This week’s all-local meal consisted of braised lamb shanks with carrots, onions, and garlic. The lamb turned out mouth-wateringly tender – so good! I sautéed red and green cabbage in butter to go with it. We eat a lot of red cabbage, but usually have it raw in salad or in a stir-fry; sautéing by itself it was new for us, and it was delicious.

The lamb was from Hope Farm in East Charleston. The veggies were all from various farmer’s market vendors. Everything except salt, pepper, and spices came from within 30-odd miles.

My good friend Jesse Loomis decided to build a wooden snowboard last winter. He rode it around the powdery forests and mountains of southern Vermont, and was pleasantly surprised by his creation. He told his friends about it, and brought the board to northern Vermont for them to try. The decision was unanimous; “Please make more, we want our own!”. Since then, Jesse has been working on gathering materials and funds to launch a small business from the ground up. People are stoked on what they’ve seen and can’t wait to experience a Powder Jet for themselves. It has been said that, “history repeats itself”… and sometimes it brings us back to positive memories and feelings. Hiking in the woods, getting away from crowded resorts and over-priced lift tickets, earning your turns, and riding boards made of less harmful materials… these can be good things. Sometimes, history reminds us why we fell in love with sliding down snowy slopes, and that less can be more.

Jesse Loomis of Powder Jets.

Jesse Loomis in his Powder Jets workshop.

This blog has been dreadfully neglected for the past couple of months. I have been busy with other things, and have not been keeping up with the localvore blogosphere as much as I used to. Therefore, I missed the kick-off of the 3rd Annual Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge. Never fear – this does not mean I have been eating a packaged-food diet! On the contrary, eating local has become such an ingrained habit for us that nearly all our meals consist largely of local food, almost always produced less than 30 miles from our house.

This week’s meal featured classic comfort food. My husband made a fantastic meatloaf, made with pork sausage, ground beef, onions, garlic, eggs, and spices. I made spaghetti sauce to top it from canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs. We also had potatoes mashed with butter and cream, and steamed beets.

The sausage and all the veggies (including the canned tomatoes) came from the farmer’s market, except the potatoes, which we grew ourselves. The beef, the eggs, and the cream for the potatoes are from Tamarlane Farm, the the wonderful place that supplies us with raw milk as well as beef, eggs, chickens, and turkeys. Non-local exceptions included olive oil, spices, and butter (I can buy local butter, but not organic local butter, and I believe that when eating foods rich in animal fats, it’s important to choose those which are produced with as few chemicals as possible). Many thanks to the dedicated farmers who provided us with this delicious food: Tamarlane Farm, the Wardens, Chandler Pond Farm, County Road Farm, and Harvest Hill Farm.

How great is this? I went to two (count ‘em, two) farmer’s markets today. If I wanted to go to a farmer’s market during the winter two years ago, I had to drive an hour and a half to Montpelier. Last year, a winter market started up in Lyndonville, but the veggie selection was mighty thin. The vendors found out that there was a demand, and geared up accordingly this year. Now there is a market in Lyndonville, plus a new one in St. Johnsbury! Unfortunately, due to a scheduling snafu, both markets were held on the first Saturday of the month. But never fear: starting in January, the St. J market will be held on the first Saturday, while the Lyndonville one will be on the second (full schedules are on the Farmer’s Markets page).

Look at all the great stuff I got:

Chicken, sausage, bacon, eggs, four kinds of lettuce, garlic, carrots, onions (yellow and red), beets, parsnips, cabbages, and canned tomatoes!

Wow, it’s been awhile. My November schedule was completely booked. First, I finished costuming the fall production at Calvin College. Then, Justin and I went on a lovely vacation to the South where we had some terrific food experiences.

One of the most unique was a serindipious visit to Logan Turnpike Mill, a local mill just outside Blairsville Georgia. It was a cold, rainy day. Justin & I had just finished hiking to the top of Brasstown Bald, the hightest point in Georgia. (Click here to see the webcam view from the top of the mountain.)

