Atlanta Local Food Initiative



http://www.flickr.com/photos/underatree/5408273948/

 I just found out about the Atlanta Local Food Initiative (ALFI).  It joins many different groups "to build a local food system that enhances human health, promotes environmental renewal, fosters local economies, and links rural and urban communities".  They follow all of the news stories about local food and put links to them under the news tab on their website.  They are partners with many different groups including Emory University Sustainable Food Initiative, CDC, Heifer International, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and Center for Urban Agriculture, as well as some others.  They have events listed on their website and contact information, which can be used for volunteer oportunities.

Their website has a lot of good information.  If you are interested in local food check it out here.

Should We Be Concerned About What Is In Our Food or What Our Food Is In?

With all of our studies, we have obviously found that our food is not really what we think it is. However, the LA Weekly blogged about the harmful chemicals plastic leaks into our food and beverages. So now, we have another danger to worry about! Samantha Bonar reports that most plastic leak chemicals that have the same effect as the estrogen does (BPA). GROSS! In addition to BPA, it has been found that more chemicals also have similar effects. Researchers purchased over 400 plastic items from stores (Whole Foods, Walmart) and experimented with the plastic to find the real truth. Go to this link to read what they found out!  Link   It seems it becomes even harder and harder to find healthy and safe foods to eat and drink.

Our Future in Blogging

Just the other day, on ol' St. Patty's Day, the Fooducate blog posted their 1000th post. This is a huge milestone in the life of the spectacular blog, and it will continue to grow each day. Who knows... maybe one of us will post a 1000th post one day. Thanks to Mrs. Collier for giving us the tools to make that a possibility!

Click here to read more about Fooducate's success and how it was started in the first place.

Food Around the World

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingsinger/86898565/ Before signing off from this lovely and informative project, FoodRevealed would like to thank our worldwide views from the following countries: We hope we have entertained you :) Don't let this be the end of our journey! Let's fight this food monster together!!! Singapore                            6

Denmark                              3

Belarus                                 2

India                                     2

United Arab Emirates            1

Canada                                 1

Russia                                   1

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 5)

While reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I've been wondering what the Kingsolver family will eat during the winter.  They were canning tomatoes, other vegetables and fruits during the summer, but I still was not sure they would have enough.  In January Barbara Kingsolver is able to rest and seems to have a lot less to do.  She reads the paper while having warm soup for lunch and sitting by a crackling fire.  Of course she likes to read the food column.  She is upset by the writer who is writing about pesto with fresh, young basil leaves during the winter.  The basil leaves had stopped growing in her area about three months before.  They have to eat frozen pesto they made during the summer.  Many people ask her what her family eats during the winter.  She feels like they want a dramatic story of how they do not have enough food but instead she has to tell them that they "...just ate ordinary things like pasta with pesto, made ahead".  They have an abundance of food it is just all frozen or in the form of roots.  One thing that the Kingsolvers do not have that many people rely on during the winter is fish.  The omega-3 fatty acids that are prevalent in fish help with depression.  The beef that the Kingsolvers get locally during the winter "...has omega-3 levels up to six times higher than CAFO beef...".  This omega-3 would help them through the winter according to Kingsolver.  They eat a lot of squash because some varieties continue growing through the cold weather.   The family was surprised when they found that in "...January, it wasn't all that hard".  They also get about "...$7,500 of annual income" while in their year as locavores.

I never realized all the possibilities that there are for organic food during the winter, you just have to start early.  Also, I never realized all the economic benefits that local food has.  I have learned so much about organic and local farming from this book it's so interesting to know what is growing all year round.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 4)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36008503@N03/3875245604/

As reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", there was something in particular that really interested me, TOMATOES! I am a tomato fanatic, and to read about how "the first tomato of the season brings (Kingsolver) to (her) knees" (196), really hit home. I love it! I want one of her tomatoes from the fifty plants that she has at her farm. Sounds like a party to me.

I had no idea that tomato farming was so profitable, but learned that from Kingsolver's accounts. After doing some reading online, and actually browsing through a farmer's forum :), I found that Kingsolver's pocket is not the only one that loves August, which is "all about tomatoes, every year" (198). According to many farmers, tomatoes are the crop that yield the most profit, and although they require some uptake, it is worth the time.

The other part of my tomato reading that really intrigued me was when Kingsolver talks about the company Appalachian Harvest. Although when first describing the company Kingsolver makes it sound like the Montsanto of fruits, we see her give credit to them at the end of the few pages, making me feel better about my precious tomatoes. The Appalachian Harvest packing house is in charge of "slapping one of those tedious stickers on every one of the thousands of" (205) tomatoes. Through her sarcastic tone, I see that Kingsolver is not very fond of industry becoming involved in local farming.

