Zucchini for lunch?
Here's a great recipe for a zucchini bread that I love to eat spread with peanut butter. The added sunflower nuts (shelled seeds) make it special. For many years I made your typical zucchini bread with walnuts or occasionally with raisins, but I like this better!
(I started posting this yesterday, along with the other zuke recipes ... but then K and A arrived, and we went off to play. The girls loved sandwiches made with this bread. They spread their own peanut butter and jam, to the PB&Jelly song ... what fun!)
(Warning! A (gasp!) Political Note on my 'happy talk' blog:
I also appreciate the fact that this recipe calls for sunflower oil, a healthy alternative to the Genetically Modified - sourced oils such as soy, corn and canola that I no longer use. I believe in voting with my wallet, which is why I don't shop at Wallymart or eat at fast food chain restaurants. So kill me.)
Sunflower Zucchini Bread
Source: Country Living Gardener magazine (1993)
1 3/4 cup unsifted flour (I use spelt when I have it)
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1/2 cup sunflower oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups shredded zucchini
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a loaf pan (I use a minimal amount of shortening to stick wax paper to line my loaf pans. Never have a problem with sticking.)
In a large bowl, thoroughly combine dry ingredients, then stir in peel, raisins and sunflower nuts.
In a separate measuring cup combine the shredded zucchini with the wet ingredients.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just incorporated.
Spread batter into the loaf pan and bake 55-60 minutes, until cake tester comes out clean.
Cool bread in pan for at least 10 minutes, then on wire rack until cool.
Enjoy.
Showing posts with label the politics of food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the politics of food. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Yes!
I do wonder if you think (as I do) that this talking head (interviewer) is completely clueless? Wah! Would the Obama's actually eat food that they actually grew? Oh My! (Oy vey!)
Don't those kids look like they're having fun? I can't wait to get out in the yard and tromp around a bit. Soon.
I do have some garden-y questions, though. I wonder if they had a soil test done? I wonder if they know the number of their local Cooperative Extension Service for advice? And how does Michelle Obama manage to look so gosh darn elegant, even while digging a garden with a bunch of schoolchildren!
It looks like a lot of work - all of that sod removal is kind of old fashioned labor-intensive thinking. The really cool latest and greatest thing would have been to lay down some cardboard or newspapers and layered with some good compost. The "lasagna" method. The article does mention raised beds - no need to dig sod, if that's the case.
But no beets! I wonder if Mr. Obama has ever had a nice piece of chocolate beet cake, or beet greens wilted in a pan with a little olive oil and garlic? He is said to have an open mind!
This will be a positive and fun story to follow as it progresses. Hope they don't neglect to reign in that mint! Is there a compost pile? Will they be canning and sharing recipes?
How about baby beets cooked with honey, orange juice and orange peel?
The New York Times Dining section has a nice article about the Obama family's new White House veggie garden, and a garden layout (here's a link).
UPDATE:
Here (link) is an interesting discussion of the Obama White House vegetable garden.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
hmmmm - where does the Google trail lead today...
I was Googling around looking for a website with a volume to weight converter for calculating how much dried herb to buy for our dried seasonings class in June. I make my own dried herbal seasonings blends for the family, but to volunteer to give away my own stash of herbs to a dried herb class, in June, no less - and to have extra packaged herbal seasoning blends to sell for the Herb Society's fundraisers, we need to buy packaged herbs. Not as good as homegrown, but the students will need material to work with.
We have a group account with Frontier, and I recommend their products.
Anyway, to make a short story long, I was Googling along and on the Blotanical dot com website ran across this video ... on another topic, but worth watching. Not that I watch FOX television, but this video confirms my aversion to Faux news, and my distrust of corporate milk. What was that I was saying about Monsanto?
We have a group account with Frontier, and I recommend their products.
Anyway, to make a short story long, I was Googling along and on the Blotanical dot com website ran across this video ... on another topic, but worth watching. Not that I watch FOX television, but this video confirms my aversion to Faux news, and my distrust of corporate milk. What was that I was saying about Monsanto?
Friday, February 20, 2009
First they came for the free range chickens ...
(I know, not funny.)
A pause for a political vent. This issue is too dear green to post on the cranky blog.
The world of organic oriented folk is waking up to the fact that Big Brother didn't retire to the ranch with George W.
First a little background:
The UN supports organic agriculture (link). Here is a good summary of the global issue of organic farming versus corporate agribusiness as it relates to sustainability.
So what are we doing in America, the land of the free?
NAIS.
Like I've said for ten years now, Monsanto is Satan.
Monsanto bills being rushed through Congress, set to destroy organic farming.
by Linn Cohen-Cole
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-bills-being-rushe-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090217-758.html
and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090214-935.html
Learn more here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/nais_faq.cfm
Take action link is in top right hand corner of page.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working for over five years to force a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) onto American animal owners.
NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers or prevent animal diseases. This program is a one-size-fits-all program developed by and for big Agribusiness. NAIS will increase consolidation of our food supply in the hands of a few large companies and put the brakes on the growing movement toward local food systems.
Follow this link to take action today!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26665
Sample letter:
Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096
I urge the USDA to withdraw its proposed rule to implement portions of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096.
The proposed rule mandates the NAIS Premises Identification Number (PIN) as the sole means of identifying properties for USDA animal health purposes. The proposed rule also mandates the use of the NAIS numbering system (i.e. the "840 numbering system") for eartags using official animal identification numbers. Tags using other numbering systems would be required to be linked to a NAIS PIN.
The draft rule is seriously flawed for multiple reasons:
1) Does not substantiate the alleged benefits to animal health. USDA makes general claims about the benefits of identifying locations where animals are kept, but the agency does not address the ability of existing programs to meet this purpose, nor how the proposed rule would improve the capability to identify locations.
2) Ignores the costs and burdens. The proposed rule would substantially increase costs for livestock owners and taxpayers. Costs include the development and maintenance of a massive database; purchase of 840-numbered tags by animal owners; changes by state agencies to make existing programs consistent with the rule; and increased federal government intrusion into the lives and daily activities of farmers and other animal owners.
3) Violates individuals' religious beliefs. Amish, Mennonite, and some other individuals have religious objections to the universal numbering system under NAIS.
4) Creates disincentives for people to seek veterinary care for their animals and participate in existing disease control programs. The proposed rule lists four animal disease programs-tuberculosis , brucellosis, scrapie, and Johne's - and will also impact others. These programs include provisions for veterinary care through vaccinations and testing. Animal owners who object to NAIS may avoid participating in these programs, thereby increasing health risks to the public and farm operations.
5) Adds to the confusion. This rule is the latest in a series of ambiguous and often contradictory documents that the USDA has issued on NAIS. This has created enormous confusion over the intent of the USDA and problems for both animal owners and state agencies.
Moreover, the proposed rule is a significant step towards implementing the entire NAIS program. Thus, the agency should address the fundamental question of whether it should be implementing NAIS at all. In addition to the problems with the draft rule listed above, there are many additional objections to the entire NAIS program:
1) No significant benefits: USDA's assertions that NAIS will provide benefits for animal health are not supported, and actually contradict basic scientific principles.
2) High costs for animal owners and taxpayers: These costs include: (1) the development, maintenance, and update of massive databases; (2) the costs of tags, most of which will contain microchips; (3) the labor burdens for tagging every animal; (4) the paperwork burdens of reporting routine movements; and (5) the costs of enforcement on millions of individuals.
3) Impracticality: The databases to register the properties, identify each animal, and record billions of "events" will dwarf any system currently in existence.
4) Waste of money: The USDA has already spent over $130 million on NAIS implementation, but has yet to develop a workable plan for the program.
5) Diverts resources from more critical needs such as disease testing, disease prevention through vaccination and improved animal husbandry practices, and disease detection in currently uninspected livestock imports.
6) Damage to food safety efforts: NAIS will not prevent foodborne illnesses, such as e. coli or salmonella contamination, because the tracking ends at the time of slaughter. Food safety is better served by focusing on programs such as increased testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow), improved oversight of slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, and increased inspections of imported foods. Programs such as the NAIS are unfair burdens for small, organic and sustainable farms.
A pause for a political vent. This issue is too dear green to post on the cranky blog.
The world of organic oriented folk is waking up to the fact that Big Brother didn't retire to the ranch with George W.
First a little background:
The UN supports organic agriculture (link). Here is a good summary of the global issue of organic farming versus corporate agribusiness as it relates to sustainability.
So what are we doing in America, the land of the free?
NAIS.
Like I've said for ten years now, Monsanto is Satan.
Monsanto bills being rushed through Congress, set to destroy organic farming.
by Linn Cohen-Cole
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-bills-being-rushe-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090217-758.html
and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-and-the-Schoolmar-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090214-935.html
Learn more here:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/nais_faq.cfm
Take action link is in top right hand corner of page.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been working for over five years to force a National Animal Identification System (NAIS) onto American animal owners.
NAIS does nothing to improve food safety for consumers or prevent animal diseases. This program is a one-size-fits-all program developed by and for big Agribusiness. NAIS will increase consolidation of our food supply in the hands of a few large companies and put the brakes on the growing movement toward local food systems.
Follow this link to take action today!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=26665
Sample letter:
Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096
I urge the USDA to withdraw its proposed rule to implement portions of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), Docket No. APHIS-2007-0096.
The proposed rule mandates the NAIS Premises Identification Number (PIN) as the sole means of identifying properties for USDA animal health purposes. The proposed rule also mandates the use of the NAIS numbering system (i.e. the "840 numbering system") for eartags using official animal identification numbers. Tags using other numbering systems would be required to be linked to a NAIS PIN.
The draft rule is seriously flawed for multiple reasons:
1) Does not substantiate the alleged benefits to animal health. USDA makes general claims about the benefits of identifying locations where animals are kept, but the agency does not address the ability of existing programs to meet this purpose, nor how the proposed rule would improve the capability to identify locations.