On our way back to Blue Ridge, we passed a mill. We turned around and went back.  There, I purchased five pounds of grits, five pounds of cornmeal, and five pounds of three-grain pancake mix. The miller rang me up at the register. He said they try to get their corn and grains as locally as possible. “Right now, I’m grinding corn from South Carolina,” he said. “It’s been too wet in Georgia to harvest corn.” He was right.

It’s all good, but the cornmeal is out of this world. And you can order it directly from them; they ship it out the next day.

Logan Turnpike Mill explains on their website why their flours are so good:

“Our stone grinding process utilizes the whole grain. Nothing is removed. We also grind at a much lower temperature than the high-speed roller mills used today in commercial milling. Keeping the grains cool does not destroy the heat sensitive nutrients and makes for a much more flavorful and healthy product.”

This is why freshly ground grains must be kept in the refrigerator or the freezer; the oils will go rancid.

This is probably also why you may not like cornmeal that much. Most of what is sold at the grocery store is not whole and has not been kept cool. Good cornmeal is slightly sweet and it tastes kind of good to put a little on your finger and eat it. Industrial cornmeal is gross. Yes, even Bob’s Mill brand.

What will I do with all my Georgia-local grains? Well, I’ll be posting some ideas for awhile. The following is a favorite of mine. I’ve tried a lot of different grits for this recipe–and even polenta in a pinch–and it’s all worked out, but high-quality grits are definitely a better choice. I have a lot of grits casserole recipes, but I’m keen on this one because it doesn’t use up all the milk in the refrigerator nor does it call for sausage. Feel free to substitute whatever cheeses you have on hand. Pretty much anything (as long as you like it) will work.

Northerners need to learn to eat grits. Grits are like porrage, only they are eaten with savory accompaniments–salt, pepper, cheese, sausage. My dad says that the first time he tried grits at his southern college (he’s from Ohio), he thought it was cream of wheat and he put sugar on them. It works, but it’s not authentic.

These are.

Puffed Garlic-Cheese Grits

2 T. butter

1 T. + 1 t. minced garlic

4 C. water

3/4 t. salt

1/2 t. black pepper

3/4 t. dry mustard powder

1/8-1/4 t. ground red pepper

1 C grits, uncooked

1 1/4 C. shredded sharp Cheddar (In Canada, they call “sharp cheddar” “old cheddar”.)

1/2 C. shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 t. cream of tartar

Dash hot sauce. Or more.

Lightly butter a shallow, 2-quart casserole dish (such as a square Pyrex pan). Set aside. Preheat oven to 400.

Melt 2 T. buter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Saute’ garlic until golden. Add water, salt, and blck pepper; bring to a boil and stir in mustard & red pepper. Gradually, stir in grits; return to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and cook about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Note: some grits will cook much faster than this. Keep watch. You’ll know when they’re done.) Remove from heat and stir in cheeses and egg yolks. Transfer all to a large bowl; set aside.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. Add hot sauce and beat until stiff peaks form. Gently fold into grits. Pour into prepared casserole pan. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes until grits are puffed and golden. Serve immediately. Give this recipe to those who ask for it.

I am on a mailing list for a site called “Local Harvest” that has several links to farms and events in any area the user chooses.  Although I don’t visit it much, an email today did catch my eye.

I learned there is a new documentary called “Localvore: Local Diet, Healthy Planet” that is soon to be released on DVD.  I had never heard of it before, but it seems to be another in the growing trend of movies tracking the increased awareness of local foods and farmers, and the communities they serve.   So far, I’ve not seen any of the films (largely for lack of time, and in small part for a bit of skepticism as to the content), but I admit, it would likely be a good thing to at least have some sense of what is being put out there.

I wonder how this film (and the others like it) influence the mass public’s perception of those who choose to eat locally, or take other so-called unusual actions (gardening, preserving, etc.)   Does it show only one popular angle/prospective on local living?  Would it be a more accurate picture if individuals met individuals and shared their experiences? I don’t know – movies are certainly a way to reach a broader audience, but is the point of a local community lost in some tiny way? I suppose I should see the film before answering, right? 

Have any of you seen these kinds of films? Reactions?

local harvest is a truly amazing website that helps you find farmers’ markets, local family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area. they also have a fantastic online catalog and CSA (community supported agriculture) subscriptions. what a delicious idea!

