As consumer interest in how our food is produced has increased, so too has the use of subtle imagery of happy livestock grazing in lush pastures on food packaging. They’re backed up by claims like “all natural,” “cage free” and “organic.” Yet in many cases these labels bear no resemblance whatsoever to how the animals are raised.

Meaningless claims

While you might think you’re buying food that’s better for animals, for the environment, and/or for your health, the sad truth is that many of the terms and claims on meat, milk and eggs actually mean very little. They are used to hide the same old intensive farming systems that have been used for decades, a billion-dollar business that does not have animal welfare on its short list of priorities.

The intensive farming industry doesn’t want you to know what goes on behind its locked gates, because the chances are if you did, you wouldn’t want to touch your food — let alone eat it. If food manufacturers were legally required to use actual images from the farming systems, most standard egg cartons would be adorned with horrific images of row upon row of caged hens, all with their beaks trimmed to prevent them pecking each other. Pork products would  display images of pigs packed indoors in concrete-floored pens, the sows confined in gestation crates. Most of the beef products would have to show the thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — of cattle crammed together on each of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) that supply 90% of all U.S. beef, where they have no access to pasture and are fed an unhealthy diet of corn and grain and antibiotic growth promoters.

Nothing natural about it

Two of the most common terms you’ll find on meat products are “All Natural” and “Naturally Raised.” Both terms arguably suggest that livestock have a “natural” life, with access to pasture. Yet the term “All Natural” has nothing to do with how an animal was raised and simply means the product contains no artificial ingredients or added colors, and that it was minimally processed. “All Natural” ground beef in stores almost certainly comes from cattle who spent their last three to six months on a dirt-yard CAFO. And while manufacturers who use the “Naturally Raised” label must take steps to ensure the livestock involved were raised without growth promotants and not fed animal byproducts, the animals are usually confined in feedlots or cages. Although there are no independent checks to make sure the rules are being followed.

“Cage free” eggs are becoming increasingly popular as more people refuse to buy eggs from battery cage systems. While “cage free” eggs may come from hens raised without cages, they almost all spend their lives indoors in vast barns or warehouses with thousands of other hens in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions, and receive routine antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease. As the “cage free” hens still don’t have much space to move around, beak cutting is routinely practiced on them as well, to stop them from pecking each other to death.

When food labels that say organic aren’t

Many people put their faith in the “certified organic” logo. Yet  an increasing number of headlines show unscrupulous operators are exploiting the weaknesses in the organic rules to introduce practices associated with industrial farming. In 2010, the Cornucopia Institute  investigated organic egg production and found numerous instances across the U.S. where industrial-scale operations were managing thousands of hens in single houses without offering adequate access to the outdoors — yet they could legally sell their eggs as organic. These operations make a mockery of the organic principles and threaten the livelihoods of countless real organic poultry farmers who are farming to the high standards consumers rightly expect.

There are even problems among some of the “humane” certified labels. Despite claims that products carrying the American Humane Certified label have met rigorous welfare standards, this animal welfare certification supports caged production for chickens and doesn’t require pasture access for any farmed species. Hardly what most people would consider “humane” practice.

So how can you spot a meaningful label from a spurious claim? Animal Welfare Approved — the industry leader in auditing and certifying family farms to the highest welfare standards — has published “Food Labeling for Dummies.” This free 16-page guide is designed to help decipher the most common terms and claims found on food packaging and, most important, determine whether they have been independently verified. Download a free copy or call (800) 373-8806.

Top photo composite:

Andrew Gunther and guide cover. Credit: Courtesy of Animal Welfare Institute

The post What’s Hiding Behind Our Food Labels? Deceit. appeared first on Zester Daily.

Back home in Berkeley, Calif., there is so much really good traditional roast chicken available in restaurants and takeout shops — with French names like Poulet, Café Rouge, Bistro Liaison and Nizza la Bella (“Beautiful Nice”) — that I’m not sure whether my Paris binge was an homage to the gallocentric traditions in France that helped shape my passion for the humble roast, or merely a transatlantic extension of a preexisting culinary condition.