2) Ignores the costs and burdens. The proposed rule would substantially increase costs for livestock owners and taxpayers. Costs include the development and maintenance of a massive database; purchase of 840-numbered tags by animal owners; changes by state agencies to make existing programs consistent with the rule; and increased federal government intrusion into the lives and daily activities of farmers and other animal owners.
3) Violates individuals' religious beliefs. Amish, Mennonite, and some other individuals have religious objections to the universal numbering system under NAIS.
4) Creates disincentives for people to seek veterinary care for their animals and participate in existing disease control programs. The proposed rule lists four animal disease programs-tuberculosis , brucellosis, scrapie, and Johne's - and will also impact others. These programs include provisions for veterinary care through vaccinations and testing. Animal owners who object to NAIS may avoid participating in these programs, thereby increasing health risks to the public and farm operations.
5) Adds to the confusion. This rule is the latest in a series of ambiguous and often contradictory documents that the USDA has issued on NAIS. This has created enormous confusion over the intent of the USDA and problems for both animal owners and state agencies.
Moreover, the proposed rule is a significant step towards implementing the entire NAIS program. Thus, the agency should address the fundamental question of whether it should be implementing NAIS at all. In addition to the problems with the draft rule listed above, there are many additional objections to the entire NAIS program:
1) No significant benefits: USDA's assertions that NAIS will provide benefits for animal health are not supported, and actually contradict basic scientific principles.
2) High costs for animal owners and taxpayers: These costs include: (1) the development, maintenance, and update of massive databases; (2) the costs of tags, most of which will contain microchips; (3) the labor burdens for tagging every animal; (4) the paperwork burdens of reporting routine movements; and (5) the costs of enforcement on millions of individuals.
3) Impracticality: The databases to register the properties, identify each animal, and record billions of "events" will dwarf any system currently in existence.
4) Waste of money: The USDA has already spent over $130 million on NAIS implementation, but has yet to develop a workable plan for the program.
5) Diverts resources from more critical needs such as disease testing, disease prevention through vaccination and improved animal husbandry practices, and disease detection in currently uninspected livestock imports.
6) Damage to food safety efforts: NAIS will not prevent foodborne illnesses, such as e. coli or salmonella contamination, because the tracking ends at the time of slaughter. Food safety is better served by focusing on programs such as increased testing for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or Mad Cow), improved oversight of slaughterhouses and food processing facilities, and increased inspections of imported foods. Programs such as the NAIS are unfair burdens for small, organic and sustainable farms.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Planning the veggie garden in the depths of winter
CSA farmer Pat writes today that she is busily reading her seed catalogues and planning this year's vegetable planting. The eternal grounded optimism of people who are connected to the earth is ever so comforting and inspiring to born cynics like me.
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus
It is zero degrees Fahrenheit today, but I can feel the real world stirring, thanks to Pat.
The time is now to read the CSA contract, and to mail our downpayment for our half a working share, and although Herb retired this year and the economy, especially in Slow Motion Katrina'd Genesee County, Michigan is looking like the first hill on a roller coaster to many of us, we can't lose sight of the fact that "this too shall pass" and summer will come, and we need to do something to keep our world, from our backyard to the whole nation, on the right path toward sustainability, community, and good health.
Thanks, Pat, For doing what you do.
Here is a good interview with Ken Meter on local economies and sustainability that I hope you'll watch:
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." - Albert Camus
It is zero degrees Fahrenheit today, but I can feel the real world stirring, thanks to Pat.
The time is now to read the CSA contract, and to mail our downpayment for our half a working share, and although Herb retired this year and the economy, especially in Slow Motion Katrina'd Genesee County, Michigan is looking like the first hill on a roller coaster to many of us, we can't lose sight of the fact that "this too shall pass" and summer will come, and we need to do something to keep our world, from our backyard to the whole nation, on the right path toward sustainability, community, and good health.
Thanks, Pat, For doing what you do.
Here is a good interview with Ken Meter on local economies and sustainability that I hope you'll watch:
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Food for thought
I wish my kids would read this:
Michael Pollan Interview
By Mark Eisen
November 2008 Issue of The Progressive
Michael Pollan has got people talking. His recent books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, have captured the public imagination, setting off countless coffee shop discussions, dinnertime arguments, and oh-so-many blog posts.
Even more impressively, his exploration of modern-day agriculture and the dysfunctional American diet has prompted his readers to look at their own eating habits with a new sense of understanding and often a desire for change.
Pollan has taken Wendell Berry’s memorable phrase “eating is an agricultural act” one step further. “It’s a political act as well,” Pollan advises.
A lot of people agree. The alternative food movement—organic farming, local food systems, sustainable agriculture, and more—is burgeoning today because, one family at a time, consumers are backing away from the global food network. Instead, they patronize farmers’ markets, buy food shares from CSA (community-supported agriculture) farms, and favor grocers who sell local meat and produce.
Pollan’s books are essential reading in this movement. He details the importance of grazing to a sustainable farm’s operation and the problems of corn as the cornerstone of U.S. agribusiness. But most of all he gracefully chronicles his own journey of discovery in a food world where, amidst $32 billion in advertising, baleful health consequences are carefully obscured.
Pollan’s topics include a thorough demolition of “nutritionism,” the reigning health ideology that offers dizzying and ever-changing advice on polyunsaturated this and low-fat that, often in the cause of selling highly processed food products.
A good diet is really pretty simple, Pollan declares: Avoid “edible foodlike substances.” Instead, eat real food. “Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.”
I caught up with Pollan two days after he returned from a book tour in New Zealand and Australia. At fifty-three, he looked fit but tired from the travel. He lives on a leafy avenue in Berkeley with his wife, painter Judith Belzer, and their fifteen-year-old son. He teaches journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, after a ten-year stint as an editor at Harper’s Magazine. We talked over cups of Darjeeling tea in his kitchen. Here is the edited and condensed interview.
Q: You argue that consumer ignorance is essential for maintaining the industrial agriculture system.
Michael Pollan: If people could see how their food is produced, they would change how they eat. My interest in the topic traces to two moments, in 2000, when I learned how our food is produced.
One was driving down Route 5 in California and passing the Harris ranch, which is a huge feedlot right on the highway. It’s a stunning landscape. I had never seen anything quite like that.
Miles of manure-encrusted land teeming with thousands of animals and a giant mountain of corn and a giant mountain of manure. And a stench you can smell two miles before you get there.
Most feedlots are hidden away on the High Plains. This one happens to be very accessible. Then I visited an industrialized potato farm in Idaho and saw how freely pesticides were used. The farmers had little patches of potatoes by their houses that were organic. They couldn’t eat their field potatoes out of the ground because they had so many systemic pesticides. They had to be stored for six months to off-gas the toxins.
These two things changed the way I ate. I don’t buy industrial potatoes, and I don’t eat feedlot meat.
It’s only our ignorance of how our food is grown that permits this to go on. Most people, if they went to the feedlot or to the slaughterhouse and saw how the animals are raised and killed, would lose their appetite for that food.
The industry knows this. It works so hard not to label where the food comes from, how it’s made, and whether or not there are GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in it, because they know very well from their own research that people don’t want food grown that way.
Q: The national organic rules, which took effect in 2002, are credited with creating the boom in organic food sales. Yet you seem skeptical.
Pollan: Something was gained and something was lost when the federal government defined what “organic” meant. The rules were drawn in a way to make organic friendly to large corporations looking to do organic as cheaply as possible and on as large a scale as possible.
For example, the fight over whether you should really require pasturing for dairy so the cows can eat grass: They drew those rules so broadly that companies like Aurora and Horizon could slip through with very large industrial feedlots.
An “organic feedlot” should be a contradiction in terms, but it’s not under the rules. They really wanted to make it possible to have a mirrored food supply. So you could take everything in the supermarket and make its organic doppelganger. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? It’s a mixed thing.
The Chinese organic is a real question. First, how organic is it? You hear stories that make you wonder. The other issue is what you can do within the organic rules and still be sending contaminated product. Because the soil is so badly contaminated in China, even if they don’t put chemicals on their fields for three years [as U.S. organic rules require for certification], the heavy metals are still there.
So what the consumer thinks they’re buying—organic food—may not be what they’re really getting from China.
Q: The case is made that Wal-Mart’s entry into organic sales won’t hurt organic farmers, but will help the movement by creating more customers for co-ops and natural food stores.
Pollan: I hope that’s true. But Wal-Mart is one of the reasons we grow beef the way we do in this country, which is to say with brutal efficiency and lots of pharmaceuticals. Wal-Mart’s focus on low price tended to mean squeezing their suppliers very, very hard.
Wal-Mart isn’t doing that yet with organic. But long term, that’s what I would worry about: that they would force organic prices down not by being more efficient in distribution but through pressuring suppliers.
Q: The organic folks I talk with say that Wal-Mart sells only the most popular organic items and doesn’t offer the wide selection that serious organic shoppers want.
Pollan: Wal-Mart feeds the bottom third of the population. So they’re not competing with Whole Foods or the corner co-op. It is bringing more people into organic.
The other virtue of Wal-Mart getting into organic is the education factor. There are lots of people in this country who don’t know what organic is, and they will learn about it from Wal-Mart.
When I first started talking about the industrialization of organics, there really was a sense that “big organic” would crush “little organic.” But I don’t think that’s what is happening.
They are very separate worlds. There is overlap, but “little organic” is like these smart independent bookstores. They figured out a way to be in a different business. They do events and hand-sell books and have a whole conversation about books that Barnes & Noble and Amazon can’t do.
In the same way, you see the really entrepreneurial farmers figuring out they don’t have to compete with Whole Foods and certainly not Wal-Mart. They can offer a higher level of quality and more personal attention through the whole CSA relationship and by selling at farmers’ markets now.
Q: Newsweek ran a story arguing that the organic market was leveling off because it’s just too expensive in an era of higher food prices. Do you agree?
Pollan: No, I think it’s still growing quickly. The demand is still there.
