Medical Advice to My President

Photo Credit: Vanity Fair

As a doctor, I want to get a few things straight, Mr. President.

Right, left, or in-between, our country needs you. Your wife and girls need you. They need you in good health, and setting a good example, not least because talking about healthcare is so much more credible when we do what we can to not need it.

Here’s the bad news: You have not one, but two risk factors for heart disease: smoking and high cholesterol. You’re not a teenager anymore. It’s time to take this seriously.

The good news—great news, in fact—is that you can change them both. But frankly, I’m worried. If you have had trouble sorting out smoking and cholesterol, then millions of other Americans must be in the same boat, which is to say completely in the dark about the very same problems.

So let me lay it on the line:

First, smoking. Tobacco is a tough habit to break. I know. When my hospital banned smoking, I wondered how the doctors would take it—after all, the doctors’ lounge had a dull haze 24/7. But we broke that habit, and so can you. There is no magic here. Just keep trying until you quit for good. And it gets easier every day that goes by without a cigarette.

Second, cholesterol. Here, let’s clear up a few myths.

First, exercise won’t lower your cholesterol. It may bump up “good” cholesterol slightly and improve your basketball game or your stride, but you definitely can’t count on it to lower your “bad” cholesterol. It won’t.

Second, we almost certainly cannot blame genes. For the vast majority of people, high cholesterol comes down to diet.

Third, switching from beef to chicken and fish has almost no effect on cholesterol. It lowers “bad” cholesterol only about 5 percent–and that’s not enough.

The answer is behind your house, in the White House garden. Foods from plants have essentially no cholesterol and are free of the animal fat that causes the body to make cholesterol. If you skipped meat, dairy products, and eggs for even a few weeks, chances are your cholesterol would drop right into the normal range.

What’s that? You love burgers and chili? Fair enough. So make it a veggie burger. And I can show you a vegetarian chili that is so good, you’ll never know the difference.

And when you conquer your health demons, you’ll inspire every American child to do the same. Lest you think this is a trivial issue, one in five teens has an abnormal cholesterol test today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it only gets worse as they reach adulthood. One in three children is overweight, and one in three will eventually develop diabetes.

You can help them by stubbing out the smokes for good and adopting a healthy, plant-based diet. And as a shining example of good habits, you will have done more good for the health of the American public than any prior president.

People may disagree on how to make healthcare work. But I hope that a bit of advice on how to be healthy will reduce the risk you’ll ever need it, and help you stay well and strong. That’s food for thought.

A New Decade and Reason for Hope

Let’s welcome Gene Baur, CSL’s newest Blog Posse member! Today, Gene highlights some of the legislative victories for animals over the last decade. But, he also points that we have a long way to go in our fight for animal rights. We can all make a difference today by participating in Meatless Monday!

The first decade of this millennium has been marked by stark contrasts. Industrialized animal farming continued to expand and gain control over an ever greater share of the marketplace, and the number of animals exploited for food in the U.S. increased steadily, reaching 10 billion per year. At the same time, there’s been growing public awareness and unprecedented opposition to the waste, inefficiency and abuses of animal agriculture. While agribusiness spends billions of dollars to sell its products, bestselling books like “Skinny Bitch” and “Eating Animals” have exposed millions to the harms of factory farming for the first time.

At the beginning of the last decade, no U.S. law existed to prohibit cruel confinement systems, like veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages. In fact, most state anti-cruelty laws exempted farm animals from basic humane protections. But, over the past decade, some states took action to outlaw common factory farming cruelties. Two states passed laws to ban battery cages (CA, MI), five passed laws to ban veal crates (AZ, CA, CO, ME, MI), and seven passed laws to ban gestation crates (AZ, CA, CO, FL, OR, ME, MI). Responding to growing public pressure, Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, pledged to phase out gestation crates (2–foot-wide metal enclosures where female breeding pigs are confined for years). We have a long way to go, but as the new decade dawns, we are poised to see additional laws and policies enacted to prevent cruel factory farming practices.

The last decade started with Farm Sanctuary suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to compel the agency to prohibit the marketing and slaughter of downed animals (animals who are too sick or injured even to stand) for human food. By the end of the decade, the Obama administration had locked in a federal ban on slaughtering downed cattle for human food. A similar ban should be enacted to apply to pigs and other species.

