No, not thanksgiving! (Although i like that quite a lot too.)
It's BUY NOTHING DAY!!!!!
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd
Take a look at the fun video spots they have, especially the pig.
I love the day after Thanksgiving because it is always spent lounging around, hopefully playing outside, and generally completely avoiding the need to go to a store. Join me this year in celebrating Buy Nothing Day. I try and make it the whole weekend actually.
And BND always brings me to thinking about Christmas, and how I'm going to deal with it this year.
I read a bunch of ideas in Wondertime, (I'm really surprised that Disney is letting them talk about anything besides buying more) and some of them were really good. My favorite I think is a little ryhme. "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read."
I don't' know if my family will ever let me dictate how the presents get given, but I am bound to keep trying. One of the ways I am doing this for my self, is I'm creating a list of which organizations I want to support and trying to decide if I should split the amount of money I can donate among them, or choose two and send them bigger chunks.
Here is my current list, but I know I'm forgetting some. It feels good to know that I can spend money and time thinking about other causes besides our very very lucky family.
American Farmland Trust
Obama
Southern Poverty Law center
NARAL
Access Fund
Simple Living
Planned Parenthood
I'll add yours if you comment on this post! ;)
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Survey
You're welcome to chime in, but my readership (all four of you) is AWFULLY quiet in the comments section, so i'm okay to just survey myself.
Question: How much is the change in the global financial market affecting your decisions surrounding the holidays?
Answer: Not that much.
We already had our plane tickets, and reservations for where we're going for Thanksgiving, and I make all sorts of desperate appeals to my family to limit the number of gifts and stuff every year. Every year I exasperate my sister to no end, as I propose new gifting rules, and in the end, the only people I really truly can buy/get things for with absolute certainty that they will love them are the three and ahalf year old and one year old men in my life. George? never quite sure what will make him thrilled. But maybe that's just because I can't give him a big bike ride in the middle of a workday as a present! Oh by the way, his BIRTHDAY is tomorrow!
Question: How much is the change in the global financial market affecting your decisions surrounding the holidays?
Answer: Not that much.
We already had our plane tickets, and reservations for where we're going for Thanksgiving, and I make all sorts of desperate appeals to my family to limit the number of gifts and stuff every year. Every year I exasperate my sister to no end, as I propose new gifting rules, and in the end, the only people I really truly can buy/get things for with absolute certainty that they will love them are the three and ahalf year old and one year old men in my life. George? never quite sure what will make him thrilled. But maybe that's just because I can't give him a big bike ride in the middle of a workday as a present! Oh by the way, his BIRTHDAY is tomorrow!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Oh yeah,
I did forget my other passion, language, which was all but slaughtered by the lady with my name (ugh) check out this post about the Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla . I thought she was the most horrifying part of the last three months, and I have this picture from the Obama gathering in October that I thought summed it up.
And for those of you who werent utterly beside themselves watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbQwAFobQxQ well. I just don't know what to say.
In other better news, the boys got BUNK BEDS!!!
and I'm done with school until January!
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Birth
Since I've been covering food and politics, I'd like to take a turn with my other favorite topic, home birth.
Here's an article that my midwife sent me from the good old NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=slogin
It's been kind of hard to transition to the new time here at our house. Five is too damn early for it to be dark. It reminds me all too often about just how many places the boys can play inside, and no... it's not generally their room.
We got our first motherlode of winter share from Monroe Farms, and I've been making lots of soup. Curried winter squash and mushroom soup, Santa Fe sweet potato soup, Cream of celery, and today I made the most gorgeous carrot cake with poppy seeds on the outside. I never knew how people made cakes look good, but it turns out all you have to do is buy one of those tube pans. It looks fancy, and stands on its own. what an easy way to do it.
This weekend, I hope that george will make a little loft for Rowan's bed, so we can put milo's underneath. and I'm going to recover the chair cushions that have given up and are splitting to show their insides.
Here's an article that my midwife sent me from the good old NYT.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=slogin
It's been kind of hard to transition to the new time here at our house. Five is too damn early for it to be dark. It reminds me all too often about just how many places the boys can play inside, and no... it's not generally their room.
We got our first motherlode of winter share from Monroe Farms, and I've been making lots of soup. Curried winter squash and mushroom soup, Santa Fe sweet potato soup, Cream of celery, and today I made the most gorgeous carrot cake with poppy seeds on the outside. I never knew how people made cakes look good, but it turns out all you have to do is buy one of those tube pans. It looks fancy, and stands on its own. what an easy way to do it.
This weekend, I hope that george will make a little loft for Rowan's bed, so we can put milo's underneath. and I'm going to recover the chair cushions that have given up and are splitting to show their insides.
Monday, November 10, 2008
What he said
Then I found this : http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/obama-cites-michael-pollan.php He actually read it!
I'm looking for the White House Farmer. That's what I'm hoping for.
My project is almost done. I'm going to post the whole damn thing in here so that you can check it out. The very last item is the coolest, it's a custom search window that I chose the sites for, and you can do your terms... obviously related to local/organic food... and see what inspiration you get. My favorite finds from this whole excersize are ethicurean.com and homegrowncolorado.blogspot.com but you have to decide on your own.
