Good Food is Everybody's Business
Amanda Irving and René Featherstone are an unlikely partnership and yet it takes both – the farmer and the baker – to turn an ancient grain like spelt into delicious bread. American consumers have strayed a long way from real food and real bread. René and Amanda are on the path that farmers and bakers have followed for millennia: growing good grain and making good bread. Long may that partnership last!
In winter and early spring, while most of our regional farms lie dormant, grocery store produce sections remain well stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables. Much of this vast selection comes from Mexico. How did these fruits and vegetables arrive here? If Mexican produce is labeled organic, how do we know that it is reliably organic?
From the frozen hills of southeastern Minnesota, not far from the intersection of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, we got an email recently from Lea McEvilly, 84, shepherdess. After nearly 46 years of raising and caring for as many as 300 sheep on 80 acres with just the help of her dogs for most of those years, Lea is selling her last remaining flock.
First Lady Michelle Obama added the power of her presence to Walmart’s announcement of its Nutrition Charter, an initiative for healthy eating. Walmart will reformulate products to improve nutrition by 2015 by reducing sodium 25% and added sugars 10%, and removing all trans fats; make healthy food more affordable by reducing the cost of fruits and vegetables and healthier options; developing a healthy seal to make it easier for customers to make healthy choices.
Michelle Obama’s handshake with Walmart is center stage news today. The whole emphasis is on price as if the organic and natural food movement is responsible for low income people not being able to eat right and Walmart is ready to save the day by making good food affordable.
How local is local? Peter Platt thinks local within a global network. Challenged with running an ethnic restaurant that is closely tied to ingredients that can’t be purchased locally, Peter struggled to find the foods he needs and to source them in a sustainable manner.
In telling her story, Nicolette details not only why to choose meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, and fish from traditionally farmed sources (and avoid products tainted by chemicals and antibiotic-resistant bacteria), but also how to do so. She reveals what to look for on labels, why to skip animal products from outside the U.S., and the questions to ask when eating out.
Understanding that consumers are far removed from food production, and most have never met – much less conversed – with a “real” farmer, today’s farmer is adept at Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and uploading videos to YouTube. If you can’t get down to the farm, meet your farmer “virtually.”