I submitted a menu to the Localvore Thanksgiving challenge and was notified by Glenn Fay of LoveEarthAlways.com that I was one of the winners! It was pretty neat to try to put together a menu that consists of local items. Our garden celery, onions, garlic, hubbard squash, tomatillos and of course our honey were the base of the menu with the turkey coming from Stonewood Farms in Orwell, VT and cranberries from the Vermont Cranberry Company in Fairfield, VT. Most of the rest came from other local farms courtesy of the Rutland Co-op.

One week to Thanksgiving folks. For those of you hosting Thanksgiving, as I am, this is the final stretch. There is the shopping to do (our turkey is a local one that is already ordered and will be picked up on Wednesday) and cleaning and organizing. The funny thing is that quite honestly, besides the five of us, I really don’t know how many people will be here. We thought that my inlaws were coming, but they are not. It appears that we will be joined by my sister and her family which will make us ten in number for the holiday.  A nice manageable number.

For those of you in Vermont who feel you are ahead of the curve and planning to include locally grown items on your Thanksgiving table, here’s a fun contest. LoveEarthAlways.com is sponsoring a Localvore Thanksgiving Menu contest. All that is necessary is to submit your Thanksgiving menu indicating which items are local, either from your own garden, your local farm or CSA or farmer’s market. They are offering prizes consisting of Lake Champlain Chocolates and locally made beeswax candles. Candles and chocolate, come on – what better reason to enter? For complete information and entry go to LoveEarthAlways.com.

I made dinner tonight and let me tell you it was good stuff.  It was simple, really, but a simple pleasure.  I scrambled up eggs and cheese and we ate it with greens. The greens were as simple as the eggs–leeks, garlic, peppers and kale with some salt and butter.  The combination was tasty, tastier than I thought it would be.  It felt good to eat food so wholesome and healthy.  And it felt good to know that almost everything came from right around here.

The leeks and kale came from our farm share. Our last pick up was Tuesday and we got a lot. We used some of it tonight. The peppers came from our garden–the last of them to be picked. The butter was Cabot butter, so also fairly local. The cheese in the eggs was also Cabot, and the eggs came from Maple Meadow Farm in Salisbury (the eggs could be more local, I admit, but this wasn’t bad). The olive oil traveled far to get to us, as did the salt, but those are hard to get from local sources.

The one thing that was questionable was garlic. That came from a farm somewhere, but that’s all I know. Our farm share did not include garlic several times in a row–they didn’t have a great year. I missed the farmer’s market last Saturday–I couldn’t get there until too late. And our local market, which often has good local produce, didn’t have any local garlic, so I bought what was there, even though I hate not to know the source of my food. Part of the reason we had no garlic was that the garlic I bought at the farmer’s market a couple weeks ago I planted in the ground. I want to make sure I have plenty next year, so I planted all the cloves and hope for them to burst out of the ground in spring. That would make things local, eh?

So our meal had only a few food miles. It is simply crazy that our food system means we can get cheap food that is transported hundreds or thousands or miles. How is it that we can spend 87 calories to get one calorie and not pay more for that one calorie than we do? How is it that we are OK with the poor quality of those strawberries or winter tomatoes when we buy them, out of season? We ship food all over the place so we can eat whatever we want whenever we want it. So we get poor quality food and we burn up all kinds of oil to get it and we pump CO2 into the atmosphere like mad (literally) when we could could have better food at less real cost if we ate locally. So I try to do that.

Having a garden helps. Taking part in a community supported agriculture program helps. Living in Vermont helps, as local food is available much of the year because people care about it. And canning and freezing helps, too, as that means we can spread the harvest out over the cold months. I am new to canning but thanks to my parents giving me a tutorial, I have canned my second batch of jam. I have pesto and pumpkin and soup in the freezer and will freeze more. I could do better and, with some experience and over time, I will. Pulling pesto out of the freezer in January is just about the best thing ever.