Oh, and I'm sure to have errors. If you could point these out to me by tomorrow, it'll save me the embarassment of a half-written entry or something that I'm turning in for a grade. ;) It looks like all my cool formatting was erased when I copied it in.
Local Food Pathfinder
Why Local Food?
When you feel like having strawberries, chances are good that you'll find some in your neighborhood grocery store, even if it just happens to be a cold day in February, and a producing strawberry plant couldn't be found within an eight hour drive of your house. The only part of its life story you may know is the country it arrived from.
But how many gallons of fuel helped plant that food with what kind of machinery, and if it's not organic, how many more gallons of fuel helped spread the pesticides, insecticides and fungicides on the plants to give them a chance at producing your strawberry in February? And then the drive to the airplane to the next building to the store, and finally the trip home probably in your car. This food is soaked in fossil fuels. Worse yet, chances are very good that if you were to take a strawberry, grown in season, off of the plant and put it in your mouth, it would bear very little resemblance to the pinkish-red berry that is beckoning from behind that plastic container (ack, more fossil fuel!).
At this moment in history, daily news reports disasters and tragedy around the globe and yet we are practically powerless to change the outcome of the events transpiring. However, the opportunity comes for us to take action at least three times a day when we select something that we will eat. Becoming curious about why our food has to travel so far, and what people did even 75 years ago to feed themselves is the beginning of an amazing transformation in the way you view your food.
For some, that curiosity gets piqued by a book they read, or from an article they glanced at. Or for others it may be weariness of eating from boxes, in cars, or without actually tasting any identifiable ingredient meal after meal.
Searching out food that has a story, an actual person who grows it-who you can meet, and a place that you can drive to within a couple of hours is the antidote for fuel-soaked-food blahs. See if you find any compelling reason to search out a carrot that was grown just down the road from you… it may surprise you just how good it tastes too!
What is local food?
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
This website is a locus for the local food movement. It is a place for small family farms to communicate with the larger community and show what they have available. There is a locator for many facets of small farming, including farmers markets, farm stands and CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture farms.
Locavores
http://www.locavores.com/
This is one of the original groups that brought awareness to the local food movement, and its very own term. LOCAVORE was the 2007 Word of the Year for the Oxford American Dictionary and has been instrumental in connecting people interested in eating food grown close to home with the resources they need in this area. This effort has been duplicated throughout the country, and has been a way to connect farmers who are outside of the public eye in grocery stores and restaurants directly with their consumers. This is one of the main tenets of eating locally, being able to visit the place where the food you eat is growing and see with your own eyes who takes care of the details.
American Farmland Trust
http://www.farmland.org/
The three main features on the front page include Local Farms and Food, Protecting the Environment and the Farm Bill. This organization is the place to find out about anything related to food. Under Local Farms and Food, a complete list of resources, analysis and information give compelling reasons for us to vote with our food dollars.
Eat Local Challenge
http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/
This site is a group blog, and has contributors that highlight news, events and ideas from across the United States. Important collections of information are here, including posts about the best local food cookbooks, and numerous discussions about the practicalities and details of eating food close to home. In the Featured Posts section, there is a post called "10 Reasons to Eat Local." This lively and inspiring site will reveal some of the main draws of local eating.
100 Mile Diet
http://100milediet.org/
The authors of two books host and contribute to this site, and their books are testament to their commitment and well-researched approach to eating locally. This site also has some great resources that include state- and region-specific websites in Canada and the United States. While new content isn't being generated here, the stories of people searching out local food Thanksgivings and a blog chronicling the 100 day 100 Mile Diet Challenge is a lesson in how it can be done.
Food Policy-and the next President
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Michael Pollan, has become a voice of the local food movement, first with his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, and then In Defense of Food, both explorations into where our food comes from, what we eat, and how it affects us. This six thousand word letter to the next president is also clearly lays out the multifaceted food issue, with a clear statement of how our eating habits affect almost all other facets of life.
New York times Local Food Navigator
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/local_food/
The sidebar has many of the same resources I offer in this pathfinder, but the collection of archived articles and content related to local food that has been published from the NYT is bound to provide a good taste of the coverage that the local food movement is getting.
Related:
October 12 Food Issue of the Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/10/12/magazine/index.html
The letter to the next president comes from this issue, but the entire issue is devoted to issues surrounding food, and can be a good primer about what
The Nation: Food Issue
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911
In 2006, The Nation published an important issue on Food, with a collection of articles and discussions by those most influential in reviving the discussion about what Americans eat. Find Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, Anna Lappe, daughter of the author of Diet for a Small Planet, Alice Waters, a famous chef and local food advocate, Michael Pollan, and many others giving context for this important topic.
Biodelice
http://www.biodelice.com/
While the ads at the top of each page are a little annoying, the site is well organized and there is a wealth of information about organic food, farming, gardening, sustainable agriculture and sub menus that cover most of the important issues. This is a great site to comb through to get an overview of basic questions with clear answers.
WHY BOTHER?
While many of the above resources give introductions and compelling reasons for examining the way you feed yourself each day, these sites can provide more information about the specifics.