What’s slowing the growth is that there is less incentive for farmers to convert to organic because conventional prices are so high. If you’re a wheat or corn grower you’re getting a real good price. Why would you endure the economic hardship of converting to organic farming?
It takes three years. You have to follow organic practices without getting the benefit of the organic label for your effort. It’s a big investment to make the switch.
That’s what’s slowing down organic growth.
Q: In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you detail the rise of U.S. corn production and the use of high fructose corn syrup as the ubiquitous sweetener in so much processed food. But your discussion of cheap corn gave no sense that corn prices would soon go through the roof.
Pollan: As a journalist, I was describing what was. I don’t think I made any predictions. But the story has changed a lot. How it’s going to play out is very hard to predict.
A good deal of The Omnivore’s Dilemma dealt with how we took making food out of the solar basis and put it on a fossil-fuel basis. This is what the industrialization of food is essentially. It’s introducing cheap fossil fuel in what had been a strictly solar process of using photosynthesis to grow food.
When you do that, suddenly your food economy is dependent on your energy. And that’s why prices have gone up. When oil went up, that was the shock. That, and using corn to produce ethanol.
At this very moment, there are executives sitting around the table at Coca-Cola, saying the price of high fructose corn syrup is spiking and will probably stay there for a while. “Do we shrink the portion size, or do we raise the price? Do we to go back to the days before supersizing and sell eight-ounce Coca-Colas instead of twenty-ounce Coca-Colas?”
I hope they shrink the portion size. That would be good for public health.
Q: Does the world have a food shortage now, or is it more a problem of distribution and changing diets?
Pollan: The spot shortages around the world are really not so much about supply as the price. There are really high prices, and that’s driven by ethanol, high oil prices, and the growing demand for grain in Asia.
The whole free trade regime around grains is trembling right now. Countries are recognizing that you don’t want to lose control of your ability to feed your population. You don’t want the price of food in your country to be dependent on decisions made in Wall Street or the White House.
Trade globalization has forced cheap American and Brazilian grains into all of these countries. As a consequence, they’ve lost the ability to grow their own grain.
Now they wish those farmers were there.
Q: You seemed to struggle with the concept of vegetarianism and arguments against meat eating.
Pollan: I’m a pretty harsh critic of 99 percent of America’s meat system, but there is that 1 percent I think is important to defend, because first there are good environmental reasons to eat meat in a limited way.
If you believe strongly in building up local food economies, there are places where meat is the best way to get protein off of the land. It’s too hilly, too dry. Having animals is very important for sustainable agriculture. If you’re going to have animals on the farm, they’re going to die eventually, and you’re going to eat them.
But I have enormous respect for vegetarians. They’re further ahead than most of us. They’ve gone through the thought process in making their eating choices. They’ve just come out in a different place than I have.
I think we’re going to focus on meat-eaters the way we have on SUV drivers. There will be a lot of pressure and education to show that a heavy meat diet is a big contributor to climate change, and that there are many good reasons to eat less meat.
Q: How is meat consumption tied to climate change?
Pollan: In several ways. First, it’s fossil-fuel intensive. If you are feeding animals grain on feedlots you are growing that grain with fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides. You are moving that grain around the country to feedlots. You’re moving the meat around the country.
It’s a very inefficient way to feed ourselves. It takes ten pounds of grain to get one pound of beef, seven pounds of grain to get one pound of pork, and two pounds of grain to get one pound of chicken.
There is an equity issue, too. If we really have a limited amount of grain to feed the world, and we’re feeding 60 percent of it to animals, and another 10 percent to our cars, that’s going to be hard to defend in the future.
Q: To a striking degree, you argue that individuals in their daily lives can make a difference.
Pollan: I really have a lot of faith — and I know that it’s considered naive by some people on the left — that consumers can change things. I have seen too many cases of what happens when consumers decide to inflect their buying decisions with their moral and political values. It brings about change.
The food industry is remarkably skittish. They’re terrified of food scares and food fads, both of which can cost them billions overnight. So they’re actually more responsive than you would think.
It’s just a matter of consumers voting with their forks for things like grass-fed meat and producers hearing that market signal. But I don’t think you can completely reform the food system by just voting with your fork.
There are policy issues, too. The Farm Bill matters greatly. So I’m not naive in thinking all of our answers lie in changes in personal behavior. The same is true of global warming. Individuals have a lot to do, but we also need public solutions. You can’t have one without the other.
Q: How is climate change a crisis of lifestyle and character?
Pollan: Look, 70 percent of economic activity in this country is consumer — it’s our purchasing decisions. That is the economy. We are implicated in these problems, and we have to recognize that. It’s our lifestyles; it’s how we’ve organized our cities and the countryside. It’s the size of our houses and how we heat our houses. It’s all these things. This is global warming.
We can look at supranational institutions to create a new set of rules for this economy. But I don’t think that will happen in the absence of people discovering that they can change their lives.
I really believe in what Wendell Berry said in the ’70s—that the environmental crisis is a crisis of character. It’s really about how we live.
Q: Are people getting it?
Pollan: On food I have a lot of optimism. I see evidence that people are changing the way they consume. I don’t foresee the industrial food system going away. I see it shrinking.
One of the powerful things about the food issue is that people feel empowered by it. There are so many areas of our life where we feel powerless to change things, but your eating issues are really primal. You decide every day what you’re going to put in your body—and what you refuse to put in your body. That’s politics at its most basic.
Mark Eisen writes about food, political, and business topics from Madison, Wisconsin.
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Michael Pollan Interview
By Mark Eisen
November 2008 Issue of The Progressive
Michael Pollan has got people talking. His recent books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, have captured the public imagination, setting off countless coffee shop discussions, dinnertime arguments, and oh-so-many blog posts.
Even more impressively, his exploration of modern-day agriculture and the dysfunctional American diet has prompted his readers to look at their own eating habits with a new sense of understanding and often a desire for change.
Pollan has taken Wendell Berry’s memorable phrase “eating is an agricultural act” one step further. “It’s a political act as well,” Pollan advises.
A lot of people agree. The alternative food movement—organic farming, local food systems, sustainable agriculture, and more—is burgeoning today because, one family at a time, consumers are backing away from the global food network. Instead, they patronize farmers’ markets, buy food shares from CSA (community-supported agriculture) farms, and favor grocers who sell local meat and produce.
Pollan’s books are essential reading in this movement. He details the importance of grazing to a sustainable farm’s operation and the problems of corn as the cornerstone of U.S. agribusiness. But most of all he gracefully chronicles his own journey of discovery in a food world where, amidst $32 billion in advertising, baleful health consequences are carefully obscured.
Pollan’s topics include a thorough demolition of “nutritionism,” the reigning health ideology that offers dizzying and ever-changing advice on polyunsaturated this and low-fat that, often in the cause of selling highly processed food products.
A good diet is really pretty simple, Pollan declares: Avoid “edible foodlike substances.” Instead, eat real food. “Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.”
I caught up with Pollan two days after he returned from a book tour in New Zealand and Australia. At fifty-three, he looked fit but tired from the travel. He lives on a leafy avenue in Berkeley with his wife, painter Judith Belzer, and their fifteen-year-old son. He teaches journalism at the University of California-Berkeley, after a ten-year stint as an editor at Harper’s Magazine. We talked over cups of Darjeeling tea in his kitchen. Here is the edited and condensed interview.
Q: You argue that consumer ignorance is essential for maintaining the industrial agriculture system.
Michael Pollan: If people could see how their food is produced, they would change how they eat. My interest in the topic traces to two moments, in 2000, when I learned how our food is produced.
One was driving down Route 5 in California and passing the Harris ranch, which is a huge feedlot right on the highway. It’s a stunning landscape. I had never seen anything quite like that.
Miles of manure-encrusted land teeming with thousands of animals and a giant mountain of corn and a giant mountain of manure. And a stench you can smell two miles before you get there.
Most feedlots are hidden away on the High Plains. This one happens to be very accessible. Then I visited an industrialized potato farm in Idaho and saw how freely pesticides were used. The farmers had little patches of potatoes by their houses that were organic. They couldn’t eat their field potatoes out of the ground because they had so many systemic pesticides. They had to be stored for six months to off-gas the toxins.
These two things changed the way I ate. I don’t buy industrial potatoes, and I don’t eat feedlot meat.
It’s only our ignorance of how our food is grown that permits this to go on. Most people, if they went to the feedlot or to the slaughterhouse and saw how the animals are raised and killed, would lose their appetite for that food.
The industry knows this. It works so hard not to label where the food comes from, how it’s made, and whether or not there are GMOs [genetically modified organisms] in it, because they know very well from their own research that people don’t want food grown that way.
Q: The national organic rules, which took effect in 2002, are credited with creating the boom in organic food sales. Yet you seem skeptical.
Pollan: Something was gained and something was lost when the federal government defined what “organic” meant. The rules were drawn in a way to make organic friendly to large corporations looking to do organic as cheaply as possible and on as large a scale as possible.
For example, the fight over whether you should really require pasturing for dairy so the cows can eat grass: They drew those rules so broadly that companies like Aurora and Horizon could slip through with very large industrial feedlots.
An “organic feedlot” should be a contradiction in terms, but it’s not under the rules. They really wanted to make it possible to have a mirrored food supply. So you could take everything in the supermarket and make its organic doppelganger. Is that a bad thing or a good thing? It’s a mixed thing.
The Chinese organic is a real question. First, how organic is it? You hear stories that make you wonder. The other issue is what you can do within the organic rules and still be sending contaminated product. Because the soil is so badly contaminated in China, even if they don’t put chemicals on their fields for three years [as U.S. organic rules require for certification], the heavy metals are still there.
So what the consumer thinks they’re buying—organic food—may not be what they’re really getting from China.
Q: The case is made that Wal-Mart’s entry into organic sales won’t hurt organic farmers, but will help the movement by creating more customers for co-ops and natural food stores.
