Published on July 17th, 2008
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What’s a local foodie to do if you don’t have the right spot for a garden? Maybe you just don’t exude the green thumb karma and enthusiasm for growing your own seasonal fare? Or what if there isn’t a farmers’ market nearby for one-stop local food shopping?
Join Charlene Torchia and be a local food forager, developing connections, routines and routes for regularly traversing your area and buying direct from area family farms and food artisans. “I call it my ‘food run’,” explains Torchia, who runs the eco-friendly bed and breakfast, Journey Inn, in Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, about an hour from St. Paul/Minneapolis. “Once a week I make my rounds and stock up on key supplies such as meat from Anderson Farm, goat cheese, organic parmesan from Eau Galle Cheese, apples and cider. Vegetables come from a local CSA – Community Supported Agriculture – and I can even buy bread through them as they grow and grind their own wheat.”
With no dirt under the fingernails required, Torchia exemplifies the spirit that if you’re passionate about the local foods movement and supporting sustainable agriculture, you can find direct sources for bootie in your area. Try plugging your zip code into the Local Harvest database for a starter list of area options. “It’s all about relationships that go beyond shopping transactions,” Torchia adds. “Friendships developed from my food run. I feel part of the community and my B&B guests love hearing the personal story of where each breakfast ingredient came from.”
Here are some starter tips for becoming a local foods forager in your area: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 10th, 2008
Saw an article in the New York Times that got my attention this morning - Cutting Out the Middlemen, Shoppers Buy Slices of Farms by Susan Saulny - that inspired me to do a little shout out in support of CSA(Community Supported Agriculture). Of course, the concept isn’t so new to many of us who have been at this sustainable lifestyle thing for a while, but I realize there are a lot of folks just learning about some of this - yeah!
Over 20 years ago (when I was about 12 - not really, but I hate to seem so old!), I lived in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts, which was an enclave of progressive, sustainability folks. I became president of one of the largest most comprehensive store-front food coops in New England, Berkshire Co-Op Market. We were plugged into some great local organic farmers and I was fortunate to be part of one of the early CSA groups.
It felt great to support our local organic farmers, who at that time, were struggling - there were no supermarket chains buying organic produce back then!
Find out more about CSAs and how you can find one near you!
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 9th, 2008
I am all about buying local and in particular, I am a big supporter of local farmers. I’ve always seen Wal-Mart as the antithesis of my beliefs in creating a more regionally economically sustainable culture.
When a press release came through from Wal-Mart announcing their commitment to increase their use of local farmers to provide fresh produce, I was skeptical.
However, in doing a little research for this post, I visited the Wal-Mart website and found that they have an entire section devoted to sustainability. Okay. That is good. You can see that they are going to great lengths to at least appear to be implementing more sustainable activities across the board. But one could argue that these are all either cost-saving measures or done to be SC or Sustainable Correct, which is important to their marketing and PR efforts.
This cynical view of things aside, one could also argue that anything Wal-Mart implements on a corporate level will have a pretty big impact on whatever local economies they might otherwise be harming.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 5th, 2008
How exactly does one make a vegetable farm less carnivorous than it already is? The practice of veganic - or “stock-free” - farming is beginning to take hold among some small-scale farmers in the United States and Canada. It has been a common method in Europe for years.
Veganic farmers practice organic farming by eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, but take it a step further by eliminating animal-derived farming products as well. Most organic farmers use bone meal, blood meal and animal waste fertilizer to make their plants productive, but veganic farmers and their customers see a number of problems with using animal biproducts around the plants. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 4th, 2008
Oh say can can you see beyond the jammed big box checkout aisles as Americans rev up for the Fourth of picnic parade this weekend? Let us all remember that the most patriotic food on the party menu won’t be processed, shipped 1,700 miles or stuffed in multiple 100-calorie packs. But that doesn’t mean deprivation. On my menu this weekend you’ll find what I consider the three most patriotic foods: Local beer, fresh greens and a brat from beef cattle raised on grass in a pasture.
Guess I’ve always been an unconventional American patriot. No red, white and blue holiday t-shirts for yours truly. I haven’t seen a parade in years. But I do put a lot of thought into the picnic menu. The Fourth of July reminds me to remember and rekindle Thomas Jefferson’s vision of our democracy as citizens’ everyday participation in the political system – in my case, through conscious food choices.
