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For health, smarts and resilience, drink your beer

By April 8, 2013
beer inforgraphic cropped

Anybody interested in buying more food from local farmers and learning how to cook and preserve it at home knows that taking control of what goes in your mouth is a powerful way to get healthier. But if you're trying to eat more organic kale, more free-range eggs and more pastured beef, you may also be trying to cut back on booze to stiffen up that beer belly or shrink those love handles. Well, if you don't think about drinking more IPA as the high road to a healthy body and even a sharper … [Read more...]

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100 days of real food

By November 6, 2012
Lisa Leake's breakfast for her guests included whole-wheat crepes, "Ranier" cherries, blueberries, raspberries, and melon. Photo: 100 Days of Real Food

I can't help but be impressed and inspired by the family behind the 100 Days of Real Food blog. After considering the extent to which our country (and to a lesser but still appreciable extent the rest of the world) is dependent on highly processed food, Lisa and Jason Leake, along with their then 3 and 5-year old daughters, vowed to go 100 days without those processed foods, eating "real food" instead. Taking the plunge pledge Their original pledge said that what you can eat are Whole … [Read more...]

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Yes, you can brew kombucha

By September 5, 2012
Kombucha brewing

I live a pretty spartan existence. Our family doesn't live high on the hog, always out shopping or dining at the most expensive places. We don't vacation much, and when we do, it's all about going local — Virginia inns, wineries, and natural and historic sites. Basically, I'm pretty frugal, do many things DIY style, and otherwise am so into conservation that I don't want to buy much anyway. But I have to confess to what was a serious addiction to GT Dave's Synergy raw … [Read more...]

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A GMO is a GMO is a GMO

By August 30, 2012
Image: David Dees Illustration.

Quick: name the one issue about which Democrats, Republicans and even Independents all agree.  No, not alpaca farms. Yes, I know everyone would like to have one, and yes, baby alpacas are cuter than the dickens.  Try again. What’s that? Everybody agrees  genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that food processing companies put on our kitchen tables should be labeled? Is that your answer? Well, when you’re right, you’re right, and you are SO-O-O right. Please understand that the … [Read more...]

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Fruit pickin’

By August 21, 2012
Peaches

The idea of eating locally and in-season just makes sense. Foods that grow locally are produced in the very same environment in which we're nested. Thus it’s quite likely that they contain the essential micro-nutrients which, quite naturally, work well for us. The “in-season” concept, in fact, makes more and more sense when we start to really study nature. Think about it: in the spring, after a long winter’s nap, Mother Nature cranks out voluminous amounts of milk and eggs — … [Read more...]

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Land of milk and money

By August 9, 2012
food freedom demonstration

Fewer than 5% of all Americans drink raw milk. Yet, the question of whether Americans should be allowed to drink it at all is one of the hottest controversies between foodies and public health officials these days. As demand for milk that is neither pasteurized nor homogenized booms and more families try to acquire the stuff for the health benefits they believe that raw milk confers, government regulators seem to get more and more strident about shutting down the dairies who try to sell or … [Read more...]

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Factory farming a Communist plot?

By July 19, 2012
Communist USA flag

When you really look at it, America's agriculture system, with its preference for big centrally managed factory operations over small locally run family farms, looks kind of, well, Communist. And I'm not thinking about the kind of "socialism" that Fox News warns will descend on America if Obamacare isn't repealed or if the rich have to pay more taxes. No, I mean real old-school, Workers of the World Unite, back-in-the-USSR Communism. The kind with tank-and-tractor parades marching past … [Read more...]

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Lawyers for honest food

By June 27, 2012
raw milk protest sign

Imagine a country where the government outlawed the food that people have eaten for thousands of years. Imagine that raw milk straight from cows couldn't be sold across state lines unless it was heated until most of its nutritional value was destroyed. Imagine that one small town that tried to allow its local farmers to sell directly to families couldn't protect those farmers from harassment by government officials. Imagine a health agency that declared domestically raised heritage breeds of … [Read more...]

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Two words to win the presidency: food freedom

By June 13, 2012
pickling

This past weekend I attended the state meeting of VICFA, the Virginia Independent Consumers and Farmers Association. Hosted at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms, this casual potluck held under a shade tree included a gathering of, as Salatin put it, "fierce loose canons" all of whom hold passionate convictions about his or her God given right to choose what to eat, what to produce and how to buy and sell such foods. The mission of the organization is to, "promote and preserve unregulated … [Read more...]

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The ultimate local food

By May 2, 2012
Edible Landscaping

Lawns are such a staple of the American landscape today that it may come as a surprise that such devotion to a mere patch of manicured grass isn't something with deep historical roots. Originally lawns were communal grazing plots of small villages, largely managed by the animals, who in turn transformed sunlight captured by grass into energy for transport, work in the fields, or meat and dairy. Later, lawns became a decorative feature of the estates of the nobility, a sign of such copious … [Read more...]

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