Loading up the greenhouse was a lotto work but a lotto fun. The Burgoo was pretty good too.
Though you can’t really tell, this green house is stuffed. It took us 3 hours of steady work to get er done. Then we had a great Burgoo at their picnic table on the south face of the hill.
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More Tomorrow
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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Springfield-IL/Clarewood-Farm-Bakery/122955644396840?v=wall
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What you may not know, if you buy baked goods from Gail Record at either of Springfield’s two farmers markets, is that she goes to a lot of trouble to make sure the ingredients she uses are locally sourced and grown either organically or in a sustainable manner.
Although she lives in Springfield, some of her ingredients are grown at Clarewood Farm — her family’s 80-acre farm near Loami. Other ingredients, including eggs, come from area farmers.
“When I started working at the farm, I wanted an apple orchard and nut trees and vegetables and fruit and I wanted to bake. I had big ideas. But you have to have time to do it,” said Record, a grandmother who sells under the name Clarewood Farm & Bakery.
The first-year farmers market vendor and former food writer hasn’t given up on her dream of running a thriving sustainable farm, but she’s starting small.
Take flour, for example.
She wanted to grow an acre of wheat, which she planned to make into flour for her whole-wheat baked goods. But when she realized how labor-intensive and difficult growing wheat would be, she decided to buy wheat berries from an organic farm in Chenoa and grind them herself.
Her stand — Saturdays only at the Old Capitol Farmers Market and Thursdays at the Illinois Products Farmers Market — sells cookies, muffins, zucchini bread, granola, scones, whole-wheat tortillas and other goodies. Fruit pies will be offered in the fall.
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Try some:
Hey Springfield Area Locavores,
1) The Illinois Specialty Growers Association sponsors the Farmers Market Tent at the State Fair. They are looking for any volunteers to help out with sales. The hours are 11:00-7:00 with breaks as needed to walk around the fair, eat, etc. Products sold include apple cider slushies, peaches, cantaloupe, watermelon, peaches, ice cream, salads and egg-on-a-stick! Past volunteers almost always return as they enjoy working this tent. You will be serving the produce and collecting money. No rocket science involved, just good ole’ fun! Thanks for considering.
Please contact Diane Handley by email or phone if you are interested. Diane Handley , Illinois Specialty Growers Association 309-557-2107, handley@ilfb.org
2) If you have not heard yet, tomorrow night, August 29th, Augie’s Front Burner is hosting a bonus “Local Flavors Dinner” in addition to the regularly scheduled “Local Flavors” lunches and dinners. The menu for the dinner at Augie’s is attached. For reservations call, 217-544-6979.
3) In celebration of National Farmers’ Market Week Illinois Stewardship Alliance will be distributing free bags of wheat flour at Springfield’s farmers’ markets. Illinois Stewardship Alliance is partnering with the Industrial Harvest project to distribute wheat flour that was purchased through the Chicago Board of Trade as part of a project to learn more about how commodities travel through the system and ultimately give the flour a story. Illinois Stewardship Alliance will distribute the flour at the Old Capitol Farmers Market on Wednesday, August 4 and Saturday, August 7 and at the Illinois Products Farmers Market on Thursday, August 5. Both white and whole wheat flour will be given away in bags with 3 – 4 cups of flour each. Stop by and get some free wheat flour!
Sincerely,
Wes King
Illinois Stewardship Alliance
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More tomorrow.
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All this week I have been posting about radical things from the environmental movement that have become main stream starting with a post on cars (CAFE standards) and continuing with posts on recycling, and residential energy conservation. Today it is the Back To The Land Movement. While they were laughed at and many of their efforts failed, the back to the landers had it right in so many ways…big cities are dumb energy dinosaurs…single labor “jobs” are alienating and defeatist…fresh air and hard work are good for you..and on and on. Yet the single biggest thing they got right was corporate food is poison and locally grown food is wonderful. So on this day before Earth Day in 2010 I give it up for:
REGISTER NOW! Local Food Awareness Day at the Capitol
On April 28th, local food consumers, farmers and advocates from across the state will come together in Springfield to encourage their legislators to support local food and sustainable agriculture. Illinois Stewardship Alliance would like to invite you to join us for our annual local food and sustainable agriculture lobby day and legislative reception, on April 28th, 2010.
Registration deadline is next Monday, April 19th. For more information and how to register click here.
