Food, Inc.

The irony is not lost on me that I've pulled into a Walmart parking lot to chat with Elise Pearlstein, one-half of the producing team responsible for the documentary Food, Inc.

I was headed north on Highway 85 when my phone rang and the superstore in St. Jacob's was the quickest place to park and pull out my laptop so the two of us could discuss the film, which takes a critical (and rather scary) look at the way America's food system works (and opens for a six night run at Waterloo's Princess Cinema tonight).

Adding to the Walmart irony is the notion that the St. Jacob's store is a stone's throw from a very popular, well-established farmers' market in a community largely populated by Mennonites, who have a reputation for embracing simple living.

I try explaining the concept to Pearlstein, who lives in L.A., including the part about how the Mennonites themselves patronize the WalMart. She has a good laugh, but she's not surprised. Nothing about North American consumption surprises her these days.

The idea for Food, Inc. came about when Robert Kenner, her producing partner and the film's director, read Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation and initially thought of doing a film version.

Ideas evolved as funding came together and, says Pearlstein, "Rob realized that all food had really become fast food. Shlosser talked specifically about the fast food industry but the same suppliers that got huge from fast food are supplying most of the food in supermarkets."

In the end, Food, Inc. uncovers the seedy side of America's corporate food industry, complete with plenty of scary facts:

- The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat annually.

- America's top four beef packers control more than 80 per cent of the market.

- Thirty per cent of the U.S. land base is devoted to growing corn, an ingredient that can be found in everything from ketchup and salad dressing to batteries and diapers.

- Thirteen slaughterhouses handle the majority of beef in the U.S. (though there were thousands in the 1970s) and the largest slaughterhouse in the world, in Tar Heel, North Carolina, kills 32,000 hogs per day.

- Genetically modified ingredients can be found in 70 per cent of processed foods.

It was a daunting film to make, said Pearlstein, because they found the industry completely shrouded in secrecy. Though they aimed to look at all different sides of the issue, the big food corporations were completely unwilling to participate. Farmers, especially those contracted to these companies, were also fearful of going on the record.

"There's a very tight grip," explains Pearlstein of the corporations' power over the farmers (who, the film says, invest $500,000 in their farms on average only to make $18,000 annually).

"I thought, 'God. I'm in America? In the Midwest?' Just to think there is that fear, and seeing how extensive corporate power translates into threat against freedom of speech. That's not specific to food, really, it's just a cautionary tale of what happens when companies become too powerful."

Farmers weren't the only ones who needed to be careful about what they said. Pearlstein said the production team had to work extensively with a first amendment attorney in order to avoid future litigation.(Remember the Oprah/Texas beef industry lawsuit in the late '90s?)

"I've never had that feeling in 15 years of documentary making," Pearlstein said. "And it's not nuclear weapons or government secrets we're talking about. It's food! The combination of the litigious nature of the industry and the subject you're talking about just doesn't really compute."

The film does offer some hope. Organics are the fastest growing sector of the food industry, jumping 20 per cent annually. And people are beginning to ask questions.

"For a variety of reasons, I feel like there's a resurgence of interest in farming and awareness of where our food comes from," Pearlstein told me, adding that Food, Inc. premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival late last summer in the midst of Maple Leaf Foods' listeria outbreak.

"Food-born illness doesn't discriminate. Obesity is everywhere. This is becoming a mainstream interest. And it's a non-partisan issue. It's not something that you can deny is a problem."

Food, Inc. premieres at The Princess tonight at 7 p.m. and plays nightly through Thursday with an additional afternoon screening on Sunday. See www.princesscinemas.com for more details.

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Ribs

Everybody has their own tips, tricks and sworn secrets when it comes to making ribs. This weekend, the experts will be duking it out in Victoria Park at the Downtown Kitchener Ribfest & Craft Beer Show, all of them trying to prove that theirs are the tenderest and the tastiest.

