COUNCIL PASSES LOCAL FOOD ACTION INITIATIVE

COUNCIL PASSES LOCAL FOOD ACTION INITIATIVE
Legislation will support food banks, help aid farmers’ markets, and expand community gardens

Since April of this year Seattle City Council passed the Local Food Action Initiative. The initiative hopes to expand resources for food banks; local farmers' markets; develop new solutions on how to deal with the problems in food cost for urban consumers by helping strengthen the connections between our rural and urban areas; plan for better management of our food system in case of emergencies and major disasters; and much more.
The city now has plans to develop the Food Action Plan which will identify policies, programs and opportunities to promote local food systems sustainability and security. Not only that but the city council begins its work on a Regional Food Policy Council that can bring the City and the County together in order to help develop policies that will contribute to these intial goals and ideas.
The president of the Council Richard Conlin, the initiative’s sponsor and chair of the Environment, Emergency Planning and Utilities Committee, said in an interview, “Access to food is one of the most fundamental needs of our community. This new initiative will bring together the work that is being done in the community and the City to create a framework for ensuring that Seattle residents have access to a healthy and sustainable food resources.”

Another member of the council named Tim Burgess also included that, “We made some changes suggested by citizens to clarify and strengthen the resolution, and made its intent clearer and more focused. I believe it is a reasonable effort by the city to plan for emergencies, continue our work toward greater sustainability, and strengthen locally-owned businesses.”

Council member Jan Drago noted that not only will i benifit those who are lookign for healthier food but also those in need, “This initiative will support food banks and meal programs by strengthening connections between our p-patch network and food banks to provide more fresh food for those who are hungry and in need and by helping the food banks to reduce their costs for managing food waste.”

I think it was a great success of Seattle, to not only acknowledge this wonderful resource we have accessible to us but to also note the amount of people who still go hungry everyday. I hope this is not just something that stays on paper, but something that is really included into our everyday lives.

---Nina Miller

Loss of Salmon and Loss of Culture

By Alice Shieh

I was surprised to find out that many species of Northwest salmon are considered threatened. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest branch lists at least half of the varieties of Coho, Chinook, Chum, and Steelhead salmon as either threatened or endangered. That leaves only pink salmon and sockeye salmon. (http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/ESA-Salmon-Listings/upload/snapshot0208.pdf)

Despite the fact that salmon numbers are dwindling, the public doesn't receive much education about the plight of salmon. Seattle still continues to be known for its fabulous seafood (especially salmon), cooking shows and recipe books still show us how to cook salmon, and salmon is still served in restaurants without much concern for the species' future. The survival of several varieties of salmon are threatened and, for the most part, public awareness about salmon is lacking. People simply don't talk about the fact that, within a span of 50 years', salmon runs have decreased from 16 million to 2 million (Hansen, 1994).

This is an issue that is important for the Northwest. Salmon contributes to the Northwest economy and it is an important food source for Native northwesterners. Salmon is a traditional food and an integral part of Native northwest cultures. Unfortunately, overfishing, fishery practices, and the difficulties posed by dams (such as the Columbia River dam) have all contributed to the diminished state of salmon today.

Native people, for whom salmon is culturally significant, have fought on behalf of salmon. They have also fought for the restoration of their tribal fishing rights, since Native fishing practices are, they argue, responsible and respectful of wildlife. In as far back as 1988, Simon Lucas, the then-co-chair of the BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission and the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, argued that "At the very heart of fish conservation is not catching fish today so there will be more fish to catch in the future. We have demonstrated time and time again our respect for the salmon. When the time has come for conservation, however, departmental policies prevent native so-called food fishermen from sharing in the benefits of conservation efforts." He also argued for the need for cooperation between native and non-native fishermen to solve the salmon problem.

This issue emphasizes the interconnectedness of culture, food, and land. While certainly a food issue, the loss of salmon also equates to the loss of culture and life for Native northwesterners. In an article written by Native American journalist Terri Hansen, she writes: "Salmon are at the heart of Northwest Indian culture; their diet, commerce, ceremonies and spirituality. Salmon are not just a way of life. They are life. And they are fast becoming scarce."


References (of sources whose URLs were not provided within the body of the post):

Hansen, Terri. (1994). "Pacific Northwest Salmon in Crisis." http://motherearthjournal.blogspot.com/2007/06/pacific-northwest-salmon-in-crisis-1994.html

Lucas, Simon. (1988). "The Thriving of Wild Salmon: An Address to the Suzuki Foundation's Wild Salmon conference." http://ncseonline.org/nae/docs/salmon.html

Further Reading:

Governor's Salmon Recovery Office Website
http://www.governor.wa.gov/gsro/default.asp

Indigenous Native American Fishing in the Pacific Northwest Region of North America
http://www.bauuinstitute.com/Articles/IndigenousFishingPacificNorthwest.html

Community Fruit Tree Harvest: a fruit to mouths operation

- Andrea Hermanson

Imagine 10,000 pounds of apples, plums, and pears lying on the ground or going into yard waste bins all over Seattle. While perhaps good organic fertilizer, wouldn’t you rather see those pounds going to feed thousands of hungry people? An inventive food distribution program of Solid Ground called Community Fruit Tree Harvest engages volunteers in the collection of fruit from local trees. A seemingly simple concept, but last year this program connected those 10,000 pounds of apples, plums, and pears from Seattle fruit trees to low-income Seattleites through local food banks. When food banks can hardly keep food—let alone fresh produce—on the shelves, it seems unthinkable to imagine that this nutritious food would not meet hungry mouths.