Posted by: Lindsay Record
Would you rather attend a stuffy fundraising dinner
with a group of people you don’t know, or enjoy a delicious meal with family and friends at a great restaurant in your area?
With Share-A-Meal, you will not only have a wonderful meal with people you enjoy but support 13 local charities in Sangamon County.
The Seventh Annual Share-A-Meal with Community Shares will take place at restaurants in Springfield on Tues. April 13, 2010. The event is sponsored by Community Shares of Illinois, a nonprofit organization representing more than 78 charities statewide.
Participating restaurants in Springfield are expected to donate 20 to 25 percent of their meal proceeds to Community Shares of Illinois and its member organizations. Using pledge cards provided at each restaurant, diners will also have the option to direct a portion of their bill to any of the 78 charities that are members of Community Shares of Illinois.
Participating Restaurants in Springfield Include:
Maldaner’s – 222 S. 6th St.; (217) 522-4313 – lunch and dinner
Augie’s Front Burner – 2 West Old Capitol Plaza; (217) 544-6979 – lunch and dinner
– Tuesday night special: 50 percent off bottles of wine
Tai Pan – 2636 Stevenson Dr.; (217) 529-8089 – dinner
All you must do to contribute is dine out at one of the participating restaurants. Share-A-Meal combines the pleasure of eating out with the joy of giving in one fun-filled event.
Community Shares of Illinois represents more than 78 organizations working to make our state a better place to live. These organizations work to improve the quality of life in Illinois by addressing a wide range of issues, including affordable housing, health care, the environment and civil rights, as well as other issues affecting women, children, people of color, working families, people with disabilities and the poor.
For more information about Share-A-Meal and an up-to-date restaurant list, click here.
To learn more about Community Shares of Illinois, click here.
Posted by: Lindsay Record
Did you know the Illinois Stewardship Alliance (formerly the Illinois South Project) helped found the Carbondale Farmer’s Market? Did you know that ISA has been active in state and federal policy working on issues such as protecting farmland? Did you know abut the Stewardship Farm providing research on organic practices, our pilot program to utilize WIC coupons and Illinois farmers markets? These are just a few of many issues ISA has taken on over the last 36 years since the founding of the Illinois South Project in 1974 in Herrin (?). The Illinois South Project was founded to give citizens a voice in the development of the federal coal program introduced in the mid-1970’s. The Illinois South Project acknowledged the negative impact strip mining would have on farmland and the local economy in southern Illinois. “Central to our program is empowerment of people through active involvement in issues that affect them. To address critical farm policy issues, we organized farmers to attend hearings and town meetings organized by their elected officials. We sent out numerous alerts on crucial issues being debated in the state legislature and in Congress and we submitted testimony on important aspects of the 1985 farm bill” – Illinois South Project 1985 Annual Report
In 1990, the organization opened an office in central Illinois, became a membership-based organization and has worked on a variety of local food and farm issues over the years through research, policy advocacy and education but there has always been a common thread of working for environmental stewardship, economic viability of small farms and connecting rural producers with urban populations. ISA staff and board are proud to celebrate 36 years of supporting local food systems in Illinois. We invite you to join us as we continue to advocate for sounds policies that support sustainable local food systems. ISA continues to be a membership-driven organization with individual and organizational members. If you aren’t a member, please consider joining now. If you are a member, don’t hesitate to contact staff and let us know how we can serve you better.
Posted by: Lindsay Record
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I have done a whole 2 week meditation on solar cooking, drying and other energy light food preparation methods. That included gardening, canning, freezing and all manner of good foods that are good for you. I did not cover hunting and maybe the next time I will because it doesn’t get more energy or cost effective than a bullet. They cost a quarter. BUT, since I mentioned solar cookers and there have been 2 huge natural disasters in the last few months in Chile and Haiti…I give you the Solar Cooker International project.
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In response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Solar Cookers International (SCI) has received numerous calls from donors and friends wishing to make contributions or otherwise support relief efforts in Haiti, particularly with the hopes of sending solar cookers and water pasteurization indicators (WAPIs) to the quake’s victims. We are inspired and encouraged that so many of you have recognized the vital role solar cooking and solar water pasteurization can play in these relief efforts.
