On Staleness

I love science. Though my academic career eventually parted ways from the lab towards the history book, I really appreciate the solid, logical structure of what science is as a concept. One of the things I love about science most is that there are still huge gaps in what we know. Sure, troubles like the nature of black holes or the unifying theory of relativity deserve their mystery - but then there are somethings which are a bit surprising we haven't figured out. Like staleness.

Staleness is one of the most fundamental facts of life for bread. People are born and will one day die. Bread is baked and will one day become stale (or eaten). But what that means is, apparently, a bit of a mystery.

The intuitive response to this question is that that staleness is simply bread drying out... but it isn't. It's something much more mysterious - and though it may seem like a simple inconvenience, it has been one of the pushing factors for change in the bread, especially in the United States, in the past sixty years.

The expectation of bread quality varies as much as taste does throughout the world. Surveys say that Americans expect bread to keep for a week, Brits are okay with just five days of freshness, while the French are fine with bread only keeping for a day before it goes stale. The chicken-and-the-egg here would likely be impossible to tell, but it all boils down to the large push in American bread making towards the product with the longest shelf life. For reasons undetermined (or at least not fully understood in the book I am reading from the late eighties), white breads (and here I am talking cotton breads, not just breads with white flour) produced without the use of bulk fermentation have much longer shelf lives than brown breads and specialty breads. This has helped to fuel the drive for our bad bread.

The psychology behind convenience food is endlessly fascinating. In a report on the sociology of bread which I was reading, a sociologist in England camped out in the kitchen of four different households for one to three months to watch everything the family ate and prepared. Comparing to an earlier study, the net result was a decrease in the amount of bread eaten, but a large increase in convenience breads such as cookies. And we want those cookies when we want them. And we don't want to have to rush out and buy more.

It's more complicated than I want it to be. Food which lasts longer is an obvious good - less energy wasted trying to make more of it, less energy driving back and forth to the store to buy more of it, less energy every step of the way. The trouble is what must be done to make this food last longer. Preservatives often cause health troubles*, mainstreaming recipes kills variety, and changing diets to only eat fresh is out of the question. But why does everything have to be homogenized and awful? The French buy bread fresh because it's important to them. Mexican bakeries are actually much more numerous than I had imagined - though Bimbo Breads (the company that owns Wonder Bread) are omnipresent even in the smallest of towns I have visited. I don't know where the energy balance between the effort to preserve and the effort needed to consume all that we buy would land, but I can't help thinking that the industrialization of food has led to some ill consequences.

So, what causes staleness? It has something to do with starches aging, losing moisture, and degelatinizing. But what causes bad bread? Still a question.



*I was reading something interesting just the other day about the use of smoking and curing meats as a means to preserve. When countries stop eating these products stomach cancer rates dropped dramatically. In the refrigeration loving US, we see pretty low rates. How interesting.

Video Adventure: Big Cross on Hill

Today I went on a nice little hike with a dog and a friend. This video ensues.

Developing Diets

Holy-moly! Today I am halfway through my time in Mexico. 49 days of adventure behind me, 49 to go until I hit the streets of Bangkok! I have to say I am a bit surprised I am only halfway though... it part way feels like I have been here forever, but also feels like there are a million things left to learn about Mexico

But speaking of learning, lately I have been doing lots of looking at the topic of dietary changes in development - and let me tell you there is some great schlock to share!



So, the focus of my project is looking at the expansion of wheat in diets due to the Green Revolution, but that fits pretty well hand-in-hand with the change in how people eat because of industrialization. It's no great secret that I have a love-hate relationship with the American diet. We eat a prime example of the troubles with overabundance which can happen in an affluent society. People should eat around 2000 calories a day, but we produce or import enough for us all to have around 3900. While not everyone eats all of those extras, enough do to make us a nation of fatties.

(As a tangent, I was reading something the other day about the problem of overeating vs. undereating in the United States. It blamed the "I'm okay, you're okay" culture of the US which fears pushing people towards anorexia by discussing healthy eating habits. The article countered that many studies showed that discussion healthy body image actually doesn't actually increase rates of anorexia - but that even if it did, the problem of extreme obesity is so severe that people are fatting themselves to death at a rate many times higher than they are starving themselves to death. The article advocated that the greater harm needs to be addressed first to save the most people (as far as accurate numbers on either end goes, there are none... but there are a good range of estimates). How interesting.)

