Get involved...save small farms and dairy producers

A post from the wonderful Nourished Kitchen blog about taking action to stop crimes against small farms and our way of life:

"Morningland Dairy, Estrella Creamery: these two artisanal producers, and countless others over the past few years, have been subject to raids and seizure of their products, often without cause.  An increase in the crackdown against small producers and beneath the looming  vote on senate bill 510, more and more producers of traditional foods – small farms, grass-fed creameries, and artisanal cheesemakers will continue to operate under consistent fear that their farms, their ranches and their dairies may be the next to be raided – and their family the next to lose their livelihood.

As for you?  Your inherent right to consume the foods of your choice is at risk.  Learn more about taking action and what you should do next.

Morningland Dairy

This June, police raided a private buying club with guns drawn, confiscating raw milk, yogurts and cheeses and other foods – Morningland Dairy, was an unfortunate victim of the raid.  A small grass-based creamery nestled in the Missouri Ozarks, Morningland Dairy received a letter from the FDA and several memorandums from the Missouri Milk Board ordering the destruction of  $250,00 in raw, artisan cheese.  Their cheese sickened no one.  Despite inaccurately performed tests, the FDA insisted that their cheese posed “an acute, life-threatening hazard to health.”   As a result, the operators of Morningland Dairy – the Dixon family – are now fighting an uphill battle to preserve their farm, their customer base, their product, their rights and their way of life.

Estrella Family Creamery

Just a few weeks after Morningland Dairy received the order to destroy their cheese, three cars pulled up to the Estrella Family Creamery and federal marshalls and representatives of the FDA filed out – frightening the family’s children and posting an order that did far worse: a seizure of the creamery’s entire stock of cheeses. While an unannounced inspection by the FDA in August yielded a few stray environmental and cheese samples that tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes, Estrella Family Creamery had sickened no one.   Indeed Listeria monocytogenesis a fairly common strain of bacteria, not all of which are harmful to human health.   For a creamery as small as Estrella or Morningland, just one seizure, one forced recall can put the entire family out of business for good.

Senate Bill 510

As I write this post, the senate is voting on a motion to proceed to the bill for S510.  Ostensibly designed to provide greater controls for food safety, S510 has met with wide support from the agribusiness industry.   Yet, should it pass, the bill would provide the FDA with greater control over the ability to execute raids, product seizures and force recalls on small producers – providing competitive advantage to industrial food producers, the very corporations responsible for sickening so many people each year.  According to the Farm-to-consumer Legal Defense Fund, the  bill can be used to strategically drive small producers out of business for reasons that have nothing to do with food safety; this has been shown by the experience of the meat industry. In that industry, USDA overwhelmed small plants with paperwork requirements, most of which had no connection to safe food; small plants were targeted for a higher number of enforcement actions while there was lax regulation of big plants.

Taking Action

Unless we, as consumers and as voters, take action to change the system, small farmers, dairies and creameries will continue to be imperiled by the actions of the government while industrial agriculture thrives, relatively unfettered.  While contacting your legislators, spreading the word through social media like facebook and twitter can provide enormous help in illuminating the growing issue of small farm raids, it cannot provide immediate assistance for the hurting families and businesses that have been subject to raids and unwarranted seizure.

Real food bloggers, like Nourished Kitchen, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Cheeseslave, Hartke is Online, the Healthy Home Economist and countless others are banding together in recognition of this growing attack on small producers and in support of the families who have had their livelihoods imperiled by the unwarranted actions of the FDA.  What we ask is simple: make the commitment to donating at least $5 to raided farms so that these families can pay for expenses resultant from the raids.

Nourished Kitchen, reaches over 60,000 individuals each month including more than 10,500 newsletter subscribers, 7,000 RSS subscribers and 11,500 fans on facebook.  If our facebook fans alone made the commitment to support raided farms with just five dollars, those farmers would earn over $50,000 to cover resulting expenses.  If some subscribers and fans contributed more – $10, $15, $50 – they could help to contribute for those readers for whom even a five dollar donation is too much.

So sign up here, to commit to helping small farms that have been subject to raids.  When a new farm has been raided, you’ll receive a notice in your inbox with information about the farm, the raid and instructions for donating.  We do not take or process your donations; rather, we simply alert you by email every time there’s a need.

Your Next Steps

1. Sign up for farm raid fund alerts.
2. Make the commitment to donate at least $5 to each raided farmer.  (You can donate to Estrella and Morninglandhere).
3. Tweet this post.
4. Share this post on facebook.
5.  Email this post to a friend."