Make a democratic statement with your food choices this weekend. Here are the criteria that resulted in my patriotic choices: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on July 2nd, 2008
Posted in
Eat.Drink.Better,
Farmers Market Fare,
Uncategorized,
agriculture,
business,
food crisis,
local food,
nutrition and health,
organics,
recipes,
vegetarian
Landi Simone the ‘Bee Lady’ of Gooserock Farm in Montville, New Jersey goes all out every year to help raise awareness about honey bees and their importance to our agriculture and eco-systems.
Landi, pictured here in her ‘bee bikini’, got together with fellow, bee buddy, Joe Treimel to show off their live bee apparel and accessories. Joe sported a bee beard. This all took place last weekend at the Essex County Environmental Center.
Read more about Landi and what is happening to honey bees in one of my earlier posts. Here’s a crazy story I saw yesterday morning on CNN.com about 12 MILLION honey bees that swarmed a Canadian highway after a truck carrying them flipped over!
My favorite honey & herb sauce . . . Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 30th, 2008
Brazil’s new environment minister, Carlos Minc is committed to serious punative action when it comes to the estimated 60,000 cows that are raised on illegally deforested land in the region of Amazonia.
In fact, cattle pasture now covers 7.8% of the Amazon region, with an ever growing presence as worldwide demand for beef skyrockets. Illegal cattle grazing helped Brazil become the world’s largest beef exporter in 2004, but after several years of declining deforestation rates in the Amazon, degradation of the rain forest is again on the rise. The pressure to produce more and more has led many ranchers to ignore regulation.
It is rare to find a politician who is willing to stand up to an industry that is responsible for a significant portion of the GDP, but Minister Minc made good on his promises to crack down on illegal ranching last week when his office confiscated 3,100 cows from one rancher who used a nature reserve in the state of Para as pasture land, cutting away forest that got in the way of his cattle. Not only is Minc committed to punishing those who clearcut the Amazon, he sees a use for the contraband livestock. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 28th, 2008
The European Union has traditionally been more cautious of genetically-modified (GM) foods than the rest of us. They require more scientific study than other food safety organizations before approving individual seeds and ban a significant number of GM seeds as well. This stands in stark contrast to U.S. policies that encourage GM crop growing through subsidies. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, 92% of Minnesota’s 2007 soybean crop and 86% of its corn crop came from GM seeds.
Now, mounting pressure from both Europe’s farmers and global food aid organizations have caused the high courts of various EU countries to reconsider. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 22nd, 2008
Among the decidedly ungreen luxuries I allow myself is a small collection of magazine subscriptions, one of which is Gourmet - the Conde Nast foodie rag that is, to be honest, hit or miss. But this month’s issue was a favorite of mine, mostly because of a moving account by two young chefs of a trip they took to Madani Halal butcher in New York in search of a goat to serve at their summer barbecue. The chefs - Ian Knauer and Alan Sytsma - picked out a grass-fed, free-range goat and watched as the butcher thanked the animal for its life and then killed it in what is considered the most painless way possible. The chefs reported back that watching their animal die added a level of responsibility to their cooking. Not only did they want to create a delicious meal for its own sake, they felt a need to honor the sacrifice of the animal’s life.
This type of thinking is an integral part of the current movement towards more ethical meat consumption that we often discuss on this blog. Consider below the similarities between Zibah - the Halal slaughter method - and members of the slow food movement. This similarity is not lost on Riaz, the owner of Madani, who told Gourmet that he believes Halal butchery can help many Americans to accept Islam through shared eating values.
According to the Halal Food Authority the following conditions must be met in order for meat to be considered passable: Read the rest of this entry »
Published on June 20th, 2008
While they don’t normally farm naked, eleven of Kona’s farmers dared and bared it all to raise awareness about false advertising on coffee labels. The tasteful and fun photos of these mature women grace the pages of a 2009 calendar, reminiscent of the Alternate WI Calendar, the inspiration for the movie Calendar Girls. While the calendar was a bit of light-hearted humor, these farmers are serious about protecting the trademark of Kona coffee. And they should be.
Currently, coffee labels are allowed to use terms like “Kona blend,” “Kona style,” or even “Kona coffee,” even if the package contains only ten percent Kona beans. The remaining 90 percent of the beans come from other regions like Brazil or Columbia.
Kona farmers are concerned that the mislabeling dilutes the integrity of this unique variety. That integrity does have value when you examine how the coffee is produced and the Kona Coffee Farmers mission to protect Kona farmers’ economic interests in 100% Kona coffee, to protect the Kona coffee heritage, and to seek greater legal protection of the Kona coffee name.
I contacted Christine Sheppard of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association to find out more about this unique variety. Interview follows the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
