Culture Clash with Our Consumer Teens.

As Dan was supervising snack time in the teen space at the library, he was approached by a teen with potato chip breath.

Teen: You get paid to work at the library? How is that possible? What do you sell at the library? You don't sell anything at the library.

This kid couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that a service that didn’t make a profit had any value.

I’ve heard similar sentiments from my own jobless teen. He has openly expressed his contempt for Dan wasting time working at the library and volunteering for Code for Tucson or Watershed Management Group – when he could be out making real money as an engineer. That money, of course, could go towards a car to drive him to his weekly Magic tournaments so he won’t be forced to endure our sustainable form of transportation (gasp!) - the city bus.

I’m beginning to think that this is a thing - or so I gleaned from a conversation I had with a couple of teenage boys at the Women’s March in Tucson. These cavalier young men felt comfortable in this mass of mothers to boldly hold up signs that read, “Build the Wall” and “Gays for Trump.” The little dickens got what they asked for when they got schooled (or in teen speak, nagged) by somebody’s mother, namely me. I asked them if they cared about the environment at all. They shrugged, “No.” When I asked them why they supported Trump, their unequivocal answer was “more jobs to pay for new cellphones and Xboxes.” (Dan said that there was a group of teens following them laughing, so they may have just been trying to get a rise out of us. Well, they got it!)

Listening to teens with Trump signs at the Women's March in Tucson.

What’s with the youth today? Why doesn’t our son share our values about giving back to the community and living more sustainably? These teens have literally bought into their role as consumers in our capitalistic society. But haven’t we, as a country, been programmed to value the pursuit of profit above all else – even profit without accountability? While Dan and I have pledged to boycott Walmart because they exploit child labor abroad and don't pay their U.S. workers a living wage, our local Walmart just expanded.

What are we really getting out of our “profit first” consumerism? Are we even getting a good value?

Let’s look at some things our American teens consume...

Clothes:

Americans spend billions on the latest clothing fads. What do we get for our money? Disposable clothes designed to fall apart after a few washes, probably sewn in a foreign sweat shop, possibly by child slaves. Poisons from the dyes are dumped into our waterways. After a few months, these clothes are good for nothing but rags or to take up space in a landfill. I may be showing my age, but sometimes I get a yen for the good ol’ days when you could buy classic, quality clothes that would be worth repairing.

Bottled Drinks:

Look around at the store. We have shelves full of every kind of drink you can imagine. Yummy! But to get the plastic to make all those bottles, oil is pumped miles and miles through leaky pipelines. Oh, you drink water? How much do we really pay for that 89 cent bottle of water? Nestle is taking water that has been pumped 322 miles uphill (a whole coal-fired power plant was built to power the pumps that has already used up all the water in the Hopi and Navajo’s aquifer). All of those bottles then become a part of five massive plastic “islands” in the ocean. 

Food:

In America, we can get any food we want, when we want it! But really…how fresh and healthy is our food? To have a longer shelf life, our food is filled with chemicals and preservatives. To improve the flavor they add addictive sugar to everything. (But at least that has spawned the diet industry...) Even our produce is transported from neighboring states, Mexico, or shipped across the ocean putting CO₂ and other toxins in the air. Rain-forests are cleared to raise beef cattle. We Americans just love our weekly specials. But what is the human cost of those bargains? The people who harvest our foods live in squalor and can’t even afford the foods they pick. (For just one cent more per pound, the pickers could double their income to a living wage.) Meanwhile, millions of tons of food is thrown into landfills because it is damaged, unattractive or there is just too much of it (lowering profit.) Luckily, there are some good people working on preventing food waste. 

Fast Food:

Every parent laments how much junk food their teen consumes. But fast food fits perfectly into our busy lives. At home it’s frozen convenience items (about as flavorful as the disposable boxes they come in.) It may be cheap, but you get very little actual nutrition for your money. Fast food restaurants do supply two or three low paying jobs for each of their underpaid workers. To maximize profit, companies fight a raise in the minimum wage. But fast food does contribute to heart disease and diabetes – creating higher paying healthcare jobs. Unfortunately, minimum wage workers can’t afford healthcare insurance. This means choosing between bringing their kid to the doctor or having dinner. If it's a real medical emergency, there will be no money left for their mortgage payments. We can step over them on the street - where they have no value in this society since they are no longer consumers.