I think this is indicative of the backwardnessof our fast-paced, wasteful consumer culture and in many ways of current food crisis. People are willing to let perfectly edible food go uneaten instead of canning, freezing, or giving it to neighbors. While neglecting food may be for a variety of legitimate reasons (including lack of knowledge passed down about how to preserve it), I do not believe such neglect would have been conceivable in my grandparent’s days or even for my parents, who collect every apple possible from their trees and turn it into food (or give it away). Healthy (virtually free) food is precious—and Community Fruit Tree Harvest is making this connection for hungry people. Outstanding, community-supported programs such as this go a long way (albeit slowly) in making healthy food available for community members in the most need, while also drawing attention to the fact that there are many fruit trees and produce that is available on public lands and that grows independent of human action—this is all available for the eating. An June article in the Seattle PI highlights this program and related food issues: "Growing in Seattle: Food aid from the home front"

Low Oxygen Levels Threaten Life in Hood Canal

By Alice Shieh

(View of Hood Canal at sunset.)

Hood Canal is a 70+ mile long waterway that separates Kitsap Peninsula from Olympic Peninsula. It's actually a fjord--the only one on the west coast--and words to describe its scenery are: serene, beautiful, and picturesque. Personally, it's one of my favorite places and I think it's gorgeous. However, back in 2003, major concerns were raised regarding low oxygen levels in Hood Canal's waters--levels so low that the event was considered historic. What resulted was an alarming loss of marine life.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer ( http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/139800_hood16.html ) reported that, because of low oxygen levels at deeper depths, octopus mothers were abandoning their eggs and deep-dwelling marine creatures were being spotted at shallow depths. Fishing was banned that year in the canal--a historic first. I remember that, in the months following, then-Governor Gary Locke appeared in numerous television ads to warn of the threat to Hood Canal marine life and warn against pollution in its waters. (I live in Kitsap County, so it may have only aired in areas surrounding Hood Canal.)

Hood canal is an important source of Northwest seafood. It homes oysters, clams, Dungeness crab, cod, salmon, shrimp, squid, octopus, and scallops. Therefore, the deaths of marine life in Hood Canal were considered a crisis, as it provides much of the seafood that makes Seattle famous. (A local diver describes the underwater graveyard she saw during this time in this article: http://www.cdnn.info/news/eco/e060923b.html ) Furthermore, Hood Canal provides food not only for western Washington, but for the wildlife that depend upon it for survival. Numerous bird species (including the bald eagle, which hunts fish), bears, deer, sea lions, otters, and many more creatures inhabit the banks of the fjord. Even whale pods have been known to visit its waters. Hood Canal is both a source of the seafood that is iconic to the Pacific Northwest, as well as the source of life for many threatened species of wildlife.

Early reports, such as this one from CDNN Eco News, blamed human pollution for the mass deaths: http://www.cdnn.info/eco/e040506/e040506.html For example, the article claims that "Auto emissions (washed down by rain), lawn fertilizers, sewage, and storm water runoff all feed nitrogen and other nutrients into the water. The nutrients generate plankton blooms, which die after a few days, sinking to the bottom, where decomposition uses up oxygen. The lack of oxygen kills fish and sea plants, which decompose and use up most of the remaining oxygen."

Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program's online brochure explains why the fjord is prone having pockets of low oxygen:

"The geology and bathymetry (underwater topography) of Hood Canal play a large role in the water quality and dynamics of how the water moves. The entrance to the canal is relatively shallow, about 150’. Just south of the entrance the canal becomes very deep, to 500 and 600’. This ‘sill’ at the entrance creates a condition in the canal that doesn’t allow the water to flow or exchange very easily with the changing tides and seasons. The ‘sill’ tends to retain the water (reduces the exchange) in the canal and estimates of complete water exchange rates are in the magnitude of years.

