Openly Balanced » Food

Why I Feed My Pets Raw

Jess — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:27:34 +0000

I’ve been thinking lately about how I got into this whole adventure, and what started me down the path of conscious living. Interestingly enough, one of the big starting points for me was my pets. (Incidentally, they were also part of what motivated me to learn to process rabbits.) While I was still living off a diet largely composed of takeout and fast food, my dogs and cats were eating real, whole, and sometimes even locally, sustainably sourced foods.

But first I should say that if a discussion of meat offends you or grosses you out, you may want to leave now. There won’t be any graphic descriptions or pictures (which is kind of too bad, because I have a bunch of great ones!), but raw feeding pet carnivores is fundamentally about meat. To be honest, it grossed me out at first too – when I started feeding my pets raw, I was more or less a vegetarian. Interestingly enough, many raw feeders are vegan, vegetarian, or flexitarian – it stems from the same set of values.

I’ve been feeding my animals raw for almost three years now. Unlike many people, I didn’t start feeding raw because my animals developed health problems (although it did fix Shoxy’s minor allergies and help her gain weight, neither of which I’d been able to address with any of the bagillion kibbles I tried). I really started feeding raw because it made sense to me. I deeply and profoundly believe that what we eat matters. It matters to us and it matters to them, and the unnatural way in which we feed our pets seems to result in pets as unhealthy as we are. You know how they say pets often resemble their owners? Well our pets are afflicted with dental issues, diabetes, heart disease and obesity just like we are. As with humans, many of these issues can be traced back to diet, and the fact that we feed our domestic companions the same junk we eat.

What Is Raw Feeding?

So what does feeding raw actually mean? It is not the same sort of thing as a raw diet for people. My dogs and cat don’t chow down on spinach smoothies and yeast balls. “Species appropriate diet” is a buzz phrase in the raw feeding community. For carnivorous predators like dogs, cats, and ferrets, a species appropriate diet means raw meat, in an appropriate ratio of muscle meat, bone and organ. Some people include veggies, oils, and other supplements, but for the most part the core concept is the same. Ask yourself what your pet would eat in the wild and simulate that diet as closely as possible.

A typical week in my house includes a varied combination of chicken, beef, lamb, pork, llama, emu, turkey, fish, or any other meat I can get my hands on. They get several kinds of organs, muscle meat, bone and cartilage. The crunching, ripping and tearing keeps their teeth shiny and clean. The lack of carbohydrates (sugar) in their diets means their mouths don’t get gross. The healthy fats and Omega 3s keep their coats shiny and soft. They don’t have dog breath and they’re soft. So, so soft.

But Pets Aren’t Wild Animals

No, they’re not. But in the same way that traditional food and primal diet advocates understand that people didn’t evolve to eat pop tarts, our carnivorous companions didn’t evolve to eat kibble. The selective breeding of domestic canines didn’t change the fundamental evolution of their digestive systems in such a way that processed food would be better for them than whole foods. This is even more true for cats, ferrets, and other pet carnivores who haven’t been exclusively bred for utilitarian purposes. You could meet all your daily nutritional requirements with a fortified blend of multi-ingredient pellet food coated with vitamin supplements, but would that really be the healthiest choice?

Conscious Eating

Finally, raw feeding allows me to control what my pets eat in a way that lets me carry over my own personal food values to their diet. There is a lot wrong with the industrial food system, and it doesn’t just end with people food. Together, my pets eat more food every day than I do. As far as my values are concerned, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to pull myself out of the cycle but leave them in it. Feeding raw lets me source their food as sustainably and humanely I want to, and it makes me directly aware of the impact my four-legged family members are having – at least the part that comes from food.

(Oh, and the parrotlet eats raw too. But his isn’t meat .)

How about your pets (if you have them)? What’s on their dinner plate today?

Three Kinds of Honey

Jess — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:15:02 +0000

Once upon a time in the mid-90’s, a cool movie character who I kind of wanted to be made three sounds at once (Neve Campbell in Three To Tango, for anyone who’s curious). The protagonist says to his love interest with such awe and wonder, “But then I met you, and you made three sounds at once. And I just really wanted to get to know you.”

(Check it out – three sounds at once at 2:20. Isn’t the internet great?)

Anyhow, for whatever reason, this line totally got me. It’s stuck in my head for all eternity. I said it in my head when I fell for my husband. I may have said it out loud and he may have given me a weird look. And I said it in my head at the farmer’s market last week, when this amazing honey guy gave me three kinds of honey to taste.

We Are Missing So Much

Like many people, I grew up thinking honey came in bears. If the bear was old, the honey would crystalize in the little bear ears. We never ate honey quickly enough to avoid the crystals. And honey all tasted the same. Like honey. You know, honey bear honey.

Honey Does Not All Taste The Same

I am here now to tell you, Honey does not all taste the same. At all. Not even kind of. Fireweed, blackberry, wildflower – each completely distinct, unique, and utterly brilliant. In a different dimension, where I am a more particular kind of cook, I would have bought all three. In this dimension, where I am neither culinarily meticulous, nor do I eat that much honey, I had to pick just one. I chose wildflower, although I still think the fireweed had the best name. And if I were making honey-sesame candy, I would have gone with blackberry. (So maybe I am a bit particular!)

As if three types of honey weren’t captivating enough, the wonderful honey man proceeded to explain that if the sun would humor us for a week or so, he would have maple blossom honey later on this season. However, if it rained, we’d be out of luck until next year.

How interconnected, how tenuous, rare, and precious is the world we live in? And how different are three types of honey, a fourth maybe on the way, from a sea of honey bears lined up in a row. What else are we missing, living the way we do?

Photo: CC http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/

Checking Out Your CSA

Jess — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:50:14 +0000

I’m pleased to welcome guest poster Kimberly Schaub, who has some helpful tips for navigating your local CSA and Farmers Market. Kimberly is the creator of Peas on Moss, a blog about all things food.

As a member of Eating Well Magazine’s website, I get to participate in polls that various marketers run, including a recent question, “Are you planning on joining a CSA?” I decided to take a look at the answers, and a few were very interesting. One anonymous participant described her frustration with the sheer volume of food they received. Another complained that the foods provided were things his family didn’t want to eat. Others praised the CSAs they had joined and the variety of food. Some lamented that the waiting list for a CSA is too long. This had me thinking about CSA programs, their impact on our communities, and how we could slowly move towards community-supported entrepreneurs and agriculture within our tastes and financial means.

Recently, I wrote a blog post about the environmental impact of CSAs. Our food travels thousands of miles and passes through many hands to get from the farmer to your grocery cart. It traveled even farther if you drove to the supermarket. That means use of gasoline and petrol. With gas prices and environmental damage on the mind of some, this can be very concerning. Despite the impact on the environment, people still need to eat. And our eating habits are increasingly international, which increases the demand for imported foods. So, what should we do?

What Is A CSA?

Enter Community Supported Agriculture, a movement to support farm businesses as they attempt to sustain us with different food staples. CSAs vary by region and by which farm you join. LocalHarvest.com offers information about local CSAs and farm stands in your area, based on zip codes. Farmers Markets also benefit farms by giving them the opportunity to sell directly to the consumer, bypassing third parties and supermarkets. This allows them to get more of the profit from the sale than if they were to sell to a third party.

Concerns, Tips & Tricks

Now, back to the responses that people have about CSAs. If you are not comfortable in the kitchen yet, joining a CSA from the start may not suit you. You might get discouraged that there was too much food or that the foods given were unusable due to unfamiliarity or dislike. That is a very legitimate concern. Another option might be to go to a Farmers Market nearby and develop a relationship with some of the farm stands there. The same staff members often work the farm stands, and you will eventually get to know them. Ask the farmer or representative how he or she would use the product. What type of cooking method or meal would he or she use with this food? You may find some great ideas and be inspired to try something new.

You can also try hunting for the produce that you would have purchased at the supermarket. This way, at least those items that you would have purchased anyway will be purchased from a farmer who lives and labors near your home. Tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots, potatoes, and herbs are just a few common household foods that are sold at most Farmers Markets. Even the most meagerly stocked stands will carry these items at different times of the season.