True Food
http://truefoodnow.org/
A project of the Center for Food Safety, http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/, each of the issues and causes they champion are at the root of many people's search for local food. The main tabs are genetically engineered food, cloning, rGBH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), irradiation, factory farms (also known as CAFOs or concentrated animal feeding operations), and organics. By following this site, and the Ethicurean blog (See below) a different picture of the food landscape emerges. This information will directly affect how you decide what to eat for your next meal.
Ethicurean
http://www.ethicurean.com/
With 20 contributors across the United States, and a couple across the ocean, this blog stands as an amazing collective work that focuses on Sustainable, Organic, Local and/or Ethical foods (SOLE foods). An incredible source for inspiration and clear-headed analysis of the Farm Bill, food legislation, recipes and a discussion of ethics as it relates to food and food production. Subscribe to the feed, you'll be in touch with the local food movement, and glean an understanding of how food issues are discussed.
Food Routes
http://www.foodroutes.org/
Food Routes advocates for local food consumption, and has a helpful and extensive "learn more" Section, especially the Hot Topics tab. This organization also has developed tools to educate people about why choosing to spend food dollars locally can be of benefit.
Slow Food USA
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ , http://www.slowfood.com/
Slow Food USA is part of the international Slow Food movement that began in Italy. Clearly a reaction to the fast food phenomenon and all the parts of life that it affects, Slow Food intends to support the enjoyment of food and re-educate about taste and genetic biodiversity of foods. It also reframes consumers of food as co-producers who are partners in the food production process.
Organic Consumers Association
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
The mission of this organization is no small goal; they are "campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace and democracy." These themes do run through the local food movement, because of the emphasis on the interrelatedness of each of these topics. The section on Organic foods provides articles posted, and addresses some of the actions, struggles and changes in the organic food market over time.
Factory Farms
http://factoryfarming.com/
One of the most looming and environmentally detrimental food practices is the proliferation of CAFOs or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. This site has pictures of where our food is grown, and quickly dispels the notion that cows that we consume are lazily wandering fields of green, and have a good life until they are processed. The nightmarish conditions extend to all major issues of our time, including environmental pollution, loss of land fertility on farms, humane treatment of animals and the workers who attend them, and the possible consequences of these closed systems diminishing food safety for the consumer. Local food consumers can avoid these circumstances by visiting the place where their food is grown, including the animals, and regain a place of understanding and acceptance.
Organic Milk
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/dairy2.cfm
This opens to a story quoted from the New York Times on organic milk that is a good introduction to why organic and local foods are related. The site itself is referenced above.
Organic Dairy Survey
http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html
Take a look and see if you can find the dairy you rely on for your milk products. This survey was done by the Cornucopia Institute, which advocates for family-scale farming, and the entire report about milk integrity and how they evaluated the participants is here: http://www.cornucopia.org/2008/01/dairy-report-and-scorecard/. What you will find is an internal conversation about what "organic" means, and how that is interpreted in the size of the dairy operations. What are the benefits of "organic" if the practices are for large-scale farming?
Where can you find local food?
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
Already cited above, it is worth mentioning again. The finder box on the front page gives you the option to search in your zip code, city or state for a variety of items, including farms, co-ops, CSAs, Farmer's Markets or even restaurants. This resource can point you to where you want to find food grown locally.
National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/localfood_dir.php
Directories for the whole country are gathered here, the listings are searched by state, and then contain groupings of local food resources. Included here is the Colorado food and agricultural directory online: http://www.ag.state.co.us/FoodAgDirectory/
Homegrown Colorado
http://homegrowncolorado.blogspot.com/
Homegrown Colorado Girl, the author of this blog, must also be a librarian. She has a wealth of information, links and a great beginning library hosted through Amazon.com. A Denverite, she is passionately involved in the pursuit of local food, and shares her discoveries through this blog. An easy way to keep up with the local food scene in Denver is to subscribe to this blog on your reader. She highlights events and opportunities related to food grown close by, organically and on a small scale.
Colorado Local Harvest
http://www.localsustainability.net/
The main claim to fame of this organization is the Rocky Mountain Growers Directory, which is a tremendous resource for finding local food outside of the farmers market. It is in print, and there is an online version here.
The HOW and WHO of the dirt work
At a farmer's market, the best way to make sure that you are buying from a local producer is to ask the person standing behind the food. There are stands that truck food in from wherever it grows. This happens at the Cherry Creek Farmers Market, so customers may think that they are supporting a local farmer, when instead the stand is getting their food from the same sources as the grocery store down the street.
Farmers Markets
Farmer's Markets
www.ams.usda.gov/FARMERSMARKETS/
The direct source for finding out about farmers markets, the USDA has information here about the growth trends in this part of the food industry and facts about farmers markets. There are also search tools, and related topics including presentations and the Farmers Market Proclamation. This site has current data and useful statistics, as well as a farmers market locator.
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
Local harvest has got to be the most cited source of information about local food, (this is its third appearance in this pathfinder!) but for good reason. It contains links and finders for farmers markets, CSAs and of course the farms themselves. Go to their map, and you'll find a nice listing of markets in your area.