"The water of Hood Canal can be highly stratified… which means there is an upper layer of different temperature and salinity (saltiness). Highly stratified water doesn’t mix very well. So, essentially, the waters of Hood Canal are deep, stratified, and exchange very slowly. This is not a good situation when considering the resilience of Hood Canal to human contributions." http://www.hoodcanal.washington.edu/aboutHC/brochure.html

Since the waters don't mix well, pockets of low-oxygen water tend to form in Hood Canal. This worsens when large amounts of plankton form and settle to the sea floor to die, depleting the existing oxygen supply during decomposition. While human interaction with Hood Canal's ecosystem were originally blamed for the low oxygen levels, more recent research has identified natural causes for the phenomenon. Water circulation within the canal, the amount of ocean water it receives from the Pacific ocean, and plankton growth all contribute to (or take away from) the oxygen levels in Hood Canal. While this doesn't exonerate human contamination, it does mean that pollution results in the oxygen crisis only when conditions weaken the natural resiliency of Hood Canal. ( http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2007/nov/27/oxygen-levels-keep-hood-canal-fish-research/ )

The 2002-2003 loss of marine life in Hood Canal sent both environmentalists and politicians in an uproar. Many politicians pointed fingers at human pollution before scientists had even finished their studies. Now, natural causes for the low oxygen pockets have been identified by the scientific community. More than just a local foods issue, this is also an example of discourse in the making. The problem has never changed, but it has been framed and reframed differently within the last five years.

Legislating Local Food

- Andrea Hermanson

A recent proposal was passed this spring by the City of Seattle to support the infrastructure for promoting and funding local, community-based food and farming networks. The Local Food Action Initiative will support local and regional food systems and is strategically intertwined with the City’s goals of “race and social justice, environmental sustainability, economic development, and emergency preparedness.” The initiative is ground-breaking, in that it ties food to justice and acknowledges issues of hunger, health disparities, problems of industrial agriculture, and pollution which plague our communities via the current global capitalist system. While it certainly does not point a direct finger at capitalism, it is a step.

The website outlines the following agenda items:

• Increase support of local and regional agriculture and community gardens and make stronger connections between our rural and urban areas
• Improve public health through providing increased access to healthy, culturally appropriate, and locally and regionally grown foods, especially for low-income households
• Reduce climate impacts of our food system
• Improve the security of our local food supply in the event that a major disaster were to occur
• Reduce negative environmental effects relating to the food system including minimizing energy use and reducing food waste
• Create local economic opportunities related to local food production, processing, distribution, and waste management
• Support strategies to connect major institutions, such as schools, hospitals, and jails, to locally grown food.
• Build community through developing community gardens, promoting farmers’ markets, involving immigrants, and developing programs that contribute to sustainability.

The City’s website gives some examples of what this might look like:

• Developing a City of Seattle Food Policy Action Plan which would identify policies, programs and opportunities to promote local food system sustainability and security.
• Strengthening existing local farmer's markets by finding permanent locations.
• Identifying additional locations and infrastructure for community gardens and farmer's markets to strengthen our community garden program and maximize accessibility to all neighborhoods and communities.
• Supporting programs such as a Food Bank–Food Waste Recycling Project and an Urban Farmland Initiative that can assist in providing fresh food for food banks and meal programs.
• Forming a Regional Food Policy Council that can assist the City and the County with developing policies that contribute to our goals.

During a recent event hosted by Community Alliance for Global Justice last weekend, I also learned that this initiative will do things such as: (1) support the establishment of a new “Marra Farm” in North Seattle, which is an increasingly diverse neighborhood and has a growing immigrant population; (2) vastly expand community-based gardening through more P-Patch land in all neighborhoods; and (3) give schools for the first time permission (and some funding, I believe) to purchase locally-grown food instead of the mass-produced, cheapest food available. The Local Food Action Initiative could have powerful, positive impacts on our communities—but we have to make sure that in the face of economic crises, these forward-thinking, new programs are not cut!

Locavore

Locavore: a person that eats only food that are grown, processed and produced within 100 miles of their own home.

Becoming a Locavore you are supporting sustainable environmental economies. Since most of the food people consume have traveled on average 2,0000 miles to reach you, not only is a quality of your food effected but it also impacts our environment.

By choosing to buy foods that come from your neighborhood you get the freshest, healthiest, and more flavorful products of the season.

For Seattle residents, this means buying produce, meat, diary and other products from Western or Central Washington. That would include the exclusion of tropical fruits. However, thankfully Washington is full of wonderful fruits seasonally such as cherries, figs, melons, kiwis, and all kinds of berries.

Other options, such as vegetables, have a wide variety from beans and broccoli to peppers, asparagus, and squash.

For full list of the foods produced in Western Washington, see King County's harvest schedule, which gives you information on which farms and where you can find your favorite foods locally.

Some restaurants in Seattle that support local communities include;

~Tilth
~Taste which is insed of the Seattle Art Museum
~Earth and Ocean
~Agua Verde
~All of Tom Douglas's restaurants such as, serisous pie, Lola, Etta's, Dahlia's Lounge
~Macrina Bakery

For more restaurants you can visit Local Harvest.