You can also check out a few resources to help get your creative juices flowing. The USDA Sustainable Agriculture and Research and Education (SARE) has numerous offices throughout the US, and extension office staff are always willing to give you information about seasonality and preparing food. They often run some of the local Farmers Markets, too.

If you are concerned about the volume of the food supplied by your local CSA, consider splitting a share with a friend or neighbor. That way, you can both experience the pleasure of supporting a CSA together. Cleaning, cooking, and freezing some of the products also works well. Just be careful, because some foods do not freeze well, especially certain fruits. Other foods, such as squash, should be roasted and peeled before freezing. Freeze in smaller portions for use in recipes. For example, freeze squashes in 2-cup portions. These are easy to incorporate into soups.

If nothing else, begin shopping from a Farmers Market and ask the staff how large the CSA boxes are. Some markets also serve as CSA drop off locations, so you may get a chance to preview the items that would come in a CSA. Start dabbling! Who knows how far you might go with it?

Pioneer Woman & Coming Full Circle

Jess — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:56:09 +0000

Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman was in Seattle this weekend for a book signing, so I batched together my northbound errands and broke my trying-to-drive-less resolution to haul my butt up to Lake Forest Park, abducting a friend along the way. (Fun errands related to this blog: dropping off my CSA check – more on that later, and picking up the wood for my potato condo. More on that later too. Unrelated errands: eating Ethiopian food, yum.)

As we were driving home, signed books in hand, I realized that this all kind of started with Pioneer Woman. You know, this… bloggety blogging thing. She has a blog. I have a blog. She has cows. I like cows. She grows veggies. I… well, I’m trying. Clearly we have so much in common! Ok, so not really. But it kind of all started with her. She was there. Or at least her cake was.

First, Rewind Two Years

Then fast forward six months from there, because two years ago today I think I was moping my way through my quarter-life crisis. It was uninteresting to me even when I was going through it. You know you’re bad when you are bored and irritated with yourself. So fast forward to six months later. When I made this.

That is Pioneer Woman’s Yogurt-Marmalade Cake (which, inexplicably, is not in the cook book!). It was through this cake that I discovered Pioneer Woman. I discovered the recipe through A Wren’s Nest, a family who overturned their lives to build a homestead farm in Southern Colorado. And I learned about them through a college friend who ran a small green marketing and consulting company. As I was coming out of my pathetic haze, I started moonlighting as a web designer and writer for my friend’s company. In the end, we parted ways and I started Openly Balanced. To celebrate, I ate some more cake. (Did I mention this cake is really good? And I don’t like cake.)

So in a strange way, going up to meet Pioneer Woman, 3,000 miles from where this cake first appeared in my life, felt like coming full circle. Except I guess that next time I pull out the recipe, I’ll probably try to use lacto-fermented marmalade. And rapadura. And soaked flour. And I’ll probably make my own yogurt from local raw milk. Full circle… but a little different now.

Book Review – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Jess — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:45:03 +0000

I almost didn’t write a review of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle because 1) it’s so last year, and 2) you should just blow off reading this review and go get the book. But it also feels odd to not review what, for me, has become a foundation of my understanding of local food, even if a ton of other people have already said what I’m about to say. So I’ll be brief and at least try to say something a little bit new about this wonderful book .

What’s It About?

This book is a lovely mosaic of anecdote, humor, education and commentary about one family’s year-long attempt to eat local food, much of which they grew themselves. Beginning in March, it follows the Kingsolver family through the seasons, narrating their journey as well as their reasons for embarking on this adventure in the first place. The book also features contributions by Kingsolver’s husband and older daughter, which allow the reader to follow the family’s adventure through different eyes.

As you might imagine, the bits about industrial agriculture are both fascinating and horrifying. But through Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Kingsolver offers us a glimpse of a different future; one in which we are consciously and sustainably connected to our communities and the planet through the food that we eat. Her vision is one that I can (and did, and DO) buy into and believe in.

Read This Book

Seriously, if you are at all interested in sustainable agriculture, local food systems, or just plain good food, you should read this book. Or if you don’t know anything about turkey sex, but feel like your life would be infinitely better if you did. If you like adventures in the unconventional and the unknown, if you find yourself vegging out in front of the Food Network, if you need a nudge to pursue a bizarre and difficult dream, if you’re a fan of Kingsolver’s other work, or if you just love good writing, read this book.

Finally – maybe this is going a bit far, maybe it’s not – if you consumer of food in the US, you should read this book. There are things we should know about the food we eat. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an accessible and, most importantly, fundamentally enjoyable exploration of some of the food issues we face as a country.

But Don’t Get Discouraged

I know it’s easy to get discouraged when you read about a project of this magnitude. It’s a big undertaking, and not all of us are starting with the same advantages. The Kingsolver family owned a piece of property that was perfectly suited for this experiment. They also had jobs that were flexible enough that they could continue to support themselves throughout the project. And they had kids who were old enough to be engaged in the project as active (and helpful) participants.

But remember that an experiment such as this doesn’t come about all at once. Innumerable steps, small changes, research and groundwork laid the path for the first sentence, when the journey begins. And time… it takes time. (But time is usually less interesting than the actual journey, so guess what ends up in the book?)

At its heart, this is a story about priorities, and pursuing what the things that are important to you. It probably would have been easier for them to stay in Arizona. It definitely would have been easier for all of them to stay within their comfort zones. But they didn’t. And we don’t have to either. The first step is just as important as the one that follows, and each of us can start stepping outside of our own comfort zones, bit by bit, one day at a time.

Marmalade? O rly? No Whey!

Jess — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:24:16 +0000

Whey, whey, whey coming out of my ears. The second thought I had after making cheese was, “Wow… this is a lot of whey. Wonder what I do with it.” (The first was something along the lines of, “Omg… OMG! I MADE CHEESE!”)

Electronics + food = how I roll.

I stuck the whey in my fridge, then I moved the whey (and the fridge), and back into the fridge it went. And there it sat. I did a little bit of cursory googling, but most of what I came up with were suggestions to soak oatmeal or flour with it. A tablespoon at a time. I was never going to get rid of all this whey. In fact, the only suggestion that I could find for using a ton of it was to use it in soup. Now, I am decidedly anti-filler. I don’t believe in hiding food in other food just for nutritional value. Whey in soup kind of seemed like filler to me, and I really wanted to find a recipe in which the whey got to live a life of purposeful whey-ness. (Yes, I know I’m weird with my existential food thing.)

I have to confess that I was mildly grossed out by the Sustainable Eats lacto-fermented blog carnival. I’m still working on getting over my aversion to letting food sit on the counter for days on end. But I was sold on the idea when I discovered that lacto-fermenting is all about whey. No WHEY! I gotta find a way to use all this whey…

Could my toaster oven be more grimy?

I decided to try out Annette’s recipe for lacto-fermented marmalade. Not only do I love marmalade, but having a ton of marmalade on hand gives me an excuse to eat another food I love: English breakfast sausages. Yum. Serious yum. It also gives me a reason to try to make Irish soda bread, which I believe calls for clabbered milk. (Clabbered milk also ends up in my fridge pondering for the meaning of life.)

Watch me melt my laptop on accident...

Marmalade it is. Fun new thing: learned about scalding jars. I scalded the jar. And my counter. And the stove. And almost myself. Apart from the scalding issue, which was definitely a user-error, this marmalade was a snap! I can’t wait to try it in a few days. But here’s what I really want to know. Rapadura – the sweetener in the recipe – is brown. That is why my marmalade is kinda brown. So why isn’t Annette’s marmalade brown??

In other food news, last night my kombucha completed its second ferment. I know this because when I opened a bottle to do a taste test, it exploded all over my counter. Sufficiently carbonated, VERY tasty. Kombucha rules!

Kombucha What?

Jess — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:37:22 +0000

Last night was a fun development in my real food journey!

While I was participating in the Real Food Challenge last month, Annette of Sustainable Eats (hello, lacto-fermentation blog carnival, how strange and cool is that!) hooked me up with the Seattle area chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation so that I could try to find someone near me who had kefir grains and a kombucha SCOBY to share. Sure enough, two days later my new little buddies were on their way home with me, all snug like little bacteria colonies in jars. Exactly like little bacteria colonies in jars. In my cupholders.

