Still eating our vegetables

Here's a summer meal we enjoyed recently: home-made cold leek and potato soup (also called Vichyssoise), lettuce & tomato salad, and white wine. At this point, Len and I are continuing with our decision to buy no meat, and very little chicken, because of the lack of worker safety the meat and chicken processors during the pandemic. Meat and chicken were always the center of most of our meals, so we are still adapting and trying new recipes. Note that we do not fear that eating meat will expose us to the virus; rather, our concerns are about the workers.

More vegetarian meals:

Outdoors: Rosé Wine with home-made Swedish rye bread.

The rye bread recipe suggested baking it for 2 hours,
creating a black crust. With the flavors of rye,
cardamom, anise, and orange peel, it was delicious.

Stir-fried bok choy and cherry tomatoes over silken tofu, which is underneath.
I have never tried preparing tofu before.
(recipe source: Silken Tofu with Soy-Sauced Tomatoes)

Using the other half of the can of cherry tomatoes: a more-familiar dish --
linguini with tomatoes, onions, olives, and artichoke hearts.

What I used: a can of artichoke hearts and a can of cherry tomatoes.

The news from the food processing industry remains very pessimistic. Major problems at large meat packing plants continue because employees on the production lines must stand very close to one another. Consequently, there are serious numbers of Covid-19 cases among these workers. Cases have also occurred on fishing boats and in fruit and vegetable packing plants; however, these industries seem to be making a better effort to protect workers.

From the L.A. Times last week:

"It’s a grim reality that’s playing out across the country as COVID-19 spreads beyond the meat processing plants that have captured the national spotlight. At least 60 food-processing facilities outside the meatpacking industry have seen outbreaks, with more than 1,000 workers diagnosed with the virus, according to a new study from Environmental Working Group. ...Fruit and vegetable packers, bakers and dairy workers are risking infection as the virus spreads through processing plants where employees deemed essential have mostly remained on the job during the pandemic, sometimes laboring in close quarters." -- Source: "Coronavirus outbreaks at 60 U.S. plants raise specter of more food shortages" 

From Alaska Public Media June 8:

"As America’s meat producers contend with thousands of COVID-19 cases among processing workers, seafood companies have drafted rigorous plans to ward off similar spread of the disease as their summer season looms in Alaska. But with that season still gearing up, the industry has already been shaken by its first major outbreak, aboard a huge vessel with an onboard fish processing factory." -- Source: "A Seattle fishing company has had more than 100 COVID-19 cases on its ships. They’re heading to Alaska this summer." by Nathaniel Herz.

From the New York Times this morning just before scheduled publication of this blog post, an article and video titled "We’re Feeding America, but We’re Sacrificing Ourselves:Poultry plants continue to run processing lines at a breakneck speed, making it impossible for workers to social distance" by Jerald Brooks and Lakesha Bailey, documenting that over 7,000 Tyson chicken processing employees nationwide have tested positive for the virus, but workers who stay home from fear of the virus lose their jobs. (We were already avoiding Tyson chicken before the pandemic because of worker abuse).

Vegetable main dish: bell peppers stuffed with kasha,
which I cooked as a pilaf according to the package directions.
Each pepper is topped with a slice of cheese.

In the longer term, besides the workers' welfare, there's another concern: the risky conditions in which cows, pigs, and chickens are raised:

• Chicken houses and feedlots are very crowded, so any contagious disease can run rampant. 
• Animals in these flocks and herds are often genetically very similar to one another, increasing the likelihood that pathogens will spread and evolve. 
• The overuse of antibiotics to treat these diseases leads to the emergence of resistant bacterial strains. 

Although Covid-19 arose in wild animals, not livestock, industrial farming operations lead to a risk of a pathogen that can jump to humans and start the NEXT worldwide pandemic — or at least increasing the risk of some serious new human diseases. This is of course somewhat speculative, but many strains of human influenza have definitely incubated in pigs and chickens, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria from livestock are already a critical public health problem.

A long and detailed article about the dangers of the meat industry appeared in Vox last week. Here is a statement about the overall problem from Leah Garcés, the president of Mercy for Animals:

“We’ve been ringing the alarm bells for a long time. My deep hope is that now people will make the connection — factory farming is a catastrophic risk to our species — and that this permanently changes our behavior in the long term.” -- Source:  "The meat we eat is a pandemic risk, too" by Sigal Samuel, Vox, Jun 10, 2020.

Artichoke and lettuce salad using the rest of the artichokes.
Happily, cherries are in season.

Roasted vegetables.

I am aware that I should buy meat and seasonal produce from local small-scale farmers. These are available at a nearby farm market, but I have not yet organized myself to order from them.

This blog post and all photos © 2020 by mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.