---Nina Miller

New York Greenmarkets

I came to Seattle from New York blown away by the farmers markets, assuming that my state was far behind in terms of the local food movement. Once I started poking around, I found that this was not the case; I just had not been looking in the right places. I am from Long Island and knew that the island had it's share of markets on the eastern end, but I discovered that there are City Greenmarkets in all five boroughs. These include more well known locations such as Rockefeller center, Williamsburg, Union Square, and even in the Staten Island Ferry terminal. (Find a list of locations here) Greenmarket has been organizing and managing these markets throughout NYC since 1976, supplying local produce from 200+ farms throughout New York on 30,000 acres of regional open space, collectively. Some of the best restaurants around the city use produce from Greenmarkets! Greenmarket is also known for its community outreach, now accepting coupons or foodstamps at many locations. In addition, any unsold produce that cannot be sold at a later date are used to feed the hungry. In 2006 224,000 lbs. of food were donated to City Harvest.


This article tells the story of a Katonah farmer named Dan Gibson (right), once the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Starwood Hotels and Resorts, who now sells his grass-fed angus at the Union Square Greenmarket on Fridays. Instead of sitting around for dinner with other Upper-East Siders, he now shares his meals with other local farmers that he does business with. The article also explains that many urban professionals are giving up the city life to buy farmland.

Here are two good videos to watch: the first is about a Staten Island farmer who now cultivates produce from his home in Mexico and the second is a fun video on a "farmer's tan" contest at a Brooklyn Greenmarket in Williamsburg, showing a lot of the spirit and community bond of these markets.

-Nicole Boland

Eating Local Beef

When you eat beef do you know where it comes from?  What does the cattle you are eating receive as it is raised?  These are really questions you should be asking yourself.  Cattle that grow up eating grasses have much different health than those eating grain.

Cattle have evolved to eat primarily a diet high in fiber and low in protein, which grass offers.  Cattle that are forced to eat grain receive a diet high in protein and low in fiber.  This results in an acidic digestive tract which allows for the multiplication of E. coli.  Grass fed cattle also are much higher in Omega-3 fats and Vitamin E, these compounds come from green grasses.  Omega-3's play a role in prevention of heart disease, cancer, and arthritis.  Some of the statistics from these benefits are found on the Paradigm Farms website.  Cattle raised on feedlots or confinement facilities are very unhealthy.  Packed together so close they can't roam freely and consuming unnatural diets.  These cows have to have a steady diet of antibiotics because the disease rate is so high.  In fact 2/3 of all the antibiotics consumed in the world go towards cattle.

You also have to be careful when looking at natural vs. organic beef.  Organic beef does not necessarily mean it was raised with the care that natural beef is.  Organic beef only means the cattle consume organically raised products, but could still be consuming unnatural grain diets.

In Washington there are many farms where you can find naturally raised beef and other animals.  A map of these farms in Washington is found here.  At these farms you can find natural grass raised beef which are never given antibiotics or growth hormones.  Local beef does not have to be transported far which benefits the environment by burning less fuels to transport grain to the cattle, cattle to the slaughterhouse, and beef to your table.  The less distance your food travels the better for the environment.

You can do yourself a favor and not change your diet by just eating natural beef.  It benefits your health and benefits the cattle you consume.  You will feel much better consuming beef which is locally and naturally grown from cattle that are not crammed into small spaces, fed horrible food, and treated unethically.

- Alec Haberman

The disappearance of local food in China

Traveling around some of the Chinese cities, you can see more and more restaurants signed with “providing the most orthodoxy local food”. However, it doesn’t mean the prosperity of local and traditional food; but instead, it’s the signal of the disappearance of local food in China.

I remember that when I was young, every family would store piles of Chinese cabbages in winter in Beijing. Since at that time, there was no wide- spread greenhouse and GMOs, and there were no enough vegetables in the freezing winter. Therefore, a special winter cuisine had gradually formed in this hundred-year tradition. We ate Chinese cabbage stir dish with tofu and meat, hotpot with Chinese cabbages, and the other various winter special dishes with Chinese cabbages. I think the dishes are more than food for stomach but food for our rich old-Beijing cooking culture and fun for children to carry and pile the cabbages. However, with the development of greenhouse vegetables and GMOs, you can eat vegetables from all seasons. Thus, the store of Chinese cabbages seemed not necessary after all it was a time-consuming work. Nowadays, although you still can see the restaurants’ menu with special Chinese cabbage dishes, but it will never be our local food anymore, in which not only the flavor has lost but also the original fun and deep culture accumulated by generations has disappeared.

Apparently, the disappearance of Beijing’s winter Chinese cabbage is not the only case. As I mentioned in the former blogs, the real bamboo rice of Dai minority and the “old and deep” vinegar in Shanxi province are also facing the vanishment. After the economic transition from the planned economy to the market-oriented economy in China in the 1980s, the real and pure house-made local food could no longer compete with the fake “local” food made by big food factories in the food market. The local food has been commercialized and became the attraction of local tourism and money maker. Lost the delicate making procedures and the deep meanings to the local families, the new “local” foods could never taste the same as before. Furthermore, the changes in traditional agriculture also lead to the disappearance of local food. For example, the famous fermented rice wine could no longer be tasted the same after the introduction of transgenic hybrid wheat in the south. I don’t know the specific scientific reasons for this case, but I do know it is the destruction of the indigenous agricultural structure that primarily dominates the disappearance.

