Tricia Edgar's blogshttp://www.justmeans.com/editorials/sustainable-food/427.htmlFri, 25 May 2012 00:23:01 GMThttp://www.justmeans.com en hourly 1http://www.justmeans.com/Solstice-Food--Sustainable-Regional-Food-for-Winter/40994.htmlWed, 22 Dec 2010 23:37:19 GMTTricia Edgar Winter has arrived in the northern hemisphere. With it comes the smells wafting out of the house: the smells of good home cooking. Winter is a time to celebrate regional specialties and the recipes that have been passed down through the family over many years. It's a time for soul food and solstice food.Long before the current focus on local food, people ate locally because there was no other alternative. An orange in the winter time was like orange gold, amazing and special, fit for a Christmas Read Full Article ]]> Winter has arrived in the northern hemisphere. With it comes the smells wafting out of the house: the smells of good home cooking. Winter is a time to celebrate regional specialties and the recipes that have been passed down through the family over many years. It's a time for soul food and solstice food.Long before the current focus on local food, people ate locally because there was no other alternative. An orange in the winter time was like orange gold, amazing and special, fit for a Christmas stocking. From this cooking, regional specialties developed. If yours was a potato farming community, you'd better believe that these specialties focused on the wonders of the potato. If yours was a dairying community, well, milk was on the menu.If you're hankering for some down home specialties, this is the right season to peruse old family recipe books and the museum piece recipes from your local area. Don't have any old family recipe books? Wouldn't you know, there's a cookbook for that. In the US, Linda Stradley's I'll Have What They're Having: Legendary Local Cuisine cookbook is a compendium of what is local in your region.Still lost for ingredients? If you live in the UK, there's a web site for that. Historical Foods is another compendium of the delicious, this time in web format. Head back to Stuart, Tudor, or Victorian times and eat what was on the menu for their traditional feasts. There's even a section on the Dark Ages with a recipe for Elder Ale. Although we hope we won't end up in the Dark Ages at Christmastime, this does give a new meaning to historic and regional food, minus the side of feudalism.Are you creating your own blend of family traditions from a mish-mash of cultures, all transported to a new place? Take a hint from regional recipes and create your own. What's sustainable this time of year? Turn to preserved foods, preferably those preserved yourself during the summer and fall bounty: canned peaches, stewed dries pears, beet pickles. The list is endless. Foods that love to live in cold storage are also sustainable, whether they're apples preserved from the fall or kale and parsnips still thriving in the chilly garden soil. And as it is the season to share, creating homemade everything is also on the sustainable goodie and gift list.Tis the season to revel in what is local, even if it is not yet familiar. This winter, try creating a new family tradition using food created by your own community.Image: flickr.com ]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Is-it-Really-Local-Food/40457.htmlSun, 19 Dec 2010 10:27:52 GMTTricia Edgar Local food: it's popular. It's so popular that chain stores now sport local produce and everyone is all about calculating the carbon footprint of transportation of this and that. There are detractors, of course: those who say that some food is best grown in a central location to aid in efficiency and scale and that food can be more sustainable this way. However, for the most part local food feels good to people. It connects people with their local farmers, it's fresh and tasty, and it has a touc Read Full Article ]]> Local food: it's popular. It's so popular that chain stores now sport local produce and everyone is all about calculating the carbon footprint of transportation of this and that. There are detractors, of course: those who say that some food is best grown in a central location to aid in efficiency and scale and that food can be more sustainable this way. However, for the most part local food feels good to people. It connects people with their local farmers, it's fresh and tasty, and it has a touchy-feely environmental feel to it.Banking on this feel, companies large and small have started to brand their produce and other products as local. But is all of this actually local produce?Photo Credit: FlickrIs it purchased from a grocer in your community? Well, it's wonderful to support small grocers, and while that means that money goes directly into the pockets of grocery store owners and employees in your community, it doesn't mean that your bread was grown next door to the shop. That's local shopping, not local produce.Is the company local? That's wonderful! It's good to support people in your community who are creating innovative products. However, if the company sources materials from China and integrates them into their products, the products are not totally local. That's not to say that they are bad or even unsustainable. They're just not local.Does the produce go to be checked, washed and packaged at a centralized facility? Where is this central facility? If the produce is grown in California and the facility is in New York, all of those miles add up. Sure, it is local produce but it is local produce with a lot of air miles.Does your food have to go on vacation to be processed? If the apples need to take a trip to Florida to get juiced, even though they grew in Washington, again their pedigree is somewhat mixed.Now, none of this is to say that you should be a local food snob. It's just to clarify: when we talk about shopping for local food and local goods, what do we really mean? We need to consider the different levels of local, from locally-invented and purchased to food that is grown and processed in the community where it is sold.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Ugly-Food--Why-Beautiful-Produce-is-Not-Sustainable/40455.htmlSat, 18 Dec 2010 10:27:40 GMTTricia Edgar It's the season to appreciate inner beauty. It can be ugly outside in the winter time, so we sit by the (sustainable) fireplace and enjoy our local food. That's sustainable, right? Well, have you looked at your food lately? Is it pretty? No, really: this is important.Ugly food gets overlooked in the chain from farm to supermarket. The two-legged carrots, the lumpy parsnips, the odd-colored turnip: they are all misfits in their respective fields, and they all get culled. When the produce gets to Read Full Article ]]> It's the season to appreciate inner beauty. It can be ugly outside in the winter time, so we sit by the (sustainable) fireplace and enjoy our local food. That's sustainable, right? Well, have you looked at your food lately? Is it pretty? No, really: this is important.Ugly food gets overlooked in the chain from farm to supermarket. The two-legged carrots, the lumpy parsnips, the odd-colored turnip: they are all misfits in their respective fields, and they all get culled. When the produce gets to the supermarket shelf, it's culled by grocery departments and by consumers as well. That apple with the blotch? No one wants it. It gets to sit on the shelf and in the USA, farmers end up disposing more than a fifth of their crops every year simply because these crops are not uniform enough to pass muster. Until 2008, EU regulations meant that 26 different kinds of fruits and vegetables could not be sold if they are not large enough or uniform enough to make it in the market. Thankfully, this was overturned and by 2009, small or ugly fruits and vegetables once again graced supermarket shelves. Interestingly enough, Sainsbury's was a force behind the campaign to love ugly food, saying that adding this food into the grocery store reduced prices and made food more affordable for everyone. Twenty percent. What would you do if