Why Choose Heritage Breeds?

There's a fantastic post by The Ethical Butcher on why choosing Heritage Breeds is crucial to developing sustainable meat production. 

From the article:

Every farm that is raising and selling heritage meats is one more that IS NOT a disgusting feedlot. As I stated earlier, the needs of these breeds make factory farming a non-option. They basically demand a farmer to revert to old methods, seasonality and bio-diversity. All of this requires respect, attentiveness and a connection to the earth and its cycles from the farmer. By raising far fewer animals, the problem of pollution from the waste products are greatly reduced. A natural diet lessens pressure to produce the corn and soy used in commercial feed, and therefore also lessens the amount of fossil fuels needed to transport these foods. All that waste only results in diseased animals.* Because heritage breeds eat good food, are given space to live their lives the way nature intended, and allowed to form familial bonds and have farmers deeply committed to their health, I can only imagine these animals are much happier than their industrial counterparts. At this point, most heritage breeds are raised on very small farms and so often become local products by default. Supporting these local farms bolsters local economies. It's like killing 10 birds with one stone. On a purely visceral level, it is not even worth comparing the flavor and texture of heritage breed meat to that of industrial breeds.

Farmers' Markets vs. Arts & Crafts Markets

There's been a lively discussion lately on the Cincinnati Local Foods Group about whether it's helpful for farmers' markets to include crafters. I've always taken the position that it isn't helpful -- that it's in fact counterproductive to developing a successful market -- but a lot of people don't see the harm. For farmers' markets that are just starting up and/or don't have all their spaces filled with local, sustainably-produced foods, it's tempting to invite crafters to fill the empty spaces. It makes the market seem busy and inviting to have more booth spaces filled.

I believe filling the extra booth spaces with crafters actually hurts the chances of developing the market into a thriving entity, long term. Here's why.

Yes, a full market is more inviting to potential customers. They drive past and see a full market and think, "Wow! Where'd that come from all of a sudden? I want to check that out." They park and go in, ready to shop and buy. It would seem the addition of the crafters did its job: it pulled in more customers earlier than a smaller farmers-only market would have, because it made the farmers' market seem bigger than it actually was at that point. It brought in more customers. That's good, right?

Well, not necessarily. If a customer stops to investigate and instead of the "farmers' market" she was hoping to shop at finds a few farmers but mostly crafters, she's likely to be disappointed. It wasn't what she thought it was. She looks around. She buys a few items, maybe even one of the craft items for sale (leaving less cash in her wallet to buy food items.) But now she knows: it's not really a farmers' market. Next Wednesday when she drives past, she doesn't bother to stop. The market does okay, but although it seems to attract plenty of new customers every week and most of the farmers make enough to keep coming back, few of them make enough that they want to expand their operations. And while enough farmers come back year to year that the market continues, there never seem to be enough farmers interested to allow it to really take off. There's always another crafter interested, though.

But imagine a different scenario: a potential customer drives past a small farmers' market. He can see there are only three booths, and it doesn't seem worth it to stop. The next week when he drives past, there are four booths. Two weeks later, there are five. He thinks, "Wow! It's really been growing! I should check it out." He stops, and when he investigates he finds a booth with lettuces, another selling meats, another with honey and eggs, one with apples, several offering a variety of vegetables. He shops and goes home happy, thinking, "I'll have to remember this is here every Wednesday." He tells his friends to check out the new farmers' market.

Did it take longer to get that customer to stop? Yes, it did. But the customer went away happy and intending to return. Word of mouth spreads in the neighborhood that the new farmers' market is a great place to shop every Wednesday afternoon on the square. Next year, the market attracts four more vendors because they've heard this market is thriving. The year after that, it fills up. The year after that, it has to start turning away new vendors because there's no more space, and one of the farmers suggests they start running a monthly winter market because he's been thinking of growing through the winter in hoophouses.