Most developing countries have large troubles with malnutrition and undernutrition. One of the faults of the Green Revolution is that it focused only on grains - and within grains only focused on wheat, rice, and corn. Pulses (beans, legumes, lentils, chickpeas, etc), though a major part of the protein diet in developing nations, were largely ignored and little attention was given to fruits of vegetables. While the easiest way to increase calorie consumption is to increase outputs of grains, to fight big picture malnutrition issues, there needs to be a greater focus on these nutrient rich foods.

Even odder, rather than focus on helping out pulses now, there's a lot more focus on increasing protein consumption through growing poultry industries in many developing nations. The idea makes some sense, but also creates some troubles. Pulses are great for a variety of reasons, but the big two are:

1. They are a very strong vegetarian source of protein. When in a famine environment and trying to increase protein consumption, it's best to go for the most energy efficient means. Every trophic level you rise, the less efficient the food source is. That's why it's ideal to eat plants, mediocre to eat chickens, and superfluous to eat lions. It's generally said you lose about 90% of your energy every step up the food chain you go. So why eat a chicken that you are feeding a plant when you can get the same nutritional value from a similar plant?

2. Most pulses are nitrogen fixing. Nitrogen fixations is one of the coolest ideas of farming. So, nitrogen is an element which is in the air and soil. Things need it to live (by mass, you and I are about 3% nitrogen). Some plants are big nitrogen leaches, while some are nitrogen fixers. The big nitrogen consumers happen to be corn and other grains. Legumes are the big fixers.

Essentially, if you were to farm nothing but corn, you would eventually deplete the nitrogen content of the soil and not be able to grow any more corn. You can prevent this by dumping on nitrogen based fertilizers (ironically, many nitrogen fertilizers for corn are actually made from corn, meaning you are essentially robbing Peter's soil to pay Paul (and almost worse, many others are petroleum products...)), but that's costly and often awful for the environment. You can more easily do it by establishing a cropping system which involves crop rotation cycles. While corn takes nitrogen from the soil, legumes suck it out of the air, and with the help of some friendly prokaryotes, they are able to add nitrogen back into the ground. Whoa. By rotating corn with beans, even though you have the corn on the field for less time total, you are still making a net energy and monetary profit because of the reduced labor and cost of fertilizers and the net gain of productivity for the corn from the leguminous fixation - plus you get a good source of protein to boot.

So, if pulses are a more efficient way to get people their protein, and are actually a larger part of traditional diets, why are we seeing a major shift towards industrialized chicken factories? Well, I'm forming an answer, but we'll save it for next time so that this ag post doesn't go forever.

Video Adventure: Maize Fields and Commuting

I had my camera with me on commute back to my home from CIMMYT, so absurd videos ensued. The two below are the ones which actually make sense, but if you want to understand what lengths I go through to make these, you have to watch the rough drafts here. An introduction to the field:



An introduction to the commute:

So, this is how I roll

Sometimes I amaze myself. After my great triumph on Saturday regaining my cashmoney, I was able to lose that regained self-confidence by simultaneously locking myself in and out of my house for twenty hours.

The dog has a broken nail which has been bleeding a tiny bit over the past three days. On Sunday as I read the news online, I noticed that Honey's paw was again leaking lifejuice, so I quickly let her out and cleaned the wound. After playing nurse to my furry friend, I got up to go back inside and saw my keys laying on the kitchen table and the self-locking door firmly shut. After a quick examination of the outside of the house to look for points of entry, I accepted that the house would not be easily accessed. At this point I have to note that it is quite fortunate that I was feeling proper Sunday morning. Often I will work in the house wearing just my short-shorts, but I had bothered to get dressed - sadly I hadn't bothered to put the house keys in my pocket or shoes on my feet.

Not so much trouble, I could just go up the street to Marcela's house and she could let me in... but as I approached the front gate of my house, I remembered that the lock requires that you have the key. The key to the gate being on the same rings as the house keys and within the ten foot walls, the matter became more complex. Eventually I decided to put my supreme monkey skills to use and scale the wall, landing on our rural country road. I meandered up to Marcela's gate to find her MIA. Seeing no opportunity behind me, I walked barefoot up to the center of the village where there is a single pay phone to try calling Marcela's. However, pay phones in Mexico take phone cards - not coins - and while I was fortunate enough to have my wallet on me, the corner store in the village doesn't sell phone cards. So, I was forced to take the bus ride barefoot into Texcoco where I had been planning on meeting some friends for an outing anyhow.


