Good Food is Everybody's Business
Then one day, in June of 2007, Kevin was checking Craig’s List for bargains and came across this ad: “Fairhaven Organic Flour Mill for sale…” Kevin didn’t know a thing about flour or milling, but he was willing to learn and to work hard.
The weekend started out mild and sunny and finished with a “blustery day.” Regardless of the weather – late fall sunshine or cool, brisk November overcast – the more than 650 people who attended the 2012 Tilth Producers of Washington Annual Conference enjoyed warm friendship, made new acquaintances, and dined on some of the best locally produced organic food available.
All turkeys – wild turkeys and the broad-breasted white or the dozen or so “heritage” breeds grown domestically today – are the same species (Meleagris gallopavo). Consumers who want pasture-raised heritage breed turkeys are looking for birds that are well cared for, grow slowly, and have flavorful meat. We can support our small, local farmers who are doing their best to raise a good bird and sell it at a reasonable price.
The “Occupy” marches and protests have spread across North America and around the world to thousands of cities. Yet there is little understanding that speculation by Wall Street has contributed to the skyrocketing of food costs. Where is the connection?
Running a farm and raising fifty or more sheep, a handful of beef cattle, and two horses is not a job for the faint of heart. And Melissa Lines is NOT Little Bo Peep. It was a farm visit when she was 4 years old that convinced Melissa that she wanted to work with animals, but it took decades – and a corporate career – to bring her to the point where she could actually make it happen.
We attended one of Whole Foods Market™ Speaker Series events; this one titled “Consumer’s Conflict: The Cost of Fresh Picked Produce in the 21st Century.” The guest speaker was Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland – How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. In the end, there was too much Whole Foods and too little discussion of the real cost of fresh produce and what to do about it. And we paid $40 to hear it…
This is a transitional time and we need transitional food. The Slow Food movement, the locavore movement, and other “food movements” can be “all or nothing” approaches. That way of thinking is standing in the way of getting people to eat better. I would love to see everybody eat fresh, local, and organic food, but until we get there, I would just like to see more people eat more lentils and fewer people eat industrial meat. The lentils don’t have to be organic, just not part of the industrial food system.
In this piece we connect Gary Paul Nabhan’s Terroir-ists Manifesto and the Lexicon of Sustainability – both focused on knowing your connection to the earth and to your food.