The Obama family recently planted an organic vegetable garden at the White House to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables, and the USDA established a community garden, dubbed “The People’s Garden,” at its headquarters in the nation’s capital. I recently moved to Washington, D.C. to further our work with policy makers to protect animals, consumers and the environment, and promote plant-based agriculture.

We are in the midst of a growing food movement, and I am optimistic about the coming decade. As agribusiness interests convene for meetings to discuss ways to defend their practices, compassionate citizens are picking up steam. Scientists and researchers at leading universities and institutions are issuing reports that decry the many harms of animal agriculture.

At the end of the last decade, for the first time in generations, the USDA’s year-end records showed that the number of animals killed for food in the U.S. dropped. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a solid trend, along with the increasing number of farmer’s markets, community supported agriculture programs and community gardens across the U.S. We have a long way to go, but there is definitely reason for hope.

35 Years on a Small Organic Farm

A slice of Edible Heaven

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nowhere is this truer than on a small organic farm deep in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. On Earth Day last week I craved a reality check, so I called my friends Rusty and Sue Nuffer, who have spent most of the past four decades with their hands deep in the dirt. When I called, Sue picked up the phone out in the packing shed. She was laughing watching Rusty across the field hefting irrigation pipes high against a tree to scare out any sleeping rodents about to be drowned. Sue had been planting rows of tomatoes in a new soil cocktail they’ve cooked up.  Each year they grow an ever-changing and wide variety of exotic gourmet vegetables.  It’s been over ten years since my last visit to their little slice of edible heaven, yet the picture they painted is just as I remembered it. Meanwhile the business of organic farming has changed dramatically over the years, with many of those changes – good and bad – coming recently and rapidly on the wings of technology. Sue and Rusty took some time out from under the spring sun to talk to me about the life of a small organic farmer in 2009.

“When we first started out, our goal was just self-sufficiency,” Rusty said. “We wanted to get out of the cities, live close to the earth.” Like so many others, they were burned-out on the 60’s and wanted to get off the grid, disengage from the system. “We were disgusted trying to do social change.” The back-to-land movement was happening all over the country and Rusty and Sue, from Michigan and Ohio, were part of a group that found cheap land in the remote Ozarks. “I paid ten grand for an old 80-acre hill farm that had been unused for years.” Rusty said.  The beautiful spot is surrounded by State Forest and to this day is still 20 miles from the nearest blacktop. Sue and her family were on another farm a few miles away. “We all became expert in gardening because we were growing our own food. It was instinctual,” said Sue, “we didn’t think to grow to sell. Everything was barter.”

Over the next decade, some of the homesteaders drifted back to the ‘burbs, leaving devoted earthies like Rusty and Sue to hang in for the long haul. Famous back-to-land pioneers Helen and Scott Nearing once told them the two simple rules to succeed: Find good land and find a good partner. You can’t do it alone. Each previously married with kids, Rusty and Sue were a perfect match. “We’re so fortunate we work together so well.” And work they do: for much of the year, it’s sun up to sundown, 6 or 7 days a week. “Bug infestation on the potatoes. No rain. Broken machine. It’s always something and you never get ahead of it.” Sue adds: “It’s like having 10,000 children and they all want attention.”

Making a Living

Their first taste of wide distribution came with Sue’s blueberries. “At that time, if you had an organic product, you could sell it – as long as you could get it shipped,” she said.  It was the early 80’s and organic distribution was still a quaint affair. “We organized 20 farms to sell together so we could get a truck to stop through Arkansas from one of the big national buyers.”

Then sometime in the late 80’s things began to change. The big boys saw mega green in their futures and started moving into organics. These corporate growers pushed for weak certification laws.  In California, for example, a farmer at the time only needed to stop spraying chemicals for a single year in order to be certified organic. “One year we’re getting $18 for a box of green peppers. The next year they’re coming out of California at $6.” Said Rusty. “The box alone cost us a dollar! All the big growers were selling below cost to knock out all us small producers.” The little fish continued to struggle under the price-war tsunami throughout the nineties. Many went belly up. “That’s when we started going to the farmers market.”