I’m very sad about the disappearance of our local food which once brought me so much fun and unforgettable family memories. Food is key connection between the human society and the surrounding environment and is the sediment of thousands-year culture. We should protect them just as we protect the nature.

-By Yuting Ma

Hanford: Endangering Fish, Water, and Life Along the Columbia River

By Alice Shieh

Hanford, a 570-square-mile nuclear complex in eastern Washington, has been described as having the worse contamination of any place in the Western hemisphere. Once the traditional wintering grounds of native peoples, the place now called Hanford was chosen by a U.S. military general to be the site of the world’s first large nuclear facility in 1943. (The native people were, of course, removed from the area to make room for the Hanford site.) Its location was ideal because of its close proximity to water and electricity—courtesy of the Columbia River. Between the years 1944 to 1947 alone, 638,000 curies of radiation were released. Robert Alvarez (2003) compares this figure to the incident at Three Mile Island, which only released 15 curies’ of radiation. In his article “The Legacy of Hanford,” he quotes a scientist who describes Hanford as containing enough hazardous material to “induce cancer in every person currently on the planet, 208 million times over.”


Massive dumping of contamination has occurred at Hanford since its inception. Over 440 billion gallons of liquid waste has been released into the ground at Hanford. About 100 million gallons of highly radioactive waste (resulting from the chemical separation of plutonium and uranium) have been stored in giant, leaking containers, buried beneath the ground at the site. Instead of respecting the fact that these materials are incredibly long-lived (nuclear waste, like diamonds, are forever), the federal government has attempted to redefine 75% of the waste at Hanford as “incidental.” The safest way to dispose of the waste, a process called vitrification where radioactive waste is converted into glass logs, is expensive, whereas “incidental” waste can be mixed with cement and buried in shallow pits directly in the ground—a much cheaper alternative.

Hanford downwinders have suffered (and continue to suffer) from serious health problems as a result of living downwind of Hanford’s contamination. Approximately 80% of Chinook salmon spawns in Hanford Reach and a study by the EPA and Native tribes found that “tribal children eating fish from the Hanford Reach have 100 times the risk of immune diseases and central nervous system disorders as non-Indian children. Risks of contracting cancer among tribal people from eating fish from this stretch of the river were estimated to be as high as 1 in 50” (Alvarez). Indeed, there is evidence now that hexavalent chromium—a carcinogen—from the Hanford site has spread into and contaminated the spawning beds of salmon.

Pacific northwesterners—native and non-native alike—appreciate the salmon as a food important to both Northwest culture and Northwest economy. When one thinks of foods local to Washington state, salmon is bound to come into mind. This is why Hanford’s pollution and its contamination of the salmon of Hanford Reach is an important issue for anybody interested in the local foods of the Pacific Northwest. That local people are being effectively poisoned by their local foods furthermore highlights the seriousness of the problem. Also, no food is more important or more local than water, and the water certainly is contaminated near Hanford. In fact, Hanford waste seeps into the Columbia River itself, which straddles the border between Washington and Oregon for hundreds of miles before spilling into the Pacific Ocean. Salmon is but one of the few things affected by Hanford.

The contamination at Hanford pollutes more than just the fish—the air, water, and soil are all affected. At present, Washington state governor Christine Gregoire has sued the federal government on the state’s behalf to speed up the Hanford cleanup effort (Seattle Times, November 28, 2008). (As attorney general of Washington state, she previously sued the federal government to prevent it from relocating even more nuclear waste from other sites to Hanford.) The Bush administration has attempted to siphon funds away from cleanup efforts at Hanford to help fund the War on Terror. One wonders, however, as Senator John Glenn did in 1988, "What good does it do to defend ourselves with nuclear weapons, if we poison our people in the process?" (qtd. in Alvarez).

Please visit http://www.hanfordwatch.org for more information.

LETHAL AND LEAKING

.

References

Alvarez, Robert. (2003) The Legacy of Hanford. The Hanford Watch. Retrieved Nov 23, 2008 from http://www.hanfordwatch.org/archive/Legacy_of_Hanford.htm

Video retrieved from YouTube. (Part 2 is avalaible under the title Lethal and Leaking pt 2)

Feds, state must try harder to agree on Hanford cleanup. (Nov 28, 2008.) Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2008445404_edit28hanford.html

Eating Local in B.C.

I found this great film about Pemberton B.C. that was part of the Whistler Film Festival, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTcDA9AYanM

It reminds viewers that the future of food is local and eating local promotes a process of reconnection with the land we live in and the people who produce our food.