Once home, I transferred them to the fridge where they waited patiently for me to get my move on. One of the first things to move into my new house was my kombucha SCOBY, newly housed in a one gallon jar, munching on its sweet tea nutrient mix.

Huh? Kombucha?

Some of you may have had kombucha before. They sell it in health food stores, co-ops, nice “real foodie” places like that. I’m most familiar with GT’s Kombucha, but there may be others as well.

For those of you who haven’t ever heard of kombucha, let me first say that kombucha is a drink. A very weird, carbonated, fermented tea drink. I can’t decide if it’s delicious or completely gross. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. I’m really not sure. But I recommend you try it once or twice, in several different flavors. Just understand that mileage may vary. At the least, kombucha is an awesome food adventure.

In spite of not being able to figure out how I really feel about kombucha, I can’t seem to get enough of it. A few years ago I went on a kombucha kick and ended up stopping because store-bought kombucha is just plain expensive. But brewing your own at home is pretty close to free! So last night I was thrilled to pull my first batch out of the cupboard and transfer it to bottles for its second fermentation and flavoring. I took a shot at blueberry, apple, orange, and black cherry.

The great thing about kombucha SCOBYs is that they multiply each time. So now my one SCOBY has become two SCOBYs, which are back in the cupboard working away at a whole new (bigger!) batch of kombucha. And I can’t wait for my second fermentation to finish so I see how it turned out!

Do any of you have any experience brewing your own kombucha or drinking someone else’s? Any tips, hints, or flavor suggestions?

Real Food Challenge Recap – Week 4

Jess — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:05:45 +0000

Yesterday was the last day of the 28 Day Real Food Challenge, and I’m sad to see it draw to a close. I want to send a huge thanks to Jenny at Nourished Kitchen for putting on this challenge. I have learned so much, and have many thoughts about the broader implications of this kind of eating.

But those will have to wait for me to figure out exactly how this fits into my pre-challenge food life. Right now, I don’t think it does. And I honestly don’t know if I could go back to the way I used to look at food, even if I wanted to. Onwards and upwards…

Day 22 – Meet Your Meat (Grain-fed beef)

Task was to source grain-fed beef. I locate several farms and then source myself a pizza and hot wings. Oops! Pizza is expensive and disappointing. Hot wings are omnomnom. Good thing life isn’t an exercise in perfection.

Day 23 – Pasture & Meadow (Pastured poultry and pork)

Less successful with this one. Free-range eggs are easy, but pastured? Going to have to do some scouring of the internet. Places to check out: Local Harvest, Eat Wild, yahoo groups, and – oddly enough – the raw feeding co-op where I get much of the dogs’ food. I’m really looking forward to the return of the farmers market next month.

Day 24 – Mineral-rich Stocks and Broths

Yes, I’m still living on fish tacos. No, I am not sick of them yet. Yes, I know that is not “balanced.” No, I do not care. Sharing my milk kefir with the dogs, because I could never drink it all myself. Having this much dairy around is strange. Before I moved to WA and started buying raw milk, I was lactose intolerant. You want a walking endorsement of raw milk? There you go.

Day 25 – Not-so-awful Offal

Husband informs me that while he likes cottage cheese, he has no desire to think about where it comes from. Our chat about the clabbered milk on my counter devolves into something along the lines of “I’ll clabber u.” “No, I’ll clabber ur face!” Still not clear on why anyone thought we were qualified to be grown-ups. Very clear on his lack of desire to eat offal.

Day 26 – Fish & Seafood

Fish and seafood are easier – I’ve been paying attention to that for a while. Turned out mediocre spelt sourdough (why do I suck at bread?), but nutritionally prepared pinto beans for as far as the eyes can see. Discovered that taco sauce from my refugee shelf contains corn syrup – refugee status revoked. Pleasantly surprised to find that I like pork chops and sauerkraut. Freezer pork chops, not pastured. Still working on that.

Day 27 – Growing Your Foodshed

Didn’t realize that I needed to keep clabbered milk from separating during the process. Skimmed the soured cream from the top and mixed it into sprouted lentil soup from earlier this week. Used the whey? (the stuff under the cream) to make soaked spelt and oat flour for muffins tomorrow. If they turn out, I am officially getting the hang of this real food thing.

Day 28 – Beyond 28 Days

Muffins turned out particularly well considering how many random changes I made to the recipe. Sadly, spelt also makes my tongue itch. Going to take a break from the whole grain flours for a week or so, because while my body loves the nutrients, it also likes oxygen. Anaphylactic shock is a quick way to ruin your day. I’ll jump back on the horse after some further research. How can it be March already?

Oh, and by the way, the mung beans never did end up smelling like old man.

Related Posts:

Real Food Challenge Recap – Week 3

Jess — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:26:03 +0000

This week was definitely easier. Things that were totally new concepts are now becoming habits and I am starting to think about food differently. However, I found myself really craving fast food. I didn’t give in, but it was odd because I don’t normally find fast food terribly appealing. At one point I wandered into the prepared food section of the grocery store and drooled over some fried chicken. Odd.

Day 15 – What’s a SCOBY?

Still living on leftovers from last week and Ethiopian food from lunch with a friend. Have no SCOBY, but have store-bought kefir culture to try once I get some more milk. Also, sourdough bread + butter + honey = delicious snack. Definitely need to get some water kefir grains.

Pizza! ... whole wheat crust...

Day 16 – Get Cultured (Veggies, that is.)

Hit a wall today – apparently I’m mildly allergic to whole wheat. I’m not entirely surprised, because my mom is quite allergic to it, and I have mini versions of most of her allergies. Sadly, this renders my bread, noodles, and… the two whole pizzas I just made more or less inedible. Fortunately, it’s just a whole wheat allergy, not a gluten allergy. Excited about fermenting veggies, but discouraged that all my pre-cooking went to waste. What am I going to eat now?

Day 17 – Making Yogurt at Home

You know what corn tortillas aren’t made of? Cornmeal. I ate them anyways. Still allergic to wheat. Fridge still filled with wheat food. Broke down and went rooting through my bags of processed food. (I am sure that by “discard your processed food,” she meant for us to put it in bags on the kitchen table.) Surprise, surprise – nothing in the bag looked good! I guess that’s something resembling progress. Had a big salad instead, but token cheated by adding some flavored Asian crispies from my refugee food shelf. Because they’re just so good.

Day 18 – Make Cheese at Home

Made sauerkraut today! Sent pictures to my family, who now think I’m certifiably insane. No clue what I’m going to do with it once it’s done. Maybe I should find some grass-fed bratwurst and learn to make my own buns. Accidentally dumped a glass of water on my dinner (salmon, baked potato, brussel sprouts), but everything still tasted good damp and slightly cooler. I appear to be through sulking about wasted wheat. Bought spelt and oat flour today to start baking again.

Purple sauerkraut makes purple hands.

Day 19 – Nuts & Seeds

Fish tacos. Fish tacos, fish tacos, fish tacos. Successful tortillas (funny how recipes actually work when you buy the right ingredients) made from organic blue corn flour. Considering living on nothing but fish tacos for the rest of time. Also started milk kefir and now have five things growing/fermenting on my counter – wheat berries, mung bean sprouts, lentils, sauerkraut, and kefir. Fortunately I’m not one of those obsessive clean counter types.

Day 20 – Preparing Beans & Legumes

Out to lunch with a friend today (where I almost ordered fish tacos). Ate a ton of food and mooched off various leftovers for dinner. Eventful day (getting seeds for the garden!), but uneventful for food. Kefir moved to the fridge to hang out with the sourdough. Is milk kefir supposed to taste vaguely carbonated? That’s weird.

Living on these. Forever.

Day 21 – Vegetables & Salads

RIP tiny food processor. You were not made to grind sprouted wheat. I knew your limitations, yet still I pressed on (or grind, ha ha). How will I make cilantro salsa without you? The bread wasn’t even edible. Also, seriously… put butter and fat on your veggies? Could I love today’s tip any more?

Onwards and upwards to Week 4!

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Real Food Challenge Recap – Week 2

Jess — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:45:05 +0000

Week 2 of the Real Food Challenge was way easier than Week 1. Much less bitterness. Many more pancakes. Correlation? Yes. Causal relationship? Also maybe yes.