I endure the stares of many a confused local about why I am walking barefoot in the filthy city and plunk myself down in the bus station to wait for my friends. Upon their arrival, they volunteer to go shoe shopping for me (I somehow bet my bargaining potential for new footwear would have been limited with my demonstrable need). An hour later they return, and we head into Mexico City for the afternoon, with hopes of contacting Marcela upon my return. We have a lovely day in the city, spend some time touring the canals of Xochimilco (the brilliant colors of the boats and the local water fowl shown at right). Throughout the day, I try calling Marcela to establish a meeting time with her, but to no avail.

I return that evening to my house to feed the dog. Her food being locked in the house, I had bought some from the market. Her being locked within the gates, I simply call her to the garden wall and toss her dinner over to her. Defeated, I return to CIMMYT to sleep on an extra bed of a friend. This morning, I trek back out to the house to cross paths with the gardener who works MWF starting at eight. I scale the wall again, feed Honey, and scratch Honey belly for an hour before Enrique arrives. He leads me to the house of Marcela, and she lends me the keys. No harm, no foul, but yet another tale to tack up another bit of evidence of my ridiculousness.

So, I have money, my health, and, thankfully, my keys. Hopefully I won't lose any of the aforementioned again any time soon.

My first potentially shady experience in Mexico... that I know of....

So, the story starts that I am dog-sitting for the next month for Jon, a man who works at CIMMYT. I moved in last Sunday to have a bit of a crossover with him and get to know the place and his dog. The house is beautiful, the dog is friendly, the town is cute and quite nice. He has a maid/nanny named Marcella and a gardener named Enrique, neither of whom speak English, and both of whom live in town and come around the house several times a week to do work. Jon assured me both were quite trustworthy and friendly people.

Well, the first morning I was in the house alone I was awoken to the gate-bell at about six am. I was groggy and tried to ignore it, but eventually I rise and answer the buzzer and hear Marcella at the gate. A bit early for me, but Jon wakes up at 4:30 each morning, and she must have thought I was a similar early riser. I had been staying in the guest house for my first two nights and had just moved into the main house. As I had the only set of keys to the guest house, I assumed she was ringing to ask for the keys so she could tidy up in there.

When I get to the gate, the Marcella is a bit distraught and rather than asking for house keys as I had expected, she relates that her boyfriend (a mysterious fellow who Jon hasn't met, but he had told me lives somewhere far away) has been in a bus accident in Veracruz. In broken Spanish, I attempt to be sympathetic, but eventually it gets around to her asking for money. She asks for 1000 pesos and says that she needs to send it to him for medical expenses. I am reluctant, but eventually decide that if Jon trusts this woman with keys to his house, car, and children, I can trust her with some money. She says on Saturday she will get me the money back. I obtain the cash, give it to her, and e-mail Jon the story.

Jon e-mails back, says it is quite odd, but that he trusts her. He is traveling but says he will give her a call on Friday to find out more details. I go on with my existence, but the next morning I am woken again. Marcella is at the gate, provides more details about the crash and the extent of the injuries. She asks for 700 more pesos, which I again, reluctantly, give her.

So, this morning rolls around and Jon calls me to confirm the details about what is going on, then he calls Marcella. Then he calls me back. Turns out that woman who had shown up at the gate was not in fact Marcella. Marcella and I had only met briefly on Monday morning and when a young Mexican woman who responds to me calling her Marcella shows up early on Wednesday morning, I figure it is indeed Marcella. So, Jon calls back Marcella, and then calls me back again, and Jon says that Marcella has said that that she had heard that someone in town has a loved one in the hospital. So, tomorrow morning, the real Marcella will be coming by at nine (possibly with the cousin in tow so I can meet her and try to sort thigns out). The woman who is not Marcella may or may not be coming back at six (am or pm is yet to be determined) to payback the loan. And for the meantime, I am thoroughly confused. The total money comes out to $157 US... so if this woman is never to be heard from again, it's not an enormous loss... but it's still a chunk of cash.