So what do I say to our consumer teens?

We may not have all the latest gadgets, the biggest screen TV or even a car. But we are blessed to have a comfortable little house. Dan’s library job leaves him time for his passions: teaching robotics and computer programming, building community, and getting outside to enjoy our beautiful desert landscape while installing rainwater harvesting features. It actually makes us feel good (gasp!) to carry our own delicious drinks in our cool reusable water bottles - knowing we aren’t adding to the plastic island. We enjoy treasure hunting for quirky clothes at the thrift store. Tending our little garden and cycling to work gives us a chance to enjoy our beautiful Tucson weather. And nothing beats the excitement of seeing our little rainwater harvesting projects working!

Hey!

Even my teens can appreciate the yummy home cooked meals and fresh baked bread that Dan has time to make - not to mention the time he has to spend with them.

And just look at these smiles... Aren't they worth it? 

Sharing in the Bounty of Community Supported Agriculture

Our first CSA bounty!  

One aspect of sustainable living we try to incorporate into our daily routine is eating more local produce. It's good for the enviroment and so much healthier. The more recently the veggies have been harvested, the more vitamins they retain. We also like to know how they've been grown.

But I soon discovered it's not easy to find local produce in Tucson. While doing research for my blog Food Security in the Desert, I learned that only 1% of the produce at our neighborhood grocery store, Sprouts, was grown in Arizona. It is difficult for local farmers to compete with conveniently located supermarkets that carry a wide diversity of affordable crops year around.  But there is a bigger cost to consider. Imagine the carbon foot print of transporting all that produce hundreds of miles from Mexico or California or shipping it across the ocean. Thousands of pounds of damaged produce is thrown into landfills every day while poverty stricken farm workers can't afford to eat the produce they harvest.

Woohoo! Beets!

Sadly, Dan and I have been unable to swing shopping at the weekly farmers markets (often held on the other end of town). So when we heard that Sleeping Frog Farms would be delivering fresh produce to the nearby WMG office through their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, we happily signed on. We knew we wanted to help support a local (Benson) farmer make a consistent living, but we really didn't know what to expect. We pre-paid $300 for a share of their weekly crops for a season ($25 a week.)  But we weren't sure that we would be able to use the seasonal produce.

That first Wednesday, I excitedly toted my reusable cowgirl bag to pick up our share. I was surprised that there were seven nice bunches of veggies! Curly kale, chioddia beets, carrots, burgundy colored chard, cilantro, kohlrabi (what's that?), and arugula. This was our chance to try some healthy greens (yikes!) and even some weird veggies we had never heard of.

Oh, no... Not curly kale! Dan was the only one who would eat it out of our own garden!

We were delighted to see beets included in our weekly offerings. Roasted beets are a family favorite! When we cut into them there was a cool surprise: pink stripes!

Our first CSA meal: roasted beets and carrots, steamed beet greens, and  salmon.

With rushing off to several meetings and screenings a week, how would we find the time to prepare all of these vegetables? We certainly didn't want to waste any. (One goal of sustainable living is to reduce waste...) We decided we would have to serve 2 or 3 veggies at dinner each night to get through them all. That would be some feat since we rarely manage the 3-5 vegetables the USDA recommends a day...

We didn't know what to do with all of the veggies. What is this strange alien plant kohlrabi?  But one of the benefits of being in a CSA, is that you can get cooking advice from the other members when they pick up their share. One guy suggested that we peel the kohlrabi like broccoli (you don't peal broccoli, do you?) and steam them. Dan googled kohlrabi. (Google is Dan's best friend.) It is also known as a German turnip or turnip cabbage. We're kinda roastin' fools, soooo...

 roasted kohlrabi and steamed chard

Wednesday rolled around again, so I checked to see what foods hadn't been eaten...

Argh!  Despite our best efforts all this was left in the so-called "crisper."

hmph! wilted cilantro 

Our second pickup at the CSA

mmm sage

Gonga! Leeks! 