Boulder Farmer's Market
http://www.boulderfarmers.org/
If you are close enough on a Wednesday afternoon or a Saturday morning, stop by this farmer's market. It is a truly wonderful market that is always crowded and you can shake hands with the people who grow your food. Many of these producers also run CSAs (or community supported agriculture). At this market, many of the products must have been grown or harvested from Boulder County, with the exception of the prepared food vendors and the western slope vendors. No boxes shipped from California at this market.
How to Save Money at a Farmers' Market
http://www.wikihow.com/Save-Money-at-a-Farmers'-Market
Addressing the disparity in price between organic and non-organic food, this article gives tips about how to get the best of both worlds. There is a caveat at the end of this article, but the spirit of thriftiness and the hints about navigating the farmer's market make it worth a read.
Community Supported Agriculture or CSAs
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
Published from the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center at the USDA, there is a tremendous amount of information here, and it is well organized. Many publications from the USDA are linked here as well as some articles on the history of CSAs. The sections called Eating Seasonally and Regionally, and Community Food Systems are noteworthy for their links, as well as the Sustainable/Organic Agriculture connection.
Your Own Yard (but someone else takes care of it for you)
Spin Farming
http://www.spinfarming.com/
SPIN farming stands for Small Plot Intensive Gardening, and the key is that members offer their own yards to be cultivated and harvested, and then receive a portion of the proceeds in weekly boxes similar to a CSA. That means that the biggest barrier to growing food, the land, is provided by the members, in addition to the water and watering systems. This is as local as you can get, without dirt under your fingernails.
Community Roots
http://www.communityrootsboulder.com/
Practicing the SPIN farming model, Kipp Nash is growing food in his own neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado. There are three new farms starting, see this article about him in Edible Front Range, http://www.ediblefrontrange.com/pages/issues/summer08/localHero.pdf
Community Gardens (Your little portion of a plot of land, somewhere in your community)
Community Gardens
http://communitygarden.org/
For all things community garden related, this site is created to bring people together and nourish their lives by creating community gardens. There is also a search function to find the community garden closest to your home. There are tools here for starting your own community garden, as well as the resource of connecting with others who can share experience and ideas. The LEARN tab has a series of ten tips, as well as many other helpful resources.
Denver Urban Gardens
http://www.dug.org/
DUG or Denver Urban Gardens is the local initiative that is being supported by LiveWell Colorado, a statewide initiative to create community and promote health primarily in lower income areas. Over 20 years old now, they are organized and ambitious and can provide knowledge and education to new gardeners through their free education programs.
In Your Own Yard (your effort, your reward)
Urban Food Gardening
http://growyourownfood.blogspot.com/
Blogging about urban gardening, with the specific intent to inspire and encourage others to do the same, you'll find some great ideas from this author. Current, informative, with great pictures of specific veggies, you won't necessarily be able to duplicate her garden, she's in Ireland.
Square Foot Gardening
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/sqfoot/
One type of urban farming is called Square Foot Gardening, it relies on various different preparations of the soil and the area you plant. Here you can find people discussing the questions and issues that come up in day to day gardening with this method. One of the keys to learning how to make your garden the most productive and problem free is to find out what has worked for others, and this is a good place to get that information. It can also be a great place to trouble-shoot issues in your garden.
Growing Taste
http://growingtaste.com/
Growing taste is a peculiarity among gardening sites. While it may seem obvious that taste is why anyone is growing vegetables, there are other pressing concerns including the ability for the plants to survive in your particular plot of dirt. A good deal of research has gone into comparing individual types of plants that produce the tastiest offerings, but this site is also a rich source of seed catalog information and many customer reviews. It doesn't appear that this site is the most current, yet the amount of helpful information offered outweighs the negative currency.
Seed Savers
http://www.seedsavers.org/
This site is for when you get really into preserving and continuing the legacy of the innumerable heritage breeds that are ignored by the food industry. If genetic diversity preservation becomes part of your value system, which it just may after delving into this pathfinder, Seed Savers is a way to enter the world of seed trading, and helping maintain genetic diversity in your food.
Colorado State University Extension
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/menu_garden.html
This is not a glamorous site, yet there is valuable information to be found here, specific to gardening in Colorado. The Fact Sheets can be particularly useful, depending on the types of questions or problems you are having with your garden.
The Garden Notes are the most helpful, here is a link to the Vegetable Planting Guide for Colorado: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/files/gardennotes/720-Planting.html
Colorado State University Extension (Too)
http://www.extension.org/horticulture
More sleek-looking, this site contains tag clouds and an "Answers from our Experts section". It seems that some of the responses are short, but the hyperlinked text will bring you to some amazing resources, including the garden notes link above. This was difficult to locate by searching, yet is cited in the information on planting vegetables on this site.
How to Start Composting
http://www.grist.org/advice/how/2008/08/19/
This humorous and graphic article on how to begin composting would have gotten me rolling with composting long ago, had I read it. Lucky for you, you can start here, because it will seem very silly for you to cull vegetables from your land, or the land of someone you know, and then throw that in the landfill instead of letting it turn back into soil amendments that are free and the best thing for your garden. This article will tell you how to get it going.