It's funny because potentially there is nothing shady here at all. A woman came to the door and asked for money and I gave it to her. She never fronted that she was anything besides who she was. It was I who first called her Marcella... and perhaps she explained that she was not who I thought she was and I just didn't understand her. This could be nothing more than a strange situation with a lots of miscommunication. I still feel hopeful.

When traveling for fourteen months, you are bound to be ripped off eventually. Whether this is that time, I don't know. When you only sort-of speak a language you are inherently distrustful of others - but you spend a lot of energy trying not to think the worst of people. Sometimes that attempt at trusting the other is misplaced... and you get taken for a ride.

So, a friend from work who speaks English and Spanish is going to stay the night this evening and be prepared to help act as translator at six and/or nine. In case the woman comes at six pm, I have invited some friends over for dinner and to act as translator then. And I still have to write a lot about wheat by the end of the day.

More to be posted when I know it.

Update 1: Saturday, 7 July: 11:00pm:
Umm... I am not too surprised to be reporting that no one miraculously showed up this evening to repay their loans. Speaking with Marcela this morning provided a bit of comfort - and though she had some possible leads, she didn't sound too optimistic about my prospects either. More when it is known.

Update 2: Sunday, 8 July: 8:15pm
So, this evening Marcela and I paid a visit to the theorized loan recipient and were able to confirm her identity. Better yet, apparently she does occasional work for CIMMYT and Marcela was able to hint that if the loan isn't repaid tomorrow there's a good chance my superiors would hear about it and not be happy. So, she seemed to backtrack a bit and said that tomorrow at six the loan shall be repaid. Will it? Only time will tell, but promising progress.

Update 3: Sunday, 8 July: 8:36pm
Just after I press 'publish post' on the last entry, the gate buzzer rings. It's the woman wanting to have a talk with me one-on-one (actually, her son was there too, but I think the more important part was that Marcela wasn't there.) She talks at me for a minute and a half, and says she spoke with her father and she won't be able to get the money back by Monday. Quite fortuitously, I see through the cracks of the gate Marcella walking past. I say this, and invite Marcela in, to which the LoanLady is rather displeased. Marcela and the loan lady speak for twenty minutes with lots of back peddling by Loanlady and lots of explaining that I don't speak Spanish very well by Marcela and I. With Marcela there she seems afraid to say she won't have the money tomorrow, and every time she hints at it, Marcella tells her that the money needs to come back. So, tomorrow I am bringing a translator home with me and we're going to all chat again - and hopefully get some money back.

Update 4: Monday, 9 July: 8:47pm
Met with the woman today, she said the money was transferred today and she would be getting it from the bank tomorrow. We almost took it to the police, but ultimately I decided, after hearing many stories of unpleasant experiencing to the police in Mexico, that we would give it one more day before going through the hassle of talking to the cops. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Update 5: Tuesday, 10 July: 8:05pm:
Well, I can't say that I am surprised - she showed, no money, asked for another day. I told her (in English and in Spanish) I didn't want excuses and that tomorrow we're reporting her to the authorities. She tried to say she would have the money by tomorrow, I told her 'whatever.'

On the bright side, I saw my first wild tarantula (I actually almost stepped on it) today while hiking. It was pretty sweet. Mañana, mañana.

Update 6: Wednesday, 11 July: 7:35pm
So, I headed to the office of the village government where Kate (my friend and trusty translator), Marcela, and I reported the unpaid debt. The village official took down the information, will issue a summons, and we will have an official meeting on Saturday morning at 10am. He was happy to relate that the same woman had bothered him, and several members of his family, for money in the past. He said that no one usually gave her money, but when they did, it was not seen again. He thought it quite humorous that she had the chutzpah to ask to this gringo for such large sums and then not pay out.

So, we will meet in the public building on Saturday, but she will get two more chances at responding if she doesn't show then. From there, nothing automatically happens, but if I would like to take it to the municipal government in Texcoco (the bigger town around here) I can, and I will have this as official testament.

Perhaps we will not need to get that far because after going to the town government, we stopped by Loanlady's house to talk to Loanlady's mother. I am not sure how old Loanlady is, but she has several children, and I would estimate around thirty; her mother around sixty. Never in my life have I seen a thirty year old woman so shamed in front of her mother. Though Loanlady has told us that she had been in dialog with her parents about this matter, from the reaction, she certainly hadn't. Her mom seemed genuinely horrified that her daughter had done this. So, to avoid the date with the official folks, Loanlady's mom said that they would be coming by my place on Friday at six to pay things back.