Granted, our farm-raised (poulet fermier) chicken production in the Bay Area (and the U.S. generally) does not yet measure up to France’s Label Rouge poultry program (See French Chicken, Part 1). And we are about 15 years behind European standards for animal welfare, according to advocates I’ve talked to.

But if Paris beats Berkeley in the overall quality of its poultry, not so in the roasting. Parisians seem to be taking their well-bred birds for granted these days, at least in their bistro kitchens if not in their homes and outdoor markets.

A tale of two birdies

At celebrity chef Guy Savoy’s L’Atelier Maître Albert in Paris’ 5th Arrondissement, the handsome wall-sized rotisserie had two enticing birds (from the les Landes region) twirling away on their spit, just waiting for me, right? Wrong.

About 25 minutes after ordering the 22-euro (about $28) Volaille fermière rôtie, my two small so-so-tasting chicken pieces, a small leg and quarter breast, arrived nestled against a typical mound of buttery bistro purée.

Love-y dove-y French chickens at L’Atelier Maître Albert. Credit: L. John Harris

Those love birds, still spinning as I left, were apparently all show and no go.

So where had my chicken pieces come from, the stork?

French chicken loves garlic

Equally disappointing was the Provençal-style roast chicken with thyme and whole cloves of garlic touted at La Bastide Odéon in the 6th Arrondisement. The traditional Provençal combination of chicken and garlic was popularized in the U.S. by folks like James Beard with their variations on the classic poulet aux quarante gousse d’ail (chicken with 40 cloves of garlic).

Either Beard was dreaming, or there was a garlic harvest blight in France last summer because my skinless chunks of white meat and a small leg were served with just one clove of garlic! It hadn’t even caramelized into that soft, sweetly nutty puddle of garlic heaven one expects. And what was with the skinless breast meat? Poulet rôti sacrilege!

The best chicken in the world?

Of the many poulet rôtis I gobbled down in Paris bistros, the only real standout was the 85-euro (about $108) whole chicken for two at Chez L’Ami Louis in the 3rd Arrondissement. This is the notoriously high-end, old-school bistro that food critics love to hate — including A.A. Gill who labeled it “the worst restaurant in the world” in his rather hilarious 2010 Vanity Fair thrashing of the place.

Inducement enough for me to go! I’m a bit of a rubbernecking ambulance chaser when it comes to hatchet-job restaurant reviews — I like to see (and taste) the damage for myself. On occasion, like this one, I even write rebuttals.

Not only was L’Ami Louis’ bird (a black-legged Label Rouge “noir” bird from the Challans region) moist and flavorful and its delicate skin crisp, but the bird was graciously served (Gill found the servers at L’Ami Louis “sullen”) in two brilliant courses — white meat first, then dark — both accompanied by ladles of perfect jus. If anything at L’Ami Louis was sullen, it was the limp mound of pommes frites served with the chicken.

Adding to the pleasingly retro pomp at L’Ami Louis, our server had first brought the whole roasted bird to the table for our inspection before carving, like a proud father showing off his newborn.

Honoring the humble poulet rôti at L’Ami Louis. Credit: L. John Harris

I have experienced this kind of poultry love ritual — usually reserved for home-roasted turkeys at Thanksgiving — only once before. Counterintuitively, it was at Wolfgang Puck’s upscale steak house, Cut, in Los Angeles, where the server shows off a small, locally-grown and brined poussin before carving and plating. Was I envious of the person at the next table with their $150 Japanese Wagyu rib eye? Well, just a little, though my $38 chicken was plenty good.

All you need is love, love, love

One of the tastiest, and surely the most love-infused roast chickens I had all summer was at the home of my American friend David Jester and his French wife Evy. Our Label Rouge plein air “jaune” bird (yellow skin and feet) purchased from Boucherie Dumont near Place Monge in the Latin Quarter, was raised in the Ain region in eastern France, where celebrity Bresse chickens come from. After 90 minutes in the oven, the coarse salt-rubbed five-pound bird had deliciously crisp skin and juicy, rosemary-scented meat. Evy served the bird with the pan juices and the caramelized carrots, garlic cloves and lemon rind that had roasted alongside the bird for the last hour in the oven. Heaven.