you lost that much income? That much food from your pantry? If the food is good, it's a waste and shame to lose it. We all need that food.What can you do? Shop locally and get produce from farmers. Tell your farmers that it doesn't matter whether the food is ugly. You'll still love it and eat it. And if it's a potato, a yam a turnip or any one of a countless list of foods, it will be processed anyway, processed into something delicious and beautiful.To encourage sustainable food use, we need to find more alternative markets for the ugly food of the world as well. Support small producers of secondary products like dried apples, vegetable soups, sauces, and jams. This is the perfect place for the ugly vegetables: in a soup, no one will notice you're not perfect, just that you're delicious.And advocate for those ugly ducklings of the food world. Sustainable food? Give us more of it! It's ridiculous for government agencies to tell carrots how they need to look, especially when this results in massive crop waste. In a country where people go hungry and have limited access to healthy fruits and vegetables, we should be using all of our edible produce, not just the produce that looks good. Uniformity in food? That's so last century.Photo Credit: Flickr]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Sustainable-Food--Raw-Christmas-Goodies/39654.htmlThu, 09 Dec 2010 12:17:13 GMTTricia Edgar Crunch. Crunch. The raw food movement is sweeping its way through the kitchens of North America. However, the other crunching you hear is that of not so healthy, not so sustainable food. It's the holiday season and everyone is munching on goodies. For those who want to create a healthy and sustainable holiday season, what does raw food have to offer?We all eat raw food, even if it's just a banana in the morning. However, those who eat a raw food diet focus on raw food as the core of the diet. Ra Read Full Article ]]> Crunch. Crunch. The raw food movement is sweeping its way through the kitchens of North America. However, the other crunching you hear is that of not so healthy, not so sustainable food. It's the holiday season and everyone is munching on goodies. For those who want to create a healthy and sustainable holiday season, what does raw food have to offer?We all eat raw food, even if it's just a banana in the morning. However, those who eat a raw food diet focus on raw food as the core of the diet. Rather than eating baked bread, meat and potatoes, raw food lovers focus on fresh, raw fruits and vegetables as the cornerstone of their diet.But then there is the holiday season. Whatever religion you might be, this time of the year tends to involve a lot of food, and most of that is cooked. What's more, most of it is cooked with copious amounts of fat and sugar, and much of it is flown in from far away. Moving towards raw? How can you create a sustainable, healthy, and delicious raw holiday season?Turn to the raw food staples of winter: sustainable sprouts, stored food, frozen and dehydrated food. Sprouts are a wonderful food for winter salads and you can grow them at home, without the added environmental costs of shipping this often highly-packaged food. Creating a root cellar for storage vegetables and fruits also helps the raw food diet in the winter. Get local organic fruit in the summer and store it in a very cool place and you'll have delicious raw apples and pears all winter long. Freeze your food. While frozen isn't quite as good as fresh, it's miles above cooked and preserved foods in terms of nutrient availability. And who doesn't want a few blueberries in a winter smoothie?Then, move to the delicious additions to create a memorable, delectable holiday season. Stock up on natural sweeteners like dates, sweet fruits, and honey if you are not vegan. Turn to healthy fats like nuts to add body to sweet holiday treats.Where can you turn for inspiration? Shannon of Rawdorable has slowed down on the blogging, but the archives of her web site are full of photos and recipes of the most delectable-looking raw cookies. The photos alone will have you drooling. Looking for cookie-baking classes? The Light Living Raw Food Culinary Center in Fort Bragg, California has raw food classes for everyone, including dedicated Christmas bakers. If you're eating raw and tis the season, you can still indulge and you can do it your way: with raw, delicious, and sustainable food.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Sustainable-Food--Cooking-up-a-Vegan-Holiday/39063.htmlTue, 30 Nov 2010 23:24:49 GMTTricia Edgar Tis the season to think about food. We begin at Thanksgiving, the end of the harvest season. We move on, eating our way through Advent until we arrive at delicious Christmas and New Years' celebrations. Perhaps you celebrate other days in between or beyond New Years Day as well. It is the season for hibernating and the season for enjoying food. How can you do it in a sustainable way?For many, a vegan diet is the right ethical and sustainable choice. A plant-based diet is certainly much lighter o Read Full Article ]]> Tis the season to think about food. We begin at Thanksgiving, the end of the harvest season. We move on, eating our way through Advent until we arrive at delicious Christmas and New Years' celebrations. Perhaps you celebrate other days in between or beyond New Years Day as well. It is the season for hibernating and the season for enjoying food. How can you do it in a sustainable way?For many, a vegan diet is the right ethical and sustainable choice. A plant-based diet is certainly much lighter on the earth, since you're eating food that grows from the earth, not food that eats food that grows from the earth. Skipping that one step makes a world of difference, sustainability-wise, especially if vegans also choose local produce. Many choose a vegan diet as an ethical choice as well, the alternative to factory-farmed meats.Luckily, out there in the land of the internet there are resources for those who are in this sustainable Christmas quandary. The Veggie Table and the Vegan Nutritionista are two websites that are veritable compendiums of vegan goodness. The Vegan Nutritionista has resources for all sorts of vegan quandaries, including what to bake for Christmas. The Veggie Table has an excellent section with child-friendly recipes as well.Focus on hearty whole grains and local root vegetables. Combining grains will give a menu the full complement of proteins, and whole grains are better for you and very filling. Using local root vegetables is a wonderful way to celebrate the seasons of harvest and family. Turnips, celery root, beets, yams, and potatoes are delicious ways to celebrate the season.Dig into the root cellar to look for other vegetables and fruits from the summer. Think of a warm pear salad topped with nuts, or apples and turnips and sugar all browned together: delicious, local, and vegan. Turn to the pantry too, for the preserves from the summer - or think ahead to next year, when you can create vegan chutneys and sauces for savory and sweet dishes.Looking for seasonal take out food? :LA's Vegin Out does Christmas baking for you, vegan style. They also deliver healthy vegan meals all year round. Or head to a restaurant for your seasonal eats like many families do - restaurants like Blossom in New York City.What's a vegan to do for the holidays? With so many mouth-watering options, from ideas for home-cooking to take out to restaurant meals, there is so much incentive to be cook, eat, and live more sustainably this holiday season.