More Information (Databases and the Law)
Agricola - National Agricultural Library
http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/
This enormous catalog is organized into two separate types of data. The article citation database can be searched on any of the above topics mentioned, from genetically modified foods, cloning, hormones in milk, and antibiotics in meat to organic practices and alternative farming systems. There are links to some full text articles, or records that contain the source of a particular study. This is in addition to the Online Public Access Catalog, which catalogs all books and other materials that can be searched as well.
PubMed
www.pubmed.gov
PubMed is a massive, comprehensive, free public database of medicine. While many of the articles may only have their abstracts, there are full text links available for some articles. Use search terms such as Organic Food, genetically modified foods, fresh vegetables, pesticides, fungicides or insecticides and there will be studies that explore these topics.
Food and the Law
http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/crs/
The National Agricultural Law Center has the Congressional Research Service reports organized by topic and then identified by title, in this section of their website. They are written to provide information for law makers, and can be helpful in understanding complex issues, and their parts.
Google Custom Search Tool
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=000982846150528943910%3Al09zlyinayu
Many of the above resources were included in this search tool, though not all. Each of the databases must be entered individually, and a few of the organizations were not included. Taking a few search terms and entering them here will give you an idea of which resources may be the best place for you to look further.
ENJOY
I'm looking for the White House Farmer. That's what I'm hoping for.
My project is almost done. I'm going to post the whole damn thing in here so that you can check it out. The very last item is the coolest, it's a custom search window that I chose the sites for, and you can do your terms... obviously related to local/organic food... and see what inspiration you get. My favorite finds from this whole excersize are ethicurean.com and homegrowncolorado.blogspot.com but you have to decide on your own.
Oh, and I'm sure to have errors. If you could point these out to me by tomorrow, it'll save me the embarassment of a half-written entry or something that I'm turning in for a grade. ;) It looks like all my cool formatting was erased when I copied it in.
Local Food Pathfinder
Why Local Food?
When you feel like having strawberries, chances are good that you'll find some in your neighborhood grocery store, even if it just happens to be a cold day in February, and a producing strawberry plant couldn't be found within an eight hour drive of your house. The only part of its life story you may know is the country it arrived from.
But how many gallons of fuel helped plant that food with what kind of machinery, and if it's not organic, how many more gallons of fuel helped spread the pesticides, insecticides and fungicides on the plants to give them a chance at producing your strawberry in February? And then the drive to the airplane to the next building to the store, and finally the trip home probably in your car. This food is soaked in fossil fuels. Worse yet, chances are very good that if you were to take a strawberry, grown in season, off of the plant and put it in your mouth, it would bear very little resemblance to the pinkish-red berry that is beckoning from behind that plastic container (ack, more fossil fuel!).
At this moment in history, daily news reports disasters and tragedy around the globe and yet we are practically powerless to change the outcome of the events transpiring. However, the opportunity comes for us to take action at least three times a day when we select something that we will eat. Becoming curious about why our food has to travel so far, and what people did even 75 years ago to feed themselves is the beginning of an amazing transformation in the way you view your food.
For some, that curiosity gets piqued by a book they read, or from an article they glanced at. Or for others it may be weariness of eating from boxes, in cars, or without actually tasting any identifiable ingredient meal after meal.
Searching out food that has a story, an actual person who grows it-who you can meet, and a place that you can drive to within a couple of hours is the antidote for fuel-soaked-food blahs. See if you find any compelling reason to search out a carrot that was grown just down the road from you… it may surprise you just how good it tastes too!
What is local food?
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
This website is a locus for the local food movement. It is a place for small family farms to communicate with the larger community and show what they have available. There is a locator for many facets of small farming, including farmers markets, farm stands and CSAs or Community Supported Agriculture farms.
Locavores
http://www.locavores.com/
This is one of the original groups that brought awareness to the local food movement, and its very own term. LOCAVORE was the 2007 Word of the Year for the Oxford American Dictionary and has been instrumental in connecting people interested in eating food grown close to home with the resources they need in this area. This effort has been duplicated throughout the country, and has been a way to connect farmers who are outside of the public eye in grocery stores and restaurants directly with their consumers. This is one of the main tenets of eating locally, being able to visit the place where the food you eat is growing and see with your own eyes who takes care of the details.
American Farmland Trust
http://www.farmland.org/
The three main features on the front page include Local Farms and Food, Protecting the Environment and the Farm Bill. This organization is the place to find out about anything related to food. Under Local Farms and Food, a complete list of resources, analysis and information give compelling reasons for us to vote with our food dollars.
Eat Local Challenge
http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/
This site is a group blog, and has contributors that highlight news, events and ideas from across the United States. Important collections of information are here, including posts about the best local food cookbooks, and numerous discussions about the practicalities and details of eating food close to home. In the Featured Posts section, there is a post called "10 Reasons to Eat Local." This lively and inspiring site will reveal some of the main draws of local eating.
100 Mile Diet
http://100milediet.org/
The authors of two books host and contribute to this site, and their books are testament to their commitment and well-researched approach to eating locally. This site also has some great resources that include state- and region-specific websites in Canada and the United States. While new content isn't being generated here, the stories of people searching out local food Thanksgivings and a blog chronicling the 100 day 100 Mile Diet Challenge is a lesson in how it can be done.