Evy’s home-roasted paradigm. Credit: L. John Harris

Evy says that the secret of her chicken’s succulent flesh and crisp skin, learned from her mother, is to start the bird out in a cold oven set at 400 degrees F. An interesting technique to be sure, but I can’t agree. Evy’s real secret, I believe, which I think too many Parisian chefs and restaurateurs have sadly forgotten, is that you must — and I say this at the risk of sounding pathetically Berkeley — love poulet rôti, love making it well and love those you are serving to do gastronomic justice to an honored bird, whether in Paris or Berkeley, or anywhere else.

Top illustration credit: L. John Harris

The post French Chicken, Part 2: Chicken-Lickin’ Tour of Paris appeared first on Zester Daily.

No surprise, then, that the signature French cigarette brand, Gauloise, features a highly stylized chicken logo on its blue package. The national motto of France — liberté, égalité, fraternité – was printed on that blue package back in the day when the New Wave movie star Jean-Paul Belmondo was often seen on screen with a Gauloise hanging from his full, pouty lips. Well, does a French chicken have lips?

As staple food and cherished symbol of freedom, the humble (sometimes comedic) chicken is at the very foundation of French culture and identity. King Henri IV knew this well when, in the 16th century, he called for a chicken in every peasant’s pot.

Sticker shock

I came to appreciate the special place (and price) of chicken in French culture this past summer while eating an awful lot of poulet rôti in Paris bistros and cafés. I plucked roasted chickens from twirling rotisseries at boucheries (butcher shops) and marchés (outdoor markets) all over town. There was a wonderful home-roasted chicken too (see description in Part 2), as one might expect from a culture that gave us the simple but delicious comfort food tradition known as cuisine de bonne femme.

But getting a handle on France’s highly evolved farm-raised poultry industry (poulet fermier) and its exhaustively (and sometimes confusingly) labeled products seems to require an advanced degree in agricultural science, if not French culture and linguistics.

Among the most pampered chickens in France, perched at the pinnacle of France’s poultry hierarchy, are birds élevé en liberté or “raised in liberty.” This term is proudly printed on the colorful labels attached to pricey packages of poultry sold under France’s prestigious Label Rouge certification program.

It’s no accident that the term adopted for France’s premium birds appears first, ahead of both “égalité” and “fraternité,” in its national motto. It took almost the entire 19th century for the revolutionary tripartite motto’s terms and sequence to become fixed. Extending the term liberté to identify and market France’s finest poultry was set in motion in the 1960s when the Label Rouge program was launched.

French chicken a little less free

The liberté-raised birds are allowed to roam outdoors without fences or time restrictions. “Totally free” is another translation for “élevé en liberté.” Accordingly, these birds command the highest prices in French shops, save for organic (bio) poultry and specialty birds like those from the region around Bourg-en-Bresse in the east of France, which are AOC protected and produced, it is claimed, under conditions even more demanding than Label Rouge.

But there is no one-term-fits-all label in France for free-range birds as in the U.S. An existential notch below élevé en liberté chickens are those élevé en plein air, or raised out-of-doors. These plein air chickens (and ducks, geese, turkeys, etc.) are required under the Label Rouge program to have ample time to range outside their coops within a fenced but generous area of no less than 21 square feet per bird. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s more lax standards require only that free-range poultry producers give their birds unspecified and unverified time outdoors with no space requirements. Home, home on the range? Well, at least once in awhile, if they are lucky.

Note that plein air is the same term used to describe the Impressionist landscape painting style of the late 19th century when French oil painting was liberated from the confines and subject matter of academic studio painting. Free-range painters.

From a French existentialist perspective

The freedom- and chicken-loving French may be all about liberty for themselves and their winged comestibles, but no matter how strict and humane the regulations under a certification program like Label Rouge (and several programs in the U.S. that emulate the standards), the chicken in France is far from free, existentially speaking. Modern chickens and all their related galliformes, whether free-range or factory-farmed, are bred, raised, slaughtered, labeled and consumed at the complete whim (and profit) of humans.