Pollan: I hope that’s true. But Wal-Mart is one of the reasons we grow beef the way we do in this country, which is to say with brutal efficiency and lots of pharmaceuticals. Wal-Mart’s focus on low price tended to mean squeezing their suppliers very, very hard.
Wal-Mart isn’t doing that yet with organic. But long term, that’s what I would worry about: that they would force organic prices down not by being more efficient in distribution but through pressuring suppliers.
Q: The organic folks I talk with say that Wal-Mart sells only the most popular organic items and doesn’t offer the wide selection that serious organic shoppers want.
Pollan: Wal-Mart feeds the bottom third of the population. So they’re not competing with Whole Foods or the corner co-op. It is bringing more people into organic.
The other virtue of Wal-Mart getting into organic is the education factor. There are lots of people in this country who don’t know what organic is, and they will learn about it from Wal-Mart.
When I first started talking about the industrialization of organics, there really was a sense that “big organic” would crush “little organic.” But I don’t think that’s what is happening.
They are very separate worlds. There is overlap, but “little organic” is like these smart independent bookstores. They figured out a way to be in a different business. They do events and hand-sell books and have a whole conversation about books that Barnes & Noble and Amazon can’t do.
In the same way, you see the really entrepreneurial farmers figuring out they don’t have to compete with Whole Foods and certainly not Wal-Mart. They can offer a higher level of quality and more personal attention through the whole CSA relationship and by selling at farmers’ markets now.
Q: Newsweek ran a story arguing that the organic market was leveling off because it’s just too expensive in an era of higher food prices. Do you agree?
Pollan: No, I think it’s still growing quickly. The demand is still there.
What’s slowing the growth is that there is less incentive for farmers to convert to organic because conventional prices are so high. If you’re a wheat or corn grower you’re getting a real good price. Why would you endure the economic hardship of converting to organic farming?
It takes three years. You have to follow organic practices without getting the benefit of the organic label for your effort. It’s a big investment to make the switch.
That’s what’s slowing down organic growth.
Q: In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, you detail the rise of U.S. corn production and the use of high fructose corn syrup as the ubiquitous sweetener in so much processed food. But your discussion of cheap corn gave no sense that corn prices would soon go through the roof.
Pollan: As a journalist, I was describing what was. I don’t think I made any predictions. But the story has changed a lot. How it’s going to play out is very hard to predict.
A good deal of The Omnivore’s Dilemma dealt with how we took making food out of the solar basis and put it on a fossil-fuel basis. This is what the industrialization of food is essentially. It’s introducing cheap fossil fuel in what had been a strictly solar process of using photosynthesis to grow food.
When you do that, suddenly your food economy is dependent on your energy. And that’s why prices have gone up. When oil went up, that was the shock. That, and using corn to produce ethanol.
At this very moment, there are executives sitting around the table at Coca-Cola, saying the price of high fructose corn syrup is spiking and will probably stay there for a while. “Do we shrink the portion size, or do we raise the price? Do we to go back to the days before supersizing and sell eight-ounce Coca-Colas instead of twenty-ounce Coca-Colas?”
I hope they shrink the portion size. That would be good for public health.
Q: Does the world have a food shortage now, or is it more a problem of distribution and changing diets?
Pollan: The spot shortages around the world are really not so much about supply as the price. There are really high prices, and that’s driven by ethanol, high oil prices, and the growing demand for grain in Asia.
The whole free trade regime around grains is trembling right now. Countries are recognizing that you don’t want to lose control of your ability to feed your population. You don’t want the price of food in your country to be dependent on decisions made in Wall Street or the White House.
Trade globalization has forced cheap American and Brazilian grains into all of these countries. As a consequence, they’ve lost the ability to grow their own grain.
Now they wish those farmers were there.
Q: You seemed to struggle with the concept of vegetarianism and arguments against meat eating.
Pollan: I’m a pretty harsh critic of 99 percent of America’s meat system, but there is that 1 percent I think is important to defend, because first there are good environmental reasons to eat meat in a limited way.
If you believe strongly in building up local food economies, there are places where meat is the best way to get protein off of the land. It’s too hilly, too dry. Having animals is very important for sustainable agriculture. If you’re going to have animals on the farm, they’re going to die eventually, and you’re going to eat them.
But I have enormous respect for vegetarians. They’re further ahead than most of us. They’ve gone through the thought process in making their eating choices. They’ve just come out in a different place than I have.
I think we’re going to focus on meat-eaters the way we have on SUV drivers. There will be a lot of pressure and education to show that a heavy meat diet is a big contributor to climate change, and that there are many good reasons to eat less meat.
Q: How is meat consumption tied to climate change?
Pollan: In several ways. First, it’s fossil-fuel intensive. If you are feeding animals grain on feedlots you are growing that grain with fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides. You are moving that grain around the country to feedlots. You’re moving the meat around the country.
It’s a very inefficient way to feed ourselves. It takes ten pounds of grain to get one pound of beef, seven pounds of grain to get one pound of pork, and two pounds of grain to get one pound of chicken.
There is an equity issue, too. If we really have a limited amount of grain to feed the world, and we’re feeding 60 percent of it to animals, and another 10 percent to our cars, that’s going to be hard to defend in the future.
Q: To a striking degree, you argue that individuals in their daily lives can make a difference.
Pollan: I really have a lot of faith — and I know that it’s considered naive by some people on the left — that consumers can change things. I have seen too many cases of what happens when consumers decide to inflect their buying decisions with their moral and political values. It brings about change.
The food industry is remarkably skittish. They’re terrified of food scares and food fads, both of which can cost them billions overnight. So they’re actually more responsive than you would think.
It’s just a matter of consumers voting with their forks for things like grass-fed meat and producers hearing that market signal. But I don’t think you can completely reform the food system by just voting with your fork.
There are policy issues, too. The Farm Bill matters greatly. So I’m not naive in thinking all of our answers lie in changes in personal behavior. The same is true of global warming. Individuals have a lot to do, but we also need public solutions. You can’t have one without the other.
Q: How is climate change a crisis of lifestyle and character?
Pollan: Look, 70 percent of economic activity in this country is consumer — it’s our purchasing decisions. That is the economy. We are implicated in these problems, and we have to recognize that. It’s our lifestyles; it’s how we’ve organized our cities and the countryside. It’s the size of our houses and how we heat our houses. It’s all these things. This is global warming.
We can look at supranational institutions to create a new set of rules for this economy. But I don’t think that will happen in the absence of people discovering that they can change their lives.
I really believe in what Wendell Berry said in the ’70s—that the environmental crisis is a crisis of character. It’s really about how we live.
Q: Are people getting it?
Pollan: On food I have a lot of optimism. I see evidence that people are changing the way they consume. I don’t foresee the industrial food system going away. I see it shrinking.
One of the powerful things about the food issue is that people feel empowered by it. There are so many areas of our life where we feel powerless to change things, but your eating issues are really primal. You decide every day what you’re going to put in your body—and what you refuse to put in your body. That’s politics at its most basic.
Mark Eisen writes about food, political, and business topics from Madison, Wisconsin.
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Friday, August 22, 2008
A White House lawn that produces something
Well, a few days ago Herb and I were listening to the Across The Great Divide radio program on KPFA public radio (we listen online, as the local programming is many times so trite and boring). We ended up discussing, as senior citizens will do, the question of whether the younger generations will have any concept of who Woody Guthrie was and the relevance of his times to our own.
Then this week I opened up an e-mail from Kitchen Gardeners International, and there on the Youtube video that Roger Doiron produced as a part of his scheme to promote kitchen gardens in front yards, beginning with The White House (or, shall I say, OUR White House) was the voice from the past, Woody Guthrie singing his most well known folk song, This Land Is Your Land.
How populist.
How did we forget so many sustainable ways of living in such a short time?
But we live in an age when Newt Gingrich says his goal in life is to rescind the New Deal, and Rush Limbaugh says 'Roosevelt is dead and we're getting rid of his programs as well', and our twice "elected" president thinks he won a mandate to end Social Security while Congress guts New Deal financial regulations, and a candidate can run for office while voting against children's health and education programs without risking the slightest blow back from his self-described "moral voters".
The New Deal worked, and any politician worth his salt should look at what some of those programs were, and give We The People an updated new deal. We've been getting a raw deal under Reaganomics.
Then this week I opened up an e-mail from Kitchen Gardeners International, and there on the Youtube video that Roger Doiron produced as a part of his scheme to promote kitchen gardens in front yards, beginning with The White House (or, shall I say, OUR White House) was the voice from the past, Woody Guthrie singing his most well known folk song, This Land Is Your Land.
How populist.
How did we forget so many sustainable ways of living in such a short time?
But we live in an age when Newt Gingrich says his goal in life is to rescind the New Deal, and Rush Limbaugh says 'Roosevelt is dead and we're getting rid of his programs as well', and our twice "elected" president thinks he won a mandate to end Social Security while Congress guts New Deal financial regulations, and a candidate can run for office while voting against children's health and education programs without risking the slightest blow back from his self-described "moral voters".
The New Deal worked, and any politician worth his salt should look at what some of those programs were, and give We The People an updated new deal. We've been getting a raw deal under Reaganomics.
Friday, May 02, 2008
NGJL - Action Jackson* or - another reason to grow your own
Not Gardening, but maybe you think it's important enough to act... Go to Not In My Food to Sign the petition ...
Food safety laws - a recipe for disaster!
[Comments in italics are mine]
Ever had food poisoning? You’re not alone in your misery. 76 million of us get sick each year from foodborne illness. But it’s more than intestinal distress.
At least 5,000 people die each year, often an agonizing and painful death. [How many September 11s is that?, hmmm?]
Recent headlines report deaths from tainted spinach, peanut butter and beef. Yet the FDA inspects food processing plants in the U.S. only once every five to 10 years [because of underfunding of the agency due to Reaganomics.] And despite the increase of food shipped from China and elsewhere, less than 1 percent of imports are inspected. [If you voted for politicians who promoted the "Contract On America", you should quit reading now and enjoy your day.]