Food Policy-and the next President
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Michael Pollan, has become a voice of the local food movement, first with his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, and then In Defense of Food, both explorations into where our food comes from, what we eat, and how it affects us. This six thousand word letter to the next president is also clearly lays out the multifaceted food issue, with a clear statement of how our eating habits affect almost all other facets of life.
New York times Local Food Navigator
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/l/local_food/
The sidebar has many of the same resources I offer in this pathfinder, but the collection of archived articles and content related to local food that has been published from the NYT is bound to provide a good taste of the coverage that the local food movement is getting.
Related:
October 12 Food Issue of the Magazine
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/10/12/magazine/index.html
The letter to the next president comes from this issue, but the entire issue is devoted to issues surrounding food, and can be a good primer about what
The Nation: Food Issue
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911
In 2006, The Nation published an important issue on Food, with a collection of articles and discussions by those most influential in reviving the discussion about what Americans eat. Find Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, Anna Lappe, daughter of the author of Diet for a Small Planet, Alice Waters, a famous chef and local food advocate, Michael Pollan, and many others giving context for this important topic.
Biodelice
http://www.biodelice.com/
While the ads at the top of each page are a little annoying, the site is well organized and there is a wealth of information about organic food, farming, gardening, sustainable agriculture and sub menus that cover most of the important issues. This is a great site to comb through to get an overview of basic questions with clear answers.
WHY BOTHER?
While many of the above resources give introductions and compelling reasons for examining the way you feed yourself each day, these sites can provide more information about the specifics.
True Food
http://truefoodnow.org/
A project of the Center for Food Safety, http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/, each of the issues and causes they champion are at the root of many people's search for local food. The main tabs are genetically engineered food, cloning, rGBH (recombinant bovine growth hormone), irradiation, factory farms (also known as CAFOs or concentrated animal feeding operations), and organics. By following this site, and the Ethicurean blog (See below) a different picture of the food landscape emerges. This information will directly affect how you decide what to eat for your next meal.
Ethicurean
http://www.ethicurean.com/
With 20 contributors across the United States, and a couple across the ocean, this blog stands as an amazing collective work that focuses on Sustainable, Organic, Local and/or Ethical foods (SOLE foods). An incredible source for inspiration and clear-headed analysis of the Farm Bill, food legislation, recipes and a discussion of ethics as it relates to food and food production. Subscribe to the feed, you'll be in touch with the local food movement, and glean an understanding of how food issues are discussed.
Food Routes
http://www.foodroutes.org/
Food Routes advocates for local food consumption, and has a helpful and extensive "learn more" Section, especially the Hot Topics tab. This organization also has developed tools to educate people about why choosing to spend food dollars locally can be of benefit.
Slow Food USA
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ , http://www.slowfood.com/
Slow Food USA is part of the international Slow Food movement that began in Italy. Clearly a reaction to the fast food phenomenon and all the parts of life that it affects, Slow Food intends to support the enjoyment of food and re-educate about taste and genetic biodiversity of foods. It also reframes consumers of food as co-producers who are partners in the food production process.
Organic Consumers Association
http://www.organicconsumers.org/
The mission of this organization is no small goal; they are "campaigning for health, justice, sustainability, peace and democracy." These themes do run through the local food movement, because of the emphasis on the interrelatedness of each of these topics. The section on Organic foods provides articles posted, and addresses some of the actions, struggles and changes in the organic food market over time.
Factory Farms
http://factoryfarming.com/
One of the most looming and environmentally detrimental food practices is the proliferation of CAFOs or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. This site has pictures of where our food is grown, and quickly dispels the notion that cows that we consume are lazily wandering fields of green, and have a good life until they are processed. The nightmarish conditions extend to all major issues of our time, including environmental pollution, loss of land fertility on farms, humane treatment of animals and the workers who attend them, and the possible consequences of these closed systems diminishing food safety for the consumer. Local food consumers can avoid these circumstances by visiting the place where their food is grown, including the animals, and regain a place of understanding and acceptance.
Organic Milk
http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/dairy2.cfm
This opens to a story quoted from the New York Times on organic milk that is a good introduction to why organic and local foods are related. The site itself is referenced above.
Organic Dairy Survey
http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html
Take a look and see if you can find the dairy you rely on for your milk products. This survey was done by the Cornucopia Institute, which advocates for family-scale farming, and the entire report about milk integrity and how they evaluated the participants is here: http://www.cornucopia.org/2008/01/dairy-report-and-scorecard/. What you will find is an internal conversation about what "organic" means, and how that is interpreted in the size of the dairy operations. What are the benefits of "organic" if the practices are for large-scale farming?
Where can you find local food?
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
Already cited above, it is worth mentioning again. The finder box on the front page gives you the option to search in your zip code, city or state for a variety of items, including farms, co-ops, CSAs, Farmer's Markets or even restaurants. This resource can point you to where you want to find food grown locally.
