcan

Hot liquid.  Plastic trash bag.  Is this something you would do at home?  Don’t do it here, either.  Plus, you’re pouring out perfectly good caffeination!  Ask for a small cup to pour some out into, add some milk to both, and double-fist that coffee with pride!

 6. Don’t say hi

Actual conversation I’ve had nearly every day for the past seven years:

Me: “Good morning!  How are you doing today?”

Customer: “Tall coffee.”

*shoves Starbucks Gold Card at me*)

Me (in my head): “I’m doing great!  Thanks for asking!”

Why didn’t I make my snarky comment out loud?  Because while it seems socially acceptable to be rude to your average barista, people flip out if the barista returns it in kind.

7.  Making us take sides with whatever protest/boycott is happening this week

I’m so sorry that you are offended by our red cups. Yes, of course, your religion and personal belief system are clearly under attack. By me. Because I’m the godless heathen that designed the cups, in an effort to destroy your celebration of the birth of someone who pretty clearly wasn’t born when you think he was born. You’re right, this is all my fault.

Someone is (without exaggeration) ALWAYS mad about something that Starbucks is doing. All of which usually has little or nothing with what is going on in the life of your average barista, who just wants to sell coffee, get some decent tips, and drink enough espresso to make it through the day.

And bringing up the boycott du jour as a way of saying how much you disagree with it isn’t any better. You’re not really showing solidarity with the barista, because the barista truly doesn’t care. You're just making awkward, usually overly-friendly conversation. It’s uncomfortable. Just buy your coffee, tip well, and say thank you.

In truth, the only reason more baristas don’t completely lose it is because they know that the only people who regularly hang out in Starbucks and make awkward, slightly rude conversation are college students using the free wi-fi, blind dates who got stood up, and serial killers. And baristas don’t want to end up in the truck of anyone’s car.

The average barista, at any decent coffee shop or café, deals with enough crap every day.  So be kind to your barista, don't be rude, and maybe make them brownies once in a while.  I'll bet they'd like brownies.