Frankly Green

Demand Booms for Local Produce as Fuel Prices, Safety Concerns Increase

This is a great article about the benefits of eating locally grown foods. I recently made a post on The Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World. Not only is eating locally grown food better for the environment, it is better for your community!

PalmBeachPost.com
Monday, May 19, 2008

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Although the business of factory farming has made just about anything we want to eat available almost as soon as we want it, some are starting to question whether it's really the best thing for our communities, our health or the planet itself. In this occasional series, agriculture writer Susan Salisbury examines aspects of this switch-over and what it means for the future of food.

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It's something he's done every day for 60 years.

"This is like giving ice cream to kids," White says, throwing handfuls of corn feed to several dozen honking, hissing geese crowding around him on a recent morning.

Because White, 80, runs White Enterprises, a farm off Old Dixie Highway in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Lake Park, the casual observer might think he's a quaint holdover from a time long past.

But looked at another way, James White actually is the face of the future.

Long before the "buy local" movement started becoming trendy, White was raising local food. And these days, he can't keep up with demand.

Diners Across the U.S. Head to the Farm

Diners across the U.S. head to the farm
By CARA RUBINSKY
The Associated Press;

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LYME, Conn. (AP) — Forget the maitre d' and imported caviar. Sophisticated diners are now tromping across muddy fields and braving mosquito bites to eat gourmet food at its very source.

Outdoor dinners at family farms, popular on the West Coast for several years, are making their way east as part of a local food movement fueled by concerns about tainted food and a desire to eat vegetables grown nearby rather than halfway around the world.

"The cruel irony is that this is the way everyone used to eat," said chef and restaurant owner Jonathan Rapp, a co-founder of Connecticut's Dinners at the Farm series. "Now it is special, and hopefully we're going to get to a point where it becomes ordinary again, where eating wholesome, locally grown delicious food is every day."...

"Everybody has to eat and they eat every day, yet previously no one had any idea where their food came from," Denevan said. "People realized along the line that the story of where the food came from might make food more interesting but also make it taste better."...

"This is so wonderful to actually be in the spot where your food was grown, and it reconnects you to nature," said Alyse Chin of East Haddam, whose sister bought her and her husband dinner tickets as a birthday present.

Food That Travels Well

New York Times
August 6, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

By JAMES E. McWILLIAMS

 

Austin, Tex.

Thanks to Marie M. for this article!

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The term “food miles” — how far food has traveled before you buy it — has entered the enlightened lexicon. Environmental groups, especially in Europe, are pushing for labels that show how far food has traveled to get to the market, and books like Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” contemplate the damage wrought by trucking, shipping and flying food from distant parts of the globe.

There are many good reasons for eating local — freshness, purity, taste, community cohesion and preserving open space — but none of these benefits compares to the much-touted claim that eating local reduces fossil fuel consumption. In this respect eating local joins recycling, biking to work and driving a hybrid as a realistic way that we can, as individuals, shrink our carbon footprint and be good stewards of the environment.

On its face, the connection between lowering food miles and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions is a no-brainer. In Iowa, the typical carrot has traveled 1,600 miles from California, a potato 1,200 miles from Idaho and a chuck roast 600 miles from Colorado. Seventy-five percent of the apples sold in New York City come from the West Coast or overseas, the writer Bill McKibben says, even though the state produces far more apples than city residents consume. These examples just scratch the surface of the problem. In light of this market redundancy, the only reasonable reaction, it seems, is to count food miles the way a dieter counts calories.

But is reducing food miles necessarily good for the environment? Click on the link above to read more.

Organic Farming Seen as Aiding World

UN told yield would fall less than thought

Associated Press

May 6, 2007

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Organic food has long been considered a niche market, a luxury for wealthy consumers. But researchers said at a UN conference Saturday that a large-scale shift to organic agriculture could help fight world hunger while improving the environment.