SCI is now working with Sun Ovens International, Friends of Haiti Organization, and local NGO partners to bring much-needed solar cookers and WAPIs to the people of Haiti as the country begins its long road to recovery. Please contribute to this effort and help us bring simple, life-saving skills and technologies to a country suffering not only from a massive earthquake, but from never-ending poverty and lack of cooking fuel due to extreme levels of deforestation.
A $40 gift pays for a solar cooker, cooking pot, and WAPI for a Haitian family.
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Food is easily and conveniently cooked with solar energy as the “fuel” in devices called solar cookers (or solar ovens). Solar cookers are an ideal addition to any kitchen wherever there are predictable hours of sun many days of the year. Solar cooking and baking are easy. Solar cookers are safe around children and provide a great way to learn about and use solar energy. Solar cookers are clean, convenient, non-polluting and easy on the environment. And, for millions of people living in arid, fuel-scarce regions of the world, solar cookers can literally save lives. Read on …
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There is not a whole lot more to say on the subject.
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As I promised the second part of the Basil Economy…It is everything a holiday should be happy, joyous, warm and wonderful…Enjoy.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25675
Anatomy of a community garden: The riveting 2nd installment of building a basil economy
by North of Center | December 23, 2009 – 9:55am [Originally published June 17.]
by Danny Mayer
It’s 11 o’clock in the morning and I’m sitting on a stump in a shady spot of London Ferrell Community Garden, located in downtown Lexington, Kentucky. There’s no other way to say it. I stink. Bad. For the past several weeks I have been trying to meet up for an interview with Ryan Koch, co-founder of Seedleaf, a non-profit created to help establish community gardens throughout Lexington. Although he’d never fess up to it, Ryan is a busy dude.
Thirty minutes earlier, in hopes of catching Ryan on my way home from a morning jog, I had detoured through the fenced-in, rectangular patch of urban community farmland that is London Ferrell. He was there—he’s always there on Saturdays, it seems—and relatively available so I quickly proceeded home, grabbed my recorder for an interview, and made haste back to the half-acre patch of newly productive land, where Ryan was busy negotiating a collection of citizen community gardeners, student volunteers, bitter salad greens, weeds, some donated extra tomato plants, and now one seriously smelly amateur journalist/jogger.
Ryan wasn’t always this busy. A little over a year ago I recall working several Saturday and Thursday mornings alone with him, both at London Ferrell and at a garden Seedleaf helped establish next to Al’s Bar. (Produce from the Al’s garden helped offset food costs at Stella’s Kentucky Deli and Al’s Bar—and to provide its customers with fresh veggies.) Ryan appreciated the morning conversation and at times even the semblance of work I offered.
DOT DASH DOT
“I see gardening as a long, slow conversion for me,” Ryan began between sips of coffee as he grabbed a stump next to me in the shade. “I was 18 and in a college lecture. A professor whose name I couldn’t tell you—and I couldn’t tell you about any of his lectures—read ‘Mad Farmer Liberation Front,’ that Wendell Berry poem. And he read it in the beginning of class and said ‘that doesn’t have anything to do with today’s lecture. I just liked the poem.’” While remaining an intermittent fan of Berry’s work, it wasn’t until 2004 when he married Jodi that the two “committed to trying to do a garden whenever we could as one of our habits of marriage. I thought lettuce was hard to grow. In our first year, I don’t know if we grew any lettuce, but we had a tomato. So we called it goal achieved for year one.”
Before I could get around to asking Ryan how he saw his connection to gardening as an intimate “habit of marriage,” a dog barked behind us in the old Episcopal Burial grounds located at the approximate east flank of London Ferrell. The two neighbors from Campsie who owned the dog began chatting with Ryan; meanwhile, my friend Andrew arrived, the first time I”d seen him since he returned from a two-week sojourn to western Canada and back. Before I noticed it, Ryan had slipped off to help out some other volunteers and neighbors, who asked questions, told stories and awaited directions as to what should be picked,what mulched, what turned under.
Oikos
Although I never recaptured that Right moment to follow up, Ryan’s comments resonated with me. Two weeks earlier I sat in the kitchen of Sherry and Geoff Maddock discussing a range of topics that circled around the ins and outs of what I clumsily call “a basil economy” and they called “food systems.” Through the course of our conversation, I asked Sherry about how she viewed her position as head of the North Martin Luther King Neighborhood Association (NMLKNA). Sherry explained that she viewed the neighborhood association as “as a civic unit for change. The capacity to work out change in our lives,” she continued, “starts in our own households and then with who we live next to.” Her position as NMLKNA head was simply a considered outgrowth of her everyday life.