The farmers make money, and some of them expand their market gardens to include less common items. Customers are delighted. Leeks? At a farmers' market? Who knew? The market manager notices that many of the customers are coming from the next suburb over. Someone gets the bright idea to start a second market in that suburb on Fridays. Not all the farmers want to participate in this second market, so some new farmers get an opportunity to participate. One of them tells a neighboring farmer -- who for years has been planting mostly corn and soy -- that she should put in an organic market garden and give the farmers' market a try. The neighboring farmer tries it and has a good year, and her son (who had figured there was no room in farming for him because everyone knows small diversified farming is dead and he has no interest in growing subsidized industrial-input commodity crops) rethinks the idea of farming for a living.

This is how a local food distribution system builds. This is why I always recommend that new farmers' markets not include crafters. I believe the inclusion of crafters, in the long run, hurts a farmers' market and hurts the farmers at that market. This is counterproductive to the development of a sustainable local food system.

The Winter Farm

Val has asked my to contribute to the Cincy Locavore blog from the farmers point of view so periodically I will post things here about the life of one small farmer (that would be me) and her sustainable farm. To learn more about my farm visit my blog

Winter is here-it is cold, snowy and most everything that is not we covered is dead. This means things have slowed way down for us (yay!) It is nice to be able to kick back for a month or so before the 80 hour a week grinds starts again.

People want to know what we farmers do in the off season. For us, we spend a lot of November cleaning up stuff like the store, the garden beds, popcorn, catnip, onions. Crunching numbers on the various produce items we grow so we have an idea as to what is selling and what is not selling so we know what seeds to plant for the coming season. Eugene does not do much on the computer so it is me who keeps the blog and website updated and that can be time consuming, especially this year since it looks like Boulder Belt is back in the CSA biz and that means at some point I need to design an informative CSA page for the Boulder Belt Website.

December is too often spent removing snow from hoop houses and driveways. It is also the time we put in our main seed order with Johnny's Selected Seeds (our favorite seed house). In the past we have waited until after Christmas to put in our order but there are rumors that there will be seed shortages this year so I believe I will get at least part of the order in in early Dec. or even late November. December is usually the Month that we start the onions and leeks indoors, though this year I believe the onions will be started today or tomorrow (that would be mid November). The reason for moving up the date is due to the fact we have quite a few Copra onion seeds left over from last year and We decided that those should be planted to see if they have strong germination. If they do than we do not need to order more seed. If they do not than we will know by Dec 1st if the seeds are working or not and can get an order into Johnny's early enough to avoid the dreaded back order that can set one back several months.

If December, January and February are mild (which is the NOAA prediction for us this winter, but I will believe that when I see it) than the crops in the hoop houses will continue to produce pretty much all winter and someone has to go and harvest and package the crops periodically (weekly-as growth slows way down in the winter even if it is relatively warm and sunny). We than sell the greens, leeks, etc., at the Oxford Monthly Winter market and this year the CSA gets their share as well. We also sell through the store via email appointment and occasionally to a restaurant or Miami University.

If the winter months are cold with a lot of precip, than most things quit growing until Late Feb and cannot be harvested, the exception to this are the leeks and scallions. Than we sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting on the greens to come back to life. Okay, we don't spend much time thumb twiddling (but we do start craving greens in a big way and are delighted when things are harvestable again). If it is a snowy winter than we are spending lots of time removing snow from the hoop houses, otherwise they get flattened and are unuseable and have to be repaired or replaced. this has happened a couple of times to us and incredibly the crops under all the snow and plastic are generally unharmed and producing very well when we finally get to them

What we are doing by Feb is starting seriously seeds indoors. This starts out slowly with around 15 pots of onions and leeks planted in Dec/Jan. Those are followed by the brassicas-kale, broccoli, cabbages, etc., and lettuces in mid to late Feb. Those crops are repeatedly seeded indoors through April/May so we have a continual harvest April through June/July. By late March we are also starting early tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and melons to be planted in mid April in hoop houses. In April the main crops of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, celery, celeriac, parsley, flowers, etc., are started which fills up the grow room along with cold frames and hoop houses with thousands of seedlings.

