All About My Mother

9/21/06

Susan and Chip Planck

David Kamp, author of The United States of Arugula, was gallant enough to say this about my mother on September 21, 2006:

Which brings me to another great food activist, one of my favorite people I got to meet in the course of writing and researching my book: a young woman named Nina Planck.

Nina is the author of the books Real Food: What to Eat and Why and The Farmers' Market Cookbook. She's the daughter of Virginia farmers, and I like her not only because she's a nice person, but because of the jolliness of her activism, her prescriptiveness and fundamental upbeatness.

In her fine Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times about the E. coli spinach scare, she points out that the strain of E. coli bacteria that's getting people sick is often a byproduct of feeding cattle grain, which stresses the digestive systems of the animals (who, as ruminants, aren't supposed to be eating grain).

"It's the infected manure from these grain-fed cattle that contaminates the groundwater and spreads the bacteria to produce, like spinach, growing on neighboring farms," Nina writes. She then points out the "good news" that cattle switched to a grass-fed diet for even a few days experience a sharp downturn in the amount of this especially nasty strain of E. coli (O157:H7) in their systems.

Nina sheds light on the problem and points the way toward a solution, while acknowledging that implementing this solution will take time and effort. (And she is brave enough not to pile scorn on Earthbound Farm, the "corporate organic" outfit whose massive recalls and current troubles have prompted some bouts of schadenfreudal cackling from other food activists, even though Pollan, in his book, finds them to be the good guys among the big outfits.)

One other thing: There was a little party in New York City last week to celebrate the launch of my book. Nina brought along her mom, Susan, who was fresh from the farm in Virginia. Susan got off the night's best line: "I bet I'm the only person in this room who actually planted arugula yesterday."