The Slow Food Cycle event promotes the community to see the local farms as well as local farmers to see those who are interested in Slow Food.  Slow Food is an international organization with the philosophy: Everyone has the fundamental right to pleasure and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of our food, tradition, and culture make this pleasure possible.  All food should be good, clean, and fair food.  Today there are more than 85,000 members in 132 countries who participate in Slow Food.  Slow Food uses events and initiatives to defend biodiversity in our food supply, spread taste education, and connect producers of foods with co-producers.  Their web site and ideas are amazing and you can join the group here!

Another interesting group talked about is the 100 mile diet.  The diet was begun by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon as an experiment to eat food that only came from within a 100 mile radius for one year.  100 miles is far enough to reach beyond the big cities and small enough to be truly local.  The web site gives 13 reasons why to eat local.  The 100 mile diet is an amazing challenge, a Seattleite would be restricted from the Pacific Ocean to Yakima and Longview to the Canadian boarder.  You can find your 100 miles on there site here.  Whether or not if you participate in the strict 100 mile diet it is in your best interest to check out these web sites and eat local trends.  Even if you make a small change in your lifestyle you will be benefiting the planet, local economy, and most importantly yourself.

- Alec Haberman

The “Old and Deep” Vinegar of Chinese Northern Province ShanXi

ShanXi province is located in the mid-northern part of China, where the land is featured as continuous hills and mountains. Relatively arid in the mid-terrain, the dominant corps are wheat and sorghum (a kind of thick-fiber grain). And the vinegar is a prominent part of life in ShanXi province and is considered to be the symbol of ShanXi’s cuisine. As the statistic shown, averagely, every ShanXier has 18 kilogram vinegar every year, which ranks the first around China.

Notably, the ShanXi vinegar is not the ordinary one, and the native people call it the “ old and deep” vinegar(LaoChenCu). The designation is not only based on the deep brown color and the strong smell of the liquid but also the profound and deep-rooted history of vinegar in their history.

The “old and deep” vinegar is distilled from the fermentation of the mixture of sorghum, wheat bran, grain chaff, barley and pea for several months. Without any coloring ingredient, the “old and deep” vinegar is colored by special smoke. And the longer the vinegar is fermented and smoked, the more delicious and valuable the vinegar is.

Furthermore, the “old and deep” vinegar really has an old and deep history in ShanXi province. It could date back to the 800 A.D when the first recorded vinegar shop opened in ShanXi. I think maybe because ShanXi has huge reserves of coal, the carbon oxide in the air is relatively high; and the vinegar has the function of eliminate the coal gas, Shanxiers love to have vinegar. Another reason I guess is that, in the light of the hard water in Shanxi, people need the vinegar to soften their water and food and to help digest. But those reasons were conjectures for thousands years before; nowadays, the “old and deep” vinegar is all about the tradition or even gene among the Shanxier. For me, my mom came from Shanxi, and I was grown up in my grandma’s special vinegar cooking and the old vinegar-making stories in her former village in Shanxi. For my grandma, the “old and deep” vinegar is not only her favorite flavoring which she must go back and buy some back from thousands miles away every year, but also her thread that links to her homeland and old memories. I think so do the other Shanxier, the “old and deep” vinegar is inveterate to their life.

-By Yuting Ma

Family Farms

As we spoke about in class, family farms are being put out of business at an alarming rate because of large corporations taking control of the food production at even the most basic levels. Sustainabletable.org goes into detail about sustainability and how educate yourself about this healthy eating. According to this site, "Sustainable agriculture is a way of raising food that is healthy for consumers and animals, does not harm the environment, is humane for workers, respects animals, provides a fair wage to the farmer, and supports and enhances rural communities." This promotes many of the main concepts we have been discussing in this class, including conservation and preservation, biodiversity and economic viability. This is all well and good and I'm sure many of us would prefer eating this kind of food daily, but as we have discussed on the Go-Post, it is not always affordable.

This article describes George Page, a farmer on Vashon Island, who joined this local food revolution in 2007. He is able to provide fresh meat and dairy that may outsell local farmers markets, but admits that his prices are expensive. It is "up to $8 a dozen for duck eggs, and about $20 for a 4-pound, pasture-raised chicken," though he does pay more for the best feed for his animals. However, in a time where our economy has taken some pretty hard hits and many are trying to get by by spending as little as possible, it is nearly impossible to keep up. Is there a way in the future we can make local organic food more accessible to the seemingly growing lower-middle class?

On a different note, this is a more "inspirational" article for college students like us that might have trouble knowing what is best away from home. I would suggest taking a look at this student who was able to change his eating habits and after he realized that you are what you eat.

