Miami: Empanadas Margariteñas Made in USA - Para Llevar

It is my belief that food has to be seen in a new light to clear away the obfuscation of the industrial food supply.  Food should be real.

Food executive comes clean.

Confessions of a former Big Food executive A good article on Grist on how and why the food industry has changed.

Grist = Confessions of a big food exectutive

Move Forward.

Researchers Publish First Public Database On Food Fraud

Researchers Publish First Public Database On Food Fraud

 

This is important to understand if you didn't realize the amount of fraud that happens in the food industry on unsuspecting consumers you may blissfully thinking your eating real food.  

 

"

In new research published in the April Journal of Food Science, analyses of the first known public database compiling reports on food fraud and economically motivated adulteration in food highlight the most fraud-prone ingredients in the food supply; analytical detection methods; and the type of fraud reported. Based on a review of records from scholarly journals, the top seven adulterated ingredients in the database are olive oil, milk, honey, saffron, orange juice, coffee, and apple juice.

"
 

http://preventdisease.com/news/12/040812_Researchers-Publish-First-Public-Database-On-Food-Fraud.shtml

 

 

 

Locavore and Organic | Optimist vs. Skeptic

On October 2, 2009 I presented this speech at BOCO a Boulder event. http://boco.me/ of course I wasn’t able to take notes on what I said it but I think the following is the gist of what I said.

I have a passion for the tremendous impact we have on our health, Local economy and the environment when we make the simple action of purchasing food.

This morning I’ll focus on the Organic consumer and the Localvore.

Comparing local to organic is an inequitable comparison; both have positive factors, and I believe the best is both local and organic. Key factors for me in my food choices are healthy food, fresh food, environmentally positive, and local. Every individual must decide what issues are most important every time we choose to purchase an item to eat. Organic is a Certification process. Very similar processes exist worldwide in order to have an organic label.

The organic consumer is a skeptic. We don’t believe that the industrial food supply chain has our best interests at heart.

The attitude is "Prove undeniably it won’t hurt me or the earth or don‘t include it in my food!"

Organic is not how your grandma grew her food. This is a new science being defined and discovered by a new generation of producers. This is growing food without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, forced Genetically Modified organisms, induced hormones, and in many ways are defining the processes to handle animals such as free range and grass fed. Unfortunately there are many ways to produce organic foods that can still use very nasty pesticides and treat animals inhumanely but there is no other certification process that comes close to providing the peace of mind that Organic Certification does.

Choosing organic food drives the industrial food supply from the bottom up to be environmentally conscious.

Produce grown without live soil is lacking in much nutritional value. Conventional practices kill and strip the soil of life. The trained nutritionist may say it has the same nutritional value but the organic consumer knows there is a lot more to food than a simple list of nutritional ingredients. Trace minerals, nutrients and macro-biotics are as important for our well being as the list of vitamins and minerals nutrition likes to quantify. There is definitely a difference in taste in an organically grown item versus a product grown only with the fertilizers needed to make it look pretty. Organic consumers know that synthetic fertilizers can grow foods that are ready for mass marketing but are tasteless, lifeless and have less value and sustaining life. The poisons applied in conventional agriculture have never really been fairly quantified as to the damage and financial cost they cause to our environment and our health.

The organic consumer is a skeptic that has a hard time believing that any large corporation will do the right thing when it comes to producing healthy food over producing a profit.

Now a Localvore is an optimist that believes that the world will be better off if we share our values with our community and we believe the community can provide all the needs for a healthy diet. It is truly optimistic to believe that the local community can provide all our food. It is wonderful to think that if I buy it then someone will grow it. The romance of farming is a big draw to the localvore wanting to be in touch with the basic roots of production getting to know the farmer and the inter-relationship of the soil and life. To know your local producer is to understand their ethos and methods of production. To buy local is using the sun, soil, water and labor in the community to create the basis of what is true productivity. The localvore is taking action to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing the miles food has to travel. The Localvore often chooses food sustainably produced, often organic, often helping the farmer by joining in the cost of production by joining a farm in what is called Community Supported Agriculture.