Understood in this context, London Ferrell—which owes much of its rebirth as a productive space to the creative social energy of Sherry Maddock—seems like a logical next step. The plot sits less than two blocks from the Maddocks’ house. Its redevelopment as a community agricultural space reflects the Maddocks’ commitment to working out change alongside their neighbors.
DOT DASH DOT
“If you want to care for the earth more,” Ryan observes before ditching me, “put a basil plant in a pot and watch how much you care about when it rains. That’s been very real in my life. I really stress out after four dry days in a row. I never used to be that kind of guy. I’m irritable. I pray more. I’ve never prayed so much for rain. It’s changing me; it’s part of how gardening is converting me.”
Imagination and Action
I recall being mildly surprised when Sherry told me that, as a producer of food, London Ferrell does little to effect the larger presence of hunger in the greater Lexington area—our most immediate neighbors. It “doesn’t even make a dent in…the provision of local food,” she says. It’s too small; for it to have a tangible impact, London Ferrell would have to scale up its production, its volunteers, its space. All of these things have consequences of course—more labor, more dialogue about best use of the communal space, more places ready to receive and process the increased amount of food coming in. These things take time, Ferrell is a limited space, and meanwhile people are still hungry. Instead, Sherry talks about the garden’s main function residing “at the level of the imagination…it begins to stimulate people’s minds to possibilities.”
I’m normally skeptical of these assertions because they tend to ride into the more politically passive realm of symbol. As in, that London Ferrell garden is a “symbol” of change in the community. However true that may be, I tend to add more value to even the smallest material changes in people’s lives. Did anyone get fed because of the garden’s existence? If so, for me that outweighs any symbolic meaning that, like money, we can’t use to sustain ourselves for long. It’s a little like Obama’s message of “hope” in that way.
But I must admit, as important as those food routes may be for the nourishment of at least some North side residents, viewing its chief work as working “at the level of the imagination” makes a lot of sense. If taken correctly, London Ferrell is both model and challenge for action; Seedleaf is both an invitation to imagine gardens sprouting in most any place and a working pamphlet guiding us along through spring, summer, and fall plantings. One can already see people answering the call of Seadleaf and Ferrells’ challenge of our imagination. Seedleaf is up from three to ten gardens this year; some of the gardeners tending plots last year took the knowledge learned from watching things develop at London Ferrell and moved on to other lots—some no doubt at home, some in a friend’s yard, some at other community lots.
This year Ryan seems finally able to have a go at Seedleaf fulltime. He’s secured a little city money that will pay him to scale up his compost retrieval from area restaurants who would otherwise dispose of it. The increased amount of decomposing vegetable matter will ultimately overwhelm London Ferrell, so he will soon bring his scraps out to PeaceMeal Gardens, a twenty acre patch of rolling hillside at the back of the Bluegrass Community and Technical College’s (BCTC) Leestown campus that is being converted into a working suburban farm. Jessica Ballard, the farm manager at PeaceMeal, worked with her UK sustainable agriculture class to help Ryan develop good composting practices to more quickly and beneficially turn the scraps into usable compost and soil. Both Ryan and the sustainable ag class had their imaginations sparked by a visit paid by urban farmer and activist Will Allen. Some of Jessica’s salary is provided by the Catholic Action Center, who in conjunction with Rebecca have plowed under an acre of soil to grow things that will feed into their food kitchens for the hungry who show at their Godsnet location. Another portion of Jessica’s salary will be paid for through a market garden that will provide BCTC students a dearly needed dash of fresh produce in what is otherwise an educational food desert.
To paraphrase Sherry, there are a lot of imaginations being stoked here, a lot of new configurations of of power and productivity arising through these new food systems. Importantly, several people have done the hard work of translating the imagination into the realm of possibility and eventually actuality.
We need more of that.
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Is it too early to say have a HAPPY NEW YEAR? nawww never is.
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This is part 1 of a 2 part post that was published by the Smirking Monkey (God I love that name) on a Blog called North of Center…It has everything that a good Christmas has in it. Joy, Good Cheer, Love of one another, and warmth. But first I must say:
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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.