Once the seeds are started we are tied to the farm. The seeds need daily tending-watering, fertilizing, pricking (this means to re pot into a larger container), making soil (we make our own soil mix for seed starting as we have a hard time finding soiless mixes that don't contain petroleum products or chemical fertilizers. Add to that, we start seeds in soil blocks and we make our own soil blocks so the soiless mix has to be just so for it to work for us. Making our own soil blocks means we use very little plastic when starting our seedlings. It probably saves us around a thousand bucks a year as well (of course it increases our work load by at least 100 hours as we have to make a lot of soil and a lot of soil blocks.)

So you can see that we small sustainable farmers really don't have much down time at all. Some day, perhaps, we will quit this idea of winter growing and marketing and will shut the farm down in November and go to the Caribbean for 4 months.

Grain-free = guilt-free?

MSNBC.com has this piece yesterday on the various benefits of eating grassfed beef.

How to shop at a farmers' market

Shopping at a farmers' market is not the same as shopping at a supermarket. You'll enjoy the experience more and get a lot more out of it -- more than you're expecting, perhaps -- if you keep a few things in mind.

Get in the zone. The farmers' market is not Kroger. Knowing how your food was raised and buying fresher, tastier, sustainably-raised food that supports your local farmers is balanced with some things you might at first see as disadvantages: it takes longer, some items might be more expensive (especially at certain times of year), and you can't always find exactly what you're looking for. But after a while, if you're in the right frame of mind, you'll see that these are actually advantages, too. When you spend more time shopping, you tend to get to know the farmer and the food better. When you pay a fair price for food, you tend to start eating in a way that is sustainable (and healthier.) When you don't find what you were looking for, you tend to broaden your food choices and discover new food items you may not have used before. Shopping the farmers' market is part of an entirely different way of looking at your food, one that allows you to become part of the process rather than simply being the end-consumer.

Show up early. Especially if you're looking for something early or late in its season, as many farmers will run out right away as early birds snap up the less abundant items. Plus lines are likely to be shorter and farmers will be able to spend more time with you talking about their offerings.

Or, come late. Often late in the day is a great time to get deals on stuff the farmers don't want to take home, especially anything more perishable or difficult to transport.

Be prepared to spend some time. This isn't a supermarket where you zip up and down the aisles throwing boxes and cans into your cart. Here, you can ask about the items. The grower or producer of the item knows more about it than you might imagine -- after all, if they're growing it, they're almost certainly eating it. And the people in front of you want to ask some questions, too, so try to be patient.

Accept the seasons. You won't find apples or tomatoes at the farmers' market in May, or asparagus in August. One of the joys of eating locally is that the start of each item's new season is a cause for celebration. In May at the farmers' market, that gorgeous bunch of asparagus was probably in the ground a few miles away last night or maybe even this morning. During asparagus season you can have asparagus every night for a week and not get tired of it because you know you aren't going to see fresh local asparagus again until next year. Come September, an apple that was picked yesterday will spoil you forever for what you can find at the supermarket in June. You may just decide that picked-yesterday-ten-miles-from-here apple is worth waiting for.

Be flexible. If the spinach is all gone, consider kale or chard, which can often be used interchangeably in recipes. No Granny Smiths? Ask the farmer which of his varieties will make a Granny Smith eater happy.

Try something new. At a farmers' market, you'll often see things you'd never see at the supermarket. Pea shoots, garlic scapes, squash blossoms, green garlic, chive blossoms, sorrel -- for the most part these are too perishable or too difficult to transport to show up anywhere but at a farmers' market. Pick up a bunch and ask the farmer, "How do you use this?" He'll be happy to tell you how he likes to prepare it, and he may even have a recipe copied off.