National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/localfood_dir.php
Directories for the whole country are gathered here, the listings are searched by state, and then contain groupings of local food resources. Included here is the Colorado food and agricultural directory online: http://www.ag.state.co.us/FoodAgDirectory/
Homegrown Colorado
http://homegrowncolorado.blogspot.com/
Homegrown Colorado Girl, the author of this blog, must also be a librarian. She has a wealth of information, links and a great beginning library hosted through Amazon.com. A Denverite, she is passionately involved in the pursuit of local food, and shares her discoveries through this blog. An easy way to keep up with the local food scene in Denver is to subscribe to this blog on your reader. She highlights events and opportunities related to food grown close by, organically and on a small scale.
Colorado Local Harvest
http://www.localsustainability.net/
The main claim to fame of this organization is the Rocky Mountain Growers Directory, which is a tremendous resource for finding local food outside of the farmers market. It is in print, and there is an online version here.
The HOW and WHO of the dirt work
At a farmer's market, the best way to make sure that you are buying from a local producer is to ask the person standing behind the food. There are stands that truck food in from wherever it grows. This happens at the Cherry Creek Farmers Market, so customers may think that they are supporting a local farmer, when instead the stand is getting their food from the same sources as the grocery store down the street.
Farmers Markets
Farmer's Markets
www.ams.usda.gov/FARMERSMARKETS/
The direct source for finding out about farmers markets, the USDA has information here about the growth trends in this part of the food industry and facts about farmers markets. There are also search tools, and related topics including presentations and the Farmers Market Proclamation. This site has current data and useful statistics, as well as a farmers market locator.
Local Harvest
http://www.localharvest.org/
Local harvest has got to be the most cited source of information about local food, (this is its third appearance in this pathfinder!) but for good reason. It contains links and finders for farmers markets, CSAs and of course the farms themselves. Go to their map, and you'll find a nice listing of markets in your area.
Boulder Farmer's Market
http://www.boulderfarmers.org/
If you are close enough on a Wednesday afternoon or a Saturday morning, stop by this farmer's market. It is a truly wonderful market that is always crowded and you can shake hands with the people who grow your food. Many of these producers also run CSAs (or community supported agriculture). At this market, many of the products must have been grown or harvested from Boulder County, with the exception of the prepared food vendors and the western slope vendors. No boxes shipped from California at this market.
How to Save Money at a Farmers' Market
http://www.wikihow.com/Save-Money-at-a-Farmers'-Market
Addressing the disparity in price between organic and non-organic food, this article gives tips about how to get the best of both worlds. There is a caveat at the end of this article, but the spirit of thriftiness and the hints about navigating the farmer's market make it worth a read.
Community Supported Agriculture or CSAs
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml
Published from the Alternative Farming Systems Information Center at the USDA, there is a tremendous amount of information here, and it is well organized. Many publications from the USDA are linked here as well as some articles on the history of CSAs. The sections called Eating Seasonally and Regionally, and Community Food Systems are noteworthy for their links, as well as the Sustainable/Organic Agriculture connection.
Your Own Yard (but someone else takes care of it for you)
Spin Farming
http://www.spinfarming.com/
SPIN farming stands for Small Plot Intensive Gardening, and the key is that members offer their own yards to be cultivated and harvested, and then receive a portion of the proceeds in weekly boxes similar to a CSA. That means that the biggest barrier to growing food, the land, is provided by the members, in addition to the water and watering systems. This is as local as you can get, without dirt under your fingernails.
Community Roots
http://www.communityrootsboulder.com/
Practicing the SPIN farming model, Kipp Nash is growing food in his own neighborhood in Boulder, Colorado. There are three new farms starting, see this article about him in Edible Front Range, http://www.ediblefrontrange.com/pages/issues/summer08/localHero.pdf
Community Gardens (Your little portion of a plot of land, somewhere in your community)
Community Gardens
http://communitygarden.org/
For all things community garden related, this site is created to bring people together and nourish their lives by creating community gardens. There is also a search function to find the community garden closest to your home. There are tools here for starting your own community garden, as well as the resource of connecting with others who can share experience and ideas. The LEARN tab has a series of ten tips, as well as many other helpful resources.
Denver Urban Gardens
http://www.dug.org/
DUG or Denver Urban Gardens is the local initiative that is being supported by LiveWell Colorado, a statewide initiative to create community and promote health primarily in lower income areas. Over 20 years old now, they are organized and ambitious and can provide knowledge and education to new gardeners through their free education programs.
In Your Own Yard (your effort, your reward)
Urban Food Gardening
http://growyourownfood.blogspot.com/
Blogging about urban gardening, with the specific intent to inspire and encourage others to do the same, you'll find some great ideas from this author. Current, informative, with great pictures of specific veggies, you won't necessarily be able to duplicate her garden, she's in Ireland.
Square Foot Gardening
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/sqfoot/
One type of urban farming is called Square Foot Gardening, it relies on various different preparations of the soil and the area you plant. Here you can find people discussing the questions and issues that come up in day to day gardening with this method. One of the keys to learning how to make your garden the most productive and problem free is to find out what has worked for others, and this is a good place to get that information. It can also be a great place to trouble-shoot issues in your garden.