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Healthy-Food-Additive-Stevia-Poised-to-Sweep-Europe/39015.htmlTue, 30 Nov 2010 10:49:14 GMTTricia Edgar In the world of food, there are sweeteners, and for years the debate has raged about the relative health effects of the delectable goodies we create with them. There is sugar, there is high-fructose corn syrup, there is aspartame, and there is Splenda.All sweeteners come with their pros and cons. Sugar - well, it's the dentist's bane, but it comes fair trade certified if you wish, and you know with certainty that it comes from a plant somewhere way back in its prehistory. High fructose corn syru Read Full Article ]]> In the world of food, there are sweeteners, and for years the debate has raged about the relative health effects of the delectable goodies we create with them. There is sugar, there is high-fructose corn syrup, there is aspartame, and there is Splenda.All sweeteners come with their pros and cons. Sugar - well, it's the dentist's bane, but it comes fair trade certified if you wish, and you know with certainty that it comes from a plant somewhere way back in its prehistory. High fructose corn syrup comes from an inexpensive food crop, yet its ubiquitous nature and its connections to high cholesterol and triglycerides make it a sweetener under scrutiny for health-conscious consumers. Aspartame and Splenda have gained fame for their use in diet sodas and even diet sugar packages, but Splenda is made by chemically altering sugar and aspartame is made out of phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol. Are any of these sweeteners suitable for your food? There are as many answers as there are individuals.Stevia. It's a plant, and it can grow in just about any temperate or tropical garden. Pick off one of the leaves and chew it and you will be surprised. It's sweet. Very sweet. For this reason, this little food plant is the underdog of the sweetener world.Interestingly, this plant has only gradually worked its way into the world of food. For a number of years it has been branded only as a dietary supplement, not as an official artificial sweetener. But the interest in creating food products with stevia has been growing. Recently, a company in California created a line of diet sodas that are branded as all-natural, sweetened with stevia. It's called Zevia.Is stevia a health food, a sweetener that has no nasty side effects and one that relies less on chemicals and more on green and growing things as its foundation? In Japan, the stevia plant has captured 40% of the market for artificial sweeteners. Perhaps this little plant is the food additive we've all been waiting for.Or perhaps not. In the USA, stevia was banned in 1990 and allowed in 1995. The results of studies on stevia generally say that it is safe, and it has passed Europe's toxicological testing for carcinogens.In the EU, novel foods need to be proven safe to human health before they are introduced as food additives. Since stevia does not grow naturally in Europe, it is considered a novel food and the steviol glycosides stevioside and rebaudioside A need to be proven to be safe. The food additive has been banned since 2001 and is currently under intensive review. In the meantime, countries like France have taken advantage of some leniency in the EU's food safety legislation, approving stevia as a food additive for 2 years.What's next for this little plant? Have we finally found a healthy food sweetener, or like any sweetener, are there potential health problems lurking in the wings?]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Food-Stories--A-Sustainable-Thanksgiving/38140.htmlTue, 23 Nov 2010 12:08:26 GMTTricia Edgar It's almost Thanksgiving, and sustainable food is on the minds and on the tables of people around the United States. It's a good time of year to reflect on where you've come from. Everyone's story is different and everyone's food traditions are different, but the flavors and feelings we get from homegrown and home cooked cuisine are the same. They remind us of family and home.In this fast food world, home cooking is becoming less and less common. As families shuttle from activity to activity and Read Full Article ]]> It's almost Thanksgiving, and sustainable food is on the minds and on the tables of people around the United States. It's a good time of year to reflect on where you've come from. Everyone's story is different and everyone's food traditions are different, but the flavors and feelings we get from homegrown and home cooked cuisine are the same. They remind us of family and home.In this fast food world, home cooking is becoming less and less common. As families shuttle from activity to activity and as work hours get longer, take out and restaurant meals rule. Yet these come with an accompanying wave of garbage and often lack nutrition, especially if the restaurants focus on the fat and carbohydrates of fast food. In response, home cooking with whole, local and organic foods is making a comeback as people try to recapture the food that their parents used to make and to make more sustainable choices for their own children.Home cooking is sustainable in other ways too. It creates a link between generations, a link that transmits cultural values and traditions. In various cultures, tortillas, rice, and bread mean the stuff of life. Here, fresh pears mean that winter is coming and apples mean fall. All around the world, everyone has meanings - good and bad - that they associate with different foods.In Breaking Bread: Recipes and Stories from Immigrant Kitchens, Lynne Christy Anderson tells the stories that sustain people through generations of food-making. She visits 25 different kitchens and hears peoples' stories about their food. She watches as people cook from the heart, rather than from a cookbook. This is the kind of cooking we need to cherish - it's the kind that we do off by heart.But don't these meals require a lot of imported ingredients? Isn't this less than sustainable? Yes, if the ingredients are ones that can't be sourced in North America. However, this can also become a challenge to farmers. How about replacing some of the soy and corn grown in vast bulk with Asian vegetables or traditional European greens? This sort of niche farming is perfect for urban areas and the urban fringe, where there is the potential for micro farms and pocket markets that suit many different palates.What foods do you remember from your childhood and what do they mean to you? This Thanksgiving, think about the roots of your cuisine and how to make those sustainable over the generations to come.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/The-Sustainable-Food-Hub/38134.htmlMon, 22 Nov 2010 12:06:58 GMTTricia Edgar We tend to think of hubs in terms of tires or perhaps bus stations: not the most sustainable of images. However, there's a new concept emerging in urban planning, and this makes the hub into something both sustainable and delicious - it's all about local and sustainable food. The food hub brings together producers and consumers of food and all of the people in between.Overall, cities were not designed to be food hubs. That was the role of the rural areas, and those rural areas were supposed to p Read Full Article ]]> We tend to think of hubs in terms of tires or perhaps bus stations: not the most sustainable of images. However, there's a new concept emerging in urban planning, and this makes the hub into something both sustainable and delicious - it's all about local and sustainable food. The food hub brings together producers and consumers of food and all of the people in between.Overall, cities were not designed to be food hubs. That was the role of the rural areas, and those rural areas were supposed to provide a consistent flow of food into the center, where hungry consumers would eat it up. The role of the rural area was to make food. The role of the urban area was to cook it up in fancy restaurants and eat it in urban apartments.Later, the concept of the rural food hinterland expanded. Soon, cities were gathering food from just about anywhere in the world. Shipped in boats and transported to urban centers on trucks and trains, this food from anywhere was eaten by the people from everywhere who gathered in the cities around the world, hungry for a global cuisine.The problem? This model relies on large amounts of oil to keep it going and emits a lot of fossil fuels as the strawberries and mangoes fly around the world. This model also divorces people from the foods that grow well locally and