Don't expect perfect beauty. The blemish-free produce at the supermarket was raised in a monoculture, sprayed to kill every possible threat whether present or not, chemically fertilized to encourage growth, and the variety was chosen for beauty and ease of transport, not taste. At the farmers' market you'll find varieties the farmer chose because they grow well in his particular conditions and he thinks they taste good. Most don't spray, or spray only when disease or insects are actually present. Most fertilize only with compost, not with chemicals. The end product doesn't always look exactly like the perfect produce you'll find at the supermarket, but it tastes better and is fresher, better for you, and better for the environment. There's a beauty in that imperfection.

Ask questions. Where is your farm located? Do you grow or raise what you are selling? (If you don't feel comfortable asking a farmer this, ask the market manager whether there are rules about this for farmers at their market -- there often are.) What are your growing methods? Can people visit your farm? Why did you choose to grow a particular variety? What's good today? Do you have any cooking tips? Do you know if anyone else here today might still have some radishes? Will you have tomatoes next week?

Develop relationships. If you visit a market regularly, you'll see the same farmers over and over. Some of them will be happy to save things for you next week if you've become a regular and they know you'll show up. Some farmers change their planting plans in response to requests from regular customers -- one farmer I know has developed a specialty in Japanese vegetables because he's developed relationships with several transplanted families. If you'd love to be able to find a certain item at the farmers' market, tell a farmer! You'll be much more likely to see it in his stall next year if you've developed a relationship with him this year.

Be prepared to pay the true cost of producing your food. It's not a garage sale, where you can expect to pick up stuff cheaper than at retail. Most farmers at farmers' markets are not producing on a large scale. They're not receiving subsidies on their products to help lower the price. They're operating small diversified farms, which is better for the environment. They are trying to do the right thing, but they still need to make a living. You can help by being willing to pay a little more for your food, especially early or late in the season. It tends to balance out in high season for produce. In August and September when everyone has tomatoes coming out their ears, you can buy tomatoes cheap. In late June, not so much. But for certain items -- mostly animal products -- you'll almost always pay a little more at a farmers' market. That's because raising animals on pasture without subsidized grain and water costs more than conventional CAFO'd meat, dairy, and egg operations. Learning the true cost of meat has encouraged my family to treat it as an ingredient rather than as the ingredient in our meals. It's better for us and better for the environment.

Bring a friend. Know a foodie who doesn't shop at the farmers' market? Or maybe just someone who is always saying, "Wow, I really should check out the farmers' markets, too." Offer to take them with you. Last time I took a friend she bought so much food I ended up with a dinner invitation.

Become part of the process. When you shop at a supermarket, you're simply an eater. You have a very limited part in the process of bringing food to your table. When you shop at a farmers' market, you have an opportunity to become part of the process, but only if you take advantage of that opportunity. If you treat the farmers' market like Kroger, you'll probably be disappointed.

This post was featured at Vegetarian Carnival, Carnival of Improving Life, Make It From Scratch, Festival of Frugality, Homesteading Carnival and Carnival of Tips.

Sierra Club video: The True Cost of Food

The Sierra Club is offering The True Cost of Food, a fun animated 15-minute video which can be downloaded from their website* that illustrates the true cost of our food -- what our food would cost if water & farm subsidies, health & environmental costs, and waste were accounted for in the price of our conventionally-produced meat and produce as compared to the cost of producing food sustainably. Definitely worth a viewing, especially for anyone who thinks local, organic food is expensive.

Their recommendations for decreasing the true cost of your food?

• Eat more vegetables, fruit, and grains and less meat. Look for meat that is produced in the least harmful way—grass fed, organic, antibiotic- and hormone-free.
• Buy organic whenever you can.
• Buy from small, local sources whenever you can.

They also offer a discussion guide and further suggestions for decreasing the true cost of your food.

The video would work well for use with kids (maybe eight and up) and would probably work in classrooms.

*The site offers three options for downloading the video, or you can order a copy. If you download it, the high-resolution version is worth the time it takes to download, but plan to start the download, then come back later to view it, as for me the sound didn't show up until I'd completely downloaded the video.