Many of the Kitchener fest's "ribbers" hail from London, and, for no apparent reason, most of are Greek. Some of them spend their whole summer on the ribfest circuit, going from one city to the next.

In an effort to pick up a few pointers, I recently chatted with George Kefalidis of Crabby's BBQ, last year's winner here in Kitchener for Best Ribs Overall. While some believe that true ribs require some gnawing, Kefalidis says he guarantees nothing less than fall-off-the-bone tenderness.

"I say to watch it every time, because maybe it's gonna fall off the bone and make your shoes very messy," he laughs.

Here are a few of Kefalidis's best suggestions:

- Start with good meat. "All my meat is Ontario meat," he says. "I try to support our local farmers." Buy ribs fresh from your favourite butcher or from the farmers' market.

- Never boil ribs. And never start cooking on the barbecue right off the bat, otherwise, says Kefalidis, "they're never going to be tender. Bake the ribs, then give the final touch on the barbecue. Put lots of sauce on at the end and caramelize it. Then you have a totally different taste."

- For optimum barbecue flavour, use charcoal or firewood over gas or propane. Kefalidis favours cherry, apple or pear wood to give a natural fruity, smoky taste. He never opts for liquid smoke. (You can make homemade woodchip smokers for your gas barbie at home -- look online for tips).

Kefalidis uses a liquid marinade made with a tomato base and cranberry juice, which he says tenderizes the meat really well. He bakes his ribs right in the marinade and then uses an oil-based sauce that also involves whisky. (Most people, he says, opt for a ketchup-based sauce).

Like I said, everyone's got their tricks. My mother-in-law's ribs are some of the best I've had. I don't know the exact recipe, though I've seen her making them many a time up at the cottage. Something to do with a can of Coke. She also layers thin slices of lemon across the rib racks that get so perfectly caramelized by the end of the long, slow cooking process that you can actually eat them, rind and all, along with your ribs. Heavenly. I don't even think the barbecue is involved, come to think of it -- just the oven.

Here's a tried-and-true recipe for ribs that I've made and loved, courtesy of my former volleyball teammate Angry Johnny (who is actually not angry at all). He got it from The Chez Piggy Cookbook, a collection of recipes from the great restaurant of the same name in Kingston.

This recipe suggests cooking ribs in the oven at 300F for two hours, but you could also try it lower and slower, say for three hours at 200F, for even greater tenderness. It's also worth pulling the silvery membrane off the back of the rib racks to allow for better flavour penetration and less toughness.

Vary the amount of chopped chilies according to how spicy you like things. As for the beer tips (read below), while I'm not sure whether they come from Angry Johnny or from Chez Piggy, I say it's worth following the instructions.

Ribfest runs from noon to 10 p.m. today and again tomorrow from noon to 6 p.m. See www.kitchenerribandbeerfest.com for further details.

Ly's Grilled Fire Ribs

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup water

4 lbs pork ribs, fresh from market

1 cup ketchup

1/4 cup beer (drink the rest)

1/4 cup molasses

2 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp chopped garlic

2 tbsp chopped chilies

Preheat oven to 300F.

Mix lemon juice and water and set aside.

Bake ribs in oven, uncovered, for two hours, brushing them every 30 minutes with the lemon/water mixture.

Mix remaining ingredients in sauce pan and simmer for eight minutes. Open another beer.

Preheat barbecue to medium. Brush ribs with sauce and barbecue 20 minutes, turning every five minutes and brushing with more sauce.

Guilty Pleasures

Regular readers of mine have, I think, become accustomed to reading about the local, the fresh and the relatively healthy in this space.

Indeed, there is nothing that gets me excited quite so much as fresh ingredients. Minutes ago, I unpacked a bag of organic produce into my fridge, squealing over every item, each so lush and colourful I wanted to fetch my camera and take pictures of it.

It's easy to cook and eat well in these parts and most of my time and energy with this column goes into finding people, places and ingredients that allow us achieve that.