Day 8 – Fats for High Heat

If we are what we eat, I am becoming a sourdough pancake. Cold, hot, plain, sweet, savory – good no matter how you eat them! High heat fats task today, but no coconut or palm oil at the standard grocery store – surprise, surprise. Why is the co-op so out of my way? Will have to continue using butter and being careful not to let it get too hot. Set out dough for tomorrow: noodle day.

Day 9 – Fight Against GMOs

First, please go check out Nourished Kitchen’s Action Alert: Genetically Engineered Alfalfa. The USDA public commenting period on GE alfalfa ends tomorrow.

Not pretty, but very noodley.

Made sourdough noodles. Took forever and couldn’t possibly be worth it. Was. Ate with homemade alfredo. Never realized noodles were actually a food, not just a vehicle for sauce or an inexpensive filler. Sauce was weird, but who needs it with these noodles. Recommendation: Watch The End of Suburbia while making noodles to decrease whining about how hard it is to make noodles.

Day 10 – Fats to Eat Raw

Attempt #2 at wet sprouted rye bread-food. Different method, equally inedible result. Looked like a loathsome little heap of oatmeal, tasted like… not food. Discouraged. Nothing resembling bread in my house for a week now. No end in sight. I can feel the sprouted rye staring at me from the fridge. Pathetic.

Day 11 – Sourdough (!)

Bread! Could there really be bread? Yes. Maybe. Not for at least twelve hours. Mix dough, knead, cover, wait. *tap foot impatiently* Also, discovered that the spiced butter used to cook many Ethiopian dishes is a type of ghee. Score! That has been on my To Do list for years, literally. Bumping it up and adding plain ghee alongside it.

Sourdough bread (mine!)

Day 12 – Finding Real Milk

Found some real milk in my fridge – so there, Day #12! Domestic goddess today: two loaves of whole wheat sourdough, sprouted lentil yum, red cabbage yum, sourdough started naan and puffed rutabaga gratin. That’s a lot of food, people.

Day 13 – Get Your (good) Bacteria

Leftovers make me happy. Not cooking anything makes me happy. Real food with no prep makes me happy. Also, still no old man smell. A little disappointed, a little relieved.

This made my house smell like curry. But I like curry.

Day 14 – Valentine’s Day, yo

Finally made it to the co-op – raw milk, eggs, onion (local, woo), spices for niter kebbeh, corn meal and coconut oil (I know, days behind). Trying wheat berries instead of rye, because all the best cooks know to blame the ingredients if something doesn’t come out right. Treated myself to a tasty kombucha drink because Day 14 told me to!

Bring on Week 3!

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Real Food Challenge Recap – Week 1

Jess — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:43:31 +0000

The first week of the Nourished Kitchen 28 Day Real Food Challenge is complete and I survived! (Mostly due to rampant cheating.) Good times.

Day 1- Throw Out Processed Food

Looked in the cupboards, threw a tantrum, decided I was going to be a massive cheater and not throw anything away. Decided to grow up and at least box it up and put it away. Didn’t actually end up touching any food, but thought about it and pretended I was doing it.

Day 2 – Go Buy Real Food

Continued to eat processed food while I wait for repair person to show up. Vowed to take a trip to the co-op as soon as he/she leaves. Justified my actions with some vague reassurance about not wasting food.

Day 3 – Improve Your Grains

Actually went and bought real food today. Discovered that even more of the grocery store is now irrelevant to me. Real food – very little. Organic real food – even less. Organic, local, in season food – none. Bagged all my processed food, save for a small shelf of food refugees (my popcorn…). Soaked oatmeal!

Day 4 – Start Your Sourdough Culture

Trip to the co-op for more real food – local eggs, raw milk, flour, kefir culture, parsnip, rutabaga. Mocked on Twitter for asking what to do with the parsnip and rutabaga (#StuffWhitePeopleAsk). Helpful answer from Kelly @ Centsible Life and Virgina @ Living the Local Life (we love them). Ate soaked oatmeal – delicious! Oh… and restarted sourdough culture. Hoping for better luck this time.

Day 5 – Improve Your Grains

Guess what? No organic grains at Safeway. Surprise, surprise. Another trip to the co-op for rye, lentils and mung beans (!). Sourdough is bubbling and fluffing! Put grains to soak – trying rye first. Unbelievably busy day. Broke down and got take-out pho. Styrofoam galore. [Insert self loathing here.]

Day 6 – Milling Your Own Sprouted Grain Flour

Managed to avoid another trip to the co-op by virtue of the fact that my grains weren’t sprouting yet. Sourdough increasingly sour. Surprised it’s doing anything with as cold as my house is. Busy day out of the house, but the morning’s soaked oatmeal came through. Soaked oatmeal is awesome! Hubs sent me a link for rain barrels and asked me what I was going to do once things sprouted. *crickets*

Day 7 – Relax and Evaluate

Woke up to sprouted rye! Found a few recipes and decided to try rye flatbread after garden planning and seed saving class. Completely inedible and permanently adhered to my pan. Put more grains to soak. Hoping for better luck (or a better recipe) this time.

Related Posts

You’re Sprouting What?

Jess — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:12:36 +0000

A little bit of weekend fun.

Yes, mung beans.

One Small Change & 28 Day Real Food Challenge

Jess — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:45:18 +0000

February 1st marks the end of January’s One Small Change and the beginning of what is shaping up to be an interesting and adventurous month.

Dishwasher Free Zone

In January, I abandoned my dishwasher and started washing all of my dishes by hand. First, I should mention that dishwashers are not evil. In many cases, using a dishwasher actually uses less water and heats the water more efficiently than you would washing by hand. Be sure to do your research first – by giving up your dishwasher you might be doing more harm than good!

In my case, giving up the dishwasher made sense. My dishwasher is crummy. It’s an inefficient model and we basically have to pre-wash our dishes if we want them to come out clean. Another factor in the dishwasher vs. hand washing equation is how you hand wash dishes. I’ve been paying attention to my water use and came up with a system that I am fairly sure is a big step up from using the dishwasher.

Twice a day I heat water on the stove or in the microwave (for tea and such). Now I heat a little bit of extra water for washing dishes. And by a little extra water, I mean a little: literally 2 cups of water. I add soap directly to my container of hot water, and use that for soaking silverware and scrubbing. I use cold water for rinsing, and if I am washing a large pan, I collect the gray water in the pan and use it on my houseplants.

Side tip: I keep a pitcher handy for any time I have to wait for the tap water to get hot. That’s not gray water, and I use it for drinking, cooking, and other things throughout the day.

Dishes? Cleaner than the dishwasher. Water use? Has to be way less. All in all, giving up the dishwasher wasn’t a big deal and I’m going to stick with it.

One particularly interesting observation — an instantaneous and unexpected change in my own behavior: I use fewer dishes. I use the same cup all day and go and find it when I leave it somewhere rather than dirty a new one. I find myself cooking more carefully and estimating container sizes better. Feedback loops in action, people.

February and the 28-Day Real Food Challenge

My One Small Change for February is a bit bigger than giving up my dishwasher. I am joining almost 600 other people in Nourished Kitchen’s 28-Day Real Food Challenge. True to the name, this really will be a challenge. But I think it will be a great way for me to learn the basic principles of a real food diet (and will provide me with a support group as I try to resuscitate my sourdough culture!). I predict that it will automatically impact my ‘ecological footprint’ in several ways:

Less food-related packaging
Less eating out
Less processed food = fewer resources consumed processing food

As I complete my daily tasks, I’ll be paying attention not only to what I’m eating, but where my food is coming from – how and where it is grown or raised. Wherever I can, I will eat locally. Wherever I cannot, I will begin laying the groundwork for local alternatives in the future. I’m really looking forward to a month of culinary education, investigation and experimentation!

Related Posts

Shouldn’t But Do: Act II Popcorn

Jess — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:27:21 +0000

The title of this post is a shout out to a blog that I loved – Shouldn’t But Do (and its companion, Should But Don’t). Sadly, both blogs appear to have been abandoned by their creators. If you’re out there, Andrea and Jeff, come back. We miss you and all the things you shouldn’t but do.