President Bush: Eat Local Foods

In yesterday's press conference, George W. Bush recommended Americans and the world eat more locally:

One thing I think that would be -- I know would be very creative policy is if we -- is if we would buy food from local farmers as a way to help deal with scarcity, but also as a way to put in place an infrastructure so that nations can be self-sustaining and self-supporting. It's a proposal I put forth that Congress hasn't responded to yet, and I sincerely hope they do.

Wow! I agree with the President. That's a new experience for me.

Monsanto vs. farmers

Monsanto has recently settled with Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, whom they'd sued for patent infringement when it was discovered that their Roundup Ready canola seed had crosspollinated with his own plants. They've agreed to pay clean-up costs of removing any Roundup Ready canola in Schmeiser's fields. Schmeiser believes "this precedent setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted Roundup Ready plants."

Monsanto has spent years suing small farmers across North America for 'patent infringement' in cases in which Monsant's genetically-modified and patented 'Roundup Ready' canola seeds had been found to have cross-pollinated with local farmers' crops without those farmers' knowledge or permission. Monsanto's argument has been that whether or not the farmer knew of or wanted such cross-pollination, the resulting plants and their seeds belonged to Monsanto, thanks to its patent on the Roundup Ready seed. (For excellent and compelling background on this story, watch The Future of Food, the award-winning 2004 documentary by Deborah Koons Garcia (widow of Jerry Garcia) which is available from the Cincinnati Public Library.) Thousands of small farmers across North America have been sued by Monsanto for patent infringement because they'd inadvertently (and involuntarily) ended up with Monsanto seed in their fields.

Monsanto's solution? Buy all your seeds from Monsanto. Then you're safe. Oh, and pay Monsanto $15 an acre in royalties on the patented seed.

At the time of filming, Schmeiser, who had saved his canola seed for replanting for decades, carefully selecting over a progression of years that seed which was best adapted to his Saskatchewan growing conditions, was being forced to destroy the product of his life's work because it had become contaminated by the Monsanto gene and Monsanto was claiming ownership of the seed. And the courts have backed Monsanto up on the ownership question -- the genes are patented, and if a farmer knowingly replants seed that has been crosspollinated with Roundup Ready seed, even against his will, he is guilty of patent infringement.

Monsanto grows its research GMO seed in thousands of confidential locations. For all any farmer knows, the about-to-be-patented pollen from plants in the next field could be blowing into his fields right now and crosspollinating with his crop. It is the nature of genetics that once a gene enters the gene pool, it's nearly impossible to get it back out again unless it's both dominant and fatal before reproductive maturity. It is quite possible that hundreds of years from now every canola, corn, soy, and cotton seed in North America will have a Monsanto GMO seed as an ancestor. (Monsanto has discontinued its Roundup Ready wheat project.)

Monsanto, by patenting seeds and then using their wealth to aggressively protect those patents, is attempting to completely control the world's commodity crop production. Many will remember their plans to develop the truly evil "Terminator Technology," which produced seeds with the Terminator gene which rendered second-generation seeds sterile -- thereby ensuring the farmer couldn't save seed from one year to the next. The repercussions of such a gene escaping into the broader gene pool were horrifying, with visions of third-world farmers innocently planting their saved seed and waiting...and waiting. Monsanto did acquire Delta & Pine Land, the developer of Terminator, but after a public outcry at the technology's potential for causing disastrous crop failures and resulting starvation, they announced they will not use the technology. (The USDA is a co-patent holder on the technology, retains the right to develop it, and so far has refused to commit to not developing it in the future. Our government at work for you.)

Monsanto continues to aggressively market their Roundup Ready cotton, soybean, canola, and corn seed, including with disastrous results to developing-world farmers who can't provide the necessary irrigation to be successful with such crops. And even diversified farms aren't safe. Monsanto already owns Seminis, the largest producer of fruit and vegetable seeds in the world, and a few weeks ago Monsanto finalized plans to acquire De Ruiter Seeds, a producer of seeds for the greenhouse vegetable market.