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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25664
Building a Basil Economy: Growing, Gleaning, Gifting
by North of Center | December 22, 2009 – 11:33amby Danny Mayer
[Originally published June 3 as “Building a Basil Economy: Part 1 of a 2 part series.”]
Last summer I was awash in basil. Mostly genovese, but also a sweet, a cinnamon, a purple, and a strikingly pungent lemon variety.
My basil crops were the result of a frantic burst of what might best be described as a month of youthful teenage exuberance germinating over a dozen years late. I spread my basil seed everywhere. I scattered it in a tiered garden tucked in the back corner of the Trinity Baptist Church parking lot (behind our former home) and in a hardscrabble spot hastily dug on an empty lot off MLK (next to our current home). I spread my seed in a hops garden, a lettuce garden, and a poorly tended garden in nearby Keene, KY, and I laid it down in a private double plot in the even more proximate London Ferrill Garden. I even spread some seeds in a couple of guerrilla garden beds around town.
My basil sprouted around squash, above watermelon vines, and between tomato plants. Some of it shaded late-season lettuce. One particular plant I recall growing to a size of three feet and looking like a great sticky pot plant. I imagined myself re-scenting the greater Lexington area, and in some spots, after a particularly unexpected breeze or a casual hand bent and teased the fields of leaves, I swear that scent took hold. I was a regular Johnny Basil-seed.
By late June, I had a curious and not wholly unexpected dilemma: how might I utilize or otherwise dispose of all that scent and flavor?
I say not wholly unexpected because the year before I had a similar need to get rid of basil—though not nearly so much—when I guerrilla gardened some roma tomatoes and basil at the top lip of a drainage ditch behind a stripmall on Winchester Road. I wound up bringing my excess basil to Enza’s Italian Eatery, now unfortunately closed but at the time only a short walk down Winchester from my guerrilla garden plot. Though I intended the basil as a gift born of seasonal excess, on occasion I ended up receiving balls of homemade mozzarella in exchange. It was an eye-opening process for me: come with basil, give it to Curtis to use in sandwiches, eat a caprese sandwich for lunch with my just-picked basil shredded on top, pay for the meal, and leave with an extra two or three or four balls of fresh mozzarella floating in a container of mozzarella water.
So when the great basil crunch hit me last summer, I was partially prepared. I began to harvest different plots weekly and and give my excess green freely away to interested restaurants that I often found myself eating at. And in return, I received from these restaurants more mozzarella balls, the occasional free meal, gift certificates to distribute to friends and dogsitters, and much good will. Not bad for about an $8 investment in seeds.
Growing a Different Economy
Much has been made, in print and on air, of Lexingtonians’ budding interest in growing and consuming fresh and local produce. We eat fresher food. We get to sample a greater variety of food. We grow community by gathering in groups at places like Farmer’s Markets to chat, eat, and purchase food for home. We nourish and reconnect to the earth. We support local farmers. We get outside and away from the television and the computer.
DOT DOT DOT as they say
Gleaning Networks and Free Stores: Giving Away Abundance
In a nation that has its own hunger problems, growing your own food ensures you will know abundance. Or as John Walker put it during our chat over tea at his Hamilton Park home, “I can guarantee that you will at some time have more than you know what do with.”
Walker, a native of England, has been gardening in the same Lexington backyard for fifteen years, so he knows something about abundance. Along with his work through Kitchen Gardeners Bluegrass teaching people how to prepare home-grown and home-cooked food, Walker has organized a loosely affiliated group of gleaners, the Lexington Urban Gleaning Network (LUGN), who this summer and fall will collect that agricultural abundance before it rots away. LUGN’s goal is to identify unused fruit trees and overwhelmed backyard gardeners in order to gather, or glean, unused food. From the gleaners hands, the food will pass through a number of food banks large and small for distribution to those needing food.
dot dot dot
I recall the trepidation with which passersby and “customers” initially approached my beaten down Nissan pickup truck. “You’re just giving this away?” they’d ask incredulously. “Sure, why not,” I’d reply casually. “Otherwise it’s in my compost.”
No doubt the measured first inquiries had much to do with me—a white boy—giving away the food, but I think something else was also at play. There’s a certain psychic barrier or socialized hurdle that we must all leap over or dig under before something like the Lexington Free Store makes sense. In that it emphasizes giving over buying, the distribution of excess rather than the selling of surplus, the store seemingly defies all rules for being a store. I can sustain myself for the very reason that the store depends on something that I can replenish for very little money. In other words, for the most part I can use food to cut money out of my economic transactions that represent my labor.