I’m trying to be better about my eating. Unlike many people’s January eating goals, it’s not a weight-conscious thing – I am one of those irritating people who can eat pretty much anything and not gain weight. But this year I’m striving to eat real food more sustainably.

That means that Act II Butter Lovers popcorn is a big “shouldn’t but do.”

But you know what? I’m not giving it up. I don’t care that inhaling popcorn fumes gives you lung cancer. And I don’t care that the “butter” in the name bears no resemblance to actual butter. I don’t care that I have to drive out of my way because they only carry it at a certain grocery store, that the ingredient list could be the first chapter of a novel, or that one bag contains more calories (and calories from fat – wow!) than my entire dinner. Don’t bother suggesting an air popped, yeasted, buttered, salted alternative. I’ve tried them and I’m not interested.

So why am I saying this?

Because I think we need to remember how attached we are to some things. Yes, it would probably be better all around if I were to eat a different kind of popcorn. But sometimes things end up meaning more to us than they actually are.

When I was little, my mom and I used to watch movies, drink lemonade and eat popcorn together. This popcorn. Never any other popcorn. I remember riding in the cart at Price Club (now Costco) and watching her put the case Act II in the cart, always making sure it was the Butter Lovers kind.

And now, when I pop a bag of popcorn, I end up with this face staring up at me. My cat loves popcorn, and she always comes to share it with me (read: steal it out of my hands). College, cross-country road trips, first apartments, new cities, new jobs – my cat + popcorn = home.

Making changes in your life can be hard, be it a thousand little changes or a couple of really big ones. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting caught up in the momentum of change. In fact, it’s awesome when you do! But if you feel yourself dragging your heels or digging in on something, I think it’s alright to take a step back and reevaluate. Sometimes it’s okay to pick something easier to change. Someday I’ll probably give up my popcorn for a better alternative. But today – and every day – I’m just doing my best. And then I’m going to have a bag of popcorn. And I’ll be okay with that.

I wrote this just as the news about Monsanto’s GMO corn causing organ failure in rats hit the internet. I haven’t been able to figure out if my popcorn is Monsanto corn, but I’ve decided it doesn’t really matter. I’m going to hold off on buying any more Act II until they figure the Monsanto thing out, which may mean that I’ll never buy it again. (I’ll eat what I have, because I abhor wasting food more than I fear possible popcorn-induced organ failure.)

I decided to post this in spite of my change in opinion. I think it’s a good example of how a little new information can change your perspective on something you were pretty darn sure about just minutes before. Go figure.

Anatomy of a Dinner – Locavore or Vegetarian?

Jess — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:15:32 +0000

Last night I found myself looking at my dinner and feeling pretty good about my choices. Healthy, homemade, frugal and tasty. Not to mention that it’s actual food. When you live by yourself it can be awfully easy to fall into a diet of beverages and snacks. I’m trying to be good about cooking for one, even though it seems kind of silly.

Here it is – dinner: (I promise there’s a reason for the detailed breakdown that follows.)

Plate Contents

Organic salad:

Mixed greens
Carrots
Celery
Snap peas
Annie’s Goddess dressing (this stuff is so good!)

Homemade chili from the freezer:

Ground beef (don’t remember the source on this – it was purchased a long time ago. possibly ammonia beef – I’m trying not to think about that.)
Canned tomatoes (probably organic)
Green peppers (always organic because they’re on the worst veggies list)
Onion (local and organic from the co-op)
Beans (mixed bag, maybe organic?, cooked with half water and half homemade chicken stock)
Spices

The portions fulfill my primary meal criteria of the last several years: less meat. As you may or may not have heard, one of the most powerful changes an individual can make in their own lives to fight climate change is to eat less meat. Conveniently, eating less meat is also good for your health and your wallet. So the fact that my salad is huge and my bowl of chili is tiny gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. Especially considering that I bought and prepared the chili for someone else, so this is really someone else’s leftover chili. It’s not quite “free meat,” but it’s pretty close. (Like how my head just rationalizes that away?)

Happy about the meat, I examined the veggies and stopped short. Well shoot. None of these things are in season here (I don’t think?). None of these things are local. They’re all organic, but industrial organic is its own animal these days. Suddenly my dinner looked crummy to my consciously directed eye, because local and in season are also goals of mine. I’m not leaping into being a locavore, but I’m moving towards it gradually and in an overly researched fashion. Hopefully by the time the hubby gets home I’ll have the local thing figured out in a way that will make sense for both of us.

The thing is, I’ve read a lot about vegetarian and vegan diets. And I’ve read a lot about locavore diets. But I haven’t come across… well, anything at all about the two combined.

So here are my three new food questions as of last night:

Is it feasible to eat both a locally sourced and a vegetarian or vegan diet, particularly in climates where there is a definite winter?
If you are eating locally, is it even necessary from an emissions standpoint to eat a vegetarian diet? Is it the nature of meat or is it CAFOs that make eating meat so bad for the planet?
How does it balance out? Non-local vegetarian or veganism versus locavore meat-eater? (I am asking in terms of emissions only. Clearly other issues such as community resilience and ethical treatment of animals factor into the overall equation.)

Anyone out there know the answers?

The Day My Sourdough Died

Jess — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:45:41 +0000

My sourdough culture is dead. Again.

I don’t know why I can’t seem to get this thing to live. I am alive. My pets are alive. Even my incredibly finicky bonsai tree is alive (and blooming!). But this little colony of yeast and lactobacillus just isn’t happy with me.

Not my sourdough culture.

I try to do the right thing. I feed it organic flour and water without too much chlorine in it. I weigh everything carefully to ensure the proportions are correct. But my sourdough just bubbles halfheartedly at me from its jar. I’ve tried several times to make it into bread, only to have it sit, dismal and sour like my teenage cousin that time her parents dragged her to Great Aunt Ida’s birthday party.

As I dumped my deceased culture into my compost bin, I asked myself why it mattered anyways. Why is so important to me to get this flour and water to rise into a fluffy loaf of goodness, when I could just go buy bread at the store like everyone else?

I think it’s because I should be able to make bread. I mean, it’s just flour, water and salt! How can I suck so badly at making something as fundamental as a loaf of bread?

It is one thing to not be able to make a car or a computer. I don’t mind lacking the ingrained knowledge to repair the space shuttle. But I don’t feel like I should need corporate assistance to make what is, for me, a staple food. Something that feels wrong about that, like kids who don’t realize the part of the carrot that we eat is a root that grows under the ground. Shouldn’t we know these things?

Not my bread either.

Kids today are growing up with a new set of “fundamental survival skills.” They manage a diverse range of online identities. They seem to effortlessly walk the line between their online and physical lives (or perhaps for them that line has faded away entirely). And that is a good thing, because they will need to be masters of that world.

But what if they lost access to Easy Mac, ramen and delivery pizza? Would they be able to turn the contents of their pantry or their garden into a decent meal? Would they know how to tell a carrot from a weed? Would you?

This kind of knowledge is a certain type of resilience that many of us have lost over the past several generations. I don’t think it’s something we can afford to lose for much longer.

So I’ve been working on it for myself. I’m getting much better at making actual meals from the food in my pantry. My freezer is filled with chicken stock instead of Hot Pockets. But I still can’t tell food sproutlings from baby weeds. And my sourdough is dead.

I am determined to keep learning and trying. Because you can’t eat Farmville vegetables, no matter how hard you try. But you can eat a nice loaf of sourdough bread.

Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dklein/ / http://www.flickr.com/photos/karloskarmattsson/ / CC BY 2.0

Industrial Agriculture Ate My Facebook

Jess — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:55:13 +0000

Like so many other people, I have been wasting too much time on a Facebook game called Farmville. While I have not yet reached the point of awakening in the middle of the night to harvest my virtual crops (sleep is sacred in this house), there are some mornings where the well-being of my fake plants takes precedence over breakfast and tea.

So I was bothered when my Farmville friends and neighbors were mysteriously earning levels and money faster than I was. Disguised as a helpful neighbor, I began to spy on my friends’ farms. While chasing away foxes and crows, pulling weeds, and fertilizing crops, I snapped pictures with my telephoto lens in order to discover the secret of their success.

Mono-cropping, anyone?