But today I'm venturing over to the dark side. Purists, avert your eyes. I have some no good eating habits and I'm going to reveal them. Then I'm going to corrupt you (or at least try) with a recipe. C'mon, now: find me a person that doesn't occasionally indulge in something they'd be embarrassed to be spotted eating and I'll find you a liar.

Though I've always had my guilty pleasures, being pregnant has given me both no excuse (what worse time than to fill your body with processed, prepared foods) and every excuse (I'm gaining weight anyway, and might as well get these cravings met and out of the way) to eat naughty things that I otherwise try quite hard to ignore.

Such as? Well, Kraft Dinner, which I love to the point that I can't even keep an emergency stash in the house because it would never last to see an emergency. I also love Tater Tots, HP Sauce and those bags of assorted Peek Freans sandwich biscuits (you know, with the round ones with the sugared jelly centre -- my husband and I once stood for what seemed like minutes and stared longingly at a bag of them in the supermarket, waiting for one of us to break down and put it in the cart).

Other vices: Alphagetti, Cheez Whiz (on toast, preferably rye) and ketchup chips. And Helluva Good Dip on ruffly chips at the cottage is another fave, one that inevitably gives me gut rot because I cannot find the off-switch.

This particular recipe is for something I saw the queen of Southern kitsch, Paula Deen, making on Food TV. I immediately looked up the recipe, printed it, and emailed my mom to tell her I was bringing my own cake to my forthcoming birthday dinner.

I made this dirty little treat in about 15 minutes and everyone licked it up, including my brother, who, hours earlier, proclaimed that nothing ruins an ice cream sundae like banana. Paula says this recipe feeds 10 to 12. Some flexibility is required because you're probably unlikely (as I was) to find jars of sauce the size she has suggested and will end up using some guesswork. In fact, I winged it and made a smaller 9x9 pan version and it worked out just fine. This isn't rocket science, after all.

I made two official adjustments here. Paula uses "milk chocolate covered toffee bits" but I substituted salted peanuts because I thought a contrast to all the other sickly sweet ingredients was in order. Ms. Deen also wishes us to top the whole shebang off with "nondairy whipped topping," which you and I know as Cool Whip. That's one low I won't sink to. I whipped up some of the real thing instead.

Don't worry, there's plenty left to feel guilty about. I heard on the radio this morning that if one knew how maraschino cherries were made, they'd never eat them again.

Frozen Banana Split

24 ice-cream sandwiches, unwrapped

6 medium bananas, peeled and thinly sliced

1 12-ounce (350 mL) jar hot-fudge sauce

1 12-ounce (350 mL) jar butterscotch sauce

1 12-ounce (350 mL) jar maraschino cherries, drained and finely chopped

8 ounces (225 g) salty peanuts

1 250 mL container whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks and sweetened with a tablespoon or so of sugar

coloured sprinkles, if you're so inclined

Line a 13x9 inch baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving some overhang. Place half of ice-cream sandwiches evenly over bottom of pan, completely covering bottom and cutting sandwiches to fit, if necessary. Top evenly with banana slices. Pour hot fudge sauce over bananas. Top with cherries and half of the peanuts and pour butterscotch evenly on top. Layer with remaining ice cream sandwiches and spread whipped cream over the top. Sprinkle with remaining peanuts and coloured sprinkles. Cover and freeze for at least four hours. Remove from pan using foil handles. Cut into squares and serve.

100 Mile Dieters

While many readers will be perusing this newspaper over a cup of steaming hot coffee or a mug of Earl Grey, a good number of folks in the region will today wake up, hit the kitchen in search of a hot bevvy, and then remember the new, decaffeinated normal.

When Waterloo's Healing Centre for Naturopathic Medicine held a meeting in late May to see if they could round up 100 people to eat food solely grown within 100 miles of their home for 100 days this summer, naturopaths Rachel Vandenberg and Michael Torreiter weren't sure they'd find enough enthusiasts.