The best choice of course is to buy locally produced organic product. This is not always easy. If you grow in your backyard do you how much lead is in the soil from the old paint from your house before you plant your garden in it? Do you know how to balance nature and avoid all the modern toxic chemistry? If you can buy local organic products you know you are avoiding the poisons of industrial agriculture and helping protect the local environment from those pollutants. You are helping stimulate food security for your community and maintaining the heritage of local agriculture and the knowledge of what foods can be grown in the regions soil and climate. You are creating food security for your community and helping develop the path to food Sovereignty.
Your highest priorities are a personal choice. Is it fair trade? Not ingesting poisons? Stimulating the local economy? Food security?

Is your priority Cost? – Which is the driving factor for 98% of food production. The other 2% of production is the ethics of food that I am talking about today.

If you choose Environment – as your priority then you produce the demand for organic production into the largest of industrial producers and your choice will change their priorities.

Is your priority Health? – Then look for Fresh raw non-processed organic food.

Care about Community? – It will be locally grown in season produce and you will be seeking out local food preservers and preservation methods.

All these personal choices work toward Food sovereignty- The concept that without having a heritage and community of agriculture a community cannot have its own identity, culture or be sustainable.

The fantastic opportunity here in Boulder County – Our unique community, is to support the local producer and change our governmental policies, beliefs and priorities to allow for the public support of our local food shed. We are losing our local farmland at an alarming rate. We allow it to be purchased for Open Space and Ranchettes. Our Sub-Rural subdivisions work against having farms close by. We must change the attitudes of our neighbors - to accept having a farm close by as a healthy choice. We need to change our land use codes to allow greenhouses and hoophouses so our farmers can fully extend their short seasons here in Colorado. We can ask that our supermarket label items completely. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what pesticides are included in your apple juice?

Here is action we can immediately take.
Boulder County is asking for an extension of taxation for the continued purchase of open space. There are 1000’s of acres of agricultural open space acres that we own that are laden with pesticides and herbicides planted with plants genetically modified to be toxic to insect life. What if we insist that the public land zoned for agricultural use be used for organic production. Let’s demand that the County have a program of policies and assistance to the new farmers that want to develop a sustainable lifestyle on that land that will help to create a community of agricultural economic development.

Let’s create the ability to use that land to lead the nation, the world, to develop a shared educational experience for farming with the new science of organic production. Let us work together to have the healthiest food and the most environmentally sound use of land right here where we live!

Here in Boulder County. We can do it!
Thank you.

An article in the Fall 2009 Boulderganic magazine.
link to story http://bit.ly/Ks8Pr


Produce guru

A chat with Mark Menagh about our local food chain

by Marissa Hermanson

Q: What is your involvement with the local food industry?

A: I’m president of KORU Fresh Innovations, a consultancy helping small- and medium-sized companies increase productivity. I’m on the Board of Directors of Naturally Boulder Products, which is a city-sponsored nonprofit organization dedicated to making Boulder the epicenter of the natural food industry. Naturally Boulder intentionally attracts new business to Boulder by connecting all of the participants in the sector through networking and educational events. I’m also on the Boulder County Food and Agricultural Policy Council, a recently formed council advising our county commissioners on the issues of food security, food sovereignty and the needs of the agricultural community. I was the executive director of the Boulder County Farmers’ Markets working with more than 100 farmers and 50 specialty food vendors. In this role I worked with CSU Agricultural Extension office to build a new farmer program and was one of the advisors for new farmers looking for channels to build their direct sales. Specialty food vendors in the natural food arena are a favorite area of mine, and I worked to find entrepreneurs who were ready to start marketing their products and hadn’t made it into the mainstream grocery store yet.

Q: How do you encourage Boulder residents to shop for food?

A: As wisely as possible, which means that we should know the companies or farmers that produce our food. So, let’s purchase food produced locally when we can. All of us have favorite brands that we trust, but I like to encourage consumers to evaluate their favorite brands and determine if they still deserve their loyalty. The food industry is changing rapidly to meet changing consumer demands and meet their profit targets by increasing the amount of highly processed substitute ingredients. Our food producers are in a competitive environment and very demand driven. We have seen the food industry change rapidly when consumers change buying habits. As consumers we make a political decision every time we choose to eat something. If a company is local, you can find out a lot more about them and can find ways to verify their green or ethical claims than you can any large international company. By choosing fresh food produced locally, when possible, our money goes into the local economy and uses the local sun, soil, water and labor to stimulate productivity in our community. Developing a productive local economy is both simple and powerful when we choose to buy local.

