Home

8700 Miles to My Dinner Table??

This ranch is just 5.5 miles from my doorstep!

Today I received an email inviting me to subscribe to a program (for $180/year!) where I could get a discount (and $80 shipping credit on each order) for beef “sourced from ethical farms within the world’s best regions for raising beef.”

Which are? According to Herd and Grace, those regions are Southern Australia and Tasmania, more than 8700 miles away. What???

What happened to local and regional food? What happened to the 100-Mile Diet? What happened to buying our food from a neighbor? Read on and buy local...

Climate Change and California Lettuce – It’s Here!

Climate change has hit your salad bowl.

Weather weirdness In the last few weeks has drastically reduced the volume and quality of lettuce available on grocery shelves.

And since about 90% of the lettuce consumed in the US comes from California and Arizona, the prices are skyrocketing.

First came soil viruses, then water allocations were drastically cut. Next came heat early in the season and caused lettuce to bolt and develop a seed stem. Then as a final blow, came the cold.

So what can you do?

What to do? Get your greens from a local farm or grow your own.

The Fox is in the Hen House Now!

Unending manipulation by industrial farming and food processing to control markets and a government driven by special interests seeking to distort the history and meaning of organic is now promoting new and “improved” organic rules that could permanently codify dangerous and unhealthy living conditions for laying hens and broilers.

We need to make sure they don’t succeed. Our health and wellbeing is dependent on good land stewardship, respectful animal husbandry, and continued delivery of good local and regional food.

To stay on top of threats and machinations to weaken organic regulations for the benefit of large industrial organic food producers and processors.

Read more...

The fox is in the hen house now!

At Last, a Confession: We Eat Meat

It is high time we confessed: we eat meat. The message we are trying to convey with this particular good food experience (a vegetarian meal prepared for guests in Seattle about ten years ago) is that there is wonderful good taste and variety available in natural, whole food for people who want to be healthy.

Without arguing for plants or animals, all-natural food is better than hyper-processed factory food.

And, for people who choose to stop eating unhealthful processed food full of sugar, salt, fat, and chemicals that enhance taste and extend shelf life, good nutritious food is available and affordable.

Read on...

Double X Bar Ranch - Stewards of the Land

A descendant of generations of Montana ranchers and farmers, Tim Dusenberry, owner and operator of Double X Bar Ranch, is the steward of nearly 600 acres of farmland where he raises 135 head of beef cattle, 40+ pigs, and uncounted laying hens, just a few miles from the city limits of Helena.

Tim is a believer in regenerative agricultural practices and spends a lot of time working to restore the health of his soil through cover crops, elimination of farm chemicals including insecticides, reduction of tillage, and rotational grazing.

Double X Bar Ranch is a unique operation here in the Helena Valley and we need to preserve and protect what Tim Dusenberry and his family are doing.

His is fighting an uphill battle against the meat oligopoly where four huge conglomerates deliver meat to Helena residents from as far away as Brazil. Read on...

Is This the End of the Small Boat Fisherman?

Pete Knutson has always been the kind of guy to find a way around the hurdles and challenges life tosses his way.

Loki Fish Company has overcome the odds, because though skill, intuition, and luck, Pete built a successful small business by avoiding “killer” challenges.

Small food-based businesses have a special role in the way we eat – they bring diversity, innovation, sustainability, and vitality to local and regional food systems.

More...

Sockeye Salmon from Loki

 

Friends and Sponsors