Paying the farmer’s asking price…and increasing the farmer’s share

Rural SCALE recently released a study on the affordability of local food for the average consumer, collecting data from 24 farmers’ markets in 19 communities in 6 southeastern states. The study concludes that Overall, farmers markets in the Southeast and Appalachia are highly competitive with mainstream supermarkets in their pricing on a range of commonly [...]

Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All

Happy Mother’s Day! If you are concerned about the sort of world we are leaving our descendants (and what mother or nurturer is not?), today seems to be as good a day as any to commit to making sure that our children and our children’s children inherit a world that includes a healthy, sustainable food [...]

Baked Cod

Like a few other recipes on this site, this one qualifies as Chinese only because of the ingredients used – it’s really a fusion dish, a tweak of a recipe I found on the website of Lummi Island Wild. I am lucky enough to co-manage a buying club that purchases sustainably caught fish directly from [...]

Local food in the news and on the ‘net!

Check out the beautiful video done by Phase 4 Media about Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks – this project has been taking up the bulk of my time at FFN since I started there almost a year ago: http://www.youtube.com/fairfoodnetwork#p/a/u/0/aoHM11PGPKg. And “follow your food from farm to fork” with Real Time Farms new website. Here’s your chance [...]

Where to find great takeout in Ann Arbor

We’re so spoiled being able to cook healthy Chinese food at home, that we are almost invariably disappointed when we eat in a Chinese restaurant. Most Chinese restaurants in America are not at what one could call the forefront of the SOLE (sustainable/organic/local/ethical) food movment, and our bodies notice the difference. Add to that what [...]

Food in the News and on the ‘Net

Disturbing news on the scary food front: Marion Nestle blogs on the egg recall: ”Take home lesson: If you just have a few chickens, waste is not a problem. If you have millions of chickens in one place, you have a disaster in waiting.” One more reason to love your local pastured egg provider! And here’s [...]

Will the real free-range egg (yolk) please stand up?

I’m a firm believer in buying farm fresh local eggs (and other ingredients): true pastured eggs – from chickens who eat what what they can find while out scratching around in a pasture – come from happy hens, are likely to be better for us, for the environment, and for the local food economy, and [...]

List of Links

I recently watched Food, Inc., with my ten-year-old daughter, who just finished reading the young reader’s version of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The documentary, based on Pollan’s book and the work of Eric Schlosser, was well made and highly accessible to her. It was funny to hear her finally comment, “What’s up with all [...]

Good news, bad news?

Check out Tom Philpott’s post on Grist.com about Will Allen’s Growing Power going to Africa. Philpott give praise where it’s due and also raises some very important point and makes some good critiques of other attempts to ”feed the world.”

Recommended viewing

Thoroughly enjoyed A Passion for Sustainability on DVD this weekend – not exactly food related, but a very inspirational documentary for anyone in business and much to think about in terms of the food systems we choose to support. This 2007 film follows 14 Portland, Oregon businesses who have become more (or completely) sustainable via a program [...]