The FDA also doesn’t require a label on food telling you it comes from a clone. Clones suffer numerous deformities, and most sicken and die before adulthood. We should know if our food products are cloned so we can make an informed choice.
Let’s end this recipe for disaster. Bills are being introduced now in Congress that could truly reform our weak food safety laws. And leaders are vowing to pass legislation in the coming weeks.
Email your lawmakers now! We need your voice the powerful industry lobby is already lining up to oppose significant reforms.
Here is a copy of a handy already written letter (that you can add to) that Consumers Union sent a link to yesterday in an e-mail. Go find the 'action page' and sign it!
Make sure my food is safe pass real FDA reforms now
Dear [Decision Maker],
I am concerned about the growing number of recalls of all kinds of tainted foods. Stories about dangerous beef, chili, spinach, peanut butter, and many other products have been making headlines for far too long. We need strong food safety reform now, so that we can have faith again that the food we buy for ourselves and our families won't make us sick, or worse.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the safety of much of the food we eat both food imported from countries like China, as well as food produced here in the U.S. But the FDA is failing to protect consumers, and needs more money and authority to get the job done.
Both the House and the Senate are considering fixes to our broken food safety system. I urge you to make sure that the fixes are as strong as possible. Any food safety legislation that Congress passes should contain the following provisions:
-- More Inspections of Food Imports: The 1 percent of food that is currently inspected by FDA is not enough. Any legislation must increase significantly the percentage of imported food that is inspected by the agency.
-- Mandatory Certification and Inspection, Once a Year, of All Food Production Facilities: Right now, FDA does not inspect food facilities often enough sometimes it's as little as once every 10 years. All food facilities (both domestic and foreign ones) should be required and not merely given the option to obtain FDA certification of their facilities. The certification should include random inspections and testing.
-- Consumer Choice Through Labeling of New and Controversial Food Technologies: We want labeling of genetically engineered food, food from cloned animals, and nanotech ingredients in food, so that we can make informed choices about what we purchase for ourselves and our families.
-- The Names of Stores, Restaurants, Schools, and Other Places Selling Recalled Food: We are often at a loss when we hear about product recalls, because there is currently no federal requirement to publicize the names of grocery stores, restaurants, and schools that might be selling or using recalled food. Consumers would be better able to respond to food recalls, and to protect themselves, if this retailer information was disclosed in the event of every recall.
The time for strong food safety reform is now. Mealtime should not be a game of chance. Please enact strong food safety legislation by this summer that includes the protections outlined above. Thank you.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]
Food safety laws - a recipe for disaster!
[Comments in italics are mine]
Ever had food poisoning? You’re not alone in your misery. 76 million of us get sick each year from foodborne illness. But it’s more than intestinal distress.
At least 5,000 people die each year, often an agonizing and painful death. [How many September 11s is that?, hmmm?]
Recent headlines report deaths from tainted spinach, peanut butter and beef. Yet the FDA inspects food processing plants in the U.S. only once every five to 10 years [because of underfunding of the agency due to Reaganomics.] And despite the increase of food shipped from China and elsewhere, less than 1 percent of imports are inspected. [If you voted for politicians who promoted the "Contract On America", you should quit reading now and enjoy your day.]
The FDA also doesn’t require a label on food telling you it comes from a clone. Clones suffer numerous deformities, and most sicken and die before adulthood. We should know if our food products are cloned so we can make an informed choice.
Let’s end this recipe for disaster. Bills are being introduced now in Congress that could truly reform our weak food safety laws. And leaders are vowing to pass legislation in the coming weeks.
Email your lawmakers now! We need your voice the powerful industry lobby is already lining up to oppose significant reforms.
Here is a copy of a handy already written letter (that you can add to) that Consumers Union sent a link to yesterday in an e-mail. Go find the 'action page' and sign it!
Make sure my food is safe pass real FDA reforms now
Dear [Decision Maker],
I am concerned about the growing number of recalls of all kinds of tainted foods. Stories about dangerous beef, chili, spinach, peanut butter, and many other products have been making headlines for far too long. We need strong food safety reform now, so that we can have faith again that the food we buy for ourselves and our families won't make us sick, or worse.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for the safety of much of the food we eat both food imported from countries like China, as well as food produced here in the U.S. But the FDA is failing to protect consumers, and needs more money and authority to get the job done.
Both the House and the Senate are considering fixes to our broken food safety system. I urge you to make sure that the fixes are as strong as possible. Any food safety legislation that Congress passes should contain the following provisions:
-- More Inspections of Food Imports: The 1 percent of food that is currently inspected by FDA is not enough. Any legislation must increase significantly the percentage of imported food that is inspected by the agency.
-- Mandatory Certification and Inspection, Once a Year, of All Food Production Facilities: Right now, FDA does not inspect food facilities often enough sometimes it's as little as once every 10 years. All food facilities (both domestic and foreign ones) should be required and not merely given the option to obtain FDA certification of their facilities. The certification should include random inspections and testing.
-- Consumer Choice Through Labeling of New and Controversial Food Technologies: We want labeling of genetically engineered food, food from cloned animals, and nanotech ingredients in food, so that we can make informed choices about what we purchase for ourselves and our families.
-- The Names of Stores, Restaurants, Schools, and Other Places Selling Recalled Food: We are often at a loss when we hear about product recalls, because there is currently no federal requirement to publicize the names of grocery stores, restaurants, and schools that might be selling or using recalled food. Consumers would be better able to respond to food recalls, and to protect themselves, if this retailer information was disclosed in the event of every recall.
The time for strong food safety reform is now. Mealtime should not be a game of chance. Please enact strong food safety legislation by this summer that includes the protections outlined above. Thank you.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Address]
[City, State ZIP]
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Meet My Guest Blogger, Pat
Last year my family joined Pat Whetham's organic vegetable CSA* farm, here in Genesee County, Michigan. Just to give it a try see how we liked it. The food was fresh and healthy, organically and locally grown. It was a good year. And luckily, our half share was plentiful: we had more than we could use.
And, just maybe because of all of the green leafy veggies, my cholesterol level this year was better than last year's reading. All good, all good.
(*Consumer Supported Agriculture)
Farming is a real life gamble, when you think of it. We get a taste of that when we buy a share in a CSA farm and then wait to see what happens with the weather and insects and whatever else Mother Nature has in mind for us. Like with stock, 'the market doesn't always go up'. This uncertainty is what the farm family has to deal with every year for their livelihood.
It gives us a clearer idea about the precariousness of the climate change that we are beginning to experience as well.
Anyhow, this year I like to think we were first in line to re-subscribe.
We shareholders receive occasional e-mails concerning relevant topics from our CSA farmer, Pat, and upon reading the latest one, I had 'the light bulb' turn on over my head:
Ask Pat to be a guest blogger!
In other words, ask her permission to post her emails and help spread her words of wisdom and experience! So I turn this space over today to Pat.
From Whetham Organic Farm - "The Way We Live Now"
In the interests of further educating everyone I know:
[Linked] to this is a very interesting article by Michael Pollan, author of The Ominivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. ... I really want you to read it and think.
Pollan is good at making us think (at least in my opinion) and his work has helped fuel the 'eat local' movement across America by describing the production of industrial food in great detail. In this article he is very definitely equating our food choices with our environmental or carbon footprints. And it's about time. I've been trying to do that for 20 years, but no one would pay attention - including the environmentalists.
By the end of the [linked] article Pollan finally is saying Grow your own food. It's the best choice for the whole entire world and everybody in it. I agree and say also that garden needs to be organic, not chemical (because chemical gardening -and farming- uses more resources as well as being unhealthy for you and the planet).
Can you believe that many 'gardeners' never grow anything edible? Those people need to be encouraged to put some fruits and vegetables among those ornamentals!
Pollan talks about viral social change - that phenomenon where ideas spread like a computer virus. Let's help this particular virus along. Start praising all the gardeners you know for growing their own food.
Encourage others to try it. That's one of the reasons I started an organic gardening class this year - to encourage others, to show them how it's done if they don't know, to spread the word as Pollan is trying to do.
For those of you who can't grow your own, CSA is a good choice, particularly a really local CSA where you can see your food being grown, maybe help out a little, and gain some understanding of the whole process of gardening and farming and the ways it can help or hurt the world.
I have a few more "viral" ideas coming along in my mind. Expect to hear about them soon.
Pat
And, just maybe because of all of the green leafy veggies, my cholesterol level this year was better than last year's reading. All good, all good.
(*Consumer Supported Agriculture)
Farming is a real life gamble, when you think of it. We get a taste of that when we buy a share in a CSA farm and then wait to see what happens with the weather and insects and whatever else Mother Nature has in mind for us. Like with stock, 'the market doesn't always go up'. This uncertainty is what the farm family has to deal with every year for their livelihood.
It gives us a clearer idea about the precariousness of the climate change that we are beginning to experience as well.
Anyhow, this year I like to think we were first in line to re-subscribe.
We shareholders receive occasional e-mails concerning relevant topics from our CSA farmer, Pat, and upon reading the latest one, I had 'the light bulb' turn on over my head:
Ask Pat to be a guest blogger!
In other words, ask her permission to post her emails and help spread her words of wisdom and experience! So I turn this space over today to Pat.
From Whetham Organic Farm - "The Way We Live Now"
In the interests of further educating everyone I know:
[Linked] to this is a very interesting article by Michael Pollan, author of The Ominivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. ... I really want you to read it and think.
Pollan is good at making us think (at least in my opinion) and his work has helped fuel the 'eat local' movement across America by describing the production of industrial food in great detail. In this article he is very definitely equating our food choices with our environmental or carbon footprints. And it's about time. I've been trying to do that for 20 years, but no one would pay attention - including the environmentalists.