-Nicole Boland

CSA: A source for locally-grown food

- Andrea Hermanson

I first started to investigate Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in my search to source more locally produced foods last summer. My goal was to buy directly from farmers as much as possible. Outside of farmers markets, CSA is one of the only other avenues I found to accomplish this objective (which led me to think about how I go about acquiring to gardening skills...). CSA in the Seattle area has many formations as I came to observe with the overarching concept of directly supporting the farmer. CSA programs engage individuals directly into the risks and rewards of farming. Members are essentially up-front investors who receive proportionate shares of the harvest. For some CSAs, there is a labor requirement (i.e. 10 hours of farm work per month). There are also subscription CSAs popping up, which some might argue are antithetical to the spirit of the CSA. Members can start and stop any time and pay along the way (i.e. weekly). Both structures, however, support local, small-scale farming operations which typically use chemical-free methods. The King County's Puget Sound Fresh directory has thirteen CSA programs listed in King County alone.

My household signed up with Full Circle Farm, a subscription CSA program, and has reaped the delectable benefits. While the fall months have proven to be particularly challenging in using up all the produce with a hectic schedule, the experience is thoroughly satisfying. The produce is delicious and gorgeous (you will not find any torpedo carrots or waxed apples), and you can go visit the place that provided your daily nourishment. Here are a few photos from my visit to Full Circle last summer as a volunteer with Cascade Harvest Coalition. It was gratifying to break a sweat working on farm projects with others and to get dirty moving food to table.

Working within the confines of the capitalist agricultural system, CSA is an innovative effort to re-localize food production, connect alienated eaters with the land, revalue farms and farm workers, and create a more humane and sustainable food system—connections that have been lost in the rapid and violent transformation to industrial agriculture in the United States.

Marra Farm--South Park, Seattle

One of the last remaining original agricultural land in Seattle, this farm was worked on by the Marra family for almost 70 years until 1970 when it was sold to King Country. Restoration began in 1997 because of the efforts of a few community members and later received help from various government and non-profit organizations. Members of the Marra Farm Coalition include Lettuce Link, Seattle Youth Garden Works (SYGW), Mien Community Garden, and South Park Neighborhood Association.

Marra Farm serves the community in many more ways than supplying organic produce. It has become a community-wide project which creates unity and pride for the people involved. The farmers grow food for their own families, but also donate produce to local residents including senior citizens and elementary school students and their families. This is a vital contribution to this city; more than 13% of South Park households live below the poverty line. In addition, food is also sold our own farmer's market in the U-District. http://www.solid-ground.org/Programs/Nutrition/Marra/Pages/default.aspx

Lee Harper, manager for coalition member Lettuce Link, explains "We've got teens, community gardeners, immigrants and kids, but we're all Marra Farm. We're all helping to create a stronger community. This mission is evolving bigger than any one organization." This farm gives families the ability to teach their children where their food comes from and how to include them in the process. Each and every person is an important part of the growth of the farm and the community. "Volunteers harvest the vegetables every Friday and deliver them to the food bank, which serves about 140 families every Saturday morning." More important than simply growing organic produce, this farm is able to sustain its volunteers as well as members of the community who are in need of food. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/226993_marra03.html?searchpagefrom=2&searchdiff=3

If you'd like to see its effects for yourself, watch this video on youtube--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQFhgcq45g&eurl=http://www.solid-ground.org/Programs/Nutrition/Marra/Pages/default.aspx

-Nicole Boland

Farmer's Markets

In Washington state we have an organization called the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance (NFMA.) This is a community-based organization developed in order to supply the city with produce based on the growing popularity and public support of the neighborhood Farmers Markets in Seattle. The NFMA hopes to support Washington’s small farms and farming families. Farmer's markets enable farms and their farming families to have direct sale to the population. NFMA hopes to educate people on where their food is from and what they are eating.

The NFMA is a non-profit corporation. There is a board of directors, where there are elven people, 4 of which are farmers who sell their produce at the markets. The other members are also highly involved with the program.

In Washington state there are seven local markets "producer-only" markets. This means that there are no crafts, flea markets or wholesalers. The farm produce includes fresh, seasonal vegetables and fruits, herbs, nuts, dairy products eggs, honey, poultry, mushrooms, fish, meat, pickled vegetables, ciders, pasta, bread and other baked goods. Everything must be grown and produced in Washington.

They even give you suggestion on what to eat locally each month.

December:

apples, pears, plums, lettuces, greens, fresh herbs, Brussels Sprouts, Jerusalem artichokes, beets, broccoli, Romanesco Broccoli, beans (dried: Cannolini, Black Turtle, Peas), Carrots, Garlic: Elephant and Spanish Roja, shallots, scallion, Turnips, Rutabagas, Parsnips, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Fava Beans, Winter Squash, Pumpkin Squash, potatoes, Chantrelles.

To find a farmer's market near you go to http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/farms/farmers_markets.htm
--Nina Miller

The Local Food of Dai, the Southwestern Minority of China

Although I'm not a member of the minority Dai, their tradtions and foods are what I really interested in. So let me introduce some of them.