Percy Schmeiser, in the meantime, is happy with his win but estimates his legal bills top $400,000 Canadian. And even if he could get his destroyed seeds back, they'd still contain the Roundup Ready gene and be the property of Monsanto.

Forget the food miles argument

Can we just lay the whole food miles argument to rest? Food miles is not a primary reason to eat locally.

A new study, Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States, published this past Wednesday by the journal Environmental Science & Technology reports that the type of food you eat and the manner in which it is produced are more important components of its contribution to your carbon footprint than the distance that food travelled to get to you:

The [greenhouse gas] emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s footprint for food consumption.

Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.

Buy local because it's fresher and tastes better. Buy local to support farmers in your area. Buy local because you want to know how your food was produced. But to lower your food's impact on the environment, shift to sustainably-produced foods and to a diet focussed more heavily on plants than animal products.

Corn at $6: what does this mean for pasture-raised meat?

Corn hit $6 a bushel last week, up 30% from a year ago and likely to rise higher according to government predictions.

What does this mean for those of us who are choosing pastured meats? I asked the farmers in my area I buy my pastured meats from if skyrocketing corn prices would affect farmers raising 100% grassfed animals.

David Simpkins of the Heirloom Beef Company in Adams County OH says yes:

Absolutely YES! We've seen a lot of acres that have normally been used for hay production being planted to corn. I think hay prices will be pretty high again this year. Not only the price of corn carrying other feeds higher, but the costs of fertilizers that go into hay production have gone through the roof.

Doug Weber of Weber Farms in Amelia OH agrees:

Yes, especially poultry. I supply my birds with a supplemental grain ration as well as pasture. The feed costs are skyrocketing. Hay is going up, corn is going up and gasoline is going up. All will bring about price increases in livestock and produce.

Trudy Mohr of Mohr Animal Acres in Urbana OH adds:

There are many other costs involved that have also increased. I know on my end, our processor has had significantly increased costs which I am trying to keep at minimum to my customers. Also, there are other feed supplements such as hay, mineral and probiotics that we feed to the livestock to maintain health so we do not have to feed antibiotics; all of which have increased in price. Most of these are due to fuel costs not corn costs, but these costs all seem to be tied together these days.

So I guess like industrial meat, prices for pastured meats are also going to be increasing.

I wonder if the silver lining here is that prices increasing to reflect actual costs of raising meat (rather than costs being subsidized by the government) will encourage all of us to treat meat as just another ingredient rather than as the star of the meal? We'll be healthier, and our diets will be more sustainable.

Gourmet: Family farmer in South Dakota rejects farm subsidies

Gourmet Magazine has an excellent article in the April issue about Matthew Stiegelmeier, a young farmer in South Dakota who has rejected government farm subsidies to run a diversified family farm. Stiegelmeier explains why his family converted to organic over twenty years ago:

[Stiegelmeier's father] Jim hated the farm program, thought it made farmers dependent on the government. “Grandpa Mil­ton thinks Roosevelt walked on wa­ter,” Matthew offers. “Daddy thought he was a Communist.” Most of all, Jim hated pesticides. Several times in the late ’60s and early ’70s he got sick from them.

“One night at dinner, my sister-in-law told him, ‘I don’t see how you can be a Christian and put poison on food.’ That was the clincher,” [Stiegelmeier's mother] Emily remembers. It was the early ’80s. Jim and Emily converted the farm to organic.

Jim and Emily turned the logic of the farm program upside down. Instead of planting one or two commodity crops and accepting whatever price the elevator offered, they went looking for organic processors who, ideally, would lock in a premium before they planted. Matthew shrugs. “Why put a crop in the ground that no one wants to pay for?"