Apparently reporting things to the town council has no teeth except for that of gossip - which seeing how this woman's mother reacted, might be enough. Whether or not the money comes back, it did feel a bit satisfying to see this woman at least show some remorse that might have been genuine - and maybe social pressures will keep her from fraudulent requests in the future.

(As a side note, so I don't seem too heartless, this woman does not seem too in need of money - the house has two cars, is relatively large, and she wears a diamond ring. I don't feel like asking for my money back would be taking food from her childrens' mouthes.)

Update 7: Saturday 14 July: 9:31am:
Just a half an hour before the big meeting with the municipal government was to happen, the Loanlady shows at my door - with 1700 pesos in hand. I didn't think it would actually happen - but it finally did - thanks probably to her mother standing behind her with crossed arms. An epic conclusion to the tale of how Nathan Leamy almost lost a chunk of cash - but through persistence and the help of his kindly and resourceful maid he was able to regain a bit of self-respect and cash. Huzzah.

Publishing, Poblano, and Petsitting

"Man, despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments, owes his existence to a 15 cm layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains" - anon

I might be well on my way to being a published author by the end of the week. I found the above quote today while doing some research. It's not quite true, but still a fun sentiment. Anywho, CIMMYT puts out a lil' reader once every decade or so which looks at how things have changed in the world of wheat (the one from 98/99 can be found here). It focuses on projects for the developing world and what CIMMYT has been doing, but generally covers a pretty good spectrum of topics in the world of wheat - all the way from the hot news on wheat germoplasm to the latest tillage methods. I took an interest in the new issue which will be coming out soon - and somehow ended up writing for it. It's a great project because I am writing country profiles for eight countries which are representative of the whole of wheat growing. I will be using research from folks all over to predict what is going to happen to wheat growth in their prospective markets. Some countries will lose arable land to climate change, others will gain new markets from the demand created by urbanized populations wanting convenience foods, and everything in between.

I don't know how I went from being fresh-faced confused baker to being a co-author to one of the major publications of the largest wheat research center in the world, but I won't object. Getting this all done by Friday is a whole other matter...



Fortunately I have a new refuge to hole-up and plug myself into the work. When I first moved to CIMMYT I was staying in a dormitory on campus, then I was able to plant-sit in a house on campus. Now, I have moved out into a nearby village called La Purificacion for some dog-sitting. It's a tiny town - but a beautiful home. I am now the proud caretaker of Honey, a golden retriever who likes to lick things quite a bit. It's good to be off campus, though it will likely be a bit isolating. With any luck I'll get a bit more of a down home feel here and less of the institution of CIMMYT.

In other news, I had my first clothing casualty yesterday. I had rabbit in a mole poblano sauce (that's mole,the chocolate chili sauce, not mole the animal which lives underground) and while cutting my meat, my hand slipped and I splashed mole all over the front my blue shirt. Despite attempts to clean it with both ice and hot water, my shirt remains awkwardly speckled. Perhaps it is the doing of my family's old rabbit Canby for my eating one of her kin (which I must say was rather tasty, though a strange kind of tasty). So, unless there is some fantastical method to remove mole from sky blue cloth, the shirt goes to the trash. This means I am down to only hve five shirts to last me the next fourteen months. At this rate I will be naked by the time I get to Europe - which wouldn't be so bad, actually...



And for loose ends, my tummy is grand and my ankle is pretty good - though I should likely avoid showing off my b-ball skills at least for a time. Life is good.

And in case anyone is real interested, here are some pop-articles about wheat and agriculture. The first my mom pointed me towards - a Q&A with a writer for Gourmet Magazine. The second is from... err... Time Magazine and looks at some of the realities of American food.. And the third is from my ol' boss Congressman Earl Blumenauer. As I am sure all are aware, the Farm Bill (a piece of legislation which decides virtually everything about American agriculture, gets renewed every five years or so, and gets virtually no attention from anyone outside of agribusinessmen and the Representatives they have in their pockets) is again being looked at this year and Blumenauer is trying to make it be a national issue (we all eat..) rather than just an issue of money. (there's also a decent overview article from the NYT here).