Dai is a Chinese minority that is mostly located in the southwestern province Yunnan in China, where it is covered by vast rainforest. The Dai's villages are always surrounded by patches of bamboos. So the bamboos are only used as the construction materials but also ideal tools for cooking and a main source of food.

Dai people cook their everyday meal with bamboos. Most frequently, they cut a part of bamboo for about 40cm in length and 3cm thickness in the sides as the container, and pour some polished glutinous rice in it with water and some spices. Then they use some big leaves such as the banana's leave to stuff the container tightly and then put it on the fire until there is a small of bamboo. The Dai will cut it half to half or peel the bamboo's bark just like peeling banana and eat the rice inside. The bamboo rice tastes very nice with the fresh and delicate fragrance from bamboo. And the farmers would like to bring some when they are out for cropping for they are quite convenient to carry. Furthermore, the Dai also cook the soup, fish , chicken and pork with the bamboo container.

What the Dai eat about bamboo is the bamboo shoot, which emerges out after raining just aside the old bamboo. For the sake that in the area of Dai it is raining for half a year every year, the bamboo shoots are main source of food for the Dai. Cooking with vegetables, chickens, mushrooms, and even insects, the bamboo shoots, which are more than 100 varities, are delicious and nutritious, and especially good for resisting the humidity in the rainforest for the Dai people. And they also have incredible value as tradtional medicine.

The bamboo foods are no more special to the Dai than to the other parts of the world dependng on its special geographic characteristics. The Dai are living with bamboo.

-By Yuting Ma

Pike Place Market

Growing up in Seattle, I often visited the Pike Place Market but never really thought of where the produce and food comes from, or about the people who sell it.  Pike Place Market is a perfect example of eating local in Seattle.  Along with local food and produce there are vendors selling arts, crafts, and clothing.  One of the main attractions are the multiple fish markets selling local fresh seafood.  Here is a short video showing what part of the market looks like, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyjjWlqPqY.  It shows the wide variety of flowers and produces available.  

The market offers a chance for producers to directly sell their produce to the public without selling it to a corporation or middle man before it reaches a grocery store.  In today's growing world it gets harder to buy local food from markets simply because farms are being pushed farther and farther away from the cities as population booms.  Another benefit of buying from local producers is that you can better avoid genetically modified crops and actually know where your foods are coming form instead of guessing how food gets from the ground to your plate.

Pike Place Market is as much a tourist attraction as it a place for Seattle residents to find locally grown produce.  For those of us who wish to skip the tourism and just find locally grown food there are several other options.  There are farmers markets located in Broadway, Columbia City, Lake City, Magnolia, Phinney, the University District, and West Seattle.  Hours and locations can be found: http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/markets.  These markets are based on local, "producer-only" markets.  There are no arts or crafts available, only Washington State farm produce and processed goods.  A few days ago I went to the University District market on 50th and the Ave and found this experience to be much more local than Pike Place Market.  It is always fun to visit Pike Place Market but often it is a hassle because of so many people and tourists so if you strictly want some locally grown produce I suggest head to one of the seven farmers markets located in the Seattle area.

- Alec Haberman

"Eat local" consumerism

- Andrea Hermanson

Our focus this quarter on indigenous lococentric worldviews has challenged me to look at the current consumer trend to “eat local” in a new light—and has reminded me of its more humble origins. When I talk to my parents, who are farmers, about CSA programs, farmers markets, or organic gardening, they chuckle and wistfully reference the “olden days.” While mainly a pastime now, my mom still cans and freezes produce from her garden every summer, and she forever produced in me the longing for the real, juicy, mouth-watering tomato. In the "olden days," however, it was less out of principle than out of habit and economic necessity. When industrial agriculture came to town with cheap, sliced bread and ready-to-drink milk, my parents were happy to make the transition from early morning bread making and cow milking to store-bought products. Knowing what we know today about the food system, I’m not sure they would have been so quick to jump on the bandwagon.


I like to imagine that today’s consumer movement to eat local is moving towards a more placed-based epistemology concerning food as it positions place and the reciprocal relationship of people to the land as central to healthy, resilient communities—and condemns industrial agriculture’s effects on our bodies and minds. However, an epistemological shift requires more radical steps than going to the farmers market and deciding to sign up on eatlocalchallenge.com. There is clearly a profound spiritual connection to place for truly lococentric cultures that produces more sustainable, humane ways of living through not only food-buying habits, but through social, political, and cultural systems of belief and practice. This multi-layered and scared link was embodied in Delbert Miller visit and presence in class and Bruce Miller in the film “Teachings of the Tree People.” While I think it is clear that the consumer movement is not exactly spiritual, it is one step in the right direction in my view. Here are two interesting websites that represent this movement (…and highlight a strange competitiveness, as though the only way you can change a practice is through aggressive, sweeping action):

http://www.eatlocalchallenge.com/

http://100milediet.org/