By the end of the [linked] article Pollan finally is saying Grow your own food. It's the best choice for the whole entire world and everybody in it. I agree and say also that garden needs to be organic, not chemical (because chemical gardening -and farming- uses more resources as well as being unhealthy for you and the planet).
Can you believe that many 'gardeners' never grow anything edible? Those people need to be encouraged to put some fruits and vegetables among those ornamentals!
Pollan talks about viral social change - that phenomenon where ideas spread like a computer virus. Let's help this particular virus along. Start praising all the gardeners you know for growing their own food.
Encourage others to try it. That's one of the reasons I started an organic gardening class this year - to encourage others, to show them how it's done if they don't know, to spread the word as Pollan is trying to do.
For those of you who can't grow your own, CSA is a good choice, particularly a really local CSA where you can see your food being grown, maybe help out a little, and gain some understanding of the whole process of gardening and farming and the ways it can help or hurt the world.
I have a few more "viral" ideas coming along in my mind. Expect to hear about them soon.
Pat
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Kitchen Gardeners Unite
Roger Doirion of Kitchen Gardeners International, also known as KGI, sends a monthly newsletter that is really well done with articles, recipes, videos, the kind of stuff I like to read and think about ... Topical, insightful, enthusiastic about spreading the concept of kitchen gardening as a kind of socially responsible movement. This month's offering showcases KGI particularly well, go read it and subscribe!
There is a lot there to keep you busy, but one take home message was Roger's pointer towards this site:
Especially good for us Zen gardeners, who use gardening time as a stretching exercise for both the body and the spirit, this is a fine focal point for your next quiet moment:
Just imagine what you would advise the next president to do on day one of a new administration. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran? ... Drill the Arctic? ... or plant* the front yard of the White house with beautiful veggies? (*Roger's idea, and a fine one that.)
Nothing is as good as being the change you want to see. That is the meaning of the word manifest. Don't sit around hoping for supernatural beings to give you heaven on earth after you die, or waiting on the whim of the rich and powerful to feed the world and clean up their messes. Just do it, yourself. Take the first step. Dig a patch and plant a seed. Get a friend involved. Let the grass roots grow.
You say, But what can one person, or two, do? We are so busy, and running as fast as we can.
I say, What are you running toward? Do you have time to watch television? Never was there a more crucial time to think of priorities. Even small change is good. Incremental change.
The small change that you work to make visible to your neighbors reinforce the change others with the same ideas are working to make manifest. Change needs to come from within our society, from us, not from the professional thought shapers in the corporate media culture.
So make a small change. Don't sit around waiting for supernatural beings to give you heaven on earth after you die. Or wait on the whim of the rich and powerful to feed the world and clean up their messes. 'Just do it'. Take the first step, after a while you'll see others walking the same path. Dig a patch and plant a seed. Let the grass roots grow.
We the People.
Post note: I got some comments/inquiries over the weekend about my political blog not being updated. I guess some folks enjoy a good rant. I am still commenting on the politics of the day, although not as, ahem, radically, at what I call my cranky green treehugger blog. It's been buried as a link in the sidebar, but here it is (link) again FYI.
There is a lot there to keep you busy, but one take home message was Roger's pointer towards this site:
Especially good for us Zen gardeners, who use gardening time as a stretching exercise for both the body and the spirit, this is a fine focal point for your next quiet moment:
Just imagine what you would advise the next president to do on day one of a new administration. Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran? ... Drill the Arctic? ... or plant* the front yard of the White house with beautiful veggies? (*Roger's idea, and a fine one that.)
Nothing is as good as being the change you want to see. That is the meaning of the word manifest. Don't sit around hoping for supernatural beings to give you heaven on earth after you die, or waiting on the whim of the rich and powerful to feed the world and clean up their messes. Just do it, yourself. Take the first step. Dig a patch and plant a seed. Get a friend involved. Let the grass roots grow.
You say, But what can one person, or two, do? We are so busy, and running as fast as we can.
I say, What are you running toward? Do you have time to watch television? Never was there a more crucial time to think of priorities. Even small change is good. Incremental change.
The small change that you work to make visible to your neighbors reinforce the change others with the same ideas are working to make manifest. Change needs to come from within our society, from us, not from the professional thought shapers in the corporate media culture.
So make a small change. Don't sit around waiting for supernatural beings to give you heaven on earth after you die. Or wait on the whim of the rich and powerful to feed the world and clean up their messes. 'Just do it'. Take the first step, after a while you'll see others walking the same path. Dig a patch and plant a seed. Let the grass roots grow.
We the People.
Post note: I got some comments/inquiries over the weekend about my political blog not being updated. I guess some folks enjoy a good rant. I am still commenting on the politics of the day, although not as, ahem, radically, at what I call my cranky green treehugger blog. It's been buried as a link in the sidebar, but here it is (link) again FYI.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Living in A Label-Free World
First, I have to admit that at certain various times in my life, Neil Young has been my numero uno fave artist. And this tiny eco-activist girl is too cute. So bop along!
Dan Sullivan, eco-activist and online editor (check out www.newfarm.org), sings about the dangers of genetically modified foods and the USDA's tepid and totally inadequate regulatory efforts.
To Neil Young's 'Rockin' in the Free World'.
Dan Sullivan, eco-activist and online editor (check out www.newfarm.org), sings about the dangers of genetically modified foods and the USDA's tepid and totally inadequate regulatory efforts.
To Neil Young's 'Rockin' in the Free World'.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A Message from Pat
Pat, our CSA farmer and organic gardening teacher, sent this message to her list and told me I could post it. In case you aren't a reader of my cranky enviro-green pacifist blog, I should probably tell you here that (over there) I posted a few awfully cranky posts about the big meat recall that is even making a few of my fast food eating friends nervous. The meat, that is, not my cranky blog which they don't read.
Anyway, Pat is on the same wavelength about the disgusting state of animal protein being foisted off on the consumer in this nation, and here is a bit of her message:
Greetings all,
It's been busy around here - or at least, I've been busy.
[Note: I snipped some personal info here - Betsy]
But I have had time to see and read some news about the food supply in this country that just makes me shake my head in disgust and shame. Largest recall of beef ever! The news videos have been frightenening, and have reminded me to talk to you all again about the source of your food.
[Note: Pat attached a copy of the same article I linked to in my cranky green blog - Betsy]
Since you have come so far as to join a CSA in search of better food, I hope you are a receptive audience for further suggestions regarding what you buy and eat. I'm not going to suggest that all of you become vegetarians, although I know several of you are. I am going to let you know - as I have in the past couple of years - that there are better choices for animal products also. We are taking a first step for the CSA by making better eggs available for order this year.
[Note: Yipee! - Betsy]
While I can't provide meats for you, I can lead you in the right direction - local, or at least Michigan, small farms that sell poultry, pork and beef, milk and cheese.
As I organize some sources for you, I hope you will do some research on your own. Where to start? A favorite website of mine is the Sustainable Table (www.sustainabletable.org). From it you can read lots of interesting stuff, plus access the websites eatwellguide.org and the meatrix. The Meatrix is a series of animated videos (3 at last count) that illustrate the problems with confined production of meat. It's easiest to view these with a high speed connection, of course, but most dial-up connections can manage if you are patient with the start and stop process (once you've watched it through once, a replay should come in with out the delays).
If you are still buying meat, milk and eggs from the grocery store, please do some investigating into just how those products are grown and processed. Small local farmers, especially organic ones, don't mistreat their livestock nor do business with the slaughter houses that do.
If you want to connect more with the small organic producers in Michigan, I suggest attending the Organic Conference held each year in March. Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance sponsors this event, which now features something for everyone, not just for farmers. MOFFA welcomes your support as a non-farmer attendee of this year's conference. Maybe you'll even want to join! find the information at www.moffa.org. [In the interest of "full disclosure" I've been on the Board of MOFFA for 16 years and I help plan and organize this conference.]
Wishing for spring to come soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pat
Anyway, Pat is on the same wavelength about the disgusting state of animal protein being foisted off on the consumer in this nation, and here is a bit of her message:
Greetings all,
It's been busy around here - or at least, I've been busy.
[Note: I snipped some personal info here - Betsy]
But I have had time to see and read some news about the food supply in this country that just makes me shake my head in disgust and shame. Largest recall of beef ever! The news videos have been frightenening, and have reminded me to talk to you all again about the source of your food.
[Note: Pat attached a copy of the same article I linked to in my cranky green blog - Betsy]
Since you have come so far as to join a CSA in search of better food, I hope you are a receptive audience for further suggestions regarding what you buy and eat. I'm not going to suggest that all of you become vegetarians, although I know several of you are. I am going to let you know - as I have in the past couple of years - that there are better choices for animal products also. We are taking a first step for the CSA by making better eggs available for order this year.
[Note: Yipee! - Betsy]
While I can't provide meats for you, I can lead you in the right direction - local, or at least Michigan, small farms that sell poultry, pork and beef, milk and cheese.
As I organize some sources for you, I hope you will do some research on your own. Where to start? A favorite website of mine is the Sustainable Table (www.sustainabletable.org). From it you can read lots of interesting stuff, plus access the websites eatwellguide.org and the meatrix. The Meatrix is a series of animated videos (3 at last count) that illustrate the problems with confined production of meat. It's easiest to view these with a high speed connection, of course, but most dial-up connections can manage if you are patient with the start and stop process (once you've watched it through once, a replay should come in with out the delays).
If you are still buying meat, milk and eggs from the grocery store, please do some investigating into just how those products are grown and processed. Small local farmers, especially organic ones, don't mistreat their livestock nor do business with the slaughter houses that do.
If you want to connect more with the small organic producers in Michigan, I suggest attending the Organic Conference held each year in March. Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance sponsors this event, which now features something for everyone, not just for farmers. MOFFA welcomes your support as a non-farmer attendee of this year's conference. Maybe you'll even want to join! find the information at www.moffa.org. [In the interest of "full disclosure" I've been on the Board of MOFFA for 16 years and I help plan and organize this conference.]