Keeping my food miles down is important. I don’t want my food traveling more in a year than I do. It is one thing I, and collectively we, can do to make a difference to abate global warming. Eating locally can make a big difference in limiting carbon emissions, since we all need to eat. One day we will be forced to eat more locally, since oil will get expensive and raspberries from temperate climes won’t be cheap to ship in the winter. Plus, food usually tastes better if it hasn’t traveled half way around the world. And it has more in it, so it is healthier. Sure, if we eat locally we don’t get to have anything we want whenever we want it, but waiting for things makes them sweeter, sometimes literally. And I can wait for a little sweetness.

(This post is part of Blog Action Day).

Over the past week I have been looking for ways to opt out of the global food economy and eat instead from the northern Colorado foodshed.

Food is often produced in this country at great expense to our soils, air, water, our farmers and our health. The true origin of our food is hidden behind idyllic imagery of family farms and open pastures, and we are happy to buy the illusion.

I was looking for more honest food—food plucked from familiar land, still clinging to the soil it was born in. I wanted short, gnarled carrots and turnips just because they were in season. I wanted tree-ripened peaches that would have been smashed to pulp if they were shipped the 1,500 miles an average food item travels in America. I also wanted the dollar I paid for my food to go to the farmer who grew it—not the eight cents that typically does.

I’m happy to report that our foodshed is both vibrant and very accessible.

The Food Co-Op, locally-owned Beavers Market and even my neighborhood Safeway all offer locally grown fruits and vegetables. For even fresher produce, outdoor farmers’ markets run through mid-October; indoor farmers’ markets begin in November. A year-round facility to bring farmers and customers together called the Community Market is also being developed.

Another option is to buy a share in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. A share will get you a season’s worth of vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, or various other offerings delivered weekly. The CSA model is a way for the community to fund a farm’s activities while sharing in the risk of farming.

Growing a garden is an obvious alternative. There is no more trustworthy food than food you grew yourself. If you don’t have a yard or a planter box, you can rent a plot at the community gardens on Spring Creek or in Timnath.

Finding natural, grass-fed beef from the Northern Colorado foodshed is less easy. Most ranchers nearby send their cattle away to feedlots. What they do sell is sold by fractions of a whole cow, usually quantities over 100 pounds. Buying individual cuts is next to impossible.

A rancher I spoke with explained why: U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, which are designed for industrial slaughterhouses that process 400 cattle per hour, are not suited for smaller operations. A processing plant that would cater to Northern Colorado ranchers would likely not be able to support enough volume to be worth a regulator’s time, so it would be shut down.

Ironically, regulations intended to protect public health have instead promoted a system that is breeding antibiotic-resistant food-borne illnesses like E. coli that are being found in everything from spinach to peanut butter.

Vast regulatory bureaucracies are less important when the meat you buy is raised locally and processed nearby. For the same reason, most farmers around here don’t bother to be certified organic even though they use organic practices—they would rather just tell you themselves.

Across America, the number of farmers’ markets and CSAs is growing steadily; so is the population of small farmers according to a recent USDA census.

Researchers at Columbia University are investigating the feasibility of an integrated national network of foodsheds. Preliminary analyses demonstrated that the Northeast, including New York City, can meet 100 percent of its dietary needs from its network of foodsheds. That is evidence that foodsheds are capable of replacing modern agriculture.

What is missing from modern agriculture is a sense of place. We have divorced our food from the soil and the sun, growing it instead with fossil fuels and fertilizer. In doing so, we have turned our back on the land and our cultural heritage. This is our harvest—a time once celebrated by the entire community, but now all but forgotten. Experience northern Colorado at its best, eat some of it.

Read on:

Be Local Northern Colorado is developing a local economy, including year-round farmers’ markets and the Community Market.

Experience the harvest with a downtown local tasting tour, sponsored by Beet Street

See what’s in season with this map

Find local food anywhere at Localharvest.org

I bought a bushel of Cortland apples yesterday intending to make applesauce and left them in the garage because there were a few fruitflies hanging around at the farmstand.  G helped herself to a particularly big one as we headed back into the house.  I let her have it (after washing it off since this orchard does spray for bugs sometimes) mostly to see what she’d do.

Want to make the change to eating locally? Here’s a great way to start. Challenge yourself to eat locally for two weeks.