The Stiegelmeiers diversified into organic spring and winter wheat, flax, rye, barley, and buckwheat and relied on age-old ways to fight weeds and fertilize the soil. They certified their pastures as organic and grew alfalfa to feed a herd of registered British White beef cattle. [Matthew's wife] Dan­elle started a small herd of sheep.This past year, Matthew made $11 a bushel on winter wheat at mills in Kansas and North Dakota, at the time a four-dollar premium over commodity wheat. Organic flax sold for $19.50 a bushel, a premium of ten dollars.

Unfortunately farm economies keep new young farmers from entering the market.

The value of [area] farmland today is more than $1,000 an acre. With federal subsidies built into the land values and wealthy pheasant hunters eager to invest in private preserves, the value of land has risen 15 to 20 percent every year for the past five years, far more than agriculture can support on a sustainable basis. In today’s market, Matthew Stiegel­meier could not purchase his own farm.

And most of his neighbors, surviving year to year with the help of government subsidies, have no interest in taking the risk of converting their farms to diversified organic operations.

Finding an alternative to a 'Local Foods Pledge'

I've been asked by a group of folks who are putting together a local foods directory for Greater Cincinnati to write a 'Local Foods Pledge' to include in the directory. In general, I disagree with the concept, but I do want to help this group. So I'm trying to come up with something.

I'm thinking along the lines of providing a list of steps folks might take in trying to eat more locally, putting them into some general order of easiest and least time-consuming to most challenging, and then inviting folks to choose a point on the local eating scale they're going to aim for this year.

For instance:

Choose local over non-local when offered
Learn what produce is in season when
Switch to local honey & maple syrup
Switch to pastured eggs
Switch to local wines
Visit a farmers' market once a week
Add seasonal recipes to my collection
Freeze a frequently-used item during the season (berries, applesauce, tomatoes, corn, onions, peppers)
Can a frequently-used item during the season (preserves, tomato sauce, tomato paste, enchilada sauce, chile sauce, pickles)
Join a CSA
Purchase a side of grass-fed beef (or half a pastured pig)
Join a herdshare

This is just off the top of my head, and I'm not sure I have them ordered correctly. For instance, is joining a CSA, which requires a weekly trip to pick up the CSA box, more onerous than purchasing half a beef which then must be fitted into the home freezer? Is canning more of a challenge for most people than where I've placed it? Is visiting a farmers' market weekly easier than switching to local wines? I put 'switch to local honey and syrup' ahead of 'switch to pastured eggs' because I figure people only buy honey/syrup every once in a while but many buy eggs weekly, but maybe eggs are easier?

What other steps could folks take? Where would they fit into the scale?

All suggestions and advice gratefully accepted!

Consumer Reports: Grass-fed beef really is better for you

According to a March 2008 report from Consumer Reports, grass-fed beef really is better for you. From their website (on a page which you may be able to access only if you subscribe):

"This grass fed beef could have benefits. The limited research completed to date suggests that steak and hamburger from grass-fed cattle may contain less total fat per serving, according to a review by the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. Grass-fed steak can also have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which may help reduce heart-disease risk. Grass-fed ground beef usually has more conjugated linoleic acid, which might improve the immune system and help fight cancer, atherosclerosis, and type 2 diabetes, lab and animal studies show. And raising cattle on well-managed pastures can lessen erosion and boost soil fertility, the scientists' group found."

Retrovores

As Michael Pollan recommends in his newest book In Defense of Food, "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." Which brings us to a newly-coined word for those who eat the way Grandma used to: Retrovore

It's a great concept, carrying implications of beyond-organic, beyond-sustainable, beyond-unrefined, beyond chemical-free. It implies eating mostly local seasonal foods and a developing a habit of home preserving. And unlike the term 'locavore' it doesn't reject the inclusion of trade-goods, such as tea, coffee, chocolate, spices, olive oil, citrus. And it's intuitive, with little inherent controversy over nitpicky questions such as 'how local is local?' to ease the way for those who fret over whether or not they can still drink coffee. I don't know whether it will be any more palatable to those who scoff at the idea of locavorism, but I like it.