Farm animals penned together in tidy rows. The sweet smell of the virtual manure lagoons…

And what farm would be complete without the hum of a trusty tractor and harvester, which can be purchased for a mere 30,000 gold coins each. These minimize the arduous labor of clicking on each plot to plant, harvest, plow, and plant again. Of course, you will have to pay dearly for the fuel, as it must be bought with Farmville dollars, best acquired by donating real money to Zynga, the company that created Farmville. (An apt parallel to the real world, in which we are all paying more dearly than we realize for our fuel habits.)

Common techniques throughout, it seems:

And finally, new from the creators of Farmville…

A dairy building, so your cows never again have to see the light of day.

On Maximizing Profit

So what does Farmville have to teach us about industrial agriculture? A few things come to mind, but the main thing is this:

It is natural for individuals to maximize profit. In the world of Farmville, where pollution, overcrowding, soil degradation, and other ecological consequences do not exist, my neighbors found the most efficient way to maximize their profit, either in terms of Farmville gold coins or experience gained from planting crops. In the real world, where the costs are externalized (air and water pollution), or can be compensated for in some other way (fertilizers and pesticides), we see similar results.

Perhaps if we can find a way to internalize these costs, and take a step back from the global tragedy of the commons in which we find ourselves, the real world might look a little less like Farmville. Or Farmville might look a little less like the real world.

In Response: The Ten Reasons They Hate You So

Jess — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:13:55 +0000

Last week (or maybe the week before by now – I am slow!), The Ten Reasons They Hate You So made the rounds in a couple of sustainable agriculture social networking circles. I was astonished to learn that, as a liberal arts educated advocate of sustainable agriculture, I hate farmers. In order to educate my adversary so that they can best combat people like me, Mike Smith lists the first five reasons that I (along with people like me) hate farmers and agricultural scientists.

I don’t often find an article so utterly compelling or appalling that I feel the need to respond to it. Perhaps it was just having my supposed hatred of farmers spelled out so clearly for me that prompted this response. I highly recommend reading, or at least skimming, Mike Smith’s post before reading this one. It may get you as irritated as I am. At the least, the list below will make more sense.

1. They hate you because you trust in science.

I don’t hate you because you trust in science. Actually, I’m a big fan of science. But I don’t think you get to choose which science you listen to. You can’t hope to feed the world while ignoring the scientifically documented consequences of unsustainable agricultural practices; consequences that are intimately connected to feeding the world.

I don’t have “faith that farming can grow the food pie for everybody without draining the Earth of its resources.” Rather, I am certain that we must find a way to do so, because when the Earth’s resources are gone, the result will be famine on a scale we can hardly imagine.

I am also certain that the solution will be scientific in nature. But it can’t be science that is focused only on increasing production while ignoring the scientifically documented ramifications of unsustainable agricultural practices.

2. They hate you because you’re messing with their kids.

I don’t hate you because you’re messing with my kids. And actually, no offense to your kids, but I care a lot more about the food I put in my body than whether you’re feeding your kids organic or not. But why is it wrong for me to care what I feed my own kids? And to spend my money accordingly?

3. They hate you in order to fight the power.

It’s not about fighting the power of an “imposed American cuisine of meat, potatoes, cooked vegetable and the ultimate WASP Jello-mold salad.” It’s about obesity and diabetes.

It’s not a “post-structuralist” questioning of science. It is science itself saying, “The way we eat isn’t healthy.”

And I am baffled by how me buying, with money, a share in a local CSA is advocating “local farming a la communist Cuba.” Isn’t the whole point of capitalism purchasing (and thus creating demand for) products you find valuable? Silly me – I thought small, local businesses were the heart of our economy.

4. They hate you because you’re white.

Well, this is a hard one. Because I’m white. So I’m not really hating you because I’m white.

But as a white person, I do think the USDA might want to examine their recommendation on drinking milk, both because I’m lactose-intolerant and because scientific (there’s that thing I’m supposed to hate again) evidence indicates that in spite of consuming vast quantities of milk, our bones aren’t actually stronger (Sources: 1, 2, eat fish, the list could go on and on).

And my taste for “brown” foods has nothing to do with a counter-cultural fight against dominant white culture. It has a lot to do with nutritional science. And with the fact that I think brown rice tastes better than white rice. So there, White Power! Your rice doesn’t taste as good!

5. They hate you because you’re male.

I am a woman, so clearly I’m a big man-hater. Except as a wife (of a man), I am grateful that my family has the economic flexibility for me to be “consigned to the kitchen and the garden” when I have children. I actually really like my kitchen and my garden! I look forward to being home and raising my kids.

I’m still not really clear on why being pro-sustainably farmed, healthy food means I’m anti-male. Gender equality has a long way to go in this country. But that is certainly not specific to agriculture. My criticism of unsustainable agriculture has nothing to do with the anatomy of the farm owner and operator. Maybe I should go ask some of the male advocates of sustainable agriculture what I’m missing here. Surely they know why I should be hating their farming counterparts.

Reasons six through ten.

I honestly can’t decide whether I’m looking forward to or dreading the release of reasons six through ten: Norman Rockwell through Ronald Reagan. But I do hope that any farmers who read Smith’s post are smart enough to recognize utter nonsense (and blatant sexism) when they see it.

The Sustainable Agriculture Fad

Jess — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:21:40 +0000

“Yearning in the human soul to smell a flower, pet a pig, and enjoy food with a face has never been stronger,” preaches Joel Salatin, the man responsible for Polyface Farms, one of the best known working cases for commercially viable sustainable agriculture. I hope – no, pray – that he is correct. Because sometimes I worry that I am wrong, and that the growing trend towards eating organic, beyond organic, local and hyperlocal does not exist. What if it’s just a fad?

I read a lot about sustainable agriculture – books, articles, blogs, and even down to the mini-conversations that try to happen within 140 characters on Twitter. And it seems to me that people really care a lot about what they eat and where it comes from. But maybe it only looks like that to me because I’m paying attention to it. I am increasingly connected to the various sustainable food movements. It is like that psychological principle that we seek things out that reinforce our preexisting beliefs – confirmation bias. I become more aware and I believe in it. Then I filter my inputs so that it seems like everyone is on board.

But confirmation bias aside, it does seem like the right moment for the sustainable agriculture to succeed, or to fail. In spite of some depressing food-related legislative changes, we have a White House with a vegetable garden on the lawn, and a first lady who publicly advocates real food as a matter of course. No matter how depressing they may be, at least legislative developments from the Farm Bill to food safety indicate that food is a big issue.

Food is also increasingly connected to the public dialogue on health and health care. Obesity has become an epidemic in the United States. Diabetes, especially Type II and childhood onset diabetes are receiving increased media attention. Michael Pollan connected the dots between food and health in his recent New York Times op-ed.

But while being a big issue is necessary for a substantial level of change to occur, it is not always sufficient. In fact, too much talk translated into too little action will result in fatigue. The issue once in the front of peoples minds is pushed to the back by rhetoric and too much babble. We are already seeing it happen in terms of green washing. What will it take to prevent it from happening with sustainable agriculture as well?

If the battle for real food is going to be won, we must see sufficient change before the chatter is too loud for too long. And in order for that to happen, the sustainable agriculture movement needs to find some level of consensus on wat success looks like, and how it will be measured.

What does sustainable agriculture mean to you?

Photography: http://www.flickr.com/photos/galant/ / CC BY 2.0

Do You Know What You’re Eating? (I Didn’t)

Jess — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:34:19 +0000

I spent a couple hours on Saturday morning watching The Future of Food, a documentary about genetically engineered foods.* I generally consider myself fairly educated about environmental and health issues. I try to be an engaged citizen and consumer. And I like to rant about things to my skeptical family, which means I have to be pretty careful about my facts. But this movie got me. I didn’t know all of this. I barely knew any of it. Which makes me think that most people probably don’t know about it at all.