By the late nineties, organics had tipped into the mainstream. A feedback loop escalated between public interest and business, with Whole Foods leading the way. The company was on a Pac-Man roll, gobbling up Mom&Pop stores across the country. But many of the most devoted customers missed the intimacy and transparency of the old ways. Farmers Markets sprang up across the country so people could shake their farmer’s hand.  And for growers like Rusty and Sue, Farmers Markets became popular just in time.  Most Saturdays for about ten years they got up at 3am and drove two hours to the River Market in Little Rock. “It was like a rock and roll tour. Except our curtain went up at sunrise,” says Rusty. “We kicked butt down there.”  They hired extra help to deal with the crowds three and four deep at their long tables. “We had colors of things no one had ever seen. Five colors of carrots. People would take pictures” The duo became famous as ‘the potato people’ because of their exotic spuds – one year they grew 28 varieties. Some of the top restaurants in the area became devoted customers. They both speak fondly of their years at the market, and it’s about much more than money. “The people were just fantastic. We met so many good friends there. It was so satisfying to get the personal reaction when people love your food.”

But eventually the brutal schedule took a toll and Rusty and Sue had to fold up the tables and tent for good. “We weren’t much good on sundays, and we can’t afford to be dragging. We started burning out.”

Virtual Farmers Markets

In the handful of years since giving up the Farmer’s Markets, Rusty and Sue have had to innovate once again to reach customers. “We’re at a real disadvantage being so remote,” says Sue, “we’ve never been able to ship directly to customer and we can’t do the CSA thing.” Community Supported Agriculture is a big trend now. Customers are like shareholders. Paying a flat annual fee entitles them to drop by their farm each week and pick up a box of whatever happens to be harvesting. Despite their popularity, they aren’t ideal for consumer choice.

Enter the internet. Until last month, Armstead Mountain Farm was tethered to the brave new world by a raggedy dial-up connection that worked sporadically at best. They used it mostly to email their grown kids scattered across the globe. The Nuffers are not exactly techies anyway. Until a few years ago, Rusty loved plowing with his prized draft horses, even as a tractor sat nearby. They’d rather have the glow of sun on their faces than a flickering screen. But even this down-to-earth duo has found salvation in the web. They splurged on a satellite dish last month and it’s opened up a new world for their business.

Several years ago, a farmer and techno geek in Athens, Georgia put up a community site called locallygrown.net to help farmers and customers connect. In a short time it has grown to over serve 800 growers in 50 networks nationwide, with many more coming online this season. Last year Rusty and Sue gave it a try and helped create their local network. They also joined two other smaller online networks.  “We love it. It’s perfect for us,” says Sue. “On Sunday night we post what we’ll have for the week.  Buyers log on Monday through Wednesday and place orders.” Late in the week, they drive their orders to drop-off points manned by volunteers. “We pay a 10% fee to help maintain the network, but compared to the cost of gas and renting the booth at the real Farmer’s Market, it’s a bargain.” One familiar casualty of this virtual market, however, is the personal touch. “We really do miss the one-on-one connection. We get feedback through the volunteers, but it’s not the same as seeing the smile on their face.” Rusty and Sue feel better knowing that their carbon footprint has been drastically reduced now that they’re not driving all the way to Little Rock.

Staying Alive

I asked if it’s easier or harder to get into this game now compared to when they started.  Rusty said, “It was actually much more possible in the early days because things were cheap. Nowadays about the only way for young people to get started is to inherit some land.” While Rusty and Sue are too busy to follow every detail of the politics and policy of food, they do stay well-informed and activist.  They use the internet more and more to stay up to date. “The upcoming regulations are a little scary. It depends how it’s enforced,” says Rusty, “the most important thing to keep in mind is scalability.”  Indeed, what works for the little guy is not the same as what works for the big guy, and small farmers are carefully watching the legislation for signs of big-business power.

After the USDA took over the organic certification process, many small farmers, including Rusty and Sue, just couldn’t afford to use the label. “You have to keep so many records for every crop. That’s fine for the guy with one crop on two hundred acres. It’s a killer for us with fifty crops on four acres.” Of the dozen or so farmers in their locallygrown.net network, only one carries the USDA Organic seal – even though Rusty and Sue have actually always far surpassed the standards. “It didn’t make a bit of difference at the Farmer’s Market because everyone knew us. Now, with the online thing, it would probably help to get certified again.”

