I came across this story on NPR today. Thought some of you urban urchins with a penchant for nature would find this interesting. My co-worker gets green eggs from his CSA and here's why.
I'm not gonna start eating eggs or anything, but man would I love to hug a chick. And I also wouldn't be opposed to raising chickens for eggs-for-profit, but I think my fire escape has enough going on right now without an added chicken coop.
When I was a little girl, we had a backyard chicken coop just like these newbies. Only my family did it to save money, and probably for the animals too. I had to clean the chicken coop every day as my chore, harvest the eggs and feed the birds. There's a fabulous photo of me, age 3, with a huge bird in my arms. (sigh). Nowadays, people are doing it more to avoid additives and ensure quality. I think it is awesome.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104304441&ft=1&f=1001
Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farming. Show all posts
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Organic Myth
Farming isn't something so alien to me. Even though I'm a city girl, currently working on my own container garden, I can still recall the days when I was forced out of bed at an early hour before school, to help my Dad in the small, but manageable garden that would feed our family of five for the better part of the year, squishing potato bugs for a penny each, and yanking threatening weeds before they overtook our precious harvest. Across the street was a larger plot of land used by a local farmer, where he usually planted corn, pumpkins or beans that were regularly visited by a giant winged John Deere contraption, set on eliminating those very things we despised in our own garden.
Of course we borrowed corn from this field until our own were ready, and the difference in taste is still remarkable. The loving care we put into our own vegetables was so good you could taste it. Literally.
Listening to my friend recently opine how she only eats organic meat and only organic all the time, made me realize how ignorant most of the world is regarding the organic food boom. Organics take time, commitment and loving care and attention, so how do super-stores like Wal-mart and even Whole Foods for that matter, stock their shelves? I'm not saying I don't shop at Whole Foods, of course I do, it's conveniently nearly next door to my home and that is another issue for another time, but when compared with local produce bought at farmer's markets, produce bought at any of these super-stores pales in comparison. Why? Because when companies like Chiquita or Green Giant start producing organic foods your mind has to ask questions about its origins. Surely no human hand is systematically squishing bugs between their fingers for quality control, right?
To maintain quality, these huge companies have successfully lobbied to the USDA to incorporate some type of pesticide control for their quote unquote organic crops.Food companies have standards, which explain why all tomatoes are nearly the exact same size, and anyone who has experience with their own farm knows that is simply not the case. What happens to all these 'ugly ducklings'? Independent farmers struggle with keeping up with industry standards set up by these mega-giant producers.
The USDA has made it virtually impossible for small locally-based farms to certify their product organic, yet these small farms produce a far more healthy version than the type of stuff that is available to the mass market. The reason the USDA allows these lax restrictions is that as a business, they are in trouble. More people are trying to control what they put in their bodies. The government provides stipends to the large companies, but not the small independents who deserve it and the cost of certifying one vegetable far exceeds the profits some small farms might make all year. Fed up yet?
Well the meat industry is far dirtier and sordid. Even though your chicken might be free-range or organic, the term carries very little value in the real world. Big Beef, Chicken and Pork have manipulated this market to meet their ideals. It literally angers me to hear people talking so ignorantly that they only eat free-range when they have no idea what it actually means. Free range does not automatically dictate an open pasture where chickens peck to their hearts content. It means the there is a door that leads to an area where they might be allowed to roam in a mud-soaked, vitamin deprived atmosphere. The more interest people have in eating guilt-free food, the more lobbies will be presented the the USDA to thwart your efforts. I applaud Whole Foods for bringing free-range to the public vocabulary, but unless you want Whole Foods to become as ubiquitous as Wal-mart, people better start challenging their food sources regularly. I remember when I was young, my family raised a cow at a neighboring farm, that we visited quite regularly. My parents should have known then that I was vegetarian, since I would look into our giant freezer and cry over my friend Bessie, lying in peices. That said, allowing a local farm to raise your beef is probably your best option, if you can eat it!
Your best bet is to talk to your locals. My favorite farmer last year was a very kind Amish man who talked to us for 20 minutes about his special lettuces, rare breeds and varieties. We walked away with enough to tide us over til the following week to see what else he came up with. We ended up visiting him all summer, always coming home with an heirloom vegetable or some other vegetable that literally inspired awe.
My partner and I can't wait until we start our weekend dates of biking to the nearest farmers market, sampling the produce and asking questions to the caretakers of the beautiful bounty, excited about our choices, plannning the weekly menu, all without a shred of guilt at supporting unethical foods from unethical sources.
Of course we borrowed corn from this field until our own were ready, and the difference in taste is still remarkable. The loving care we put into our own vegetables was so good you could taste it. Literally.
