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Convinced that food can save America

By May 6, 2013
Student drinking yogurt

It's hard to overestimate the importance of food. Yet, sometimes it appears just as hard for food writers to avoid hype. It's all too easy for people who love food enough to write about food to lose themselves in breathless raptures over the deliciousness of forest foraged mushrooms or the power of artisanal pork to cure diabetes, resurrect rural economies and provide meaningful careers to former baristas from Philadelphia to Portland. It makes even a sympathetic reader wonder: is all this … [Read more...]

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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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Soil, soul, and society

By October 29, 2012
Farm store

On July 30, 2012, Hawthorne Valley Association marked the 40th anniversary of working the soil of agriculture on its land in the Hudson Valley of New York. In all that time it has been Hawthorne Valley’s mission to inspire by example social and cultural renewal through the integration of education, agriculture, and the arts. The significance of place and the ability to connect intimately to and through place provide compelling evidence as to why our localized agriculture can be understood … [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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Tempted by the fruit of another

By August 28, 2012
plums

Have you ever noticed unharvested fruit rotting in people's yards and thought, “What a waste. Someone could have used that.” Well, you're not alone. Katie Kolker, in Portland Oregon, this episode's guest on Peak Moment TV, had the same thought and decided to do something about it. She formed the Portland Fruit Tree Project (PFTP) a small non-profit organization which coordinates and carries out the harvesting of fruit from private properties who register one or more trees with … [Read more...]

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Junk food for Jesus

By August 6, 2012
Jesus at Chick-fil-A

I'm a Christian. But I wouldn't eat at Chick-fil-A even if the company's CEO were St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And it's not really because I disagree with the views of the company's actual CEO about gay marriage. It's because I think that Chick-fil-A's whole business model is itself basically un-Christian, despoiling God's creation in all too many ways. All that Constitution stuff But first, let me go on the record that I support the U.S. Constitution. As to … [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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America’s most famous farmer puts America over his knee

By July 12, 2012
Joel Salatin speaking in 2010

It's not only Sarah Palin who thinks that America is the world's essential nation because Americans are exceptionally worthy. All too many of us Yanks continue to believe that we're the smartest, hardest working and most self-reliant people on Earth. And that God or evolution or just history has rewarded us with superpower status and super riches because we deserve it. Well, if you believe any of that, Joel Salatin has come to give you a good spanking. Geniuses at Xbox — At food, not so … [Read more...]

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Local food for smart people

By June 20, 2012
buy fresh buy local

If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma or seen the documentaries Fresh! and Food, Inc. then you already know that the problem with food today is that most of it is produced less for the benefit of eaters than for the profit of agribusiness corporations. But going on about confinement chicken houses or lakes of pig manure at factory farms might be kind of a heavy message for a family member, friend or co-worker whose interest in food extends only as far as how it tastes, what it costs and … [Read more...]

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