There are other roadblocks. The Whole Foods in Little Rock won’t buy from local farmers unless they have a one million dollar liability insurance policy. “I guess that’s in case somebody chokes on our carrot,” said Sue.  And so, not surprisingly, big trucks with California license plates dominate the store’s loading docks.

But despite the challenges, Rusty and Sue remain optimistic. “It depends which pages of the newspaper you read. There’s plenty of good news in between plenty of bad news.” They’re very encouraged to see so many people interested in their way of life and the role of food in caring about the planet. The Obama’s vegetable garden was something they never thought they’d see, and Sue was delighted that the White House involved local school kids. “Right now the average age for a farmer is 51.” But she’s seeing a whole new wave of enthusiastic, idealistic young people that reminds her of their early days all over again. Rusty’s daughter Rose is following in his footsteps, working on farms across England for an organization called WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.

Rusty and Sue have been living sustainably since long before terms like carbon footprint, localvore, and slow food became bandwagon buzzwords. But they’re not the least bit tempted to gloat now that the rest of the world has caught up on the path they’ve blazed by gut intuition for years.  In an era when green-washing threatens to consumerize and water down the movement, the simplicity and beauty of the Nuffer’s daily lives are a rich reality check. “This year we’re excited about a new potato we’re trying. It’s called ‘purple majesty’ and it tests higher than any other food ever for one important anti-oxidant,” says Sue. Their world centers around the soil. They’re forever experimenting with new methods to enrich and re-mineralize mother earth. Lately Rusty’s been exploring an ancient Amazonian technique known as Terra Preta, where high-potency charcoal is carefully introduced over many years.

“We’re just pretty dang lucky, that’s all,” says Rusty. It’s their favorite thing to say when you praise them too much. “The perks are that you work in the freshest restaurant in the world!” Sue said, “and just being close to nature all the time – taking care of the planet is spiritual.”

So before I went back to my keyboard and they to their dirt, I asked what they did for Earth Day. They nearly forgot the date. “Every day is Earth Day,” said Rusty, “Earth Month. Earth Year…. It’s an Earth Life, I guess. That’s what it needs to be. Keep that awareness all the time.”

Further Reading:
Locally Grown.net
WWOOF
Helen and Scott Nearing
Terra Preta
Sue’s recommended gardening book:
John Jeavons’ How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine

Behind the Scenes with Bo

Now that Bo Obama has been officially introduced to the public, I’m free to tell a little of my story… For the past several months, I’ve been working for the Secret Service on Bo’s security detail. I saw it all: the covert potty training up at Camp Kennedy, the top secret trysts to visit the first family, and finally, I oversaw the security nightmare that was last Tuesday’s official sniff-and-greet with the press corps on the White House lawn. I’m not at liberty to discuss details, but I can show you some declassified pictures…

On edge when the entire chain of command is present.

My proudest moment was last Tuesday as POTUS and DOGUS were romping for the cameras. Suddenly, out of the corner of my nose, I identified a foreign object on the otherwise pristine lawn. I immediately lunged to neutralize the threat, tackling Bo and tripping the President out of harm’s way. My vigilance paid off: the object was later determined to be a stick! For my bravery, I received a medallion of liver jerky.

But it’s not all glamor. You’re on hyper-alert 24-7. Here’s some behind the scenes stuff of the day-in-the-life of a Secret Service dog:

Riding Shotgun takes on a whole new meaning

Keeping a close eye on weirdos and Fox News reporters

There’s actually a long, distinguished history with the Secret Service in my family:

My great-great uncle protecting Amy Carter and her cat Misty Malarkey Ying Yang.

My great-great-great grandfather was on duty the day LBJ picked his beagle up by the ears.