Listening to my friend recently opine how she only eats organic meat and only organic all the time, made me realize how ignorant most of the world is regarding the organic food boom. Organics take time, commitment and loving care and attention, so how do super-stores like Wal-mart and even Whole Foods for that matter, stock their shelves? I'm not saying I don't shop at Whole Foods, of course I do, it's conveniently nearly next door to my home and that is another issue for another time, but when compared with local produce bought at farmer's markets, produce bought at any of these super-stores pales in comparison. Why? Because when companies like Chiquita or Green Giant start producing organic foods your mind has to ask questions about its origins. Surely no human hand is systematically squishing bugs between their fingers for quality control, right?
To maintain quality, these huge companies have successfully lobbied to the USDA to incorporate some type of pesticide control for their quote unquote organic crops.Food companies have standards, which explain why all tomatoes are nearly the exact same size, and anyone who has experience with their own farm knows that is simply not the case. What happens to all these 'ugly ducklings'? Independent farmers struggle with keeping up with industry standards set up by these mega-giant producers.
The USDA has made it virtually impossible for small locally-based farms to certify their product organic, yet these small farms produce a far more healthy version than the type of stuff that is available to the mass market. The reason the USDA allows these lax restrictions is that as a business, they are in trouble. More people are trying to control what they put in their bodies. The government provides stipends to the large companies, but not the small independents who deserve it and the cost of certifying one vegetable far exceeds the profits some small farms might make all year. Fed up yet?
Well the meat industry is far dirtier and sordid. Even though your chicken might be free-range or organic, the term carries very little value in the real world. Big Beef, Chicken and Pork have manipulated this market to meet their ideals. It literally angers me to hear people talking so ignorantly that they only eat free-range when they have no idea what it actually means. Free range does not automatically dictate an open pasture where chickens peck to their hearts content. It means the there is a door that leads to an area where they might be allowed to roam in a mud-soaked, vitamin deprived atmosphere. The more interest people have in eating guilt-free food, the more lobbies will be presented the the USDA to thwart your efforts. I applaud Whole Foods for bringing free-range to the public vocabulary, but unless you want Whole Foods to become as ubiquitous as Wal-mart, people better start challenging their food sources regularly. I remember when I was young, my family raised a cow at a neighboring farm, that we visited quite regularly. My parents should have known then that I was vegetarian, since I would look into our giant freezer and cry over my friend Bessie, lying in peices. That said, allowing a local farm to raise your beef is probably your best option, if you can eat it!
Your best bet is to talk to your locals. My favorite farmer last year was a very kind Amish man who talked to us for 20 minutes about his special lettuces, rare breeds and varieties. We walked away with enough to tide us over til the following week to see what else he came up with. We ended up visiting him all summer, always coming home with an heirloom vegetable or some other vegetable that literally inspired awe.
My partner and I can't wait until we start our weekend dates of biking to the nearest farmers market, sampling the produce and asking questions to the caretakers of the beautiful bounty, excited about our choices, plannning the weekly menu, all without a shred of guilt at supporting unethical foods from unethical sources.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Our Daily Bread
Our Daily Bread is a haunting, relatively new documentary about the modern food business. Visually stunning and often disturbing, this film is not for the faint of heart. As a vegan for many years, I couldn't bear to watch the scenes of abuse and slaughter unfold yet another time before my eyes, and I ended up fast-forwarding through the animal scenes and focused instead on the farming. If you could call it that. Gone are the farmers on their hands and knees, weeding their crops and caring for their plants. Here to stay are GMO crops looking slightly alien, yet identical to the thousands of others under the same roof. I found myself gazing at the beautiful symmetry of the hydroponic greenhouse, comparing it to the pyramids at the Louvre. Gigantic machines spray pesticides, thrash wheat, while workers at night quickly pluck and wrap cabbages while the machine dictates their progress. Farming is no longer romanticized in this vision of food production.
Memorable scenes include one where a huge industrial crop waterer spread its wings like a giant, graceful pterodactyl. Beautiful sunflowers are covered in a haze of pesticides.
Disturbing scenes include a baby chick processing plant where women unfeelingly toss baby chicks into a giant machine which takes them through a crazy amusement park-like ride until, presumably their death. Farmed fish swimming like sardines in a can, never given the opportunity to swim free and have a chance at life.