Also at the packing houses, produce must "conform to certain standards of color, size, and shape" (205) to make it to the supermarkets with the ever coveted organic sticker. Of course, in this tedious process, many deformed, but just as amazingly delicious tomatoes are tossed into "mountains of wasted food" (205). However, we see that hope is not lost as with the help of some local churches and social justice groups, Appalachian Harvest set up a system of delivering "'factory second' vegetables" (205) to families of low income. Sometimes these families have not been able to afford organic food before, so the exposure is genious. As we saw in Food Inc., these families actually end up spending more money on diabetes pills then they would be if they just bought organic food. As Kingsolver makes clear, "throwing away good food makes no sense" (205), and this is a great way to make food of this imperfect food.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 3)

While the Kingsolvers are on vacation they visit many friends with small farms.  And at one point they visit the "Cheese Queen".  Ricki Carroll is the founder of New England Cheesemaking Supply and gives workshops in her own kitchen on making cheese.  She has also traveled to many places and learned about the different techniques of making cheese (Italy and the Republic of Georgia).  I learned that you can use store bought milk to make cheese as long as it is not labled ultra-pasturized.  Also, there are many legalities connected to producing and selling dairy products.  Many states have regulations that make it very hard for small-dairies to sell directly to consumers.  Some of the over bearing restrictions are: "the milking house must have incandescent fixtures of 100 watts or more capacity located near but not directly above any bulk milk tank; it must have employee dressing rooms and a separate, permanently installed hand-washing facility".  The small-farms will have a house right next door with indoor plumbing that cannot count though.  Mrs. Kingsolver and her daughter, Camille are lactose intolerant.  Lactose intolerance is not a disease but is instead when someone is not born with a gene to allow them to drink milk after around four years old.  When curdling milk to make other products such as cheese and yogurt, the bacteria eats the lactose making it more digestible for people without the gene. 

On their trip the Kingsolvers stop in Vermont at a diner called the Farmers Diner for lunch.  They speak to the owners and learn that all of the products are grown within an hour's drive of the diner.  At a friend's farm that they stay at they see birds clearing bugs from fields and fields full of lightning bugs at night. 

They get home from their trip and have to weed a lot and their chickens and turkeys start to mature right after they return too.  They need to choose a rooster from her younger daughter, Lily's flock.  In choosing a rooster they have to find one that will care for all of his hens and keep them safe.  A flock can only have one rooster so the decision has to be long term.  During this time squash start to come into season and they have so much extra squash that they do not know what to do with it.  At Lily's birthday they make chocolate chip zucchini cookies and all the kids love them but cannot guess what the secret ingredient is.  They even give the recipe in the book. 

Please keep reading our blog to learn more about the Kingsolver's year away from processed foods.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 2)

So many new rules in farming. You produce what can get you the most money. For most farmers that is tobacco. Many people don't care about tobacco farmers saying all they are causing are problems. When in face this tobacco is providing homes, education, clothes and paid bills. Barbara Kingsolver does say that most tobacco farmers wish they could grow something else! Unfortunately that haven't found an alternate high-value crop. Some alternatives have been given such as organic vegetables and sustainable lumber.

Did you know that small farms are actually better than big ones? Well they are! They bring in more money than the big farms!

At home on the farm you can't get everything you want. There are seasons! If you miss the perfect day to collect food, you miss it for the whole year! Mushroom hunters (Molly Mooch hunters) know the perfect times. A Molly Mooch is a morel, which means mushroom. Mushrooms have a huge variety but if you don't collect them at the right time they are gone! But what makes it even more difficult is that mushrooms are extremely hard to find, but this also makes it more fun!

Planting is the same story as collecting. You have to plant at the right time or they don't harvest as well. Most people can't stand to eat fruits and vegetables that don't look plump or juicy; but Kingsolver's family eats them whenever they can.


Small town, small postal service. Strange packages everyday (to city folk)! Those who live on farms are used to chicks being delivered by mail, like those of Lily's. Lily (Kingsolver's daughter) gets chicks to start an egg business. As time goes Lily wants a horse, and Kingsolver says if she pays for half. Now this little girl takes her motherly instinct and goes off calculating how much chicken meat would pay for. As she calculates and adjusts she decides that she will only kill the "mean" ones and keep the rest for eggs. Lily is definitely getting a horse soon.