Growing Taste
http://growingtaste.com/
Growing taste is a peculiarity among gardening sites. While it may seem obvious that taste is why anyone is growing vegetables, there are other pressing concerns including the ability for the plants to survive in your particular plot of dirt. A good deal of research has gone into comparing individual types of plants that produce the tastiest offerings, but this site is also a rich source of seed catalog information and many customer reviews. It doesn't appear that this site is the most current, yet the amount of helpful information offered outweighs the negative currency.
Seed Savers
http://www.seedsavers.org/
This site is for when you get really into preserving and continuing the legacy of the innumerable heritage breeds that are ignored by the food industry. If genetic diversity preservation becomes part of your value system, which it just may after delving into this pathfinder, Seed Savers is a way to enter the world of seed trading, and helping maintain genetic diversity in your food.
Colorado State University Extension
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/menu_garden.html
This is not a glamorous site, yet there is valuable information to be found here, specific to gardening in Colorado. The Fact Sheets can be particularly useful, depending on the types of questions or problems you are having with your garden.
The Garden Notes are the most helpful, here is a link to the Vegetable Planting Guide for Colorado: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/mg/files/gardennotes/720-Planting.html
Colorado State University Extension (Too)
http://www.extension.org/horticulture
More sleek-looking, this site contains tag clouds and an "Answers from our Experts section". It seems that some of the responses are short, but the hyperlinked text will bring you to some amazing resources, including the garden notes link above. This was difficult to locate by searching, yet is cited in the information on planting vegetables on this site.
How to Start Composting
http://www.grist.org/advice/how/2008/08/19/
This humorous and graphic article on how to begin composting would have gotten me rolling with composting long ago, had I read it. Lucky for you, you can start here, because it will seem very silly for you to cull vegetables from your land, or the land of someone you know, and then throw that in the landfill instead of letting it turn back into soil amendments that are free and the best thing for your garden. This article will tell you how to get it going.
More Information (Databases and the Law)
Agricola - National Agricultural Library
http://agricola.nal.usda.gov/
This enormous catalog is organized into two separate types of data. The article citation database can be searched on any of the above topics mentioned, from genetically modified foods, cloning, hormones in milk, and antibiotics in meat to organic practices and alternative farming systems. There are links to some full text articles, or records that contain the source of a particular study. This is in addition to the Online Public Access Catalog, which catalogs all books and other materials that can be searched as well.
PubMed
www.pubmed.gov
PubMed is a massive, comprehensive, free public database of medicine. While many of the articles may only have their abstracts, there are full text links available for some articles. Use search terms such as Organic Food, genetically modified foods, fresh vegetables, pesticides, fungicides or insecticides and there will be studies that explore these topics.
Food and the Law
http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/crs/
The National Agricultural Law Center has the Congressional Research Service reports organized by topic and then identified by title, in this section of their website. They are written to provide information for law makers, and can be helpful in understanding complex issues, and their parts.
Google Custom Search Tool
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=000982846150528943910%3Al09zlyinayu
Many of the above resources were included in this search tool, though not all. Each of the databases must be entered individually, and a few of the organizations were not included. Taking a few search terms and entering them here will give you an idea of which resources may be the best place for you to look further.
ENJOY
Sunday, November 9, 2008
MP's letter to the pres-elect
Hey, during my research, I found this absolutely incredible letter to the president elect. it's from the week of October 12, and addresses my deepest hopes for this country. I opened a new post about two weeks ago to post it, and had to cancel it because I didn't have time to actually write anything. Then, I saw it posted on one of the blogs I follow. How cool is that?
Here it is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Written by Michael Pollan, it's a weighty 6000 words or so, and worth every minute it takes to read it.
I guess I can start getting the NYT again, now that Bush is going away. The news just got too sad for me, and I quit, but maybe I'll be able to read about what's happening. I tried last Sunday and this to get the paper, and it turned into the NYT Quest, which was repeated this weekend... so I'm getting it delivered.
My friend Stephanie told me that her dad had to set his alarm to get up and get his paper in the morning, because if he didn't-- his NEIGHBORS stole it!!!! and the time is getting earlier. now it's 20 to seven if I remember correctly. In any case, neighbors of mine-please don't steal my Sunday NYT... once I start getting it!!!
Only two more classes, and then I get the big break of the year, til the first of the year. I have enough projects planned for the next month to fill a good season, so we'll see what actually transpires.
I can't believe how much better I'm sleeping since Tuesday. Despite my children! :D
Here it is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
Written by Michael Pollan, it's a weighty 6000 words or so, and worth every minute it takes to read it.
I guess I can start getting the NYT again, now that Bush is going away. The news just got too sad for me, and I quit, but maybe I'll be able to read about what's happening. I tried last Sunday and this to get the paper, and it turned into the NYT Quest, which was repeated this weekend... so I'm getting it delivered.
My friend Stephanie told me that her dad had to set his alarm to get up and get his paper in the morning, because if he didn't-- his NEIGHBORS stole it!!!! and the time is getting earlier. now it's 20 to seven if I remember correctly. In any case, neighbors of mine-please don't steal my Sunday NYT... once I start getting it!!!
Only two more classes, and then I get the big break of the year, til the first of the year. I have enough projects planned for the next month to fill a good season, so we'll see what actually transpires.
I can't believe how much better I'm sleeping since Tuesday. Despite my children! :D
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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