Despite the beauty of the film, I was left feeling dirty and sad. For most people living on a modest budget, there is little one can do to avoid the commercial food chain. Alex Jones, yesterday on his podcast on Infowars.com, was speaking of a future, fifty years from now, where we will all be vegans, not by choice, but because there will be no room to raise animals and of a future where all our food comes from genetically modified sources controlled by the government. Now is the best time to try your hand at container gardens for city-dwellers and more ambitious planting for those fortunate enough to own green space. I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but the most important thing when choosing your food is knowing where it came from, not necessarily organic, since the big producers are getting around federal guidelines and establishing their own, but local, farm-raised produce, picked and raised by loving human hands.
I'm thankful that I no longer eat meat, so I don't feel the guilt that often accompanies meat consumption, but I also feel the duty to raise my own food to keep various strains of vegetables alive, until they take that from us too.
Oh yeah, and the best part of this film? Even though it is a foreign film, there are no subtitles; the machines do the talking.
Memorable scenes include one where a huge industrial crop waterer spread its wings like a giant, graceful pterodactyl. Beautiful sunflowers are covered in a haze of pesticides.
Disturbing scenes include a baby chick processing plant where women unfeelingly toss baby chicks into a giant machine which takes them through a crazy amusement park-like ride until, presumably their death. Farmed fish swimming like sardines in a can, never given the opportunity to swim free and have a chance at life.
Despite the beauty of the film, I was left feeling dirty and sad. For most people living on a modest budget, there is little one can do to avoid the commercial food chain. Alex Jones, yesterday on his podcast on Infowars.com, was speaking of a future, fifty years from now, where we will all be vegans, not by choice, but because there will be no room to raise animals and of a future where all our food comes from genetically modified sources controlled by the government. Now is the best time to try your hand at container gardens for city-dwellers and more ambitious planting for those fortunate enough to own green space. I know I sound like a broken record sometimes, but the most important thing when choosing your food is knowing where it came from, not necessarily organic, since the big producers are getting around federal guidelines and establishing their own, but local, farm-raised produce, picked and raised by loving human hands.
I'm thankful that I no longer eat meat, so I don't feel the guilt that often accompanies meat consumption, but I also feel the duty to raise my own food to keep various strains of vegetables alive, until they take that from us too.
Oh yeah, and the best part of this film? Even though it is a foreign film, there are no subtitles; the machines do the talking.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
I have to admit, Barbara Kingsolver was one of my favorite authors for a long time, so when her most-recent book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was loaned to me by an Epicurean co-worker, I dove in, ravenous for what she had to offer.
The premise of the book is a hot topic in today's' green-minded culture. Eat local, eat only what you can raise yourself or what's in season, and relish the treasures of your community. Kingsolver and her clan moved to the Southern portion of the Appalachian Mountains with the goal of raising her family on the fruits of the land. She is not a vegetarian and I cringed when I read the part about her raising her own turkeys for food, but I'm also inclined to doff my hat to her; that she can raise her own food and feed her family. She is adamant about the sources of other meats, insisting on locally, grass-fed varieties, so that's all I'm going to mention about the meat-eating, but still, her approach is a noble one, ensuring that at least the animals she does consume, led a decent life eating good food too!
I haven't finished the book yet, but I am already under the influence. For years I tried to eat locally, (I think it's called macro-biotic), and with the exception of bananas or citrus fruit, managed to subsist fairly well. Today, I know a lot more than I did then.
Now, when I go to Whole Foods, because the farmer's markets have ended for the year, I scan the tags looking for locally grown food. Tomatoes, forget about it. The closest tomato I can find is shipped from Florida. Luckily I still have some growing on my back porch, but I've harvested the last few before the frost and dread life without tomatoes. Avocados? Lettuce? It all comes from California, and this is Kingsolver's main contention. We've been spoiled by luxurious produce shipped from all over the world, oblivious as to what the cost on our environment is. I spotted these lovely oranges that looked great for juicing, bu when I saw they were from South Africa, I quietly passed them by. Kingsolver, equates calories with gas mileage, and in one instance, says that eating an apple from Washington State for someone on the East Coast is similar to driving 3 hours to walk 3 miles on a treadmill. Kind of counter-productive. In a time when global warming is directly linked to issues such as these, I want to take my part in this mission and try not to eat something, just because it's exotic, looks delicious or I need it for my recipe. Chances are that that red, delicious apple, might not taste as tasty as it looks. My boyfriend thinks I'm crazy, but I put my foot down at unnecessary items that have been shipped across the ocean.
For a raw foodist like myself, it is especially difficult. We subsist on nuts, that are primarily grown in places like Thailand, and while I grapple with that issue, I must remember to choose other items that haven't travelled as far for the rest of the meal.
