--> If you buy from small, local organic growers, like you might find at a farmer's market or local co-op, then you are supporting sustainable farming and local families who have the knowledge and the determination to work close to the earth in an honorable profession. When you purchase from these local organic farmers, you are supporting a way of life that is truly sacred; a way of life that, frankly, more of us would do well to emulate. That way of life includes farming organic produce from the earth in the local sustainable way that honors nature. |  Fields of Plenty: A farmer's Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It by Michael Ableman (Chronicle Books, 2005) This exquisite book, part travelogue, part cookbook, and part witness to the crossroads that agriculture and food face today, begins with a series of questions that writer-farmer-photographer Ableman poses while beginning a 12,000-mile (19,312-kilometer) tour of America's farms: "How do we make sure that pure food is available to all, not just those that can afford it? How can we grow food without depending on vast amounts of energy and foreign oil? |  Difficult to influence as to yield in the farmer's land, the crop needs short days, moderately high temperatures, land in good heart, and reasonable rainfall. It is now grown as far north as 52 degrees, as far south as 40 degrees. Production in the United States alone has increased from a mere million tons in 1930 to nearly 40 million tons today. Soya has become the oil and protein source most vital in world trade, most easily modified by food manufacturers, most easily assimilated by consumers. It has been of great value to mankind, and especially to the vegetarians of the First World. |  If that is impossible, buy them from a farmer's market. Be sure to ask about their use of pesticides and herbicides.
For non-vegetarians, buy meat locally from people you know. If that is not possible, buy minimally processed meats, and avoid the meat of animals that were injected with antibiotics and hormones or that were fed animal feces. I was shocked to learn that on some of the big corporate farms, chickens are fed pig feces: this is one of the most disgusting forms of recycling I have ever heard of.
Meat from wild game is probably the safest to eat. | | HOW TO SELECT AND STORE
Since picked corn goes through rapid conversions from sugar to starch, whether from the farmer's market or supermarket, it is best to buy corn that has been stored in a cool environment or refrigerated. Visually inspect the corn husks, and choose those that still look fresh, with minimal drying. You can pull the husk back and down to check the kernels. If they are fresh and well hydrated, they should look turgid and tightly packed. If you pierce a kernel with your fingernail, a milky white liquid should flow out. |  Maca has a low-growing, mat-like stem system, which can go unnoticed in a farmer's field. Its scalloped leaves lie close to the ground and it produces small, self-fertile, off-white flowers typical of the mustard family, to which it belongs. The part used is the tuberous root, which looks likes a large radish (up to 8 cm in diameter) and is usually off-white to yellow in color. Unlike many other tuberous plants, maca is propagated by seed. Although it is a perennial, it is grown as an annual; seven to nine months is required to produce the harvested roots.
The species L. |  One day after delivery, the farmer's daughter developed diarrhea. When the child was three days old, he also developed diarrhea and fever. Within three days, two other babies in the nursery developed fever and diarrhea. Cultures of the blood and stool were taken from each of these patients. The bacterium that was isolated from the calves, the farmer, the farmer's daughter, and all three babies (as well as from the blood of one of the babies) was Salmonella heidelberg. |  BUYING AND STORING SPROUTS
Most grocery stores carry packaged alfalfa and loose mung beans, while farmer's markets, health food stores, and gourmet shops may offer a few of the more unusual sprouts, such as radish, sunflower, and clover. Fresh sprouts have a wonderful, clean aroma. When purchasing sprouts, look for firm, crisp stalks with intensely green leaves. As sprouts age, their tops lose their rich color and sometimes darken. Examine the roots, as they show the first signs of aging. If they are brown or dry, do not purchase them. |  When you go shopping for food, go to a farmer's market and buy organic fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices from small independent growers that you can talk to, meet and feel confident that what you are eating is good for you. You can plant your own herb garden or small vegetable garden. Remember, do not use hybrid seeds because that's a nice way of saying "genetically altered by man."
The most convenient way to shop for food is go to your local whole food or natural health food type store. | | Go to a health food store, a whole food store, or a farmer's market.
My second rule is: I never buy anything that is a brand name or produced by large publicly traded food manufacturers. I have been in these plants and I know what it's all about.
My third rule is: I look for small, independent companies from my local area that package food in small batches and make it with loving care. Although these people are in business to make a profit, when meeting them you find their prime motivation is not to get rich or make money. | | It is impossible to understand a farmer's production strategy, let alone gain confidence in that farmer's dependability and trustworthiness, without lengthy personal conversation.
In any case, NEFCO plans to buy its organic sunflower seeds elsewhere this year.
The Carrot Chronicles
From my perspective as a former worker in commercial farming, and buyer for NEFCO (one of eight consumer-owned food wholesalers serving 1,500 food co-ops in the northeastern United States and Quebec), I'd say that 90 to 95 percent of growers and packers of organic food are legitimate. |  A year-round feature in Asian markets, this vegetable is becoming increasingly available in natural food and farmer's markets.
Culinary Uses
Use as you would regular broccoli—sauteed, steamed, braised, boiled, and in soup. Chinese broccoli cooks in less time, however, since it's a less dense vegetable. The stems require longer cooking time than the leaves, and the leaves longer cooking than the blossoms, so cut and cook the vegetable accordingly. The blossoms, usually yellow but sometimes white, red, or pink, perk up any dish. | | It is impossible to understand a farmer's production strategy, let alone gain confidence in that farmer's dependability and trustworthiness, without lengthy personal conversation.