Kingsolver's family knows that food is food. They make sure that their turkeys and chickens are raised on a farm where they can mate themselves. Also there is variety on these farms; not just the butterball turkeys. But while they get farm raised meat, they themselves raise the meat then let someone else do the killing. They are dedicated to not eating industrial food.


Most of us are raised to give flowers on Mother's Day and to say thank you for gifts. Not this town! They give tomato plants and don't say thank you. Saying thank you is a curse on the plant to wither up and die...odd.

So many varieties of tomatoes, but each is grown with a purpose. Each plant has its own timing of harvesting and planting, and all this work begins on....Mother's Day! The never ending labor of parenting...for plants!

Hard work is a necessity in farming, without it you won't eat. During all this hard work in May is Kingsolver's birthday. Instead of the traditional store bought food everything is home grown and home made! Yum! The caterer helps her out in getting the food together. Kingsolver has nothing for a theme so the caterer calls farmers from all around asking what they have. Soon enough all the food comes in and it turns out to be terrific! Friends and family come from near and far to celebrate her birthday and Kingsolver is extremely happy for all the help with food and planning and her gifts (plants for her garden). She said thank you for everything BUT the plants.


The dead zones of farming: midwinter and June. These times are when the garden is quiet; no plant in sight. Of course this doesn't mean there is no work to do. The family still tends to the farm keeping it healthy. The is rarely any chance of a farm family leaving for vacation though, but they do manage to do this between May and September harvest. Once everything is packed Kingsolver's family plan to leave for a week and a half,but the day before they leave cherries start falling from the tree. They collect the delicious red fruit the whole day.

Kentucky has a variety of things to grow and sell, like plants, shrimp, beef, poultry, racehorses, anything! Even with all this variety though farms still die. America is just more interested in lower prices than healthier foods. This keeps the farms from earning all they can. While industrial agriculture can promote its food in a super sized scale, farms can't promote unless its via word of mouth. But the farmers can communicate how much healthier and better their food is, and how it benefits them and their neighborhood. Eventually the farms will win.

While on their vacation Kingsolver does meet Amy a local farmer up north. She grows her food in a greenhouse and they plants are beautiful. Amy could sell the food for however much she wanted but consumers know her personally and she refuses to take advantage of them. She is part of the community. This is what locally grown means. It is a community who knows each on first name basis, who see each other every week, who are friendly and know where there food is coming from. "Local is farmers growing trust."


Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has really opened my eyes about locally grown food. It makes me want to move to a farm and grow my own food! But I know this would be extremely difficult; so far I will stick to my farmer's market!

Lady Gaga vs. Breast Milk Ice Cream

      

            http://www.flickr.com/photos/loritingey/4255484560/                 

So, today, as searching the web, I happened to stumble upon the topic of breast milk ice cream. A London ice cream parlor called Icecreamists has come out selling exactly what it sounds like, ice cream made from women's breast milk. According to a reporter of NY Daily News, "at least 15 mothers have volunteered to donate their breast milk." The stuff does not come cheap either, selling for a whopping $23 per serving.

Before you are overwhelmed with disgust, consider the arguement of Mirium Simun, a New York designer interested in sustainable food systems and the human body, who debuted a line of breast milk cheese. "Why is cow or goat milk not disgusting? Vegans tend to get this pretty quickly," she said. "And if it is disgusting - well, does that mean we should start thinking differently about all the other ways we use the human body - to make wigs, to transfuse blood, to be surrogate mothers?"

Despite what you may think, it may be worth the adventure... but Lady Gaga will have none of it. Gaga and her team are threating to sue Icecreamists for using part of her name to sell their unusual frozen treat. Gaga's attorney sent a letter to the London shop asking them to remove the 'Gaga' from the name of the ice cream, adding a personal touch as he called their concoction "deliberately provocative and, to many people, nausea-inducing."

Icreamist owner Matt O'Connor is sure he will eventually win the battle against Lady Gaga, and claims that they got the name not from her, but from the reference of one of the first discernable phrases that comes out of a baby's mouth. And to counter Gaga's last attack, O'Connor responds, "As for her assertion that our product is distasteful, perhaps she should reflect on her blood-spurting performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, or the fact she wears clothes fabricated from the flesh of dead animals.

This is going to be quite a battle, and I'll keep my eye out for who comes out on top. In the mean time, I think I will personally be staying away from any breast milk icecream. But hey, all power to you if you have the guts to try it, or find a place that sells it at that.

If you are interested, please visit these sites to learn more. They really are very interesting!
Article about Gaga's lawsuit
Article about Baby Gaga ice cream
The official blog of the Icrecreamists  <---- This one is particularly intriguing! Please take a look :)

Subway Confession!