Any resemblance of this chart to any other French poultry labeling system is purely coincidental. Illustration credit: L. John Harris

As one butcher put it to me when I asked a lot of questions about the chicken I was investing in (a lovely plein air bird raised just outside the Bresse appellation, and at a more palatable price), “If chickens were really free to range they would take off and never return.” I laughed and shot back a gallinaceous variation on Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line from his existentialist play, “No Exit,” “Yea, hell is other chickens.”

But after all the existential considerations of French poultry and the euphemistic terminology used by compassionate (and clever) carnivores to market it, one still has to cook the bird, and cook it well to fully appreciate its culinary virtues.

In Part 2 of this report, I present critical findings from my chicken-tasting tour of Parisian restaurants, shops, farmers markets and homes. The results may surprise you, as they did me.

Top photo: Chicken labels in a Paris shop window. Credit: L. John Harris

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Although there’s been a chronic drought throughout the Southwest, there’s plenty of water in the ditch that runs through the middle of this sublime land.

Through the 1970s, the James’ raised five children on grass-finished meats, high ideals and the concept of stewarding the land. When these kids graduated from high school, Kay and Dave pushed them out of the nest into the world of higher education and self-sufficiency. They were told if they wanted to return to the ranch in the future, they should bring back something that would add to the already flourishing ranch. And while the mainstay of the ranch continues to be the beef, all the kids have finally come home. And they’ve come home with their talent.

Julie James and her husband, John Ott, raise free-range chickens for eggs, and blue spruce trees. Jennifer and her husband, Joe Wheeling, raise fresh produce, flowers and herbs. Dan James and his wife, Becca, raise pigs and Jersey milk cows for raw milk and artisan cheese. The James food is available at the Durango Farmers Market and also at their own truly exceptional roadside farm market just above where they all live in the Animas Valley.

A second generation returns to the land at James Ranch

Two years ago, Cynthia James Stewart — the third child and last to come home — pulled all the blessings of the ranch together by creating a roadside grill that serves the ranches’ own hamburgers, cheese and bratwurst, thus making the ranch a real destination for dining.

Unlike the rest of the gang, when Cynthia returned to the ranch, she had no plan. She and her husband Robert were not “rancher-type” people. Her siblings suggested she raise meat birds. She just shook her head. But while she and Robert waited for their epiphany, they worked the farm market.

In her former life, Cynthia had been trained at the Fashion Institute in New York City, and then she’d worked for Ralph Lauren. After that she worked for an environmental company that specialized in water filtration equipment.

“Folks laughed when I told them soon they’d be spending more on bottled water than gas,” she said.

When she met Robert 11 years ago, he was in the mortgage industry. They’d both reached a point in their careers where they were ready for something new around which they could build a family. Soon after they began thinking about adoption, Cynthia knew she had to get back to the ranch.

At the bottom of the ranch property in the old hay barn was a wreck of a trailer that Cynthia’s brother Dan kept saying the family had to get rid of. Cynthia asked her youngest brother, Justin James, who was in the restaurant business, how much he thought it would take to put a basic grill and griddle into the cart. She imagined “people sitting around eating all our food, looking out on all of this beauty — the mountains, the cows, the chickens, you know …”

The trailer had to be completely gutted, which estimates showed would cost about $5,000. In the end, the final cost, which included obtaining many permits and putting in a Bob’s John, was nearer to $18,000.

“Before I married Robert I didn’t cook. At 35 years old, I started,” Cynthia said. “I fell in love with how my family were scientifically rediscovering nature’s harmony of food production. I was amazed at how my dad moved the cows each day, how he’d figured out how much grass each one needed.

“My brother Dan’s milk cows only ate grass and what an effort to make sure they get enough food for milk production. He doesn’t supplement with grain. And how much Jennifer has to go through with her vegetables because we’re at high altitude.

“And the huge amount of work Julie has with her chickens and their eggs. She has 450 now! It’s a lot of work.”

The Harvest Grill and Greens

Cynthia and Robert and The Harvest Grill and Greens are now part of the James Ranch circle. Most all of the ingredients are sourced from the James Ranch, including the meat, cheese, tomatoes, all the salad material, and the currant sauce. The blue chips come from the local “chip peddler,” and the bread from local bakeries. All the recipes are Cynthia’s, and she’s not giving away the recipe for her “signature sauce” for the burger.