keeps them at arms' length from local farmers. Disconnected from the realities of farming locally, urban people begin to undervalue farming as a sustainable, local practice and begin to feel all right about selling off farmland to support more urban growth.Stop! That's what the sign at the food hub says. In fact, food hubs ask for a turnaround in the connections between agriculture and cities. What does a food hub look like? It brings farmers into the city to sell produce. It brings urban farming to the eye, pairing community gardens with restaurants that serve the best in local cuisine. It brings together those who produce food, whether they are rural or urban farmers, and has them sell their food in farmers' markets and pocket markets. A food hub brings together growing food, cooking, and eating it and adds in a healthy dose of learning, both structured and unstructured.What does a food hub look like in real life? In Athens, Ohio, the food hub centers around the farmers' market. The market features such local and sustainable delicacies as pawpaw popsicles and it has been instrumental in bringing back some of these native fruits to the table. The farmers' market is supported by community kitchens that provide inputs to the market. A program called Community Food initiatives sponsors seed saving and school programs and works to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to those in need. The local restaurants and the university use fresh food from the market as well.Food hubs remove the isolation of a single farmer or a single community gardening activist and bring people together to enjoy the most sustainable and local of food.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Who-Owns-the-Rain-Bill-S32-Grows-Local-Food-With-Utah-s-Water/37615.htmlWed, 17 Nov 2010 10:34:56 GMTTricia Edgar Utah is the second driest state. Local food is sustained by snowfall and the gradual depletion of underground reservoirs. It can be a rough, tough world when you try to grow your own food. Water for food competes with water for home use and industry, all placed together in a same pot of a dwindling resource.Water is precious, and homeowners need to do what they can to conserve it. Rainwater harvesting has long been touted as an integral part of this conservation measure. Think of the dustbowl, o Read Full Article ]]> Utah is the second driest state. Local food is sustained by snowfall and the gradual depletion of underground reservoirs. It can be a rough, tough world when you try to grow your own food. Water for food competes with water for home use and industry, all placed together in a same pot of a dwindling resource.Water is precious, and homeowners need to do what they can to conserve it. Rainwater harvesting has long been touted as an integral part of this conservation measure. Think of the dustbowl, of families struggling to make ends meet and collecting all of the rainwater they could to drink and to water a small family garden. But for a long time, this simple act was illegal in Utah. For a long time, many US states owned every drop of water that came from a river, a lake, or even from the sky. Those who had rainwater collection barrels to sustain their food gardens without drawing from public water sources were stealing water from the public, or so it was under the law.They were water renegades, these food gardeners and environmentalists: that is, until Bill 32 transformed the law. Under Senator Scott Jenkins' bill, a person can now capture and store rainwater in one or two above ground or below ground storage containers per parcel of land. In May 2010, this bill became law. It is now legal to collect local rainwater to support local activities, including food gardens.To legally use a rain barrel in the state of Utah, visit the Division of Water Rights web page and register. You can have one 2500 gallon underground container or two 100 gallon containers above ground on your property.Will these water hoarders get in the way of the natural flow of water? Well yes, this water won't flow directly into reservoirs or rivers. However, it will be placed on gardens, and from there it will enter the water cycle again. This water will slowly move into the underground water banks or across the surface into a local creek, but it will do this after it has been used to grow food or water lawns. By using water again and again, you don't lose it: you just redirect in a useful way for a short time. All water is part of the water cycle, and it goes back into that cycle again to renew our crops and to sustain thirsty local people.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Sustainable-and-Safe-Food--Solar-Cooking/37315.htmlSun, 14 Nov 2010 20:20:15 GMTTricia Edgar Sunlight is a useful thing. It sustains the life of the world by allowing plants to photosynthesize and make food for animals. Every 12 hours or thereabouts, it provides people with light and heat, waking them up to do their daily activities. It can also be a source of sustainable energy, and best of all, it can cook.If you've ever been in the Scouting or Guiding movement, you know about solar cookers. You may have even constructed one with a conglomeration of materials like cardboard boxes and Read Full Article ]]> Sunlight is a useful thing. It sustains the life of the world by allowing plants to photosynthesize and make food for animals. Every 12 hours or thereabouts, it provides people with light and heat, waking them up to do their daily activities. It can also be a source of sustainable energy, and best of all, it can cook.If you've ever been in the Scouting or Guiding movement, you know about solar cookers. You may have even constructed one with a conglomeration of materials like cardboard boxes and aluminum foil. You may have been amazed by the ability of sunlight to cook food. More likely, you got a little impatient waiting for the cake to bake.Solar Cookers International distributes these cookers around the world, and it's not to irritate small Scouts. Their cookers are a lot more efficient than the ones you made at camp, and they save lives too. In many countries, fuel collection places a large constraint on cooking. People must walk for long distances to get water, which is scarce. The same applies to fuel. Finding fuel wood in areas that have long been picked-over can be difficult and can take a lot of time. Buying fuel is expensive. Cutting new bushes and trees for fuel also has a negative impact on the environment, specifically on soil erosion. Dead trees equal more soil movement equals a more desert-like environment. Air quality also suffers when people use poor quality fuel for cooking, causing lung damage.Cooking is also a good food safety technique, especially in places where other ways of ensuring food safety are scarce. In the absence of a lot of soap and water and in places where water supplies may be contaminated, boiling water and soup or cooking food is a good way to kill off the germs that cause disease. Diseases like diarrhea are huge and unnecessary killers caused by lack of access to safe food and water, and these diseases kill a disproportionate number of children. Cooking food is also a good way to increase access to foods that need to be cooked for a long time. Nutritious foods like lentils require a lot of cooking time, and poor families may pass them by if they don't have the ability to cook these foods.Solar Cookers International has some pretty swish cookers. There's a large parabola cooker for institutional use. There are smaller roofed cookers for home use. Best of all, these cookers work at moderate temperatures like a crock pot. They're safe to leave along because the food won't burn, and this frees people up for other household tasks.