week 9 is fine!

this week i have been thinking about the choices we make consciously and unconsciously each time we lift a fork to our mouths. i appreciate how carefully our CSA members and customers think about their food choices and am always glad that they have chosen us to provide the foods that they eat. What got me thinking about food choices lately is that a shopper made a comment about not shopping for vegetables from some farms at the market because they raised animals for meat as well. as a strong proponant for local farms, the comment stuck with me and i started to think about how it depended what the alternative is.

if rather than support a local farmer who raises animals, the choice is vegetables shipped from california from a giant farm which is bound to the earth, is the choice necessarily a better one? though i have not researched it, i have the funny feeling that this large farm would be owned by a huge food conglomerate that also owns and runs factory farms and/or their enormous feed lots, and/or slaughter houses. now the animals production portion is not on the same land, i imagine, but nonetheless would be controlled and would profit the owners of the vegetable producing component as well. just a much larger more complicated and more profitable version of the small farmer selling a mix of veggies and meats.

the consolidation and aggregation of the food in our country in the hands of several very large players means that most of the food dollars we spend go eventually to the hands of just a few big players (3 percent of the nations farms supply 75 percent of the nations food). all the problems of low wages to farm workers, the environmental cost of shipping food 1500 miles before it is consumed, the low food quality of food that is several days old when it arrives in the store all add up to weigh against this california grown food.

the choice conscious or not must be made. What is the bottom line for me? (animal welfare, global climate change, pollution of waterways with farm runoff) what do i value about local farms, or what value do they provide to my community? does this outweigh the fact that i disagree with raising animals for meat? Or with using pesticides? Or with using fertilizers? or whatever the thing we disagree with. for i know lots of local farms that spray no pesticides on their fruits (and veggies)but use round up to clear weeds from around them. (fruit is a great case study, it is notoriously hard to grow tree fruit organically in the humid northeast united states where disease grows in the water droplets on the leaves . here in the empire state, is it better to get local apples (from growers who spray) or is it better to buy certified organic apples that travel from desert dry washington state (where trees are irrigated with water from the much battled over salmon rivers in an area that is too dry to naturally grow fruit trees.)

as i have thought about the conundrum, it becomes obvious to me that food is very complex and the choices we make about where we get it, how we cook it, and how much we eat of it could consume us all day. one thing is for sure, though- when buying from a local farm, we have the chance to talk to the farmer who produced our food and ask them about the choices they made about their operation and voice concerns as consumers of the food, about why they choose to use pesticides, or herbicides, or to raise animals for food. and listening to what they answer can help us understand how complex producing food can be. and as producers explaining to our eaters can help us understand what eaters worry about and can help us always keep moving toward more perfect systems.


this week was not just full of thiking of food issues, it was also full of garlic harvesting and hanging. it nice to have all of it out of the ground and drying stuck through the slats of our greenhouse tables (photo next week). it feels nice to have that big task behind us. we are honestly quite vain about our garlic and pride ourselves on growing nice big heads. alas, this year we have produced just normal sized heads but given the fact that they were almost underwater for several weeks this spring and then had almost no rain for several weeks this summer, we are glad to have gotten a crop at all, and we will just have to let our heads shrink down to regular size this year along with the garlic's heads.

this week try making a deliciouse coleslaw with cilantro:
one head of cabbage
one bunch cilantro cut finely (half may be enough)
large ground salt
mayonaise (try 2-4 Tablespoons)
drizzle of lime juice or vinegar
drizzle of olive oil
fresh ground pepper.

grate cabbage and toss with other ingredients. allow to chill and serve.


hope you have a great week and hope for some more rain here!
liz and matthew