Nevermind that. They had to turn people away from the info session and then schedule a second. In the end, a few hundred people have committed to three-plus months of local eating.

And while they won't be indulging in margaritas on the deck, popcorn at the movies or ice cream at the DQ this summer, I suspect these folks will instead discover the joys of homemade popsicles, minty herbal tea and potato chips made the old-fashioned way. Along with that, no doubt, will come a new appreciation for just how much effort -- and organization -- is required when you can't eat anything pre-packaged.

I thought it would be fun to follow a few people to see how they fare on the 100 mile diet. Today, you'll meet three sets of participants and find out how they've been readying themselves for Day 1. I'll check back in with them in late August, at Day 50, and again on Day 100, as they celebrate Thanksgiving.

Perhaps those of you indulging in all things from all places this summer will gain new perspective on what grows within 161 kilometres of your doorstep. As for those of you also taking part, maybe you'll find inspiration and ideas. No doubt, you'll also find a couple of friendly faces with whom you can commiserate.

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Elliot Fung and Amy Poth-Fung and sons, Spencer, 3-1/2 and Grayson, 15 months.

Elliot works at RIM and sits on Wilmot Township Council; Amy is a teacher in Ayr. Part of what made the challenge doable for this family is that much of the 100 days would fall while Amy was on summer holidays and able to dedicate some time and effort to sourcing and preparing food.

Where: New Dundee

Already craving: "Amy will miss olive oil," says Elliot. "We go through a lot of olive oil. And we eat a lot of bananas in this house so that'll be tough."

How they got ready: Doubling their backyard vegetable garden, clearing out the pantry and lots of research on the internet.

Happy discoveries: Lyndon Fish Hatcheries is just blocks away and Elliot drives past Herrle's Country Farm Market en route to work every day.

Potential snags: "I don't think the kids will notice a difference because they eat what we eat," says Elliot. "But if we're at the cottage and everyone goes for an ice cream, Amy and I won't but Spencer won't understand why he can't. We'll probably just let him have it. We're not too concerned about that."

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Maureen Whyte

A 44-year-old singleton with a very busy lifestyle, Maureen works full-time for the region, part-time for a transport company, takes a couple of courses and volunteers for two organizations. As such, she's been known to eat a 10 p.m. dinner or two of homemade nachos.

Where: Kitchener

Already craving: Martinis with olives, freshly ground pepper. Also: "I'm psyching myself up for no tea."

How she got ready: A veggie patch in the backyard, an herb bed -- including a curry plant -- and creating some room in the freezer.

Happy discoveries: Oakridge Acres Country Meat Store in Ayr, grapeseed oil from Joseph's Winery in Niagara and flour from Tavistock's Oak Manor Farms.

Potential snags: Family dinners. "My mom's not quite understanding why I'd want to do this. Instead of going there, she'll just have to come to my house."

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Anita and Brian Wagner and sons Michael, 16, and Nick, 14

Anita, an RN at an oral surgeon's office, is the only one in the family excited for the challenge. She's always been interested in local meat and dairy products and doesn't feel it will be a huge stretch. The men in the family are less enthusiastic. Husband Brian, who works as a manager for a company that supplies Toyota, will be fine as long as he's eating food prepared at home by Anita. Same goes for the teenagers. When asked why they're participating, the boys mumble, "'Cuz Mom's making us."

Where: Kitchener

Already craving: Twice-a-day coffee and smoothies that include pineapple juice and almond milk for Anita. The boys will miss Cookie Crisp cereal, chocolate bars, Pepsi ("But it says, 'Made in Mississauga!' ")and their morning glass of OJ.

How they got ready: Stocking up through Bailey's Local Foods, making room in the freezer and buying a pasta maker.

Happy discoveries: Local health food stores, Our Farmer's Choice on Courtland Avenue in Kitchener and the farmers' markets.

Potential snags: "I have no idea what he eats all day," says Anita of Brian, who's often dines out on the go. At the very least, he'll be eating locally in the morning and at dinner.