Essential Oils

I am a total perfume abuser.  I am fully aware that I will be that stinky old lady that you sit next to on a plane that makes you choke due to the fact that she took a bath in perfume this morning.  I've accepted it.  But talking to a friend a while back made me realize how perfume, though seemingly harmless, contains chemicals and yucky stuff that you don't want on your skin, let alone absorbed into your blood stream.

So I've turned a new leaf...well the leaf is turned over about 80% of the time.  I picked up some essential oils- the real stuff not the synthetic kind- and have been using this as my perfume instead.  I put a few drops in my face lotion or on my neck and wrist.  A little goes a LONG way so make sure you use just a little or dilute it in a carrier oil or lotion.

The benefits are both physical and mental.  As your nose smells and your body absorbs the oil your brain will be stimulated, calmed, etc., depending on which essential oil you use.  Essential oils have also been used for centuries to cure an infinite list of ailments from sinusitis to nausea and everything in between.  Furthermore, you smell oh so good simply and naturally without traumatizing everyone around you.  Everybody wins:)

Scroll to the bottom of this web page for a list of ailments eased by essential oil use.
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Many-Health-Benefits-of-Essential-Oils

Pumpkin Pie Whoopie Pies

I just made this delicious recipe from a great blog I love to read, Deliciously Organic.  It is the perfect fall dessert and super easy to make.  It is also really easy to adjust the recipe (some of the ingredients may be only available at a natural grocer). 

There are so many yummy ways to add to or switch up this recipe...let your creative juices flow!  Or just enjoy as is.  A fluffy pumpkin cookie with a maple cream cheese center...can't go wrong with that!

Click on the link below to be directed to these decedent dessert!

http://deliciouslyorganic.net/pumpkin-whoopie-pies-with-maple-cream-cheese-frosting/

Is there any thing better than a sun salutation in the morning?

If you learn and practice no other asanas (poses) in yoga...which i don't recommend because they are all amazing!...I urge you to at very least learn Surya Namascar A, also known as Sun Salutation A.  This is a series of postures that bring heat to the body and awakens the mind.  It also pays homage to the beautiful sun that brings life and warmth to our lives and to the world around us.

So how does one do a Surya Namaskar A series?  Easy...

Wake up slightly before the sun is rising in the morning.  It is also really nice to do this at sunset.  Set your mat facing the sun in a nice quiet room with plenty of natural light. I like to turn on some nice, relaxing music.  My favorite is so cliche...Norah Jones "Sunrise"! But its really sets the mood :)  Try it without music too...its a nice time to be alone with your thoughts and to realign yourself for the day ahead.  Also, once you get the swing of it this feels so nice with your eyes closed.

1) Start with your hands at hearts center in Tadasana or Mountain Pose.  The four corners of your feet balanced evenly on your mat.

2)  With an INHALE lift you arms to the sky to Urvha Hastasana, lifting your heart and bending back slightly.

3)  Leading with an EXHALE, with a flat back fold forward from your hips into Uttanasana or Forward Fold.

4)  INHALE your hands to your shins or fingertips to the floor and lift up with a flat back to Ardha Uttanasana or Halfway Lift.

5) EXHALE back down to Uttanasana.

6) INHALE your feet back to High Plank or Adho Mukha Dandasana.

7) Exhale down to Knees, Chest, Chin.  This is where you drop your knees to your mat, keeping your butt in the air, then lower your chest, then chin to the mat. 

8)  INHALE pushing your body through to Cobra pose or Bhujangasana.

9)  EXHALE back into Child's Pose of Balasana and then push up to Downward Facing Dog or Adho Mukha Svanasana.

10)  Take several deep ujayii breaths and on an EXHALE look between your hands and step or jump your feet between your hands.

11) INHALE to Ardha Uttanasana again.

12)  EXHALE to Uttanasana.

13)  INHALE your arms all the way to the sky back to Urdvha Hastasana.

14)  Finally EXHALE your hands back to hearts center at Anjali Mudra.

There you go...you just did one Sun Salutation!  Well mentally at least, which totally counts.  Repeat this as many times as you would like.  Be mindful and graceful with your movements.  Its not a race but instead an elegant dance with your body.  You will notice that when you do multiple Sun Salutations your mind and body will move into an effortless meditiation that is amazingly nourishing.