In return, at the Lexington Free Store I received as much as I gave. We exchanged no money and yet the transactions were fair. I met new faces, learned new recipes for using the produce I was giving away, and at times even had meals cooked for me. Without money, this was a different form of economic efficiency, one that saw both me and my “customers” mutually enriched by our transaction.
When food is your main currency, it becomes difficult to be a good capitalist.
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Please read the whole article, IT’S INCREDIBLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9CZjr7rf6E
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It is true. Even though stories about disappearing honey bees, or even Colony Collapse Disorder have appeared on 60 minutes, Scientific America and even NatGeo. There is very little truth to it. It is largely a North American and European commercial pollination problem which would never really effect food production much. If they worked me as hard as they do the commercial bees I’d fly away too. My Pawpaws are pollinated by flies so I don’t really care. If you don’t believe me read this:
But this and yesterday’s post got me to thinking about eating simply and it furthers my meditation on living off the land. Humans have come to eat so complicatedly and chemically. Did you ever wonder why Lay’s Potato Chips claims that”you can’t eat just one” and they are probably right? I am no extremist veggan or anything approaching one. There are 200,000 deer in Illinois and if oil collapsed tomorrow and with it civilization I would go shoot one the day after. I don’t even know if the children still trick or treat for Unicef but in that spirit let’s start with Plump-i-nut factories in Africa:
http://www.unicef.org/media/ethiopia_38423.html
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| © UNICEF/2007/Wiggers |
| UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman receives flowers from children upon her arrival at the new Plumpy’nut factory in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. |
By Indrias Getachew
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 21 February 2007 – UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman inaugurated Ethiopia’s first Plumpy’nut therapeutic food factory in Addis Ababa yesterday.
The inauguration marks a joint venture between UNICEF, US-based private donor and businesswoman Amy Robbins and the Hilina Enriched Foods Processing Centre.
Plumpy’nut is a high-protein and high-energy, peanut-based paste used for the treatment of severely undernourished children. An estimated 1.5 million children in Ethiopia are severely undernourished. At full capacity, Hilina Enriched Foods will produce up to 12 tons of the paste per day.
“Today as we open the doors of the fourth, and largest, factory in Africa that will produce Plumpy’nut, we are taking a step in the right direction in addressing the issue of malnutrition,” said Ms. Veneman.
Generous solution
In 2005, the Robbins family donated $1.3 million to UNICEF to allow the purchase and import of 267 tons of Plumpy’nut to Ethiopia.
Formulated by French scientist Andre Briend in 1999, Plumpy’nut has been used to save children’s lives in major emergency situations in Darfur, Niger and Malawi.
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| © UNICEF/2007/Wiggers |
| From left: Philanthopist Amy Robbins, Minister of Trade and Industries Ato Girma Birru and the State Minister for Agriculture at the inauguration of the Plumpy’nut factory in Addis Ababa. |
Plumpy’nut requires no preparation or special supervision, so an untrained adult – such as a parent – can deliver it to an undernourished child at home, allowing governments to reduce the amount of money spent on therapeutic feeding stations. The paste has a two-year shelf life when unopened and stays fresh even after opening.
Though Plumpy’nut is relatively inexpensive and easy to transport, Ms. Robbins discovered that huge costs were incurred from its importation and that limited capacity at the French plant made it difficult to ensure timely food supplies from Europe.
To solve the problem, her family foundation donated $340,000 towards investment in the needed equipment to manufacture Plumpy’nut within Ethiopia.
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Everyone knows that factory farming of animals pioneered here in the Corporate US of A is dangerous to the health of all involved including the humans. Everyone knows that eating cow flesh is probably not a good idea, at least everyday or even 2 or 3 times a week. Goats, sheep, fowl and pigs are much better alternatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goat
The most recent genetic analysis[5] confirms the archaeological evidence that the Anatolian Zagros are the likely origin of almost all domestic goats today. Neolithic farmers began to keep them for easy access to milk and meat, primarily, also for their dung, which was used as fuel and their bones, hair, and sinew for clothing, building, and tools.[1] The earliest remnants of domesticated goats dating 10,000 before present are found in Ganj Dareh in Iranian Kurdistan. Domestic goats were generally kept in herds that wandered on hills or other grazing areas, often tended by goatherds who were frequently children or adolescents, similar to the more widely known shepherd. These methods of herding are still used today.