Q: What are the benefits of buying local over organic?

A: Comparing local to organic is an inequitable comparison. Both have positive factors, and I believe the best is both local and organic. Key factors for me are healthy food, fresh food, environmentally positive and local. Every individual must decide what issues are most important every time we choose an item to eat. I choose organic over local when I know the local conventional producer is not using healthy environmental processes. I always choose local when an item is in season and it’s produced with environmental consciousness. I know of many local farmers who are not certified organic but grow their food in a healthy way that is sustainable, and I would choose their products over some farmers that are local and certified organic. The Country of Origin Labeling that we are finally seeing in our stores makes choosing consciously even easier now, but we need more labeling to know we are truly purchasing local unless we purchase direct from the producer. Buying conventional produce grown outside of the U.S. is not wise unless you know that country is following standards better or similar to the U.S., and even then it doesn’t meet the environmentally conscious criteria of minimizing our carbon footprint.Organic certification gives us a standard, and there is no other label or certification that comes close to providing the consumer with real information about how a product is produced. If cost is a concern for the consumer, they can shop for items that have less risk of pesticide exposure or fruits and vegetables where pesticides can be safely removed. If people choose organic first for the benefit of our earth, they can choose those organic items when conventionally grown require much more pesticides and herbicides such as grapes, peaches, sweet bell peppers and potatoes. This way we will have the most positive environmental impact. In this context, let’s look at potatoes. Based upon my criteria, I always choose organic because conventionally grown potatoes are poisoned with pesticides, and this impacts my health and the health of our soil.

Q: Is local or organic better for our environment?

A: Organic is the best for our environment. Many local producers here in Boulder County use toxic herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. You cannot choose local and automatically claim to be making the best decision.

Q: Both local and organic food is expensive. How do you suggest people buy it on a budget?

A: Visit our community local farms, farm stands and farmers markets. There is no more competitive environment that a farmers’ market with farmers lined up side by side selling the same items. Find a farmer you can trust and become loyal to them. That is the most rewarding thing you can do both for peace of mind of how you food was grown and your pocket book. Buy your food in season, you will save money and eat a much healthier diet. And most of all, to save money and to eat healthier, eliminate processed food from your diet.

Q: What should everyone know about Boulder County’s food chain?

A: We currently do not come anywhere near meeting the local demand for fresh food from our local agricultural producers. We continue to produce less food for human consumption in Boulder County even though we are increasing the number of small farms that are selling direct. Our land-use policies and the sub-rural homeowners’ reluctance to have agricultural land use close to their property is driving our farmers farther and farther away from us. As a community we need to find a way to support our local, small farms so they can continue to afford to farm and live here — and flourish! We make it very hard to start a farm by not allowing small greenhouses, not allowing seasonal farm labor to live on the farms and by not understanding the beauty and benefits of having organic small farms as neighbors. We have thousands of acres of zoned agricultural, publicly owned land in our open space in both our city and county programs. This land, with the right policies and economic incentives, could make our community economically stronger, more productive, healthier, and more food secure.

Q: Any other information?

A: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants,” as Michael Pollan, a popular journalist said. And I will add that if you are going to eat any processed food or conventionally grown food other than organic fruits and vegetables you should question what is sold as food by the industrial food supply chain we have come to rely upon. Some ingredients used to grow and process food may not be what you would choose to eat. We have found ways to artificially create almost every major ingredient in our food. With modern chemistry we are able to create many synthetic materials, and some of these end up in our food for no other reason than to replace natural ingredients with less expensive alternatives. Why we would choose to eat these substances is beyond me. The adulteration of food for efficiency of production is not exclusive to processed foods, our fruits and vegetables, even our meats and diary items are often produced in ways that degrade their nutritional and healthy nature. It is up to each individual consumer to make educated choices that influence the food supply chain and help keep real food available for their families