When I bemoaned the wilted veggies from the first share, a young man suggested that we eat perishables first in a salad. I told him how there was still kale left even after Dan had a big plate of it. They suggested that we bake up some yummy kale chips.

Determined to keep those veggies from the compost pit, we decided we would eat several that night. We noticed the chard that had reseeded itself in our garden was starting to wilt too. We added it to the menu.

I also picked some fresh parsley from our garden to liven up our quinoa. We had steamed chard; quinoa with leaks, onions, and parsley; roasted carrots; and beets topped with feta. The USDA would be proud!

vegetarian dinner for two

We decided to dry the wilted cilantro...

We learned to add steamed greens to any meal. (And we liked it!) We added leeks to pasta with leftover salmon for an easy dinner. And baked up some yummy kale chips. My teen not only tried them, but tried to steal the whole bowl!

a side of colorful chard with potato leek soup

Best way to get your teen on board with the veggies - add them to potato-leek soup with fresh dill in a bread-bowl topped with lots o' cheez and green onions (also from CSA!)

"Why do I have to be in the pic?"

Having a share in Sleeping Frog Farm's CSA, encouraged us to try new foods, grow to love kale, be creative, and eat healthier.

Food Security in the Desert

I attended the Sustainable Tucson meeting on "Food Resilience in 2016 — Learning to Adapt, Survive, & Thrive in the 21st Century." I was shocked to hear that about 96 percent* of Tucson’s food comes from other places. What?! What about all that agriculture that is using up 74 percent of our water? Colorado River water is transported over 300 miles to reach farms in Arizona. 

I decided to do some quick fact checking. I called the big grocery stores in my area. I asked produce managers if they had any local produce (clarifying that I meant from Arizona.) Keep in mind that it depends on the season.  When I called Whole Foods, they had tomatoes from Wilcox. Fry's had lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and oranges from Yuma and Payson. Sprouts (my neighborhood store) had melons, heirloom and organic tomatoes and hydroponic sprouts. Food City didn’t have any produce grown in Arizona; it all came from California and Mexico. There wasn't much local produce to be found at my neighborhood supermarkets.

Julie Murphree from the Arizona Farm Bureau said that most of our greens come from Yuma, Pinal and Maricopa County. She guesstimated that 80 percent of our produce is exported. 

According to the AZDA Guide to Arizona Agriculture: The state ranks second in production of lettuce and spinach in the country. Yuma farmers annually produce enough iceberg lettuce for every man, woman and child in the United States, Canada and Mexico to have their very own head of Yuma-grown lettuce. And there would still be nearly 90 million heads of lettuce to send to other countries in the world.  

Arizona’s durum wheat grain is known as Desert Durum®... Approximately 50% of each Desert Durum® crop is exported.

If only 4 percent* of our food comes from Arizona, where are we getting our food? Thirty-five percent of Tucson’s produce comes from Mexico. It is an understatement to say that our food system is inefficient. The people in Sonora can’t afford to eat any of the produce they grow, yet thousands of pounds of produce is dumped into landfills after arriving in Arizona. Part of that is damaged during transport, but another 120 thousand pounds may be dumped when prices go down in Florida. (Borderlands Foodbank of Nogales has taken on that challenge. The non-profit organization saves 30-40 million pounds of produce annually and distributes it to families in 20 U.S. states. At Market on the Move you can get 60 lbs. of produce - that would otherwise end up in a landfill - for $10!)

While much of our produce comes from Mexico and California, food is also shipped across our country or even the world. Imagine how much energy is expended just transporting food to Tucson (not to mention the energy used to manufacture the packaging.)

Besides the environmental impact of transporting our food, there is the question of food security. As resources continue to diminish, we won’t be able to keep this up. What would happen if we were cut off from the food superhighway? Big grocery chains only keep 2-5 days’ worth of food in their stores and warehouses. Most households have less than two weeks of food in their pantries. There are no protections if this system shuts down.

Data shows nearly 94,000 Tucson residents live in a food desert; those are low-income neighborhoods where the closest grocery store is at least a mile away - according to the article, New research finds rainwater harvesting could be solution to Tucson food deserts by Jamie Warren. 