Historically, goat hide has been used for water and wine bottles in both traveling and transporting wine for sale. It has also been used to produce parchment
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Not to mention that the flesh is wonderful and so are the milk and cheese. They will eat just about anything and everyone should have at least 2. Again it is the GROWTH model that destroys the equilibrium of the planet. Simple is laughed at. People who juice their foods live much long because their foods are fresh and uncooked.
http://www.powerjuicer.com/?gclid=CLyzu7yY4J0CFQ4hDQod9ilOMA
Jack LaLane should know he has been at it for years:
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Our GROWTH system even prevents or even worse obliterates local options. When I found out about Pawpaws I was thoroughly amazed:
Asimina triloba is often called prairie banana because of its banana-like creamy texture and flavor.
The pawpaw is native to shady, rich bottom lands, where it often forms a dense undergrowth in the forest. Where it dominates a tract it appears as a thicket of small slender trees, whose great leaves are borne so close together at the ends of the branches, and which cover each other so symmetrically, that the effect is to give a peculiar imbricated appearance to the tree.[1]
Although it is a delicious and nutritious fruit, it has never been cultivated on the scale of apples and peaches, primarily because only frozen fruit will store or ship well. It is also difficult to transplant because of fragile hairy root tentacles that tend to break off unless a cluster of moist soil is retained on the root mass. Cultivars are propagated by chip budding or whip grafting.
In recent years the pawpaw has attracted renewed interest, particularly among organic growers, as a native fruit which has few to no pests, and which therefore requires no pesticide use for cultivation. The shipping and storage problem has largely been addressed by freezing. Among backyard gardeners it also is gaining in popularity because of the appeal of fresh fruit and because it is relatively low maintenance once planted. The pulp is used primarily in baked dessert recipes and for juicing fresh pawpaw drink or drink mixtures (pawpaw, pineapple, banana, lime, lemon and orange tea mix). In many recipes calling for bananas, pawpaw can be used with volumetric equivalency.
The commercial growing and harvesting of pawpaws is strong in southeast Ohio. The Ohio Pawpaw Growers’ Association annually sponsors the Ohio Pawpaw Festival at Lake Snowden near Albany, Ohio.
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But really the place to start with all of this is to pick your foods carefully. Find a butcher and get to know him or her. Look around and find local growers that you can trust. When you have to go to a modern grocery store go there with a certain amount of fear and suspicion.
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Cathy
and I went to the Illinois State Fair
To see the Butter Cow.
This year’s fair was really weird weather wise. It rained when Cathy and I normally go on Monday and Tuesday – Senior’s Day and Agriculture Day respectively. So by the time we made it on Friday most everything was gone. Embarrassingly we did not make it to Conservation World where all the cool kids and our friends hang out. We did make it to the Expo Building where home efficiency seemed to be the order of the day:
We met this nice man from Energy Doctor. A business that offers to tighten your envelop and use other measures as a package to reduce your energy consumption. They started in Iowa but have 5 offices now. Please visit them at:
http://www.energydoctorinc.com/index.html
Then we saw the purdy little girl at the Anderson Windows booth:
http://www.andersenwindows.com/
And we saw the people from Peoria Siding:
http://www.peoriasiding.com/pages/siding.php
And the Four Seasons solar space:
OH I mean this Four Seasons:
http://www.fourseasonssunrooms.com/
Having exhausted ourselves we went across the street to Mehan’s food stand and got a corn dog and a lemon shake up. They are celebrating 75 years at the Illinois State Fair…Congratulations
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Why buying your food locally is so important in so many ways. One of corporate capitalism’s goals is for people to lose their common sense. Some forms of food have been moved all over the planet for 20,000 years. Certain forms of food lend themselves to this process nicely. The commodity grains for example have been move by draft animals, boats and now trucks since their mass cultivation began. Even this can be moderated a bit. But to be shipping all manner of food all manner of places in all types of weather is just dumb.
I boil this down to a single sentence. Do I need to eat apples in Illinois in the winter? If I do should it come from Ecuador? (this is true) I have an apple tree in the back yard. Shouldn’t I just freeze some? But then irrational uses of our transportation system is a hallmark of the modern world. But there is more to consider. Local foods encourage carbon sequestration in the plants themselves, their reintroduction into the soil by composting, and the enhancement of your personal health. These are a few things to consider when you buy only food grown within a hundred miles of your house.