The Harvest Grill and Green. Credit: Andrew Lipton

During summer, the grill has two cooks, one of whom is Robert. In winter, the grill is open only on Saturdays when Cynthia makes chili, stew, sloppy Joes, and other fun food.

“By the end of September, I’ll have a basement full of my sister Jennifer’s squash. I’ll use her squash and pumpkins through March in soups and stews. I take all her Roma tomatoes, put them in olive oil, roast them and then freeze them. Robert is always reminding me how expensive my ingredients are. We have Annie’s ketchup and organic Dijon mustard … probably why we got voted best burger. We use real food, organic, no non-sweetened, no corn syrup, everything the way nature wanted it to be.”

The Harvest Grill and Greens puts all the James Ranch pieces of the food puzzle together. In July, they fed between 120 to 160 meals a day. June and August were also fabulous. “All of us at the James Ranch want people to come to their food source and delight in it. The stars of our show are the remarkable cheese, our grass-finished cows and our organic vegetables. Those things and my recipes using all this great food, ties us together.”

So far, the James Ranch has two generations working their food. Grady James, who is 14, is teaching his first cooking class this fall. The third generation is coming up fast.

Photo: Cynthia James Stewart and Robert Stewart cooking up a hamburger and some chili in their Harvest Grill. Credit: Rick Scibelli

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Essentially, the issue is a referendum on the split between urban and country life. During World War II, backyard chicken coops and “victory gardens” planted with fruits and vegetables were considered patriotic. After the war, however, cities and suburbs passed ordinances banning livestock and poultry. Chickens disappeared, gardens shrank and manicured lawns increased. Today, many health- and wallet-conscious eaters want to turn their lawns back into vegetable gardens and raise chickens, bees and even small goats.

Where does the line get drawn between sustainable food production and residential areas? Should families, regardless of where they live, be allowed to raise food for their own consumption? Vegetable gardens are usually greeted with enthusiasm, but what if you till up your front yard and turn it into a vegetable patch? Should neighbors have to give their OK before you make that decision? If large dogs are allowed in your town, why not small goats, which would provide fresh milk? Edible gardens, bees and goats each have their advocates and detractors, but chickens are the current flash-point.

Opponents of backyard poultry voice similar arguments across the country: Chickens will disturb the peace and quiet, barnyard odors will drift over the neighborhood and cause property values to decline. Chickens will fly the coop, causing extra work for animal control officers. Some of the strongest dissenters grew up on farms. “I like chickens, I grew up with chickens,” they’re apt to say. “But I know from experience that chickens don’t belong in the city.” Large flocks in farmyard settings — even without the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that are so widespread — are very different from the modest backyard chicken coops asking for a legal pass.

Chickens are not the noisy ones

In reality, roosters, not chickens, are the noisemakers, and they’re unnecessary for egg production. The main reason for roosters, which almost all urban communities ban, is to produce more chicks. Reasonable fencing requirements can easily eliminate chickens on the run, and while there may be some irresponsible poultry owners, there are likely as many irresponsible dog and cat owners in any given community. Finally, instead of house values going down, chickens may give added value. When friends of mine recently sold their suburban home outside of Minneapolis in less than a week, they said their backyard chicken coop clinched the deal.

I’ve been raising chickens for almost five years. My four hens have unique personalities, cuddle in my arms and follow me about. Hens are quiet, and produce no more waste or odor than cats or dogs. My chickens have eliminated the slugs that nibbled my hostas and do their best to keep the rest of the bug population in check. Their eggs are more nutritious and flavorful than anything I can buy in the supermarket.

Most urban or suburban communities that permit backyard chickens limit the number of birds that can be raised. To ensure the peace, it’s important that chickens be given a minimum of 10-square-feet per bird in the coop and run. It’s also imperative that owners provide a predator-safe well-maintained environment. Small-holed fencing, such as hardware cloth, buried 6 inches deep will keep hens safe in the run and coop, even from burrowing critters. Clean feeding areas will prevent any rodent problems. Backyard hen owners should carefully research the birds they select, choosing breeds that work well for small-scale ranging or enclosure. Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks are among chickens that are more docile and less vocal — and better suited to city life.