We’re not saying this is easy, but it’s absolutely rewarding. It’ll require time and effort and you’ll have to cut out those quick, convenient trips to your favorite restaurant.You’ll have to know where to buy locally and you’ll probably want to plan your meals ahead, but in the end you’re supporting your community and doing what’s best for your body.

Before your start, it’s a great idea to set boundaries. For example, will you include staples like butter and rice that may not be available locally? If you’re used to eating out often, your goal might be to eat one local meal a day. Cater it to you. Sometimes setting unrealistic expectations in the beginning can make for a discouraging goal.

Planning meals ahead can really help with eating locally. Spend 30 minutes perusing cookbooks or ask the farmers how they like to prepare their turnips, cauliflower or any other product they may be selling.

We bet that as you practice localvore habits, eating locally will become easier and easier. It may even become addictive!

Eating locally is easier than ever with Colorado Local Market. Start shopping today!

If you are interested in local agriculture or the localvore/slow food movement, you will want to visit Ile d’Orleans, an island in the St Lawrence River just 20 min from downtown Quebec City. We just spent a week there exploring the area. The island has wineries, cider makers, jams, pates — all available at roadside stands and the farms where they are grown and made. The apples and tomatoes are perfectly ripe.

This page is dedicated to sharing great local products and companies I have found as I continue to try to be a better localvore (where the things we use come from within 100 miles of where we live). Now, I am by no means fanatic about being a localvore – there are so many things out there to enjoy from all over the world and sometimes there is no replacing that. But I’m going to try to at least keep increasing what we consume locally since it is simply a good thing. Plus, it is also an interesting experiment to see how much of what we consume can be from local sources.

Since it can take so much research and experimenting to find products you love, let alone products that are produced within 100 miles of where you live, I thought I would publish my findings here should you live in the Newton (Boston) area and have a similar interest. So stay tuned as I will keep adding to this as have more to share and I hope you’ll share your findings with me.

Milk
We usually use whole (my tea and for my toddler) and non-fat milk (cereal) in our house.

• The Organic Cow
  My favorite milk right now. I had never tried it until this past July when we were in the Cape and it was the only organic milk option. I am not sure if it is the raw milk or the processing but the end result is milk that I find thicker and creamier than other whole milks. So much so that I compared the nutrition label to another brand to make sure there wasn’t more fat in The Organic Cow milk. And there isn’t, same nutritional info!  Now, I just wish they sold it at Whole Foods since I’m often there picking up other things and would to buy this milk there. The Shaws in Newtonville carries it, as does Russo’s in Watertown and the Roche Brothers in Wellesley.
• Organic Valley – New England Pastures
  We’ve been drinking Organic Valley milk for years now and it is organic and sourced from New England Dairy farms. Hard to go wrong with that. Though, after my recent discovery of The Organic Cow, I do opt for that if I have the choice. I also use their Half and Half when we need it and get their cheese sticks for my daughter’s snacks.

Celebrate Labor Day weekend by heading to Glen Prairie (1250 Roosevelt Rd., Glen Ellyn) for chef Daniel Ovanin’s weekend specials, featuring fresh produce from KAP Farms in Troy, Ill., and Wolf Farms in Eau Claire, Mich., available after 5 p.m. September 4 and 5 in addition to the restaurant’s regular menu.

This little piggy went wee, wee, wee, wee, wee all the way to our stomachs.

And pork chops, and pork tenderloin, and ribs, and pulled pork, and…well you get the point. For our conscientious lesson of the day, it’s important to understand where your food comes from and to do your best to use sustainable practices when buying and cooking. Do you need to buy macrobiotic turnips that were fertilized with locally sourced wagyu manure at $7 a pound. No, unless your a pretentious douche. What it does mean is try to buy local and in season when you can. You’re helping people trying to make a living with honest, tasty products as well as reducing the environmental impact of long distance food shipping. Go hit your local farmers’ market today or join a CSA and make a friend (and dinner).

I try to buy foods made and grown locally.

There are a few foods available for purchase that are made right here in Grand Rapids. Here are some of my favorites, and information about where to purchase them.

