Good Food is Everybody's Business
All about living a healthy life, having safe and nutritious food, growing and making good food.
Organically grown, local, whole, affordable, planetary stewardship, food justice, sustainably farmed, humanely raised and slaughtered, slow cooked and seasonally eaten, nutritionism, vegan, healthy lifestyle – these are just some of the words that come to mind around the conversation of How, What, When, and Where we eat these days. There is so much to talk about, and these words do not exist in isolation from one another.
If you see fudge sauce or marshmallows on the dessert menu, you can bet they’re made from-scratch. No food dyes, corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. Fruit is used when it’s in season and bulk ingredients are organic. No, the sugar’s not local and neither is the chocolate; these are fundamental building blocks of dessert as we know it. I can’t figure a way around that one, but considering everything else we do I’m comfortable with the compromise.
Even as we face globalization (and standardization) of nearly every element of our lives, including the food we eat, there are between 25 and 27 million small and medium independent companies working separately to deliver us diversity and quality. It’s time we recognized the value that these businesses deliver to us, and to our communities.
It can be tough to figure out why there’s so much fuss over genetically modified ingredients in food. This reprint from the upcoming March 2015 issue of Consumer Reports will help you sift through the facts.
If you live on the East Coast, West Coast, or Gulf Coast or even the Great Lakes, and if you’ve looked closely at the fish in your local supermarket – regardless of where you live – chances are you’ll find your fish originates from just about anywhere else in the world.
“Seafood fraud” is big business and a big problem. Why wait for legislation and regulation? There are some simple steps you can take to avoid illegal, unreported, or mislabeled seafood now.
Shopping for healthy foods can be daunting, especially when it comes to understanding nutritional labels. Grams, calories, percentages, recommended allowances. Is there a way to quickly assess whether a food is “healthy” or not?
Diana Chapman, Director of Sustainability, PCC Natural Markets, discusses the ways that PCC is working to manage waste in house and in the community.