Reasonable restrictions can keep people on both sides of the fence content.

Janice Cole is the author of “Chicken and Egg: A Memoir of Suburban Homesteading With 125 Recipes” (Chronicle Books, 2011). She is a food writer and editor and blogs regularly about her chickens at Three Swingin’ Chicks.

Photo: Janice Cole and her hen friend. Credit: Erik Saulitis

The post The Case for Backyard Chickens appeared first on Zester Daily.

The farmer had four barns full of the company’s chickens. Each barn cost almost $300,000 to build, and he alone was responsible for repaying those loans. The company, on the other hand, could cancel his contract at any time. Such situations are typical for poultry growers.

“I’m trying to figure out what I can say,” he told me. “I don’t want to make the company angry. Without that contract, I’ll lose everything.”

Many of us who love local, sustainable food assume that farmers who don’t switch to sustainable methods simply don’t care. We focus on what we, the consumers, want from farmers: good food, safe food, environmentally-friendly food. We talk about nurturing new farmers and finding land for new farmers so that we can be supplied with that good food.

We ignore the reasons why veteran farmers can’t change what they produce or how they produce it — even if they want to.

The barriers to changing farming methods are varied but pervasive: Consolidation in the food and agriculture industry has created virtual monopolies that skew markets against farmers. Farm profit margins hover in the low single digits. The USDA’s 2007 Census of Agriculture showed that only 47 percent of farms made a net profit, and only 18 percent made more than $25,000. A majority of farmers are dependent on off-farm income; among small farmers, like the ones who supply most farmers markets, more than 95 percent have an off-farm job. Farmers who grow commodities will lose their crop insurance if they switch to other crops, and without crop insurance, farmers can’t get operating loans.

Half of the world’s branded varieties of major crops belong to only four companies, giving farmers fewer choices and raising seed prices, according to a report by the National Family Farm Coalition. Farmers who don’t grow genetically-modified (GMO) grain can be sued by seed companies if GMO pollen drifts in the wind and pollinates their fields. The result? Farmers whose neighbors plant GMO seed take a risk unless they do the same. African-American farmers face the financial constraints stemming from the proven widespread discrimination by government lenders well into the 1990s. Poultry growers wind up trapped in debt when they have to pay for new buildings and equipment – but can’t get a contract long enough to recoup the investment.

Buying local, organic, sustainable, seasonal and fair-trade food is important. But to build a truly sustainable food system that can provide those things to all Americans, we must tackle these underlying issues. It will take cooperation and understanding between those in the industrial food system and those outside of it.

There are many areas where conventional farmers, organic farmers and consumers can be allies, such as the Farm Bill. This gigantic piece of federal legislation dictates our national food and farm policy — everything from commodity programs to nutrition assistance (formerly called food stamps) — for five to seven years.

The 2009 Farm Bill, for instance, authorized the USDA to write rules that would finally level the playing field between those who raise chickens and the companies that sell them. The rules strengthen arbitration processes, protect farmers’ capital investments, and reform the payment system. They would outlaw retaliation against farmers who speak out. These are protections that farmers have been seeking for decades — and will be good for anyone who raises, or eats, chickens.

“It’s not just for me,” said the poultry farmer, who finally mailed his letter. “It’s for all of us. For everybody growing chickens who is afraid to send a comment. For the organic farmers, who are going to be stuck in the same situation as we are if things keep going this way. For people who want to keep buying American-grown chicken. Somebody has to speak up.”

He had everything to lose — his farm, his livelihood, his home — but he decided to take the risk. He wasn’t alone. Thousands of farmers signed letters and showed up to hearings. These farmers are still waiting for the final rules to be issued, and they are still calling their legislators, still speaking up.

The U.S. won’t have a fair, sustainable food system if we leave behind the thousands of farmers who are trapped in an unfair system still dominated by a small number of powerful corporations. The fight for good food can’t be about sustainable agriculture versus conventional agriculture. It has to be about all of us.