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Fertilizer-for-Sale-Potash-and-a-Sustainable-Food-Supply/36906.htmlWed, 10 Nov 2010 03:10:30 GMTTricia Edgar Potash is not like diamonds and oil. It does not sound sexy, but it's certainly useful, and it's critical to today's food supply. If you're interested in sustaining the food supply, potash is on the menu, at least at the moment.What is potash all about? Well, a long time ago, the minerals in the oceans dried up and eventually turned into rock. This rock contained abundant potassium carbonate, something that we think of as potash. While this rock was relatively abundant, so was the demand for fer Read Full Article ]]> Potash is not like diamonds and oil. It does not sound sexy, but it's certainly useful, and it's critical to today's food supply. If you're interested in sustaining the food supply, potash is on the menu, at least at the moment.What is potash all about? Well, a long time ago, the minerals in the oceans dried up and eventually turned into rock. This rock contained abundant potassium carbonate, something that we think of as potash. While this rock was relatively abundant, so was the demand for fertilizer. Come the green revolution the increasing demands for fertilizer, and now 95 percent of the world's potassium carbonate is used as one of the components of fertilizer. Potash is a big business, even if it doesn't sound sustainable or sexy.For plants, potash is a very useful substance. It helps house plants create big, showy flowers. Potash helps all plants retain water, resist disease, and maintain good yields. For better or for worse, many of the world's farmers rely on potash to strengthen their crops.Why care about potash? Well, just like water, some of us have it and some of us don't. The countries that are blessed with an abundant potash supply are starting to realize that they want to keep it and manage it themselves. Recently, the Canadian government blocked an international bid to take over the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan. In the past 25 years, this is only the second time that the Canadian government has blocked a corporate takeover, which means that the Canadian government has recognized the importance of this resource to the food supply.Should we question these potash politics? It would be pleasant not to need to worry so much about one particular resource, as this is the stuff that international conflict is made of. There need to be alternatives to chemical-intensive agriculture. There certainly are alternatives, from green manure to plain old manure. Permaculture techniques take nutrient cycling even further, showing us how to create agricultural ecosystems that sustain themselves with the deposition, decomposition, and uptake of nutrients into food plants. However, even if these techniques should be practiced widely, they are not practiced widely yet. At the moment, the control of potash helps a country control the sustainability of its food supply.Perhaps potash is more like diamonds and oil than you might think. And if it is, we need to treat is as a precious resource, like water or farmland. Unlike water, we also need to consider alternatives to this resource - alternatives that are more sustainable in the long term.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Local-Food-in-the-Underground-Kitchen/36488.htmlFri, 05 Nov 2010 09:07:07 GMTTricia Edgar She calls herself the Marmite Lover, and she is part of an underground movement to support local dining. Now certified and legal, her restaurant kitchen began in her home, without official licenses. Take a look at her web site and drool: this is the house that you want to get invited to for dinner, and you can be. Just get a ticket.Informal community meals have been going on forever. They're the co-op potluck and the church basement soup lunch. Now, they're transforming into more: a way to make Read Full Article ]]> She calls herself the Marmite Lover, and she is part of an underground movement to support local dining. Now certified and legal, her restaurant kitchen began in her home, without official licenses. Take a look at her web site and drool: this is the house that you want to get invited to for dinner, and you can be. Just get a ticket.Informal community meals have been going on forever. They're the co-op potluck and the church basement soup lunch. Now, they're transforming into more: a way to make a living. Think renegade caterers creating gluten-free cakes from their basements and selling them in the neighbourhood. Think the pocket market gone indoors. Call it a supperclub or call it an informal, underground restaurant, this is a way to make a living and make it locally. The underground restaurant is not to be inhibited by the need for space and a formal cooking area. The Marmite Lover is on the edge of a trend.What goes on in an underground restaurant? Well, up to 30 people can come to this one once a week, where they'll be served delicious food in good, neighbourly company. Ms Marmite Lover will create vegetarian, vegan and gluten free meals and is inspired by Italian and French cooking as well as the spices of Thai and Indian food. The restaurant is open once a week and Ms Marmite Lover also does dinners at other locations. Sometimes she does private dinners, and sometimes she doesn't. It's all very self-defined.There are invitations too, for events like farmers' and crafters' markets, all designed to fit in a small living space. Call it closet economics or local revitalization: this underground movement is all about mutual support.Ms Marmite Lover is moving beyond her borders too. The Supperclub Fan Group promotes other supperclub events as well. From Mama Lan to the Carrot Feast to the Secret Tea Room, supperclub announcements add an aura of mystery to local dining. It's the antithesis of big box and chain restaurants, where the food is always there, and predictable.The new rise of foodie culture springs from an interest in local food, local dining, and sustainable and organic ingredients. The allure of the supper club is the allure of something that seems not quite standard, a little wacky, and absolutely delicious. It's food on the edge. Dig in.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Pocket-Markets--Local-Food-from-the-Street-Corner/36137.htmlSun, 31 Oct 2010 01:17:21 GMTTricia Edgar Imagine this local food scenario: you walk up to a house in the deep evening. Moving up the walkway, you notice a vegetable garden in ruins. It is almost November, after all. Dying sunflowers bow their heads to you as you walk to the front porch and ring the bell. Someone answers. You exchange money and walk off with some homemade vegan yogurt. The transaction is complete.Or this one: walking along the street with your kids, you notice a stand by the side of the road. Local food? Well, lemonade, Read Full Article ]]> Imagine this local food scenario: you walk up to a house in the deep evening. Moving up the walkway, you notice a vegetable garden in ruins. It is almost November, after all. Dying sunflowers bow their heads to you as you walk to the front porch and ring the bell. Someone answers. You exchange money and walk off with some homemade vegan yogurt. The transaction is complete.Or this one: walking along the street with your kids, you notice a stand by the side of the road. Local food? Well, lemonade, of course. As you approach, you notice that it is not lemonade at all, but swiss chard, kale, and lettuce. The kids are excited, you give them the money, and another transaction takes place. The chard? It gets eaten for dinner.Pocket markets and street stalls are something that we in urban areas might consider to be a thing of the past. The itinerant street vendor now sells hot dogs, with a license, mostly to hungry office workers. But the local apple grower does not stand on a street corner, nor does the chard-grower or the yogurt-maker. Perhaps this is because growing apples, chard, and making yogurt don't tend to be great money-makers in Northern cities. It's also because many of these actions are not legal, or at least they are deeply frowned upon by the powers-that-be. Yet with the burgeoning interest in local food, micro-scale food processing and production is returning to neighborhoods, very quietly.What are the challenges that local food producers face? We live in a culture of food safety, and