Then there is the ethics of factory farming of any living thing. Anyway planting a garden and harvesting local free stuff only makes sense.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/business/worldbusiness/26food.html
Massimo Sciacca for The New York Times
Kiwis grown in Italy are examined — and damaged fruit is discarded— before being shipped.
Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.
In the United States, FreshDirect proclaims kiwi season has expanded to “All year!” now that Italy has become the world’s leading supplier of New Zealand’s national fruit, taking over in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.
Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And the penetration of mega-markets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe — like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco — has accelerated the trend.
But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food.
Under longstanding trade agreements, fuel for international freight carried by sea and air is not taxed. Now, many economists, environmental advocates and politicians say it is time to make shippers and shoppers pay for the pollution, through taxes or other measures.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112801611.html
Transportation choices such as car vs. subway have a big effect on carbon footprint, but experts say food choices have nearly as much impact. (By Ramin Talaie — Bloomberg News)
By Katherine Salant
Saturday, November 29, 2008; Page F04
In moving for a year to New York City from Ann Arbor, Mich., a small Midwestern college town, the biggest change for me has not been the shift from a house to a high-rise and a living space that is only one-third as big.
It is the absence of a car.
The difference was apparent the first day. As in previous moves, settling in included many trips to the hardware store for this and that. But this time it was not a simple matter of getting directions and driving there. It was confronting a subway system with 26 different lines. And, after reaching Home Depot and making my purchases, I had to figure out how to get them home. (I learned that most stores in Manhattan offer delivery services for a fee.)
Even the most mundane details of daily life, including meal planning, have changed. In Michigan I had the luxury of “last-minute cuisine,” routinely making a dinner plan at 6 p.m., heading for the grocery store that is a three-minute drive from my house, grabbing a few things and returning home, all inside of 20 minutes. Here the grocery store is a 15-minute walk from our apartment building. The return trip is longer because I am lugging my purchases in a wire shopping cart. With each grocery outing taking at least 40 minutes, I plan ahead and shop for groceries only once or twice a week.
Traveling by subway has not proven to be a timesaver, but the time is allocated differently. On a 60-minute car trip you can while away the time by listening to the radio or music. On a subway you can read. The rush hour is still stressful, but the defensive maneuvers are different. Sandwiched into a subway car, you have to be watchful of backpack-wearing riders who never seem to realize how often their backpacks whack other passengers.
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If you want to calculate how much you save by buying locally:
Home The food we consume contributes to climate change. The production, packaging and transportation of food all consumes energy and results in carbon emissions which threaten to raise average global surface temperatures.
However, not all foods are equal…
The Food Carbon Footprint Calculator (FCFC) provides the opportunity to calculate the resultant carbon dioxide from the food you eat, called your “Food Carbon Footprint”.
This website also offers personalised and practical ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet, reducing your impact on climate change.
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Dan Piraro’s cartoons are relentlessly funny, but honestly his blog is even funnier. I forgot to put this up yesterday but:
http://bizarrocomic.blogspot.com/
(To make the cartoon big, click on the seagull’s left knee)
Bizarro is brought to you today by Geriatric Mouse Voice.
Judging by the emails I got last week, this cartoon was very popular with environmentally conscious readers. Destruction of ocean life is far worse than most people realize because it is hidden under the surface. It’s hard to get good photos of all that is missing from the sea. Most experts estimate that 90% of all large ocean life has been decimated in the past 100 years. Red Lobster All-You-Can-Eat night, anyone?
And judging by some emails I’ve gotten recently, there are a number of readers who think I hate fat people and think they are fair game for ridicule. My point is not that fat people are “funny” or “bad,” but that human selfishness is ruining the planet, with Americans firmly in the lead. I know it is hard to resist food, I’ve battled it myself, we all have. And we’re not the only species prone to this, we’ve all seen what happens to dogs when too much food is made available. For millions of years, humans couldn’t be certain when their next meal would be, so our genes evolved to tell us to eat all that is available, especially the fatty stuff.
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If you want to see more of Dan just Google him. He is literally the first 10 entries. But this is my favorite Dan thingy…his live show:
http://fora.tv/2008/12/05/Dan_Piraro_Bizarro_Buccaneers
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