In AZ, small ranchers turn back the clock

This story about two small ranchers in Arizona who are opting out of the grain-finished beef production line and have returned to producing beef the way it was produced 100 years ago on the Arizona ranges -- 100% grass-fed using rotational grazing, which protects the animal and the environment -- would be worth clicking to if it weren't for the incredibly annoying animated advertisements on the website. If you decide it's still worth a visit, don't say I didn't warn you.

CAFO'd pigs 'mix' viruses, pass them on to humans

In case you needed another reason to source your pork from local, pastured, sustainably-raised, closed-herd animals, this article in the Dec 19 issue of Meat & Poultry, the business journal for meat and poultry producers, warns pork producers that a new strain of swine influenza holds an ominous difference from earlier versions:

...this new strain has a molecular twist: It is composed of avian and swine influenza genes.

These findings provide further evidence that swine have the potential to serve as a "mixing vessel" for influenza viruses carried by birds, pigs and humans. It also supports the need to continue monitoring swine ― and livestock workers ― for H2-subtype viruses and other influenza strains that might someday threaten swine and human health.

Or possibly we could consider whether the CAFO business model is simply a failed experiment.

Reuters' Top Health Issues of 2008

Reuters has released their predictions for the top health issues of 2008. Topping the list: Raw Milk. According to Reuters,

1. Raw Milk

People will go to extreme lengths to get it, farmers will risk their businesses to sell it, and most state governments want nothing to do with legalizing it. Raw milk -- milk that hasn't been pasteurized or homogenized -- was one of the most talked-about foods of the year.

Its fans say that pasteurization removes proteins, enzymes and healthy bacteria from milk, making it less nutritious, and that the taste of raw milk is incomparable. Those opposed to raw milk consumption -- including health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control -- argue that the harmful bacteria are of primary concern, and that the dangers posed by E. coli, salmonella and listeria are not worth the risk.

The debate is sure to continue in 2008 as raw milk goes mainstream, governments try to make it unappealing and people find more creative ways to get their hands on it.

Also on the list: the 2007 Farm Bill, Food labelling, Michael Pollan, The End of Cheap Food, and Fixing the FDA/USDA. Pretty much an all-star lineup from the Local Eating team.

Michael Pollan in the NYT Magazine

Michael Pollan has an article the connections among bee colony collapse, MRSA, and factory farming in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. According to Pollan,

...the story of Colony Collapse Disorder and the story of drug-resistant staph are the same story. Both are parables about the precariousness of monocultures. Whenever we try to rearrange natural systems along the lines of a machine or a factory, whether by raising too many pigs in one place or too many almond trees, whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience. The question is not whether systems this brittle will break down, but when and how, and whether when they do, we’ll be prepared to treat the whole idea of sustainability as something more than a nice word.

Local = Green?

As usual, the media gets it about half right. The New York Times recognizes the idea of eating local as partially motivated by environmental concerns, but they don't even seem to consider whether there may be additional reasons to eat local, such as health, taste, or supporting the local economy. Nor do they recognize that eating truly local generally also means getting food that is more sustainably produced in many ways. All the meat I buy from local farmers is pastured. The produce I buy from local farmers is produced using fewer chemical pesticides or fertilizers.

Joel Salatin on technology, science, and belief systems

From the excellent blog Food Democracy, Joel Salatin's article Sound Science is Killing Us is a bit on the long-and-dense side but worth plowing through.

From the article:

A diesel tractor can either pull an anhydrous-ammonia-fertilizer injector, or it can pull a manure spreader full of compost. It is the heart, the soul, the belief system that determines how technology will be used. Electricity can be used to power feed augers and ventilation fans, medication timers and artificial lights in a confinement poultry house, or it can power an energizer hooked to high-tech, information-dense, polyethylene-stainless-steel-threaded poultry netting in a pasture setting. The belief system defines the use.