According to the Green Eggs Will Blog for food, Subway's meat is a mystery! A Subway employee posted the following on the blog concerning the truth about Subway's meat:

"I am a Subway employee, the smell comes from the fresh baked bread. That is the only good thing I can say about it. Where the food comes from is absolutely a mystery. I've been doing research for weeks, trying to trace back the meat especially.....nothing.

If you don't have a problem eating processed meat and pesticide covered vegetables (they aren't washed very well), then Subway is the place for you. As an employee though, I would suggest not eating there."







Once I read this, it shocked me on one hand, but on the other I feel like this is how all fast food restaurants operate now. It is getting harder and harder to trust the food you consume! Maybe moving to a farm like the Kingsolvers (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) is the only option.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 1)

Are you being called home? Or maybe called away from the city life? Here in Atlanta almost all of our food is shipped here in a "refrigerated module from somewhere far away", just how the food was shipped to Tucson; a reason the Kingsolvers were being called home to the farm. Our every ounce of water is being pumped " from a nonrenewable source--a fossil aquifer that is dropping so fast, sometimes the grond crumbles." It seems that city life, far from the farms, bring alot of  sanitation and health problems to the residents. Partly because her husband and family had called farms the homes, Kingsolver was called back to live on a farm to get away from problems like these. She wanted to reside in a place where she could grow crops, count on rainfall, and produce her own food she knew was safe to consume. She didn't want to be eating food that had travelled further than the average American does on their yearly vacations. Kingsolver mentions that we stick to our food habits and we still drink the water we are told is ok to drink but will kill fish is fish swim in it! Kingsolver decided to no longer be stubborn and move to a farm! Keep reading our blogs to find out about the Kingsolvers' move to the farm.


Anne Lloyd Bean

Contents of Our Food

David Zinczenko wrote this article about some shocking ingredients in our daily food consumption.
Chicken McNugget:
This alone contains seven ingredients and and most of them having nothing to do with chicken or bread. The chicken contains water, wheat starch, dextrose, safflower oil, and sodium phosphates along with “autolyzed yeast extract.” Not a lot of chicken in that CHICKEN McNugget. The breading also contains another twenty ingredients. But surprisingly Zinczenko says that this is pretty natural compared to other fast foods.

Wendy's Frosty:
The simple milk and ice cream shake has been broken down into multiple ingredients such as guar gum, cellulose gum, and carrageenan. The new Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty has even a bigger list of ingredients with the ingredient coffee towards the bottom. Something tells me we aren't actually eating what we think.

Filet-O-Fish:
Our traditional Filet-O-Fish is made from hoki, a gnarly, crazy-eyed fish. This fish then has coat of batter, a bath of oil, a squirt of tartar added to it. But recently the hoki has not been used because of the extreme amount used. McDonald's is now using a different fish such as whitefish like Alaskan pollock. But you probably won't even notice.

Salami Sandwich:
Genoa salami, like you’d get at Subway, contains both cow and pig. But the process to how salami is made is even more revolting. It is made from slaughterhouse leftovers that are gathered using “advanced meat recovery." This is a mechanical process that strips the last remaining bits of muscle off the bone so nothing is wasted. Then lactic acid is added, the waste product produced by bacteria in the meat. Then you add all the spices and you get fifteen ingredients in your salami! Yum...

All of our food has secret ingredients in it but you can follow David Zinczenko in his bookEat This, Not That! Here is another link associated with that. And it's not just men's health, if you scroll down towards the bottom on the right there is a box for women's health as well.

Immaculate Organic Cookies... Yumm!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oakleyoriginals/3224704164/

So since my mom broke her leg skiing, my family has been getting a meal here and there from friends and neighbors. The other night, our neighbors, the Bushes (Kristian Bush of Sugarland), made us a great dinner. Not only was it delicious, but it was also all ORGANIC!

Kristian Bush is the guy on the right! 

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/familymwr/4967842030/sizes/s/in/photostream/

The highlight of the meal was dessert, of course. The supply of brilliant organics ended with delectable, all-natural chocolate chip cookies made by the Immaculate Baking Co, an amazing company based out of NC. Made with organic flour and sugar, these suckers can be popped in the oven for a good 8 minutes for a healthier sweet!

Browsing the company's site, I found out a few other cool things. First of all, they are the current holders of the Guinness World Record for the world's biggest cookie. The cookie, at 102 ft wide and over 40,000 pounds, blew the last record of 80 ft out of the park! After having the largest cookie, the company decided to try for the largest bake sale, as they have teamed up with Cookies for Kids' Cancer in order to raise awareness and funds for pediactric cancer.