But the article goes on... Researchers with the University of Arizona and Arizona State University say rainwater harvesting may be the answer to eliminating them.

On a normal year, our annual rainfall supplies enough water for all of our citizens. Unfortunately, our current system doesn’t utilize that water. Our streets and washes are designed for flood control. All that water that could seep into our aquifer evaporates on its way out of town. Despite that, Tucsonans still use 40% of our water for landscaping.

Fortunately, the solution is in the problem. We can cut down on our water use by transitioning to desert landscaping and by watering low water plants with rainwater redirected from our roofs! Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters and the Watershed Management Group teach Tucsonans how to replenish our aquifers and rivers by harvesting rainwater! Tucson Water even offers rebates to encourage rainwater harvesting! Some city officials are starting to catch on too. Outside of the new municipal buildings green infrastructure including curb cuts have been incorporated to use street water to irrigate roadside trees.

Of course, to be self-sufficient, we need water to grow food. At Watershed Management Group’s workshops, you can learn how to harvest rainwater for your gardens or greywater from your washing machine and sink to irrigate your fruit trees.

WMG has worked with the Community Food Bank and several schools to capture rainwater for their gardens.

Led by visionary educators like Moses Thompson of Manzo Elementary, students are taught practical science by growing crops to feed fellow students and their families. Students also learn valuable business skills by selling extra produce at farmers markets. One thing that TUSD is doing right, is that they are purchasing food from local farmers and allowing school cafeterias to serve the produce that is grown in their gardens.

Some ways for Tucson to become more self-sufficient in food production

We need to pull together as a community and take care of our neighbors by:

1) Supporting local farmers

• Shop at farmers markets
• Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) 
• Buy local produce at the Food Conspiracy Co-op and ask markets to carry more local produce
• Eat at local restuarants and bakeries that use locally sourced food
• Eat local fruits and veggies as they come into season  

2) Growing our own food

• kitchen gardens and raised gardens 
• community gardens 
• school gardens
• hydroponic and aquaponic systems 
• green houses 

Tucson CSA's basket of the week by Sleeping Frog Farm of Benson

3) Growing more durable desert adapted food plants

• Use dry desert gardening techniques like covering the ground with organic mulch and cardboard
• Fertilizer made from composting kitchen scaps, leaves and other organic matter can help retain moisture in the soil 
• "Plant" ollas in your garden to save water on irrigation
• Use diverse heritage seeds found at Native Seeds/SEARCH or Seed Libraries (ex. amaramth)
• Ensure future diversity by seed collecting
• Grow edible desert plants like prickly pear cactus and mesquite. 

4) Conserving Water

• Plant edible native and drought tolerant trees that don't need much watering once established
• Direct rainwater to gardens and greywater (from washing machines) to heritage fruit trees 
• Put in catchment basins filled with organic mulch and native grasses to hold the water like a sponge
• Plant native trees in the high end of catchment basin 
• Water your garden or landscape in the early morning or evening so water doesn't evaporate
• Find out how much water your plants and trees require so you don't over water them
• Plants take 3-5 times LESS water in the winter  

5) Making our yards into shady edible forests using rainwater harvesting catchment basins

6) Harvesting our desert bounty in a responsible way that preserves the plant for future use

• Desert Harvesters leads workshops in harvesting native foods responsibly
• Don't poison edible weeds with pesticides or herbicides 
• Edible weeds information and recipes 

7) Avoiding food waste

• Harvest unattended fruit trees in your own yard & around town. Learn what is edible
• Arrange for Iskashitaa Refugee Harvesting Network to pick unused fruit rather than throw it in the trash to end up in a landill 
• Restaurants and schools can arrange for UA Compost Cats to pick up their kitchen scraps
• Encourage our City Council Members to start a curbside compost pickup program
• Get 70 lbs. of produce that would otherwise end up in a landfill for a $15 donation at P.O.W.W.O.W. or 60 lbs. for $10 at Market on the Move
• Have a plan for how you will use your rescued produce 
• Check what is in your fridge before shopping and make a list for foods to supplement what you already have 
• Use kitchen scraps to make broth 
• Compost your kitchen scraps
• Find out what your local grocery store does with it's "ugly" produce and expired food
• Start a neighborhood produce exchange program (Share your bountiful tomato harvest while your neighbor shares their chard) 
• Share what you can't use with your neighbors in a little free pantry or produce stand  
• Check up on elderly neighbors and share your food with them

8) Raising chickens for eggs

• Chickens process food scraps into the best fertilizer
• Chickens eat bugs near garden 
• Crush egg shells to add calcium to homemade fertilizer with dirt, banana peels, used tea and coffee grounds 
• Compost egg shells  

Note: many areas of Tucson have plenty of calcium in their soil so they don't need more from egg shells.  