Wishing for spring to come soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pat
Friday, February 08, 2008
For your weekend edification
Edification? Few do it better. Michael Pollan gives a talk on Ted (link). You can download it in audio, a video, or watch it online. One of his insights is completely hilarious... and intriguing. ENJOY!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
A green-washed mind
First, a link in the "useful" category, for web surfing:
Another Seafood Guide
(Our oceans are being poisoned for profit. Buyer beware!)
I was just reading the following article on MiLive, the Jackson Patriot online, and have to mention something here. (I'll insert my commentary in colored font):
Locavore hysteria revisited (the word 'hysteria' in the title already makes me wonder if this is a greenwashing piece?)
Posted by lsmithso
January 29, 2008
As many of you might have heard, the Oxford University Press named "locavore" (one or eats, or attempts to eat, locally grown and produced food) as Word of the Year for 2007.
This was certainly the foodie mantra I learned in South Carolina, where my locavorism was galvanized at the hand of my boss at Charleston City Paper.
I thought I had my take on local tomatoes all figured out. (Now I have to go find out wtf she's talking about there.) Good thing James McWilliams showed up to shake me around. But, as Treehugger pointed out and Boston's NPR (as in National Propaganda Radio?) affiliate reported, there are caveats to that maxim, especially depending on where you live. (People have always moved for jobs... that is how the right to work states in the south managed to grow at Michigan's expense, isn't it? "Where you live" is a choice, now isn't it? May I suggest moving where you live for the purpose of food sustainability? or at least, learning how to eat like a native of your chosen home?)
James McWilliams is a contributing writer for the Texas Observer and currently a fellow in Yale's agrarian studies department. In this "Moveable Feast" piece, he brings thoughtful skepticism (or green washed monkey-wrenching) to the wildly popular (and I might say, rockin' explanatory journalism) go-local credos of Bill McKibben, Barbara Kingsolver and others promoting the concept of "food mileage" and all its ancillary benefits.
His main premise is that geography -- land's ability to actually provide a substantial diet for those who live on it -- is the salient issue when it comes to impact on the earth. And that, rather than focusing so ardently on food miles, we might want to put the Eat Local movement in a broader perspective of changes that accommodate everyone -- and save the planet, of course.
(I'm waiting to hear some ideas he wants us to focus on instead of food miles. {{crickets}}
I'd like to add here, that if you think the status quo is going to save the planet that 'everyone' shares, you are sadly mistaken. A focus on 'food mileage' is the legitimate concern that we should not count our food 'cheap' if it is dependent on burning carbon, carbon from oil, mostly. Burning oil to ship a leaf of lettuce 1,500 miles is killing our shared planet. It is one of many issues in the diverse realm of mindful eating.)
Some of his startling facts:
• Lincoln University in New Zealand "found that lamb raised on New Zealand's fertile pastures and shipped by boat to the U.K. consumed 688 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per ton. By contrast, stock produced within the U.K.'s poorly adapted pastures consumed 2,849 kilograms per ton. In other words, it is four times more energy efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard."
• New Zealand's most prominent environmental research organization, the Landcare Research--Manaaki Whenua, reassessed its position on local consumption after the study was published. "Localism," two Landcare scientists wrote in late 2006, "is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle during transport."
(I wonder what other hidden costs those ships are creating? Or maybe lamb, like bananas, should not be cheap or common. Consumers need to understand that their choosing to eat lamb is the problem. )
• McKibben's deeply researched and humanistic accounts of Eat Local victories sparkle for regions endowed with the life cycle systems to pull the victories off. For those of us poor saps stuck in locations where sustainability is a cruel joke, we can only enjoy the experience vicariously, or plan to subsist on beef jerky and well water.
(Okay, I'm missing something here. This writer lives in Michigan , right? She ought to get out more, I mean into nature, a garden, or to a farmer's market. Go over to the Student Ogranic Farm at MSU. Something! Michigan is a cornucopia!
Michigan is a wonderful place for 'foodies'! We can't economically grow coffee, tea, chocolate, olives, bananas, or citrus here, but just about anything else is being done as we speak. Barbara Kingsolver discussed that when she talked about letting the family choose one item they wouldn't be happy without. Id' have a hard time choosing between the coffee and the olives.
I know, Herb could choose to keep the olives and that would free me up to keep my fair trade shade grown coffee.
But as a matter of fact, this year I have severely cut back on buying chocolate, oranges, bananas and out of state and out of season fruit, and we have hardly missed them. Herb still needs his grapefruit and I love an occasional bag of lemons. but we are reducing our food miles by choice. And believe me, we aren't starving or eating badly.
• For environmentally concerned Americans wedded to food mile measurements, the only viable answers for reducing our dietary carbon footprint are to move to a fertile region (Kingsolver, McKibben), to live off root crops, game, and preserved food (Smith and MacKinnon), or to starve (almost Smith and McKinnon).
RUBBISH! add to that ... "Or start to make changes in our personal lives that reflect our values."
My personal take is that we subsidize "cheap" oil by waging trillion dollar bloody wars supported by an unsupportable military presence in the world (we have over 400 military bases on foreign soil.)
To heck with measuring the carbon footprint of a New Zealand lamb that a British Housewife is serving for Tuesday supper! Has anyone ever measured the carbon footprint of the American military?
Your choice is to eat or not eat that "cheap" banana shipped in from some tropical dictatorship, burning that "cheap" oil that my taxes are paying for by a subsidized war machine protection racket... instead of things I would choose to support.
This commentary will be continued on my cranky blog, in the pursuit of happiness and light...
Another Seafood Guide
(Our oceans are being poisoned for profit. Buyer beware!)
I was just reading the following article on MiLive, the Jackson Patriot online, and have to mention something here. (I'll insert my commentary in colored font):
Locavore hysteria revisited (the word 'hysteria' in the title already makes me wonder if this is a greenwashing piece?)
Posted by lsmithso
January 29, 2008
As many of you might have heard, the Oxford University Press named "locavore" (one or eats, or attempts to eat, locally grown and produced food) as Word of the Year for 2007.
This was certainly the foodie mantra I learned in South Carolina, where my locavorism was galvanized at the hand of my boss at Charleston City Paper.
I thought I had my take on local tomatoes all figured out. (Now I have to go find out wtf she's talking about there.) Good thing James McWilliams showed up to shake me around. But, as Treehugger pointed out and Boston's NPR (as in National Propaganda Radio?) affiliate reported, there are caveats to that maxim, especially depending on where you live. (People have always moved for jobs... that is how the right to work states in the south managed to grow at Michigan's expense, isn't it? "Where you live" is a choice, now isn't it? May I suggest moving where you live for the purpose of food sustainability? or at least, learning how to eat like a native of your chosen home?)
James McWilliams is a contributing writer for the Texas Observer and currently a fellow in Yale's agrarian studies department. In this "Moveable Feast" piece, he brings thoughtful skepticism (or green washed monkey-wrenching) to the wildly popular (and I might say, rockin' explanatory journalism) go-local credos of Bill McKibben, Barbara Kingsolver and others promoting the concept of "food mileage" and all its ancillary benefits.
His main premise is that geography -- land's ability to actually provide a substantial diet for those who live on it -- is the salient issue when it comes to impact on the earth. And that, rather than focusing so ardently on food miles, we might want to put the Eat Local movement in a broader perspective of changes that accommodate everyone -- and save the planet, of course.
(I'm waiting to hear some ideas he wants us to focus on instead of food miles. {{crickets}}
I'd like to add here, that if you think the status quo is going to save the planet that 'everyone' shares, you are sadly mistaken. A focus on 'food mileage' is the legitimate concern that we should not count our food 'cheap' if it is dependent on burning carbon, carbon from oil, mostly. Burning oil to ship a leaf of lettuce 1,500 miles is killing our shared planet. It is one of many issues in the diverse realm of mindful eating.)
Some of his startling facts:
• Lincoln University in New Zealand "found that lamb raised on New Zealand's fertile pastures and shipped by boat to the U.K. consumed 688 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions per ton. By contrast, stock produced within the U.K.'s poorly adapted pastures consumed 2,849 kilograms per ton. In other words, it is four times more energy efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard."
• New Zealand's most prominent environmental research organization, the Landcare Research--Manaaki Whenua, reassessed its position on local consumption after the study was published. "Localism," two Landcare scientists wrote in late 2006, "is not always the most environmentally sound solution if more emissions are generated at other stages of the product life cycle during transport."
(I wonder what other hidden costs those ships are creating? Or maybe lamb, like bananas, should not be cheap or common. Consumers need to understand that their choosing to eat lamb is the problem. )
• McKibben's deeply researched and humanistic accounts of Eat Local victories sparkle for regions endowed with the life cycle systems to pull the victories off. For those of us poor saps stuck in locations where sustainability is a cruel joke, we can only enjoy the experience vicariously, or plan to subsist on beef jerky and well water.
(Okay, I'm missing something here. This writer lives in Michigan , right? She ought to get out more, I mean into nature, a garden, or to a farmer's market. Go over to the Student Ogranic Farm at MSU. Something! Michigan is a cornucopia!
Michigan is a wonderful place for 'foodies'! We can't economically grow coffee, tea, chocolate, olives, bananas, or citrus here, but just about anything else is being done as we speak. Barbara Kingsolver discussed that when she talked about letting the family choose one item they wouldn't be happy without. Id' have a hard time choosing between the coffee and the olives.
I know, Herb could choose to keep the olives and that would free me up to keep my fair trade shade grown coffee.
But as a matter of fact, this year I have severely cut back on buying chocolate, oranges, bananas and out of state and out of season fruit, and we have hardly missed them. Herb still needs his grapefruit and I love an occasional bag of lemons. but we are reducing our food miles by choice. And believe me, we aren't starving or eating badly.