Crop yields initially can drop as much as 50 percent when growers trade the chemical fertilizers and pesticides of industrialized agriculture for organic methods. While such decreases may even out over time, the figures have kept the organic movement largely on the sidelines of discussions about feeding the hungry.

Researchers in Denmark found, however, that food security for sub-Saharan Africa would not be seriously harmed if 50 percent of agricultural land in the food exporting regions of Europe and North America were converted to organic by 2020.

While total food production would fall, the amount per crop would be much smaller than previously assumed, and the resulting rise in world food prices could be mitigated by improvements in the land and other benefits, the study found.

A similar conversion to organic farming in sub-Saharan Africa could help the region's hungry because it could reduce their need to import food, Danish agriculture scientist Niels Halberg told the UN conference on "Organic Agriculture and Food Security."

Farmers who go back to traditional agricultural methods would not have to spend money on expensive chemicals and would grow more diverse and sustainable crops, the report said.

When the Wine is Green

By ERIC ASIMOV
April 25, 2007

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I can tell you from first-hand experience that there are some excellent organic and biodynamic wines. And I love the last line of this article - Or as Mr. Skurnik put it, “Everything is better done the way your grandfather did it.” How true!

YOU’VE taken your hybrid car out to run some errands. You’ve stocked up on organic produce and nontoxic cleaning supplies at the supermarket. You’ve stopped at the Home Depot to take advantage of its new Eco Options plan, picking up energy-efficient light bulbs, paint that is low in pollutants and wood harvested according to the principles of sustainable forestry. You’ve dropped off the recycling. One more stop to make, the wine shop.

Why should wine be any different?

Green has not yet replaced red or white or even pink as the most important color in deciding which wines to buy, but people have started to think about it. Words like organic, biodynamic, natural and sustainable are increasingly resonating with consumers, not just because they are concerned about health and the environment, but because they are beginning to associate them with great wine, the way organic has become a synonym for high-quality produce.

That’s largely because the growing number of producers who practice some form of natural grape growing and winemaking do so not just because they see it as environmentally responsible but because they believe these methods make better wine.

Organic vs. Conventional: What Do Experts Say?

By Amy Spindler
CookingLight.com

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The organic market is growing at a steady pace of nearly 20 percent annually, and that translates into organic alternatives in nearly every grocery aisle -- from snack foods to frozen meals to baked goods. "Everyone wants to be healthy and these foods convey an aura of health," says Marion Nestle, Ph.D., professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and author of "What to Eat." Here, experts compare some of the benefits and drawbacks of going organic.

Why 'Organic' Now Comes in Leather

By Sara Schaefer Munoz

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I think there need to be some standards set with regards to the labeling of organic. As this article points out, there are some real inconsistencies - With organic food surging in popularity, retailers are now taking the concept beyond the grocery aisle. A flurry of companies are pitching organic furniture, linens, cosmetics -- even so-called organic leather. But organic nonfood products aren't as tightly regulated as food. And even if something is made with organic material, some industry experts say, that doesn't necessarily mean it's 100% environmentally friendly…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that product fibers like cotton or wool that are labeled "organic" be produced without the use of most conventional pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. However, the department doesn't regulate how these textiles are processed. This means consumers could potentially buy a chair made with organically grown cotton, but the chair could be treated with a chemical dye or flame-retardant. The Organic Trade Association has standards for textile handling and processing -- which ban things like toxic dyes -- but the guidelines are voluntary.

Environmental advocates say there are similar issues with organically labeled cosmetics. Labels can say they are made with organically grown products like lavender or oranges, but still contain synthetic ingredients such as triethanolamine or fake fragrance. "You have to really read the label," says Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. She says consumers can also check which brands have potentially unhealthy ingredients in the group's database of cosmetics at www.ewg.org/skindeep.

The words "natural" and "green" can also fluster consumers. Textiles made from 100% natural cotton often mean that no dyes or chemicals were added to the cotton, but it doesn't guarantee the cotton was grown without the use of pesticides or other chemicals.