Right now, I'm really digging squash, all types, simply steamed and topped with my own fresh-grown parsley. You can also make a nice squash mash, with steamed squash processed with olive oil and herbs. In the northeast, pickings are slim, but this is also the time of year when home-cooked foods, like root vegetables and onions can make a great meal. Stews really benefit from local produce. Can't live without that avocado? Well neither can I, but at least if we take small steps in passing by those delicious fruits from South Africa, we are making a difference.
The premise of the book is a hot topic in today's' green-minded culture. Eat local, eat only what you can raise yourself or what's in season, and relish the treasures of your community. Kingsolver and her clan moved to the Southern portion of the Appalachian Mountains with the goal of raising her family on the fruits of the land. She is not a vegetarian and I cringed when I read the part about her raising her own turkeys for food, but I'm also inclined to doff my hat to her; that she can raise her own food and feed her family. She is adamant about the sources of other meats, insisting on locally, grass-fed varieties, so that's all I'm going to mention about the meat-eating, but still, her approach is a noble one, ensuring that at least the animals she does consume, led a decent life eating good food too!
I haven't finished the book yet, but I am already under the influence. For years I tried to eat locally, (I think it's called macro-biotic), and with the exception of bananas or citrus fruit, managed to subsist fairly well. Today, I know a lot more than I did then.
Now, when I go to Whole Foods, because the farmer's markets have ended for the year, I scan the tags looking for locally grown food. Tomatoes, forget about it. The closest tomato I can find is shipped from Florida. Luckily I still have some growing on my back porch, but I've harvested the last few before the frost and dread life without tomatoes. Avocados? Lettuce? It all comes from California, and this is Kingsolver's main contention. We've been spoiled by luxurious produce shipped from all over the world, oblivious as to what the cost on our environment is. I spotted these lovely oranges that looked great for juicing, bu when I saw they were from South Africa, I quietly passed them by. Kingsolver, equates calories with gas mileage, and in one instance, says that eating an apple from Washington State for someone on the East Coast is similar to driving 3 hours to walk 3 miles on a treadmill. Kind of counter-productive. In a time when global warming is directly linked to issues such as these, I want to take my part in this mission and try not to eat something, just because it's exotic, looks delicious or I need it for my recipe. Chances are that that red, delicious apple, might not taste as tasty as it looks. My boyfriend thinks I'm crazy, but I put my foot down at unnecessary items that have been shipped across the ocean.
For a raw foodist like myself, it is especially difficult. We subsist on nuts, that are primarily grown in places like Thailand, and while I grapple with that issue, I must remember to choose other items that haven't travelled as far for the rest of the meal.
Right now, I'm really digging squash, all types, simply steamed and topped with my own fresh-grown parsley. You can also make a nice squash mash, with steamed squash processed with olive oil and herbs. In the northeast, pickings are slim, but this is also the time of year when home-cooked foods, like root vegetables and onions can make a great meal. Stews really benefit from local produce. Can't live without that avocado? Well neither can I, but at least if we take small steps in passing by those delicious fruits from South Africa, we are making a difference.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
One step forward, two steps back
Proposition 2 was a victory for farm animals. The day after the election, when I learned that Californians had voted for more humane farming techniques, I wasn't surprised, but I was pleased. I know how long it had taken PETA to convince KFC to stop debeaking their birds, and while some don't see it as a victory, baby steps, all the way. Nothing gets done over night, especially the big battle with corporate, greedy farmers who do see animals as dollar signs and not as sentient beings.
However, one week after Prop 2, the Supreme Court has ruled against the welfare of whales in the name of national security. The US Navy uses sonar off the coast of California to train their recruits and insist that sonar is a vital part of the training. You know, just in case Russia decided to invade us with submarines. Sonar is said to be damaging to whales, causing disorientation and other catastrophic effects.
So whales, our vital marine life mammals, who are slowly going extinct thanks to global warming and illegal fishing, have lost against the US Navy.
you can read an article about whales and sonar here, or just do a google search.
If you are interested in saving whales, think about joining an organization that makes that its mission. Click here for more details about volunteering to help bring attention to whales plight. It's a global problem and they were here before we were.
However, one week after Prop 2, the Supreme Court has ruled against the welfare of whales in the name of national security. The US Navy uses sonar off the coast of California to train their recruits and insist that sonar is a vital part of the training. You know, just in case Russia decided to invade us with submarines. Sonar is said to be damaging to whales, causing disorientation and other catastrophic effects.
So whales, our vital marine life mammals, who are slowly going extinct thanks to global warming and illegal fishing, have lost against the US Navy.
you can read an article about whales and sonar here, or just do a google search.
If you are interested in saving whales, think about joining an organization that makes that its mission. Click here for more details about volunteering to help bring attention to whales plight. It's a global problem and they were here before we were.
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