Doing this in the morning with the rising sun will bring a new meaning to your day as well as a new outlook that you will carry with you through the next 24 hours.  Namaste.

Farmscape: a play documenting the changing rural environment.

Yesterday I went to see a play about the detrimental effects of large-scale agriculture on small-scale farmers and farms.  The dialogue in the play was all directly quoted from interviews of real, modern day, Iowa farmers.  The actors were made up of local Boulder and Denver community members who all, in one way or another, are involved in the local Colorado food system.   With a cast full of local organic farmers local food advocates, the play hit close to home for both cast and audience.

The issues in the play are real...and real scary.  As Americans we are not only polluting our earth, but also polluting our health and our communities.  It is nearly impossible to survive as a local organic farmer these days when having to compete with industrialized agriculture.  And there is almost no incentive for young farmers to get into farming due to the finanical hardships of organic farming.  The average farmer age is 58...so what happens to organic, local food in 30 years?

In the 50s we spent 50% of our income on food...now we spend 11%.  What that means is we want cheap food, fast.  But what people don't realize is the increadible amount of work and the vast amount of variables that go into growing quality, delicious, organic food.  Food quality has no importance to modern day Americans.  But is there anything more important than what you put in your body?  The energy that fuels you, keeps you healthy, happy, and alive?  I think not.

We need to start supporting these farms so we will always have fresh, seasonal, organic, local food available to us.  And it starts with consumers.  If we demand it, it will thrive.  We know our dentist, we know our doctor.  Why do we not know our farmers?

And as one old free range turkey farmer quoted so eloquently, "You may not be paying much now for your food, but in the end you will be paying a ton for your health care."  What makes more sense to you?

Farmscape is traveling around the country right now.  If you would like to host this play in your area contact the playwrite Mary Swander at http://www.maryswander.com/.

Amaranth...its whats for breakfast

Did you know that reheating oats causes them to lose much of their nutritional value?  I had no idea- I do it allll the time!  Recently a friend studying nutrion told me about this.  She also told me how she likes to eat amaranth as her breakfast grain, instead of the typical oats that you think of when you think "hot breakfast".  Researching amaranth a bit more I realized that this tiny little grain is actually an ancient grain of the Aztecs loaded with nutrients like calcium (2x as much as cows milk!), vit. B, vit. E, and a ton of fiber.  It is also super high in protein and good fat which means it keeps you full utill lunch. 

I like to eat it for breakfast mixed with a scoop of almond butter, some nuts, and a little raw honey.  You can also add cinamon to make it a cozy winter breakfast!  It is best when soaked over night in water, maybe even with a bit of lemon juice.  I never do that but I don't mind my breakfast porrige being a little crunchy. 

Then cook as you would oats... 

1)  0.5 cups amaranth with 1.5 cups water (or part water part milk, almond milk, etc.) and a little salt and butter.

2)  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cook for 30 mins-ish or until water has been absorbed.

3)  Once cooked add your toppings.  Homeade yogurt is a delicious mix-in as well.

There are a million other ways to cook amarath and its delicious at any meal.  I encourage you to step away from your old faithful oatmeal or toast and get creative (and nutritious) with breakfast!

Homemade Yogurt

When I studied abroad in France my host mom would always make her own delicious, thick and creamy yogurt that we would eat for breakfast every morning with her homemade jams and chutneys.  It was so delicious and sour that it tasted best just plain.

I have been wanting to make my own yogurt for a while now and decided today was the big day.

Here is how it goes...

1) Heat 4 cups of farm fresh milk in a double broiler to 180 degrees.  I think the fattier the milk the better but that's just me :)  You will need a cooking thermometer for this.

2) Once milk reaches 180 degrees keep it at that temp for one minute and then cool to 115 degrees by removing it from heat.

3)  When cooled to 115 degrees add 1/2 cup of yogurt with live cultures.  Should be able to find easily at the health food store.

4)  Pour mixture into glass jars (Ball Mason jars are what I used)

5)  Now keep the mixture at 110 degrees for 4-6 hours.  Put jars in a (hot) water bath in your oven at the lowest temperature or just the oven light on depending on your oven.  (FYI:  This part is a pain and has convinced me to yet a yogurt machine that keeps the milk mixture at 110 degrees easily and effortlessly without having to sit in your house for 6 hours checking your yogurt every five mins.  yup, i did this.)  Once firm refrigerate to firm up a bit more.  Add yummy jam, honey, almond butter, etc. and enjoy!