Koeze Peanut Butter

Frankly, I have no idea how to pronounce this name. Cozy? Co-ez? Cotz-y? Despite this fact, Koeze is my favorite peanut butter. It’s easy to find at Family Fare, D&W, and Art of the Table. Don’t look for it at Meijer; it’s not there and I can’t figure out why. But at around $5.00/jar at most places, it good value for a terrific product.  I’ve even taken to giving it as a hostess gift when we travel or visit people. I like wine, but Grand Rapids peanut butter is a more unique discussion topic. Don’t be fooled, however. The peanuts that go into this peanut butter are not from Michigan. It’s way way way too cold here to grow them.

They also make candies with the peanut butter that you can order online or purchase from Art of the Table.

(If you’re interested in the fascinating way peanuts grow, check the link or pick up Barbara Kingsolver’s tremendous book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in which she discusses the life cycle of the peanut plant.)

El Matador Tortilla Chips

They don’t have a website, but you can get them everywhere around here. You can recognize them by the bright yellow bags. The corn is probably GMO and they’re cooked in canola and soybean oil, but nevertheless I’m a big fan (who just doesn’t eat them every day!)

I had this ridiculous fantasy about El Matador. I wanted to go there on a field trip or factory tour with out of town guests. In a moment of brilliance, I called the phone number on the back of the bag of chips (616.241.1121) and spoke to the receptionist. My fantasy was dashed to pieces when she informed me that, because of their insurance policy, they are unable to offer factory tours. (Apparently, I’m not the first person to ask.)

So, I guess I’ll have to give my friends the Grand Rapids experience by serving El Matador chips in my own home. (I don’t even know of any local restaurants who serve them. I eat plenty of nachos at The Cottage Bar and Restaurant, but I know from their taste that they’re not El Matador.)

To the dear mysterious folks at El Matador: Get a website. Make some organic chips. Get different insurance. We want to know more about you!

El Milagro Tortillas and Chips

Again, same story. No website. I buy the El Milagro corn tortillas (they also sell high quality tortilla chips) on a regular basis in the summer; they’re a staple at our house. And, again, they’re probably made with GMO corn and oils. The tortillas, however, are only made with corn, water and lime (Calcium hydroxide, not the fruit. This gives the them their unique flavor and is a source of calcium.) I use these corn tortillas for all sorts of recipes, including the bean tacos with cabbage slaw I wrote about last week.

Well, these are the three primary foods I eat that are produced in Grand Rapids. What else is there? I know there’s lots of food production around Grand Rapids (Hudsonville Ice Cream, for instance), but I’m interested in foods produced right here, in our city.

The best place to find all local foods, however, is not the grocery store. It’s the farmer’s market. Be sure to ask farmers where the food was grown and if they grew it. Then, consider how you could marry it to some peanut butter or tortillas.

I was on vacation last week and missed Week Ten’s all-local meal o’ the week. But I’m back in full force now; in fact, my wonderful husband had an all-local supper waiting for me when I got home after many hours of bravely battling traffic and highway construction. I gratefully chowed down on salad, grilled veggies, and a burger made with ground lamb.

The salad was from our garden, as were the grilled green beans and scallions. The grilled shallots, garlic, and green peppers were from various farmer’s market vendors. The lamb was purchased at the St. Johnsbury food co-op, and came from a local farm. That’s about as specific as I can get in post-vacation mode; sorry to be so sketchy on details!

I feel so lucky to live in Vermont. Locally grown, high-quality food is so easy to find. I can stop on my way home from work and pick up organic raw milk for half the price of organic milk in the store. A co-worker raises sheep, pigs, and cattle, and she brings grass-fed beef and bacon to the freezer at work for me. I haven’t bought supermarket eggs in many months; there are many sources of backyard eggs. In the summer and fall, farm stands and farmer’s markets offer vegetables, berries, honey, eggs, meat, cheese, and bread. Many cities have wonderful farmer’s markets, but I bet prices are much higher than what I pay. And there are lots of places in America where your only option is the supermarket, or worse, an inner city corner store.

A very exciting piece of legislation was passed in Vermont this year, which should make local foods even more widely available. It’s known as the Farm to Plate Initiative, and its goals are:

• Increase economic development in Vermont’s food and farm sector.
• Create jobs in the food and farm economy.
• Improve access to healthy local foods.