this is not a bad thing. However, formal, long, and expensive licensing procedures do tend to scare off potential pocket marketers. They just can't afford to be certified for a twice-a-year swiss chard stand. Relocalizing food requires a different approach, perhaps. It might be a simple license. It could be the opening of commonly used and rented community kitchens located in suburbs, so that micro food processors can do their work in a certified kitchen. It might be trusting local people to use their judgment of food safety and risk, just as they would at a potluck.There are also challenges in the way our neighborhoods are set up. People are in their cars. Suburbs have land to grow food, but many people commute from those suburbs to the big city, and they do so in their vehicles. There's no time to stop by a local street stall. Instead, there are drive throughs. In some ways, pocket markets provide a refreshing local food backlash to the drive through. Pocket markets encourage people to get to know their neighborhood in all of its glorious edibility, by walking.Pocket markets allow people to share the micro-resources in a community. An apple tree has too many apples? Give them to a neighbor or share them at a roadside stand. You love to bake? Make a little baking business for a niche market. In a pocket market, there is so much potential for building community and building a network of sustainable food. We just need to open our minds - and our neighborhoods - to this micro-scale food production.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Certifiable--Local-Food-Plus-Certifies-Farmers/35832.htmlWed, 27 Oct 2010 01:24:45 GMTTricia Edgar For the aspiring foodie, sourcing local and organic food can certainly seem like a vast wilderness. First, there is the local food desert. Go into any grocery store and you will find few local foods, some organic foods, and very little information about who produced any of the food. Then as foodies start to dig, the world of local food opens up. Any city that has farmland around it will have a local foodscape. Any city that has urban gardens and encourages locals to create community gardens and Read Full Article ]]> For the aspiring foodie, sourcing local and organic food can certainly seem like a vast wilderness. First, there is the local food desert. Go into any grocery store and you will find few local foods, some organic foods, and very little information about who produced any of the food. Then as foodies start to dig, the world of local food opens up. Any city that has farmland around it will have a local foodscape. Any city that has urban gardens and encourages locals to create community gardens and community kitchens will have a strong local food community. When the world of local food begins to open up and minds move beyond the grocery store into this wilderness of food choices, the opportunities can be mind-boggling.For those who have been eating whole foods in a natural form, preferably organic, the switch to local can be challenging. Not all local food is grown equally well. For those who live in the midst of genetically modified, pesticide-laced swathes of corn and soybeans, local food may not be the most sustainable environmental option. So much depends on farming practices.Foodies turn to the small local farmer, the one who sells at farmers' markets and roadside stands. This is a matter of building a relationship, of building trust. The farmer says that he practices integrated pest management, which is not certified organic. But what does this mean on the ground? Perhaps it is a good year for crops and they have not been sprayed at all. Developing these relationships with a farmer can tell foodies just that.In Ontario and in Atlantic Canada, those who are new to the world of local food can also use a new navigator: Local Food Plus. Local Food Plus certifies food as sustainable by looking into soil and water management practices and pesticide use, among other things. For the local food newbie, this makes life just a little bit easier. For farmers, this program is not as complex as getting a certified organic certification, which many local farmers shun due to the difficulty and the expense.Local Food Plus is a decidedly logical idea whose time has come. While large, name-brand certifications like organic help food consumers make good choices, the local food network is growing exponentially, and it is made up of many, many smaller farmers and food processors. Many of these businesses and nonprofit food cooperatives operate on word of mouth and through social media, building networks of people who trust others to grow their food the right way. Local Food Plus gives an official certification to those farmers, making it easier for local foodies to choose the farmers who match their own ethic of food production.Does local food need a seal of approval? Maybe not, but it certainly helps move local food products into the mainstream, giving them an official sustainable seal of approval.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Building-a-Sustainable-Food-System--Tools-for-School-Gardens/35241.htmlThu, 21 Oct 2010 10:26:47 GMTTricia Edgar School has started, and plans for sustainable school gardens are already starting to blossom. This is the season of harvest, when everyone is thinking about food: pumpkins, corn, apples and Thanksgiving await. Even though gardens are going to sleep for the winter, there are tools that can help school councils and interested teachers and parents to begin planning for the gardens that will emerge in the spring.The school year is a poor fit for the garden, and many schools struggle with the desire Read Full Article ]]> School has started, and plans for sustainable school gardens are already starting to blossom. This is the season of harvest, when everyone is thinking about food: pumpkins, corn, apples and Thanksgiving await. Even though gardens are going to sleep for the winter, there are tools that can help school councils and interested teachers and parents to begin planning for the gardens that will emerge in the spring.The school year is a poor fit for the garden, and many schools struggle with the desire to create a glorious garden in the spring and the reality that it may be less than well-tended during the summer months. It can be hard to find crops that grow quickly enough in the spring to see a harvest before the school year is out. The regular turnover of children from year to year and teacher to teacher means that kids may not see the results of their work. The book School Year Gardens by Paris Marshall Smith and Arzeena Hamir addresses ways to integrate the school year months into school garden planning.The National Gardening Association has written a book called Grow Lab: The Complete Guide to Growing in the Classroom. This book outlines sustainable food that a class can grow indoors, from herbs to potatoes. In British Columbia, an Agricultural Association program called Spuds in Tubs brings just that into the classroom: sustainable, local food grown in a tub. Children plant potatoes indoors near a source of natural light, and the rapid-growing variety of potatoes produces spuds in record time, allowing the children to harvest a crop before school ends. Growing indoors allows children to experience the full life cycle of a plant, because seeds can be started much earlier.Why garden at school? Raising sustainable food inside or outside the classroom gets children connected to the life cycle of a plant. For many children, food simply comes from the grocery store shelves, and it comes pre-packaged and laced with so many artificial ingredients that it is hard to recognize that it came from a plant at all. School gardens can change that perception, providing children with access to real, growing food. Gardens also get children outdoors, and in this age of reduced outdoor activity, enjoying learning outside is a good thing to grow.School gardens can transform the relationship that children have with nature, simply by planting and tending a few seeds. While building one might seem logistically challenging, the growth of our kids is worth it.