Just a partial list of some new-to-me facts:

97% of vegetables that were grown at the beginning of the century are now extinct. That’s just scary. What would be saying if it were 97% of animal species lost in a century?
The right to patent living things was deliberately left out of the Constitution. Maybe they had a good reason?
Monsanto vs. Schmeiser. This is just unbelievable.
Transgenic corn has been genetically engineered to have BT, a bacterial toxin, in each cell. This kills not just harmful insects, but beneficials as well.
BT corn is not FDA tested, but is GRAS – “generally recognized as safe.”
25 countries require labeling of GMOs. We are not one of them. We could be, if the bill ever makes it out of committee. (It will need to be reintroduced this Congress.)
In ten years, all of the food in the world could be controlled by six companies, one of which will be American. Any guess as to which company? Walmart.

This film reminded me again that politics is in everything. “The personal is political.” And the political is personal. We wouldn’t allow companies to patent our bodies, would we? Why are we allowing them to patent other living things? When they patent our food, it is personal.

Patents do not protect traditional knowledge. Rather, they limit the process of passing on traditional knowledge. Traditional knowledge is key to building resilient communities over generations. How much has been lost in the last two generations? There is a whole community forming today around relearning and revitalizing skills that we could have learned from our grandparents – growing and preserving food, and even basic cooking. The more we allow companies to limit access to things no one person should own, the more we risk losing these fundamental skills.

Now let me clarify that I am a capitalist. I really do believe in capitalism. But I do not trust a corporation to self-regulate food safety and nutrition. Corporations are designed to maximize profit, not nutrition. The FDA exists for a good reason.

In order for corporations to continue doing what they do best (providing what consumers want), consumers need to be able to choose what to buy. And in order to exercise choice, we must have access to information. If genetically engineered foods aren’t labeled, we cannot choose.

We also need to start paying attention to who is running our government. In The Future of Food, they narrated a long list of Monsanto-government crossovers throughout the last decade. Just one – Michael Taylor, who was responsible for GMOs bypassing FDA testing in the early 90’s, previously represented Monsanto as Senior Counsel at King & Spalding. In the best of worlds, there would be no such thing as a conflict of interest. But Washington is not and has never been the best of worlds.

Do you take your children personally? Do you take their food personally? If so, now is the time to start taking politics personally.

* The Future of Food website does not appear to include the Hulu link. If there is not a screening near you, or if you are lazy like me, you can watch the film online.

Are You A Hyperlocavore?

Jess — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:06:49 +0000

I was pleased to interview Liz McLellan, the brains behind a groundbreaking new site — Hyperlocavore.com. I couldn’t have found a better project (or a more obliging victim). Not only does the hyperlocavore movement have the potential to revolutionize our relationship with our communities, our neighbors, and our food, it has the ultimate advantage of being completely free! No huge initial infrastructure investment here. We’re not talking smart grid. We’re talking smart living.

Liz was willing to answer all of my questions. It’s about food safety, fuel, communities and, mostly, changing the world one home-grown tomato at a time. Read on to find out what hyperlocavorism is all about.

This interview was originally published at TNTeam.

TN: First off, what exactly is the Hyperlocavore community? What is yard sharing and how does it work?

Hyperlocavore.com is a social network built to support people in starting and nurturing yard sharing groups.

Yard sharing is a way to gather resources together to get growing your own food cheaply and with less time and effort. It’s also a way to deepen community resilience.

Let’s say you live in an apartment, you have a green thumb and really miss digging in the dirt. And your neighbor (friend or family member) Mrs. Jefferson has a nice big yard but has arthritis and a bum knee. Another friend, Joe, also would like to lower his bills but still eat lots of organic fruit and vegetables. The three of you form a yard share group. You agree to grow for one season together as a test run.

Now what happens? All three of you eat better food that has traveled zero miles to get to your plate. It is in season, delicious and has a low-carbon impact. Mrs. Jefferson has two younger people in her life, a shared meal now and then and fresh flowers every day, she not only is eating better, but is more connected to the community. You and Joe are saving money, getting fit, eating better and diminishing your climate impact. And I haven’t even gotten to how much your kids love the garden, how much they are learning about life and healthy eating, and how much they liked making that apple pie with Mrs. Jefferson.

Now imagine 10 such arrangements in a neighborhood, add a few block parties and you start to see real change in people’s lives and their ability to weather this layered and complex storm made up of climate change, peak oil, and the broader economic meltdown. That is what a more resilient community looks like.

That’s just one way to look at yard sharing though. Some people are starting to do what I am calling serial yard CSA farming. Kipp Nash in Colorado has talked a number of neighbors into letting him grow food on all their yards. They each get a share of very fresh organic food, fruit, herbs and vegetables every week, and he sells what is over and above that at the Farmer’s Market. I just read about a florist that is doing exactly the same thing. Both businesses are low-carbon impact, high social and local value and serve to knit together each community more tightly.

Or another model. Imagine your faith or community group setting up an eight yard farm and growing fresh produce for the homeless, domestic violence shelter or school in your area. How much more fun and healthy than a canned food drive is that? We can set you up for that in about five minutes. It is a program you can get going for very little cost, that can have a huge impact on the health of your community, both for the people gardening and for the people who get to eat better!

Food is so central to civilization, culture and our security both emotionally and fiscally. The impact you can have is completely positive for all involved.

TN: I love your list – 100 Reasons to Become a Hyperlocavore. How long did it take you to put that together, and was it all you?

That was all me, but I was essentially highlighting the good work of other people. I think it was a few days but, I’ve been gathering those links for years. That post gets me a lot of really encouraging emails.

I wanted a way to point to all the things that were inspiring me to move in the direction of building the site. The motivation comes out of a deep desire to help people see all that they have around them, to make the most of all this trouble we see on the boob tube. I wanted to have something I could point to that would put a fire under people’s butts to encourage them and let them know that the other side of all this trouble is a new way to be in the world that can be very pleasurable. I strongly believe that we can thrive in this so-called ‘down turn,’ and that maybe on the other side we will find something we forgot we needed so much – real community. I want also to link people to the real food trend, the transition town approach to community resilience and a lot of other really positive developments happening in the world. There are so many people doing great work out there, who share a vision of community resilience in the face of all this trouble. I needed to be able to point to these people and make the positive vision concrete, doable. It was also a chance to inject some funny into all this bad news. The negative news is relentless and debilitating if you consume it constantly.

I think I also needed a means to convey a vision that was not so word heavy. Most of us are now post literate — we don’t get our information from wordy documents. Many of us are visual learners. I hope that people follow the links to videos that tell the whole story in a more accessible way. And people love lists. Follow all the links and you have a “big picture”… and a positive practical path to go down with other people!

Growing a garden is something we can all do if we work together. Community gardens are reporting huge wait lists. Starting alone can be overwhelming. Space can be tough to come by. Yard sharing just seems like an obvious win for all to me.

TN: What happens if someone doesn’t live up to their end of the agreement? Is there a built-in way conflicts are handled by the community?

As with any group of humans there will be conflict. Weather may destroy your peach tree crop. How people handle it is up to them though. Adults expect that weather and accidents happen, mistakes are made, crops sometimes fail or are eaten by gophers.

We all have different politics, priorities, and approaches to risk, benefits and rewards. For some of us community resilience will be the primary motivation, for others cheaper food, for others climate change and vegetarian diets are the main motivations. Maybe you don’t care about food miles, but you want your kids to eat in a much healthier manner – put that out there. Let others know where you are coming from, what your priorities are, what your deal breakers are. Everyone needs to know what is important to everyone else. You have to respect that other person’s values and, obviously, their property. If you can’t respect everyone in the group at every turn, you should not be in the group.

I do suggest that people meet online (or off) and hash out their needs and expectations before they commit to any long-term agreement. Have a potluck, get together a few times. See how people mesh. Have an easy out after the first meeting for everyone.

Nurture the group! How about a harvest celebration or a seed shopping party in the dead of winter. Eat together often. Start your own rituals and build a real community.

A seasonal assessment is also a good idea. What worked, what did not. Who needs to pick up more slack, who is carrying too much. People need to be open about their needs just like in any human group that works well. If you are having a problem with people, it is your concern to move it towards a solution that works, or to end the relationship. I also suggest that working together is a way to bond and form trusting relationships, be overly cautious and you are likely to miss out on a lot of good stuff!