• For environmentally concerned Americans wedded to food mile measurements, the only viable answers for reducing our dietary carbon footprint are to move to a fertile region (Kingsolver, McKibben), to live off root crops, game, and preserved food (Smith and MacKinnon), or to starve (almost Smith and McKinnon).
RUBBISH! add to that ... "Or start to make changes in our personal lives that reflect our values."
My personal take is that we subsidize "cheap" oil by waging trillion dollar bloody wars supported by an unsupportable military presence in the world (we have over 400 military bases on foreign soil.)
To heck with measuring the carbon footprint of a New Zealand lamb that a British Housewife is serving for Tuesday supper! Has anyone ever measured the carbon footprint of the American military?
Your choice is to eat or not eat that "cheap" banana shipped in from some tropical dictatorship, burning that "cheap" oil that my taxes are paying for by a subsidized war machine protection racket... instead of things I would choose to support.
This commentary will be continued on my cranky blog, in the pursuit of happiness and light...
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
The CSA meet up
Last night Herb and I went to a church downtown to hear about the upcoming offerings of CSA farmers in our area. It was a meeting of potential customers and hopeful growers, all intent on connecting to buy locally grown, hopefully certified organic, fresh and wholesome food by the farm supporting "subscription" method.
The manager of the Flint Farmer's Market, Dick Ramsdell, should be thanked for arranging the meeting. A few of the growers are actual vendors at the market, but he offers us all the market as a central meeting place to drop off and pick up our shares. It is wholly a thing that he thinks should be done, to introduce urban consumers who have lost contact with their food source to the actual people who make their living by producing our food, and he arranged this meeting on that principle, with or without the profit motive for the market.
He did mention that the fresh local idea is growing so well he is hearing about more vendors building hoop houses so that we can have fresh local greens in the winter soon.
I took plenty of notes, but didn't really need to, as I planned to re-subscribe to Whetham Farms' CSA considering our good experience last year. Three of my gardening friends, Mel and Bonnie and her husband Chuck, are joining, too.
There is a lot of information out there if you still need to be convinced. Some of the handouts were straight from the web:
Local Harvest has a lot of information on CSAs.
What is a CSA? is from this site in Lebanon!
Five Reasons to Buy Local is from Community Alliance With Family Farmers a good site with lots of links...
And Mr. Ramsdell recommended one of my favorite sites for loads of reading (that this city girl only discovered last year): ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
Here is a list of the goods that growers were offering, just to show a bit of what we can buy fresh, and local, and (hopefully) organically grown or at least grown with as sustainable practices as possible:
vegetables, greens, pumpkins and squash, potatoes, heritage tomatoes and cucumbers
fruit, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, apples (heritage), pears, peaches, plums, grapes soon, sweet and tart cherries
flowers, gourds
honey
maple syrup
chickens, range and tractored
eggs
turkeys, heritage varieties
grassfed beef
milk soon
lambs
pork
One grower said they raise 90 varieties of vegetables.
One grower said she raises 30 to 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.
One farmer's antique apple trees are coming into production.
One grower is offering a monthly workshop.
One grower said they have two festivals during the season.
We heard terms like sustainable, heritage, hormone free, pastured.
We heard plans and dreams and goals, some of them realized.
One farmer's land has been in the family for 5 generations!
One farmer's daughter is taking the organic farming program at Michigan State University!
There was a lot of hope for the future in that room last night.
The manager of the Flint Farmer's Market, Dick Ramsdell, should be thanked for arranging the meeting. A few of the growers are actual vendors at the market, but he offers us all the market as a central meeting place to drop off and pick up our shares. It is wholly a thing that he thinks should be done, to introduce urban consumers who have lost contact with their food source to the actual people who make their living by producing our food, and he arranged this meeting on that principle, with or without the profit motive for the market.
He did mention that the fresh local idea is growing so well he is hearing about more vendors building hoop houses so that we can have fresh local greens in the winter soon.
I took plenty of notes, but didn't really need to, as I planned to re-subscribe to Whetham Farms' CSA considering our good experience last year. Three of my gardening friends, Mel and Bonnie and her husband Chuck, are joining, too.
There is a lot of information out there if you still need to be convinced. Some of the handouts were straight from the web:
Local Harvest has a lot of information on CSAs.
What is a CSA? is from this site in Lebanon!
Five Reasons to Buy Local is from Community Alliance With Family Farmers a good site with lots of links...
And Mr. Ramsdell recommended one of my favorite sites for loads of reading (that this city girl only discovered last year): ATTRA - National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
Here is a list of the goods that growers were offering, just to show a bit of what we can buy fresh, and local, and (hopefully) organically grown or at least grown with as sustainable practices as possible:
vegetables, greens, pumpkins and squash, potatoes, heritage tomatoes and cucumbers
fruit, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, apples (heritage), pears, peaches, plums, grapes soon, sweet and tart cherries
flowers, gourds
honey
maple syrup
chickens, range and tractored
eggs
turkeys, heritage varieties
grassfed beef
milk soon
lambs
pork
One grower said they raise 90 varieties of vegetables.
One grower said she raises 30 to 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.
One farmer's antique apple trees are coming into production.
One grower is offering a monthly workshop.
One grower said they have two festivals during the season.
We heard terms like sustainable, heritage, hormone free, pastured.
We heard plans and dreams and goals, some of them realized.
One farmer's land has been in the family for 5 generations!
One farmer's daughter is taking the organic farming program at Michigan State University!
There was a lot of hope for the future in that room last night.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Two updates
First, the organic CSA farmer I have written of who is offering the monthly hands on workshops on organic vegetable growing, Pat Wetham, has got a new phone number:
# 810-867-4435.
I hope you'll sign up for her workshops! With the trend toward fresh, organic and local food, what could be more valuable than knowing how to grow your own veggies in your own yard? Nothing is more local, and there is nothing like knowing how your food was really grown, because you've done it!
Also, this morning the League of Conservation Voters sent out their online voter guide to the 2008 presidential candidates(link). It's pretty interesting reading. The LCV sent a questionnaire to each of the candidates and then researched what they said (their public statements), what they promised (their platforms), and most importantly their track record, what they did (how they have voted.)
It won't surprise you on the Republican side.
That joke Giuliani did not extend the courtesy to respond and has no federal voting record. But his opinions are simply not environmentally responsible.
The flip-flopping Michigan Mitt did not have the manners to reply either and has no federal voting record. He says he loves coal and drilling.
'Mac' McCain must not have grandchildren he cares about, he has a 26 voting record.
The Democratic candidates did surprise me a bit.
Billary has a 90 percent voting record. If I liked her I'd say Yay.
Obama voted a 96! Yay!
But I must comment Hill and Obama have not been Senators long enough to test their true mettle...
Edwards voted a 59, which is hard to understand considering his spearheading of the defense of the Clean Air Act. Maybe he is cleaning up his act? I need to do some further reading.
Of course my man Dennis K. with a 92 beat Hillary but didn't come in as well as Obama. But he left to work on retaining his congressional seat again.
You can spend a lot of time reading up on the issues, and the LCV has done most of the footwork for us! We know where they stand (non-partisan) and what they stand for (the future of the planet!)
They have a richly informational website that really educates. For instance, if you can stomach it you can study what the present despoilers are doing and what they have accomplished here.
Isn't it about time we voters let the powerful know we won't support them if they don't take care of our planet?
Clean air, beautiful public spaces where nature can live, and safe water are the commons that belong to us all. Why should the profit of a few take those things we share away from us!
# 810-867-4435.
I hope you'll sign up for her workshops! With the trend toward fresh, organic and local food, what could be more valuable than knowing how to grow your own veggies in your own yard? Nothing is more local, and there is nothing like knowing how your food was really grown, because you've done it!
Also, this morning the League of Conservation Voters sent out their online voter guide to the 2008 presidential candidates(link). It's pretty interesting reading. The LCV sent a questionnaire to each of the candidates and then researched what they said (their public statements), what they promised (their platforms), and most importantly their track record, what they did (how they have voted.)
It won't surprise you on the Republican side.
That joke Giuliani did not extend the courtesy to respond and has no federal voting record. But his opinions are simply not environmentally responsible.
The flip-flopping Michigan Mitt did not have the manners to reply either and has no federal voting record. He says he loves coal and drilling.
'Mac' McCain must not have grandchildren he cares about, he has a 26 voting record.
The Democratic candidates did surprise me a bit.
Billary has a 90 percent voting record. If I liked her I'd say Yay.
Obama voted a 96! Yay!
But I must comment Hill and Obama have not been Senators long enough to test their true mettle...
Edwards voted a 59, which is hard to understand considering his spearheading of the defense of the Clean Air Act. Maybe he is cleaning up his act? I need to do some further reading.
Of course my man Dennis K. with a 92 beat Hillary but didn't come in as well as Obama. But he left to work on retaining his congressional seat again.
You can spend a lot of time reading up on the issues, and the LCV has done most of the footwork for us! We know where they stand (non-partisan) and what they stand for (the future of the planet!)
They have a richly informational website that really educates. For instance, if you can stomach it you can study what the present despoilers are doing and what they have accomplished here.
Isn't it about time we voters let the powerful know we won't support them if they don't take care of our planet?
Clean air, beautiful public spaces where nature can live, and safe water are the commons that belong to us all. Why should the profit of a few take those things we share away from us!
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
"The industrial eater is, in fact, one who does not know that eating is an agricultural act, who no longer knows or imagines the connections between eating and the land, and who is therefore necessarily passive and uncritical... We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free." - Wendell Berry
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Farm Bill
The Farm Bill is up for debate in the Senate this week. Please take a look at my cranky blog to see what's at stake and what you can do. The model is there for an easy phone call you can make.
This is a bipartisan issue: the solution is conservative in the best sense, and progressive in the best sense. For family farms, for wise use of resources, for nutrition programs, for our shared values, call.
This is a bipartisan issue: the solution is conservative in the best sense, and progressive in the best sense. For family farms, for wise use of resources, for nutrition programs, for our shared values, call.
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