Claire Hermann manages communications at the Rural Advancement Foundation International – USA, a North-Carolina-based nonprofit that cultivates markets, policies and communities that support thriving, socially just and environmentally sound family farms. She also coordinates the Come to the Table Project, a statewide initiative that brings together farmers, food security organizations, and faith communities to foster ministries that address food insecurity and strengthen the farm economy. She is the author of “Come to the Table: How People of Faith Can Relieve Hunger and Support Local Farms in North Carolina.“

The post A Patch of Common Ground appeared first on Zester Daily.

I arrived hungry. But my heart sank when I read the menu. Very little on it looked (or sounded) like food, let alone vegetables; The Veggie Grill’s specialties are “chillin’ chicken” and “veggie steak.” Menu favorites include Chill Out Wings, Thai Chickin’ salad and an array of sandwiches and burgers made with these same “specially seasoned and marinated veggie protein blends.” The menu said that all of the salads were “infused with quinoa” but I couldn’t understand how anything could be infused with a whole grain. Surely they meant “peppered.”

I sighed and ordered the Chop-Chop Chef Salad. If my salad was infused or peppered with anything, it was garlic powder, one of my least favorite tastes in all of bad cooking. Under the muted mall lighting it was a little too dark to make out the ingredients in front of me. I tasted tempeh, an acquired taste that I have never acquired, so I left most of that on the plate. I picked through the romaine and took a forkful of another “veggie protein blend.” All I could think of was my favorite French word for repugnant food: infect, meaning “foul.” I ate the lettuce, left everything else on the plate, went to the movies and dined on popcorn.

Veggie ‘meat’ is highly processed food

Veggie Grill, which operates four eateries in L.A. and Orange counties, boasts its menu is 100 percent plant-based with absolutely no cholesterol, animal fat, trans fat or high-fructose corn syrup. That may be true. But make no mistake: veggie “meat” is highly processed food. Here are the ingredients in “chillin’ chicken”: water, isolated soy protein, vital wheat gluten, natural flavors, modified vegetable gum, potato starch, expeller pressed canola oil, pea protein, carrot fiber, organic beet root fiber, organic evaporated cane juice, yeast extract, sea salt (100 grams of chillin’ chicken, or one serving, has 470 mg of sodium, which is a lot of salt for one ingredient in a dish). Veggie-steak? Same stuff, minus the modified vegetable gum, potato starch and canola oil. What is natural or whole or fresh about any of these? Nearly every one of those ingredients is processed in some fashion: a lab, not a human digestive system, pulled the protein out of the soy, the “vital” gluten out of wheat, the fiber out of the organic beet roots and (presumably not organic) carrots, the protein out of the peas.

Why turn to fake food for vegan meals when so many plant-based dishes that actually taste good already exist? Restaurant chains would do better to send their R&D people around the world and have them read cookbooks rather than the latest food industry publications. They might draw inspiration from the incredible vegetarian street food in India or a hearty Tunisian meal of couscous served with a spicy tagine of winter vegetables and chickpeas and greens. These meals beg for no meat or cheese, real or manufactured, to feel complete. When I eat in Middle Eastern restaurants, all I want are the mezze — hummus, baba ganoush, muhammara, fattoush, tabouli, deep-fried cauliflower, falafel — not because I’m vegan (I’m not), but because they’re incredibly, intensely flavorful.

The Greeks have been fasting in accordance with the Orthodox calendar for hundreds of years, and they have an extraordinary repertoire of high-protein vegan dishes. For a little less than half the year (48 days before Easter, 40 days before Christmas, and various lesser fasting periods) observant Greeks abstain from all animal products except certain shellfish and mollusks. The range of bean and vegetable main dishes in the Greek repertoire is striking; every region has its specialties. Extremely healthy, these dishes contain no saturated fat whatsoever and lots of fiber. Many of the traditional dishes are called “olive oil dishes” (ladera) because they’re cooked with copious amounts of extra virgin olive oil. I tone it down a bit in my recipes, but still use enough so that when the beans and/or vegetables simmer in the oil and liquid in the pot, the broth is alchemized to a velvety sauce.