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Accessible-Tools-and-Gardens-Grow-Local-Food/35095.htmlTue, 19 Oct 2010 08:40:04 GMTTricia Edgar Nations are aging. The baby boomers are starting to move into their senior years. Still active, the boomers want to continue gardening, and gardening needs to move with them. To grow local food, baby boomers need accessible gardens.Taller raised beds can provide easy access for seniors. These raised beds reduce the amount that seniors have to kneel, which reduces back and knee pain. Gardening shouldn't be painful for seniors, because this will reduce the chance that they will want to grow their Read Full Article ]]> Nations are aging. The baby boomers are starting to move into their senior years. Still active, the boomers want to continue gardening, and gardening needs to move with them. To grow local food, baby boomers need accessible gardens.Taller raised beds can provide easy access for seniors. These raised beds reduce the amount that seniors have to kneel, which reduces back and knee pain. Gardening shouldn't be painful for seniors, because this will reduce the chance that they will want to grow their own food. Accessible or adaptive gardening tools allow seniors to prune, weed, and dig without pain. These tools are specially designed to require less physical strength, bending and lifting than other tools might require.For the elderly or those with physical disabilities, wheelchair-accessible gardens provide access so that people can grow their own local food. High raised beds and large pathways with good wheelchair support allow users to move amongst the garden beds. The Dowling Community Garden in Minneapolis is a good example of a community garden that has integrated accessibility into their site. The web site even features a PDF version of accessible raised bed instructions so that others can create them as well.Care homes are recognizing the need to integrate growing food into their daily routines. Food gardens are springing up at care homes, where seniors can go to relax in the garden, listen to the wind, enjoy the weather, and get their hands dirty. Many people grew up with a garden and enjoyed their gardens at home before they moved into a care facility, and this allows seniors to retain a connection with the land, even if they do not have their own garden to maintain. At Sunshine Care in San Diego, kids and seniors garden together. They even have their own fruit tree orchard to maintain. This program creates connections that move local food into the realm of social sustainability, turning food gardens into a venue for sharing between generations.To continue to grow local food and to share knowledge between the generations, those who create care centers, seniors programs, and community garden spaces need to come together to create food-growing spaces that suit the burgeoning ranks of seniors. These senior gardeners come with a deep knowledge of gardening techniques, many of them transplanted from countries around the world. Their knowledge can enrich local food gardening culture, but only if community gardens and seniors' programs adapt and embrace their unique skills.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Online-Bartering--A-Tool-to-Develop-Sustainable-Food-Networks/34256.htmlMon, 11 Oct 2010 15:23:10 GMTTricia Edgar The web is a wonderful thing, at least in the land of creating networks for sustainable food. Foodies can look up databases of local food producers, check out their local farmers' markets and CSAs and browse through farmers' web sites, all without leaving their home. Of course, there are the food box programs too: order online and have sustainable and organic food delivered to your door.These internet networks spread out into the tangible community of actual people working for sustainable food i Read Full Article ]]> The web is a wonderful thing, at least in the land of creating networks for sustainable food. Foodies can look up databases of local food producers, check out their local farmers' markets and CSAs and browse through farmers' web sites, all without leaving their home. Of course, there are the food box programs too: order online and have sustainable and organic food delivered to your door.These internet networks spread out into the tangible community of actual people working for sustainable food in your local area. Connect online with a farmer, then head out to the farm to do some u-pick or pick up some produce. Discover a CSA online and become part of a community of people who pick up food and potluck together.The bartering community also jives nicely with the sustainable food community. Online venues like Craigslist work well as a place to find people to pick your tree fruit or to arrange a sustainable food activist gathering.Now, there's Zakle. What's Zakle? It's a bartering web site, but it's not based on stuff. It's based on the idea of trading services, or favors as they are called in Zakle-land. Post a service that you require, and take someone else up on their service needs. Earn points for helping others. The beauty of Zakle is that it does not need to be a direct, one-to-one transaction between two individuals. One person can help another, and that person can help a totally different person. All benefit.How does this work into the sustainable and local food trend? Well, looking for someone to design your co-op food web site or pick your fruit tree? Need research assistance or a brain trust to find the best local blueberries? Do you want to create a network for local foodies in your area, but you're a bit of a Luddite? Zakle could be a powerful tool for a small nonprofit or a growing business, and it's free.Social networking tools are abundant in this era of exploding web growth. Zakle adds to this mix by creating an internationally-networked community of people who have needs and who have skills. Will an online bartering site work to promote a sustainable food nonprofit or move it into reality? Perhaps. It's about picking what works for you, and if you're looking for local or international help for a specific sustainable food problem, online bartering could be the answer.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Food-Security-Meets-the-New-Frugality--Declining-Food-Spending/33901.htmlFri, 08 Oct 2010 09:20:40 GMTTricia Edgar For families who struggle to make ends meet, food and housing a large part of the budget burden. A study by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in the last decade, those with middle and low incomes have reduced their spending on food. People are becoming less food secure and struggling to pay the food bills.Those who are struggling to pay the bills often look to cut costs in the largest and most static areas of the budget, and food is certainly one of these. In fact, there is a whole in Read Full Article ]]> For families who struggle to make ends meet, food and housing a large part of the budget burden. A study by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in the last decade, those with middle and low incomes have reduced their spending on food. People are becoming less food secure and struggling to pay the food bills.Those who are struggling to pay the bills often look to cut costs in the largest and most static areas of the budget, and food is certainly one of these. In fact, there is a whole industry growing up around the new frugality. While the frugality of the 1930s was connected to the dustbowl, the frugality today is connected to the global economic downturn, the feeling that families need two incomes but often try to make do on one, and the desire to live a simple, straightforward and less ecologically-damaging life. These reasons fuse to create a movement towards frugality.How do we connect the two dots? On the one hand, people are able to spend less on their food. On the other, to support a food secure nation, we need to focus on supporting local farmers and paying real prices for real food. While