Malia and the gang asked me to stay on for a permanent gig. It was a tremendous honor to serve my country and this nice family, and I would have loved to continue, but in the end it would have been too hard on my family to pick up and move to D.C.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to dig some dirt for you. What’s Bo like? Well, I can say he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, being a pure bred and all. But he’s a nice kid. He’s determined to use his position to raise awareness of important issues, like dander allergies. He’s handled the breeder vs adoption controversy with class. Imagine the pressure he’s under. I know I wouldn’t be able to deal always worrying about cameras every time I take a squat. And if I tear up a vegetable garden, inner city school kids don’t go hungry. No, I don’t envy him. But he’s got character, just like his family, and I think he’ll adjust to life inside the bubble just fine.

UPDATE: check out the exclusive behind-the-scenes pics from my photo shoot for this blog HERE!

News World Order

When I was a kid I had a paper route. It was a pretty good gig: after school my dog Tyrone and I would cruise the neighborhood stuffing the Pittsburgh Press into mailboxes or screen doors. On Sundays I’d pull my brother’s old go-cart then bomb it empty down the steep hill home. I’d read the papers as I went, learning about my town and the world beyond. This little Norman-Rockwell-in-bell-bottoms-scene didn’t last long, however. Within a few years of my passing the baton to the next punk, paperboys were gone – killed off by a greasy old creep from somewhere else driving my route – and many others – in his rusty Cordoba. The mercenaries had wiped us out. My first lesson that news is business.

There’s a lot of news about the news these days. The internet has caught the old guard off guard. Newspapers, in particular, have had a hard time adapting and are in a dire free-fall. Major city papers across the country, having bled money for years, are finally going belly up. Seattle, Denver, San Francisco. Small local papers are dropping like flies. This week monoliths like The New York Times and The Washington Post announced major layoffs as their stock prices keep falling. Politicians are talking about media bailouts. Are we witnessing the death of the newspaper?

Then again, so what? Polls show a majority of Americans don’t really care if their local paper folds. After all, long before the internet, they began leaving newspapers in favor of the sirens-and-fires coverage on the local TV news. Each era must ride changes in technology – the town crier once lost his job to the printing press. But that’s assuming news is news. It is not. Newspapers are very good at in-depth investigative journalism. Whether it’s blockbuster stuff like Watergate and whistleblowers or small time stuff like your town council jerk taking grease for a building permit, journalism matters in our lives. There’s no substitute for a snooping reporter to keep it all real and honest. Can our new modes of information carry the torch? After years of doom and gloom, we’re starting to see the News World Order take shape in a positive way, led by President Obama.

What’s the News World Order look like? On Thursday, the President held the first-ever internet town hall meeting. 100,000 people submitted questions – some of them video – and more than 3,000,000 people voted on their favorites. Obama answered the winning questions, streaming live on the White House website. His campaign for the presidency is legendary for bringing politics into the 21st century by harnessing the power of the internet. One of the founders of Facebook ran his online community campaign, which created a foot soldier army never before seen. It’s been fascinating and encouraging to watch him, now that he’s President, transform the White House website into an interactive hub that includes hipster stuff like blogs and videos. In his press conferences, too, he’s shaken things up by calling on reporters from websites – Huffington Post and Politico – which is hugely symbolic of the shift towards the power of new media. Now, I view all this democratic flash and sparkle with a healthy dose of Orwellian skepticism. But if delivered even partially as promised, it’s a brave new era of populist power.

By the way, I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert and I don’t view them, as many do, as the death of civilization. I think that in between the jokes, they often have very important things to say that the corporate media is too afraid to tackle. I’m not really worried that the youngins are keeping up with the world through these guys.

But while comedy news and sites like the Huffington Post have been heralded as the model of the future, people seem to forget that they mostly gather and mash other people’s news. It’s symbiotic. Somebody’s still got to pay the original reporters. Huff’s staff and budget are a tiny fraction of the New York Times. This is beginning to change. Huffington is doing a great job expanding into original reporting. Bloggers are beginning to gain the clout and access necessary to serve an important role in the post-newspaper world. And this means less power to the corporate giants, which is always a good thing. We just have to keep our eye on the ball. We have to demand real reporting and reward those who perform it. And here is where, to my wife Kris’ amusement, I insert a few quotes from my main man Thomas Jefferson: “The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being”, “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.”

The paperboy days are gone. How will our kids learn about the world? How do you get your news?