Category Archives: resources

The Good Stuff is Worth It

At one of the sessions at the CT NOFA Winter Conference 2013, the topic of the high price of good food came up. It turns out that when people know what they are getting and why, they accept the premium on high-value foods. High-values foods are those that were raised and processed in a clean and sustainable manner, where nutrition and taste are the priorities.

CAFO
Unhappy Cows

For over 50 years, Americans have been the lab rats in the great processed food and high-volume farming experiment. If you look at our health record in that same time, you’d have to conclude the experiment was a failure. We now have an unnatural relationship with food, know next to nothing about where it comes from, or even what qualifies as food. As it happens, animals raised in close confinement are bad for you and fat obtained from these animals is bad for you too. Animals slaughtered in facilities that process thousands of animals a day have a statistical probablility of introducing a food-borne pathogens into the line so they take remediation measures (such as washing the meat in ammonia) that may not be good for us either. When you factor in the health and environmental costs of cheap food, it’s significantly more expensive than the expensive food!

For over 50 years, we let corporate shills dressed as scientists tell us:

  • Fat is bad. Animal fats are especially bad and vegetable fats (like Canola oil) are better.
  • Cholesterol is bad.
  • Skim milk is good.
  • Light anything is good; Full-fat anything is bad.
  • Lard is bad. Crisco and margarine are good.
Pastured
Happy Cows

People are starting to challenge these assumptions. Many are returning to the methods that sustained humankind for over 10,000 years. These methods contradict the current food and nutritional “wisdom.”

Little by little, we are finding our way back to the foods and food plans that nurtured us. People are putting by (canning, freezing, dehydrating) their own provisions from known sources. People are returning to bone broths and rendered animal fats. People are returning to foods they can make in their own homes. People are buying chickens from farmers whose practices they know so that they don’t have to do an anti-nuke anti-backterial lockdown afterwards. The home town butcher is returning! (Check out Saugatuck Craft Butchery in Westport, CT and Butchers Best Market in Newtown, CT.)

There’s so much to know and it can be daunting trying to figure out where to get started. Here are a few links to the front runners of traditional foods. These people and organizations advocate making bone broths, and rendering their own animal fats for use in cooking, and using the whole animal.

  • The Weston A. Price Foundation is a nonprofit, tax-exempt nutrition education foundation. Of special note is this article, The Oiling of America.
  • Sally Fallon is the President of Weston Price Foundation. Her cookbook on traditional, nutrient-dense foods is worth a read, even if you don’t cook! She also made a video discussing the oiling of America.
  • Cheeseslave is an advocate of healthy traditional foods, full fat dairy, and against the anti-cholesterol hype. Her site has recipes, tips, and news for people who want to eat real food.

I believe it’s the modern pseudo-foods like margarine and soy milk and convenience foods full of additives, pesticides, and MSG that are making us sick. Full-fat dairy and other traditional foods have been sustaining humans for millennia. And that’s good enough for me.

  • Food Renegade is an advocate of healthy traditional foods. Her site has recipes, tips, and news for people who want to eat real food as well.

I am a rebel. I like to eat red meat. I think butter is good for me. I drink my milk raw. I avoid pre-packaged foods like the plague. I don’t believe the health claims on food labels. And, I like my food to be fresh, wholesome, and traditional.

This list is by no means exhaustive—it’s meant to be a starting point. Feel free to share other sources in the comment section.

Happy reading and happy eating!

Food Environmental Atlas

I found an interesting online tool called the Food Environmental Atlas that generates maps based on your criteria.

In the Local Food category, this is the map for the Percent of Farms with Direct Sales (the darker colors represent a higher percentage).

Percent of Farms with Direct Sales

The next map is the Number of Farmers Markets. Again the darker the colors represent more markets.

Number of Farmers Markets

I find it interesting that there are fewer direct sales and fewer farmers markets in regions that I thought were more agricultural. Perhaps everyone there has their own farm?

Anyway, it’s a very neat tool and there are lots of other categories. It also lets you drill down to the state level. I would like to be able to overlay a few categories…

The Power of Community

I saw a most inspiring movie the other night at the Bluestone Farm Fullmoon fireside: The Power of Community – How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. Apart from its value as a “how to” or as a plug for local, sustainable food, it is a testament to the human spirit.

From their site:

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.” The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.

Cuba’s foods are now 80% organic. They use 21 times less pesticide than before the Special Period. There’s more in an article describing the facts of the film at the Global Public Media site.

What I saw in this film were a people who faced adversity together and were creative in their solutions. I saw the pride and satisfaction that comes with that kind of success.

I ordered the DVD and intend to watch it every time I need inspiration.

NOFA Conference

If you’re looking for us this weekend, we’ll be at the 34th Annual NOFA Conference, At UMASS, Amherst.

Keynote speakers are Dr. Arden Andersen, holistic medical practitioner, expert in human and agricultural nutrition, author, and educator and Mark McAfee, founder of the Organic Pastures Dairy Company in California.

The workshops cover the spectrum of topics of interest from farmers to eaters. It will be hard to choose!

NOFA is the Northeast Organic Farming Association. You don’t need to be a farmer to become a member. Here’s the site for CT NOFA.