limited food budgets often bring to mind the student fare of boxed macaroni and cheese, it is possible to create a sustainable menu on a tight budget. This means that we need to focus on purchasing whole foods that are locally grown and unprocessed and preferably, farmer direct.This means that we don't go and spend our whole paycheck at an upscale, organic grocery store. It means that we become crafty in ensuring our food and financial security and contributing towards national food security as well. Shopping now occurs at the warehouse where families pick up a year's worth of flour or on the farm where families pick a winter's worth of berries. It occurs at the farmers' market or other community drop off points where families pick up a CSA share for the week. Food shopping looks different, but it is not necessarily more expensive.Food processing also looks different. Canning, freezing, and drying become important in the new frugality, just as they were in the old one. The freezer is full of berries and beans rather than boxed pizzas, and the shelves have homemade pickles rather than canned pineapple.This is where national food security meets family food security and where frugality meets sustainability. It's possible, and it's happening now.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/US-Food-Security---Through-Cooking-Classes-for-Kids/33593.htmlTue, 05 Oct 2010 10:06:43 GMTTricia Edgar A cooking class and food security? Cooking classes might seem to be a frou-frou addition to an upscale household. But take a closer look, and you will realize that food preparation is an essential life skill, and definitely not a frill. Those who don't cook depend on the nutritional content of takeout, pre-made and restaurant food. It's a loss of food autonomy, which is a loss of food security. Something as basic as baking bread or cooking up a fall soup is a powerful contribution to a family's Read Full Article ]]> A cooking class and food security? Cooking classes might seem to be a frou-frou addition to an upscale household. But take a closer look, and you will realize that food preparation is an essential life skill, and definitely not a frill. Those who don't cook depend on the nutritional content of takeout, pre-made and restaurant food. It's a loss of food autonomy, which is a loss of food security. Something as basic as baking bread or cooking up a fall soup is a powerful contribution to a family's ability to sustain itself in a healthy manner.North Americans are gradually losing our ability to cook. More specifically, we're losing our ability to preserve foods, because we haven't grown up watching our parents can, freeze, ferment, and dry the harvest for the winter season. We're also losing our interest in cooking. With a plethora of available restaurants in almost every neighborhood, many of which seem to boast prices that are so much cheaper than what you could create from scratch, why would people bother? Lives are busy, the children need to go to soccer practice, and people are tired from a hectic work day. Making food and eating food get placed on the back burner, and there they stay, slowly simmering until they eventually start to disappear.This means that the children of this generation are growing up without a sense of how to bake, preserve food, or even throw together a simple dinner. While restaurants are lovely places to visit, if we want to eat food that comes from whole, local and sustainable foods, we need to learn how to cook. This whole food tends to be cheaper than boxed food or restaurant food, contributing to family food security. It also contributes to health: families can choose the fat and salt content of this food to a much greater degree than at a restaurant.What's the solution to create a generation that is food savvy and food secure? Organizations that focus on local food security and organizations that focus on community building are seeing the trend and seeing the need. They're organizing free or low-cost cooking classes for families. In Arapahoe, even the library has gotten its hands into the cooking scene by offering a series of free cooking classes for children. New companies are also springing up that focus on children and cooking. Restaurants offer some of these classes, and some like the Young Chef's Academy are completely focused on education.This summer, the Washington DC-based group Share Our Strength offered free cooking classes for lower-income families. Operation Frontline takes a direct approach to increasing nutrition, connecting families with nutritionists, chefs, and most importantly, nutritious groceries to facilitate healthy cooking.Is cooking out? Maybe right now, but with the rise of cooking classes, the future of cooking could still be secure, local, and delicious.]]>http://www.justmeans.com/Food-Safety--Food-Security--Growing-Resilient-Crops/31865.htmlSat, 25 Sep 2010 10:16:05 GMTTricia Edgar What does food safety really mean? Does it mean avoiding placing food out on the table to sit, avoiding undercooked meat, and washing the vegetables? Well, of course it does. However, at a meta level food safety also means food security. It means that people have enough to eat, when they need it, and that this food is good quality. It means that we can feel secure in our knowledge that our food supply is safe: safe and healthy, safe and secure.What sort of foundation have we built for food safet Read Full Article ]]> What does food safety really mean? Does it mean avoiding placing food out on the table to sit, avoiding undercooked meat, and washing the vegetables? Well, of course it does. However, at a meta level food safety also means food security. It means that people have enough to eat, when they need it, and that this food is good quality. It means that we can feel secure in our knowledge that our food supply is safe: safe and healthy, safe and secure.What sort of foundation have we built for food safety and security? When we look at the crops that we grow, we've developed many crops that grow a lot of food or large food. We love those juicy beefsteak tomatoes that hang fat on the vines. We like high yields. We've developed GMO crops that can sustain the rigors of pesticides and continue to produce vigorously. However, some of these attributes exist at the expense of other attributes, like adaptability.To provide a truly safe and secure food supply, crops need to be adaptive. Like the eras before it, this is an era of change. It's an era of change that particularly impacts our food supply, since the climate is changing. Wind and rain and heat and cold patterns are shifting, and food crops depend on particular weather patterns to grow. Farmers depend on these too, because they look to the climate of the years before to determine when they should plant and harvest. Unpredictability in the climate makes for a less predictable food supply.How do we ensure food safety and security into the future? Researchers like Adugna Abdi have discovered that in marginal farming areas like the marginal croplands of Ethiopia, food security springs from the genetic diversity of crops. The more diverse the crops and the more diverse the gene pool of each crop, the better chance a crop has to sustain itself in times of climatic change.What does this mean for business and nonprofits? It means that we have some decisions to make about how to ensure our food safety. There are a number of paths that we can follow. The path of genetic modification is one such route: it will allow humans to intervene in the genetic structure of plants to help create resistance to specific climatic conditions. But can this genetic modification build in a gene for adaptability? Nature is very good at that. Nature has created seeds that are open-pollinated, ensuring that plants mix and mingle and create new plants that will survive or die depending on their ability to adapt to the climate. The choice is ours: do we promote the inherent genetic adaptability of plants or play a guessing game, creating plants that may or may not suit the coming climate?]]>