9) Eating a (mostly) plant-based diet or sustainably produced beef 

The area needed for animals to graze and grow feed is huge. It takes up about 80% of all agricultural land. Researchers found that the switch to plant-based diets would reduce annual agricultural production emissions by 61%. Additionally, converting former cropland and pastures to their natural state would remove another 98.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by the end of the century. 

The rapid growth of animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation. Up to 70% of the Amazon Rainforest has already been destroyed and is now occupied by pastures and feed crops. One of the main crops grown in the rainforest is soybeans used specifically for animal feed.

However, there may be a solution... 

A 2018 study by researchers in Michigan and Washington, D.C., entitled "Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems," showed that intensive, rotational grazing could offset greenhouse gas emission through carbon sequestration that will result to a carbon sink. The researchers noted that grasslands could become highly efficient carbon sequesters that can be maximized using management practices for livestock grazing.

You can help by: 

• Cutting back on how much meat you eat
• Buying environmentally sound, sustainably produced beef 

By making these positive changes at our homes and neighborhoods, we can show our governing officials how we can be more self-sufficient by maintaining our own ground water and food supply (rather than transporting so much from far off states and countries).

Combating Food Insecurity

The Community Food Bank collaborates with organizations like P.O.W.W.O.W. and hosts a community garden and desert gardening classes.

We need to support organizations like the Community Food Bank and advocate for easier ways for those who are food insecure to access the help they need.

But mostly we need to advocate for a living wage so people can afford healthy food.

Community bike tour held by WGA

So… what are Dan and I doing in the way of food and water sustainability? A while ago we began composting and we started a desert garden (experimenting with durable heritage plants.) I began with simple water harvesting by digging up a few bricks that blocked water from flowing to our Mexican Honeysuckle. Then Dan removed gravel and dug a street side catchment basins to water drought tolerant, fast growing and super nutritious moringa. We planted edible native trees in our front yard basin. We also planted jujubes in a basin watered by runoff from our roof. We harvest fruit and pads of our spineless prickly pear. We finally adapted the plumbing on our outdoor washing machine to irrigate some drought tolerant heritage pomegranate and fig trees. We installed two big cisterns to water our backyard garden. A kind neighbor offered to let us collect the run-off water from his huge roof. for the garden too! It’s all a process.

Our future plans:

We'd like to build a chicken coop near that garden and a green house. Dan dreams of installing a composting toilet. We'd also like to start a neighborhood association with the idea of having a neighborhood garden and sharing our own produce at neighborhood potlucks or a produce exchange.

There is so much inspirational work being done around Tucson. The Tohono O’odham are teaching volunteers at the Mission Garden to use their ancient dry desert farming techniques and how to grow sturdy heritage crops. Tucson was the first city in the United States to be recognized as a UNESCO World City of Gastronomy. “The Tucson Basin deserves this honor not only for having some of the oldest continually farmed landscapes in North America, but also for emerging as a global hotbed for ideas on relocalizing food economies and growing food in a hotter, drier climate,” says Gary Paul Nabhan, an ethnobotanist and professor at the University of Arizona’s Southwest Center. “From food banks, seed libraries, and farmers’ markets, to community gardens, community kitchens, and literary luminaries writing on food and culture, we are serving as a nursery grounds for new innovations, not merely for preserving our food heritage.”

*See Tres' comment for clarification on this percentage.