Two things I would suggest taking to heart before you start. One is for the property owner, the people you are working with are not ‘hired help.’ Try not to boss anyone around. And for the people who don’t own the space, be respectful of the property owners needs and their space. If they set up rules you cannot abide by, such as no perfume or smoking in the yard, then you must decide either to live up to that expectation or leave the group. You owe each other that respect.

We can supply you with a means to find each other, a private space online to manage your group, a space to share seeds and knowledge. My hope would be that we all see this as new territory and aim to help people get these projects going everywhere. Our collective impact has the potential to be massively positive. I hope to find that people who identify as hyperlocavores share a sense of responsibility towards that possibility.

TN: Are you personally involved in a yardshare or is your garden a one-woman operation?

I’ve done shared gardens in the past. I am currently staying in between two living arrangements, as my dad is quite ill. So this season I’ve planted a small plot at my aunt’s where I am staying in Portland. This is a very temporary arrangement though. Unfortunately, my big plans for this season have had to be shelved. But I have sent out about 8 full gardens worth of seeds to people who have been helpful or encouraging over the last five months since I started. So hopefully my vicarious gardens will show up on the site when people post pictures!

TN: Do you have a favorite something growing in your garden?

It has to be the tomatoes. There are so many varieties, and the taste of a real tomato with a little sea salt is one of the best things life has to offer. But the taste of anything you’ve grown yourself is a mind bender. Not only does it taste amazing, but you are feeding yourself in so many ways. You come to know yourself as capable of meeting your own needs in a way that is hard to convey. To feed your kids something you grew has got to feel good.

Gardening is the perfect antidote to all the media we are soaking in. It’s physical so you are moving, but it’s also amazing in the way it unbounds your consciousness. I could get very woo-woo here. At work we are very linearly focused. It’s just one way our minds work. We can also be totally open and not focused on one aspect – but all aspects of our environment. I’m about to get into Buddhist philosophy so I will stop there except to say that the states of mind one can enjoy in a garden are incredibly rich and rewarding. Gardening is the perfect balancing activity for all the geeks and internet addicts out there.

TN: I am hoping to start a vegetable garden myself over the next several weeks. For those of us who know nothing about gardening, where is a good place to start so that our first season isn’t a total bust?

There are a few things to definitely do. These are cost effective, easy and rewarding. One is lots of greens – mesclun, arugula, other lettuces. Follow the instructions, don’t plant all of it at once. You want a steady supply of young greens. Get some nice containers and do herbs or plant an herb spiral. And of course tomatoes! Sugar snap peas and cucumbers are fun. If you like bell peppers they are good to grow at home, as conventionally grown, they are one of the most heavily laden with pesticides. If you have a permanent space, start thinking in terms of edible perennials. How about a fig or lemon tree? Don’t plant anything you don’t love to eat. Zucchini is really productive, but I am not a fan of it, so I don’t plant it. There are some things that are cheap to buy organically. Stick with buying those.

Expect some trouble. Some things will work, others won’t. You may get some bugs. If so, find their bug enemy and encourage them to make a home in your yard by planting things that are said to ‘attract beneficials.’ Beneficial insects are the ones that eat the not so beneficial insects, or that help pollinate your yard.

And always check your first and last frost dates for your area before planting anything. Read up on your zone – very important. There are lots of things that just can’t tolerate a really dry summer. Look into harvesting rain water if you are in a dry area. Come by hyperlocavore and check out the How To videos on the front page. Look for the video on the lasagna or no till method. It’s great for busy people, people with marginal land, people with physical limitations, or essentially lazy people like myself.

Don’t do what every first gardener does and over-buy seeds, try too many things. Come by the site and participate in our seed sharing forum. Most seed packs have too many seeds for beginners anyway. People are sharing.

Definitely consider finding a friend or neighbor to share the work and the reward! Know it’s a learning process. Don’t be discouraged. Blog about it on hypercavore! Ask questions. We have tons of experienced gardeners with immense troves of hard won knowledge.

TN: Are you seeing any geographical regions where Hyperlocavore is really taking off? If so, any theories on why?

Well, Portland is probably ground zero for the idea. A guy named Joshua Patterson started a non-profit group here called Portland Yard Sharing. If you are in Portland I would look him up. I would lay the success in Portland on the fact that it’s one of the real food capitals of the world. People take their eating seriously here. Most of my extended family on my Dad’s side is here, and man can they cook. Portland has also long been a leader in sustainability, probably because it one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Asheville, North Carolina is another place where a lot of hyperlocavores come from. I have to credit people on the ground there who are running with the idea. I can get you going, but from where I sit, it’s tough to get the word out on the ground. Anyone reading this should know I can get you up and running in minutes. You simply need to bring the idea to your community group, house of worship or just to your extended family.

We have members from all over the country at this point, but really need to get the word out. Most people when they hear the idea say something like “Brilliant!” The idea is not a hard sell. I just have no budget for advertising, so I need to rely on grassroots people to help me get the word out. I’ve only been at it a few months though.

TN: In your recent interview with About Harvest, it was mentioned that the growing community at Hyperlocavore is part of a general paradigm shift. Based on member feedback, do you think this is a permanent shift or just a trend?

I think it’s a profound shift. I say that because people from all over the political spectrum love this idea. It’s a boundary busting idea.

For people that are community- and family oriented, the benefits are obvious: integration of generations and a healthy activity for kids that is also a very teachable experience. For those focused on responsibility with a capital R, what is more responsible than a group of people owning their own food security? For those of us, like me, who are foodies with champagne tastes on a beer budget, it makes perfect sense. For those of us concerned about climate change, we understand the impact on climate of the industrial food system and we want out of it to the extent possible. For those of us concerned about peak oil and base survival, growing our food is a means to exercise control over one aspect of what we see as the coming era of very expensive energy. And for the rest of us it comes down to stretching our biweekly paycheck and ensuring our children’s health. It attracts everyone and I think it also allows people to do something that feels so much better than sitting alone fretting in front of the TV.

All over the country, these perspectives are being shared over radish patches right now. We all see that what we have been doing is not working, that it was a mistake to ditch ALL of the practices of the past for shiny new things paid for at 18% or 32% interest. Some things from our collective memory were worth preserving: recipes, secrets for getting rid of caterpillars, seasonal rituals. A lot of us are simply hoping to build a way of being that isn’t so isolating, so dependent on corporations or fast food joints – a slower life with scrumptious food, family and friends at the center.

TN: And finally, since you and I are both self-professed geeks. Do you think that Web 2.0 is going to change the face of saving the planet?

Oh, I think it already has. I think Web 2.0 has brought all of us humanities majors into the project of saving the world. I am an early adopter and a geek, but by no means an uber-geek, technically speaking. Web 2.0 puts the emphasis not on technology, but back on people where it belongs. It’s simple to use, visually stimulating, and far reaching. It can amplify the reach of a single bright voice so that voice can have an immediate impact. But it’s the voice and the ears it reaches that is the focus, not the technology. We now have the tools to unleash human creativity and capacity to gather, create, experiment, test, visualize and to lower the cost of entry or cost to try new things out. Web 2.0 simply lets us gather and express things effectively – find our tribes quickly and bring good things into being in the world.

That said, the power supply could go off tomorrow and we would still gather together to work to feed ourselves. It’s what we’ve been doing for centuries. It’s an anomaly that in the last few generations we’ve ditched that skill set.

My emphasis on hyperlocavore is actually the relationships and communities that people form offline. I am hoping to revive neighborhoods all over from my couch dressed in my pajamas – when I’m not in the garden! I want the site to be a means to support relationship building in our neighborhoods, share triumphs, help people avoid pitfalls – but the emphasis is to get people out into their communities, talking, growing and eating together.

Yes, I am all about the hyperlocal – but we have the capacity to teach each other at a distance, learn from what other people are doing far away, to be inspired and to be supported. Yard sharing is a kind of wacky idea. It’s good to have a solid group of people online that believe in what you are doing, are doing it themselves in their neighborhoods, even if they are spread all over the world. Maybe the need for the site will eventually disappear because yard sharing will just be common sense. Until that happy day comes, we’re here to help.

For more information about being a hyperlocavore, follow @hyperlocavore on Twitter, and check out Liz’s recent interviews with Twitter Road Trip and About Harvest. Or, even better, sign up yourself at Hyperlocavore.com!