Tofu has a long and delicious culinary tradition in Asian cuisines. It may be stir-fried with rice, noodles and vegetables, or simmered in a miso soup, or eaten cold, with dipping sauces — but it isn’t turned into some kind of fake “meat” with a made up name, and it’s no substitute for cheese (As Deborah Madison says so eloquently in her classic, “Vegetarian Cooking for Everybody”: “I like tofu, but not in my lasagna.”). It is what it is. Which is what food should be.

This problem with vegetarian cooking is nothing new. Soy burgers have been around since the ’70s, when I began my career as a vegetarian cook, and probably longer. I think it stems from a fixation on protein and the notion that meat is the only viable source. If you stopped eating meat in the ’70s, the first question your mother asked was “how are you going to get enough protein?” Never mind that we as a nation probably get too much protein to begin with. It didn’t occur to most cooks at that time to look to other culinary traditions for the answer, but today we have lots of exposure to the world’s cuisines. Now there is no excuse for “chillin’ chicken” and “veggie steak.”

Zester Daily contributor Martha Rose Shulman is the award-winning author of more than 25 cookbooks. Her latest is “The Very Best of Recipes for Health,” published by Rodale.

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Americans have a seemingly insatiable appetite for meat, poultry, dairy and eggs, even as food safety issues increasingly become headline news. What many people are coming to realize, however, is that the majority of these farm animals are no longer raised on the pastures and barnyards of family farms but inside CAFOs: concentrated animal feeding operations. The farming of animals in these crowded, often filthy, factory-like facilities raises a host of health, environmental and ethical concerns. Salmonella is just the tip of the iceberg.

The concept behind the CAFOs is simple: Cram as many animals into the smallest possible space for maximum growth at the least expense. Laying hens and hogs seem to suffer the harshest fate under this system. A conventional laying hen lives out her days in a wire confinement pen called a battery cage. Confined in the cage with a number of other cell mates, she is normally allotted an area little smaller than a cubic foot to live out her short productive life, never experiencing the outdoors, scratching the dirt, naturally socializing or enjoying any privacy to nest. As soon as her productivity declines in a year or two, she is removed from the cage and slaughtered for processing (for pot pies or soups), asphyxiated (because her meat is not worth the expense of processing) or sometimes buried alive and composted. Charles Dickens would have a hard time conjuring a grimmer scenario.

The CAFO industry, some farmers and even the U.S. Department of Agriculture insist that factory-farm systems that house thousands of battery cages in a single building are necessary and even better for the birds and for food safety. It’s certainly true that all food production systems — small, medium, and large; organic, pasture-based and industrial; local, national and international — are prone to risks of contamination. But with tens or hundreds of thousands of animals in close confinement, when something goes wrong inside a CAFO, it can spread far and fast. Contamination can quickly sweep through the integrated production networks of feed and hatcheries, through an animal population and out into the food system. Iowa is a perfect example: Those half a billion recalled eggs came from just two so-called “farms” with 7.5 million hens between them.

Industry is quick to counter-attack that shifting to cage-free, pasture-raised or organic egg laying operations will mean higher check-out prices. Economic conditions being what they are, any talk of rising food prices creates anxiety. Yet that hasn’t stopped large numbers of U.S. consumers from flocking to small producers to buy eggs — even at a premium — in the wake of this recall.

Fortunately, millions of people are waking up to the consequences of a food system dominated by massive corporations: the loss of regional food production capabilities in the face of impending fuel shortages; tax-funded subsidies that prop up feed grains; antibiotics given to animals that pass into the broader environment; obscene volumes of waste in concentrated areas; a legacy of abysmal treatment to the animals we depend upon for sustenance. For the sake of our health, our environment and our economy, should we let this continue?

Change is in the air. Most countries in Europe and a number of U.S. states have taken measures to ban the most restrictive technologies used in CAFOs, such as the battery cages.

But we need not wait on federal or state regulations. We have a say in the kind of world we want, and it is expressed in the food choices we make every day. It’s in our power to participate in a healthier food system, one egg at a time, one farmers market at a time, one meal at a time. It starts with simply understanding and honoring where our food comes from. At that point, the foods produced in CAFOs become a lot less appetizing and ultimately, unpalatable.

Daniel Imhoff is an author, homestead farmer and independent publisher whose most recent project is “CAFO: The  Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories” and “The CAFO Reader.“

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