More Information:

The Secret of P.O.W! Reducing Food Waste During Covid

Minimizing food waste - UN Environment

New research finds rainwater harvesting could be solution to Tucson food deserts - Feb 09, 2021

Planting & Maintenance of tree - Trees for Tucson

Watering Trees and Shrubs - UA  Cooperative Extension 

Recommended Native Tree & Understory Plant Lists - Desert Harvesters 

9 desert plants you can turn into cookies, candy and margaritas

The Changing Faces in Arizona's Food System 1.pdf

How to nurture your small piece of the Earth, without harming the rest of it

What Kind of Climate Champion Are You?  (Desert Adapted Gardeners section) 

2020-21 State of the Tucson Food System Report.pdf

Good Food Finder -  go-to source for locally grown and produced food

https://www.fillyourplate.org/

Finding Faith - Fighting for the Earth and Food Justice

After watching “The Harvest,” “Man in the Maze,” “Forked,” and “Food Ministries in Tucson, AZ,” during the “Food Justice Mini Film Festival” at The Loft, I was all geared up to attend the “Food Justice, Faith, and Climate Change Forum.” But I have to admit, I was given a moment of pause when the word, “Faith” registered. I had become increasingly disillusioned with Christianity since "family values” were  shanghaied by politicians creating fear to divide us as a nation. Once in office, they sold out Christianity by denying fundamental Christian values such as taking care of the less fortunate. Using the media as a platform, they depicted the poor as lazy and stupid, not deserving of our sympathy. They coined the phrase “welfare queens” and dehumanized the homeless. They ignited racism by demonizing undocumented workers, calling them “illegals.” “Welfare” became a dirty word. Our representatives made a mockery of Christianity by denying science and climate change so their rich campaign contributors could continue to profit by savaging the earth. Being called an “environmentalist” became the supreme insult. It is a shame that you can’t even use the word “Green” anymore because it is such a turn off to so many people. This was NOT the same Christianity I had grown up with.

Franciscan Sister Joan Brown of Interfaith Power and Light

Arriving a few minutes late, I came in the middle of the opening prayer. For a few uncomfortable moments I wondered if I belonged there, if I was a fraud for even attending. But my fears were soon relieved as Franciscan Sister Joan Brown of Partnership for Earth Spirituality and New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light spoke on climate justice. Fred Bahnson, director of the Food, Faith, and Religious Leadership Initiative at Wake Forest University School of Divinity, spoke on using the Tree of Life as a symbol for faith-based activism on climate change. The Tree of Life is our chosen symbol, too! My spirit soared as one lecture was preceded by a Native American blessing. This interfaith event wasn’t about fear or exclusion, it was about love.

I was inspired by the faith-based responses to climate change and food justice. We heard how individual congregations were implementing environmentally sustainable practices like starting their own community gardens, and installing solar panels and rain gathering cisterns. There were practical lectures like: “Seed Libraries and other Strategies for Providing Better Access to Fresh Food in Food Deserts.” Barbara Eiswerth, founder of Iskashitaa Refugee Network, told us how they make arrangements with local residents to pick fruit that would otherwise be wasted. 

We heard some practical responses to food justice. Don Bustos, New Mexico Organic Farmer of the Year, spoke on “Farmworkers to Farmers: Empowering Those Who Bring Us Our Daily Bread.” On his farm he implemented training programs for farm workers to become independent organic farmers by using solar energy. Jose Oliver, co-director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, shared how they reach out to schools to implement the Real Food Challenge. Through the program, schools work with food service providers, distributors, processors and growers to ensure: (1) local economies, (2) environmental sustainability, (3) fair labor, (4) animal welfare and (5) nutrition.

Veronica Kyle, Chicago Outreach Director of Faith in Place, spoke about reaching out to her community. She demonstrated how important it is not to shame people for their food choices, but to speak to them from where they are. Her organization published a Southern Cooking cookbook with healthy, organic recipes. Once Veronica was lecturing on organic gardening and spouting off sustainability jargon. The audience didn’t know what the heck she was talking about – even though a few had been gardening their whole lives. When she started a community garden, she made sure to ask those gardeners to share their expertise. She is reaching people where they live. 

I came away from this forum feeling inspired and hopeful that people of all faiths were coming together to make a difference in climate change and food justice. Just imagine the environmental impact if every church, temple, synagogue, and mosque encouraged their communities to do the same.