Here is the website to learn more about this initiative, and here is an article about it.

Even though Vermonters tend to eat more locally produced foods than the average American, we still import 97% of our food. According to Vermont Representative Christopher Bray, one of the sponsors of the Farm to Plate bill, if we increased our consumption to local food from 3% to 20% over the next decade, we could add $800 million to Vermont’s economy!

Vermont has a long way to go. I would like to see:

• more locally produced food in our local markets, restaurants, schools, and hospitals
• more jobs available in sustainable agriculture
• more people eating fresh, healthy, locally grown food
• more land in agricultural use
• more local food available year-round

I have been involved in a brand new organization devoted to achieving these goals: The St. Johnsbury Area Local Food Alliance. We are just starting out, and our goals are very similar to those outlined in the Farm to Plate bill, except with a focus on the Caledonia County area instead of the whole state. Most areas of Vermont have similar groups dedicated to increasing local food production and availability; here is an article about the amazing happenings in tiny, rural Hardwick.

This post is proud to be part of Fight Back Fridays and Real Food Wednesdays!

With an explosive 9000% increase in CJD/Alzheimer’s in the past two decades, some scientists are beginning to point to our food as a possible major risk factor. Beef is well known in health circles for being a source of prions that cause the disease and diary has recently been linked to as a potential source. Fish is often claimed to be a healthy alternative to red meat, but there are many risks like toxin accumulation (mercury, arsenic), parasites, and now CJD/Alzheimer’s as well. I’d be extra cautious to know where my food came from if not eating a local, vegan diet.

From naturalnews.com:

There is probably no illness that has more terrifying symptoms, or a more ghastly outcome, than variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) — best known as mad cow disease. Abnormal proteins called prions found in brain tissue of cows suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can cause vCJD in humans who eat meat from the animals. These mad cow disease-causing prions can literally result in people losing their minds because the infectious particles eat away at the brain, leaving tiny sponge-like holes. There is no treatment available and death always follows.

With government regulations notoriously lax when it comes to testing for BSE in the food supply, many people have given up eating beef in hopes of protecting themselves from exposure to mad cow disease. But an article just published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease suggests there may be another ticking time bomb source of vCJD — farmed fish.

In a paper entitled Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Aquaculture, University of Kentucky neurologist Robert P. Friedland and colleagues point out that fish consumption is widely recommended because omega-3 fatty acids are known to reduce the risks of cardiovascular and Alzheimer’s diseases. However, the scientists have doubts that the health benefits of farmed fish outweigh a potentially deadly danger. “We are concerned that consumption of farmed fish may provide a means of transmission of infectious prions from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, causing variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease,” they stated.

Dr. Friedland and his team point out that farmed fish are fed byproducts rendered from cows — a totally unnatural source of food for fish. The risk of transmission of mad cow disease to humans who eat farmed fish would seem to be slim because there are often barriers between species that help prevent infections. But, according to the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease article, there are several reasons to be concerned about fish spreading mad cow to humans.

First, fish could be carriers of the disease from eating infected meat products, even though the fish themselves are not obviously infected or sick. In addition, it is possible that eating prion-infected cow parts could result in fish experiencing pathological changes that permit the prion infection to be transmitted between the two species. Based on these worrisome possibilities, the scientists are calling for government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until this common practice can be shown to be safe.

“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited. Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows,” Friedland said in an interview with the Kentucky Post newspaper.

“The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public,” Friedland stated.

For more information:

http://www.j-alz.com/issues/17/vol1…

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/

http://www.kypost.com/news/local/st…

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd…

from: capitalpress.com

“The end of the line for cattle raised at Elizabeth Poett’s spread on the Central Coast used to come at an inland slaughterhouse after a five-hour drive crammed in a trailer with other spooked animals.

Now death comes to Rancho San Julian in the form of a mobile butchering vehicle that caters to small ranchers offering premium meats marketed as free-range, grass-fed and sustainably raised.

While “locally slaughtered” may not join those buzz words on meat labels, the practice allows the eighth-generation rancher and her peers to do what their ancestors took for granted: raise animals from manger to cuts of meat.”

Full Story Here