The Self-Righteous Porkchop

I resisted listening to the Planet Money podcast for months because I find financial journalism about as scintillating as reading old tide tables. But it’s actually fantastic and entertaining; it takes a reasoned lefty approach to economic news and spices it up with a little slacker humor (it is a This American Life co-production). This week there was an unhumorous piece on world hunger and how 40 percent of the population lives on two dollars a day or less. And that’s adjusted dollars: the equivalent of what two bucks buys in the U.S. as opposed to two bucks converted to the local currency. That number has been haunting me. I don’t see how you could eat on that. Sheesh. I’m so single minded, I don’t even think about shelter and other expenses. Low-income Americans spend a quarter of their income on food, which we can (inaccurately) extrapolate for the impoverished third world to be $3.50 a week. Is that tenable to survive here stateside? At Costco, a 25lb sack of rice is around ten bucks and a 25lb sack of beans is $20. That’s probably enough for a cup of rice and a cup of beans a day for two months. And that’s what $.50/day buys you. No Tabasco, no soy sauce. Just 1,200 calories of rice and beans. Wow. What this Malian family eats in a week. If you’ve never seen these photos, you should To assuage my gustatory guilt, I turned to the Nimans. Bill Niman founded Niman Ranch, a cooperative of farmers who raise sustainable livestock and then sell the meats at exorbitant prices. I’m actually a big fan, but it’s just super expensive. And their bacon is overrated (tastes like salty smoke). Bill is no longer part of the company so I can't blame him. He and his wife have move on to a new, goat-centric venture. I digress. The missus, Nicolette Hahn Niman, is a food activist (and ironically a vegetarian) who just published a book called The Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms. On their temporary Chowhound blog, the Nimans offer ten tips for “affordable sustainable eating.”

• Reduce consumption of meat, dairy and fish. Just watch Food Inc. if your stomach needs convincing to eat less meat. But dairy? That’s, like, cheese. No way.
• Shop and eat in harmony with the seasons. The Nimans live in Marin County where they suffer through winters by eating artichokes and asparagus with their golden beet salad. What’s a Nova Scotian to do? Suck ice?
• Plant a garden. Gardening is expensive. I spent over $400 on my twelve tomato plants and have harvested maybe a pound of fruit. Soil, water, planters, tools, plants – it only starts to be “affordable” when you scale up and do it for successive seasons. And if you have the space. I'm lucky enough to have a backyard. The Nimans live on a 1,000 acre ranch.
• Keep a flock of laying hens. I actually plan to do this next year. But it’s only because I’m a crazy person. For other urban dwellers, this is preposterous (did I mention that the Nimans live on a 1,000 acre ranch?). Space aside, figure about $500 in equipment and $35/month for organic chicken feed for six chickens. If your hens are amazing layers, you’ll get maybe ten dozen eggs a month…which works out to be substantially more expensive than the cage-free organic eggs at Trader Joe’s. And who eats ten dozen eggs a month?
• Cook more. Well, this is kind of a no-brainer. You don’t have to tell that to the readers of Chowhound.
• Shift budgeting priorities. They say that Americans spend a smaller percentage of their budgets on food than any other developed country and that it should be larger. My #1 budget priority is food so I’m O.K. here, but for the rest of the country? They're essentially saying, "If you want to eat responsibly and affordably, you must spend more money!" As long as industrialized food is so damn cheap, albeit artificially, I don't see that happening.
• Buy cheaper cuts of meat. Yeah, yeah. But nothing beats a prime dry-aged ribeye. Niman Ranch, of course. Whoa. I just checked: $54.98 apiece. This tip was starting to make more sense until I found out the Nimans' new company, BN Ranch, sells goat shanks, a cheaper cut they recommend, for $45/5lbs. I'm thinking the first tip about reducing meat consumption makes the most sense.
• Buy whole chickens. I’m on a semi-boycott of chicken. Screw PETA, it’s actually because chicken farmers are huge unregulated industrial polluters. But if I did buy chicken, I would argue that you should opt for the dark meat pieces. They are in less demand, i.e., cheaper, and dark meat is juicier and more flavorful than white meat.
• Buy foods during low demand periods. The Nimans say prime rib at Christmastime is in high demand as are spare ribs in summer so it’s cheaper to buy them off-season. But whenever I see those meats on sale, it’s always in their respective season. I just checked the July Von’s advertiser – beef ribs on sale for $1.29/lb. I mean, when is turkey the cheapest? Duh.
• Eat organ meats. What if you don’t like organ meats? Luckily I do. Except for kidneys. Which taste like pee. For me, the hardest part is getting sustainably raised organ meats. Where do I get grass-fed beef liver? Not at Whole Foods. Oh, wait. I can order it online for a mere $57.95/10lbs.

The Nimans on their 1,000 acre Marin County ranch So now that I’ve crapped on everything the Nimans have to say, I basically agree with all of it. And I really like them. I'm just jealous about the whole 1,000 acre ranch thing. My only beef (no pun intended (whenever you see “no pun intended” doesn’t that kinda mean “pun intended in case you missed it?”)) with their manifesto is the “affordable” aspect to it. Eating sustainably is expensive. And inconvenient. And time consuming. While I strive to do it because I think it’s important, at the end of the day, it's a luxury.

Look, I'm thrilled about my $400 hydroponic, organic tomatoes. They're awesome. And when I buy pesticide-free heirloom peaches at the local farmer’s market for four bucks a pound, I know I'm doing the right thing and that makes me feel good. But I can’t expect a working-class single mother of three to do the same just because it’s good for the planet. To say otherwise is unreasonable. Greg Critser wrote about this much more extensively (and more curmudgeonly) in his excellent article about food piety.

To be fair, the tips the Nimans offer are suggestions, not demands, and there is a lot of sense to most of them. My cattiness aside, I appreciate all their work and their articles about food. I just take it all with a grain of salt (pun intended in case you missed it).