Check the two links I put above as well as Immaculate Baking Co.'s main webpage to learn more about this great passage to eating and buying smarter food!

UGA going Organic?



http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyku/296859416/sizes/m/in/photostream/

The University of Georgia is starting a new program for undergraduates this fall that will teach them about local food.  The courses will be offered to every student even those with English, Math, or other majors not related to horticulture.  The University is trying to give students the oppurtunity to learn about the production of local foods.  The students in the program will work in community gardens around Athens.  In 2010 students created an on campus garden called the UGArden.  Students are becoming very interested in local and organic food which is a good sign for the future of agriculture in our country.  You can read more about this new program here.

BK EXPOSED: Part 2

Here is the second video... ewww!

BURGER KING REVEALED!!!

Now I feel proud to not have touched that sandwich. It is just disgusting how haphazardly our own food is being handled in places like Burger King. It looks like these two videos were filmed by a bunch of airheads who worked at BK and were tired of the job. I wouldn't blame them. But warning, if you EVER want to eat at a fast food restaurant, don't watch these clips. I mean, one of the employees even said he wasn't sure what kind of mayonaise they used! If the workers don't even know what they are serving, then we don't know what we are eating. Have enough dignity to demand to know the truth, and to demand to be served healthy food!

BUSTED!

Organic is better. Eating food grown locally is better. Not so fast! Just today The Atlantic reported that the USDA revoked the permits (March 2) of two organic food inspection agencies, Certified Organic Inc. (COI) and Guaranteed Organic Certification Agency (GOCA). 

USDA says COI failed to

• Communicate with hired inspectors about proper procedures or ensure they were adequately trained

• Adhere to internal procedures according to their operational manual

• Keep confidentiality agreements on file for all employees with knowledge about certification applicants or operations

• Indicate on certificates the effective dates for organic certification,

• Ensure adequate training for employees about the regulations

• Provide clients with cost estimates including inspection fees

• Clearly identify the company's responsibility to pay for any required pre- or postharvest testing

• Verify organic system plans against the actual practices of their certified operations

GOCA's reported problems included things like, "failure to require clients to use defined boundaries and border zones as required by the organic standards." 

Do we really want to allow organic certification agencies to simply ignore producer's violations of the organic standards? If these agencies do not do their job, we will be paying an "organic price" or a "locally grown price" for food that does not really fit the qualifications. An interesting and popular topic that has come up lately has been, The U.S. industry is expected to go from $21.1 billion in 2010 to $36.8 billion in 2015. How come? Because of "the government's monetary and regulatory support and increasing acceptance of organic food in the country." Overall, this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, all the food we will but now will REALLY be organic and we won't be purchasing what we think is organic yogurt but really is no different than typical Dannon yogurt. People will probably be more willing to pay a higher price if they know what they are buying is in fact organic. http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/03/busted-organic-food-certifiers-who-break-the-rules/72239/

Buy Local, Eat Global... Taking Action in Our Own Communities

apples

Winter Farmer's Market, Pawtucket
www.farmfresh.org/food/farmersmarkets_details.php?market=29

Jennifer Zyman, the author of the blog Blissful Glutton, understands the beauty of buying food from local farmers. I was lucky enough to come upon Zyman's article in the Atlanta Intown Newspaper, in which she reports from the Morningside Farmers' Market in Virginia-Highland.

Zyman talks to a few people who not only see the benefits of buying food locally, but actually implement it into their lives, makinng them more happy and healthy people.


Some of the positive points given about buying from local markets such as these are:
-the quality of food is better than anywhere else
-the strong sense of community and pride in buying locally grown food
-the produce is cheaper, fresher, and more flavorful
-less of a distance traveled from your food being in the ground to when it is in your hands
-the short journey from farm to table is evident in the food's taste and freshness
-much of the food is organic (no pesticides, hormones, chemicals, antibiotics, or genetically modified seed)
-it is the best way to help support your local farmers, who are an endangered species

There are so many great reasons to start buying food locally, more healthily, and to that extent responsibly. Please read this awesome article by clicking here. On the webpage you will also find some really useful information about the different opportunities available to us in Atlanta to buy food locally.

 Happy eating!

Dekalb Farmers Market

The Dekalb Farmers Market is located in Decatur.  They support local farms and provide organic, GMO-free foods for customers.  They transport their own food from local farms so that it is fresh and on time.  They have cage free chicken and grass fed beef. In their coffee department they have machines that make fresh nut butters out of a large variety of nuts you can choose from.  They also have organic international foods so that you can experiment with new, healthy foods.  They have a great variety of foods to choose from.  Their website has information on all the foods.