In any case, NEFCO plans to buy its organic sunflower seeds elsewhere this year.
The Carrot Chronicles
From my perspective as a former worker in commercial farming, and buyer for NEFCO (one of eight consumer-owned food wholesalers serving 1,500 food co-ops in the northeastern United States and Quebec), I'd say that 90 to 95 percent of growers and packers of organic food are legitimate. | | The farmer buried the calf and on August twentieth developed mild diarrhea. The farmer's daughter, pregnant and near term, continued to work on her father's farm until four days before delivery. To teach the new calves how to feed from a bucket, the daughter would scoop milk from a bucket to each calf's mouth. On August twenty-fourth the daughter was admitted to the hospital because of contractions and eighteen hours later a little boy was delivered by caesarean section. One day after delivery, the farmer's daughter developed diarrhea. | | The condition farmer's lung is a well-known example of this disease. The same organism that causes farmer's lung also thrives in the water of poorly maintained humidification systems. Because moist conditions are necessary for the growth of this organism, farm workers can prevent the disease by drying and then storing the offending substance, forexample, hay. (See Profile of a High-Risk Occupation: Agriculture, p. 708.)
A worker may be in contact with the offending substance for a period of months or years and then develop immunological reaction and damage to the lungs.
\
Box 6. |  Second Helpings: Farm Stands and farmer's Markets," The Austin Chronicle, www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2001-10-12/ food_second_all.html
61b Boggy Creek Farms, www.bogycreekfarms.com
61c Diamond Organics, 888.ORGANIC (888.674.2642) www.diamondorganics.ocm
61d Boxed Greens, www.boxedgreens.com
62 Healing Touch International, 12477 W. Cedar Drive, Suite 202, Lakewood, CO 80228. 303.989.7982. www.healingtouch.net.
63 Harczi, Ilonka, The Resonance in Residence: An Inner and Outer Quantum Journey. 2002. www.ilonkaharezi.com. 618.948.2393.
64 Matrix Analytical Laboratories, Inc. | | Clapp pears are hardly ever shipped but are frequently available at roadside stands and farmer's markets. The green Clapp pear has a thinner skin than most, while the red Clapp has a heavier skin and a slightly firmer texture. Of medium size, they have very white flesh, a high sugar content, and plenty of juice.
Cornice (Doyenne du Cornice)—meaning "best of the show") pears have the reputation of being the sweetest and most flavorful pears. They have a definite pyriform shape, with a short, wide stem end, a waistline, and a very wide blossom end. | | Tree-ripened nectarines, locally available in season at farmer's markets, are
Nectarine / Nutritional Value Per
100 g Edible Portion
Raw
Raw
Calories
49
Copper
0.073 mg
Protein
0.94 g
Manganese
0.044 mg
Fat
0.46 g
Beta Carotene (A)
736 IU
Fiber
0.40 g
Thiamine (B|)
0.017 mg
Calcium
5mg
Riboflavin (BJ
0.041 mg
Iron
0.15 mg
Niacin (Bj)
0.990 mg
Magnesium
8mg
Pantothenic Acid (Bs)
0.158 mg
Phosphorus
16 mg
Pyridoxine (BJ
0.025 mg
Potassium
212 mg
Folic Acid (B,)
3.7 meg
Sodium
Omg
Ascorbic Acid (C)
5.4 mg
Zinc
0. |  In the existing plant protection laws, there was a farmer's exclusion clause allowing farmers to plant seeds from the protected variety. In contrast, the purchase of a patented seed gave the farmer the right to grow the seed, but not to save and replant.24
Biotech companies started to file very broad patents that, if taken at their word, could bring under their monopoly control the key techniques in the emerging genetic engineering of plants. The U.S. |  How one extrapolates this new set of observations to predict the farmer's future behaviour depends entirely on how one explains it. According to the benevolent-farmer theory, it is evidence that the farmer's benevolence towards chickens has increased, and that therefore the chickens have even less to worry about than before. But according to the fattening-up theory, the behaviour is ominous - it is evidence that slaughter is imminent. | | If you can buy fresh local honey at a farmer's market or health food store, you can try that instead. The local pollens in the honey can desensitize your hay fever reactions.
Carry allergy-fighting supplements with you so that as soon as you feel an allergic reaction coming on you can nip it in the bud. You can travel with packets of Emergen-C, which contains 1,000 to 2,000 mg of vitamin C and smaller amounts of a handful of other immune-supportive vitamins. |  This trail connects many local destinations, including parks, libraries, museums, cafes, bike shops, workplaces, schools, and a farmer's market. This former railroad right-of-way is once again becoming a transportation corridor. þThe Burke-Gilman Trail is eighteen miles long, running between Seattle and Bothell, Washington. This beautiful trail is now used by 2,500 bicycle commuters each day, connecting to many destinations in Seattle.66
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has undertaken a number of initiatives regarding physical activity. |  At 102 she is by far the oldest of my patients, and a true original. A farmer's daughter who became a farmer's wife, Betty raised five children before she and her husband, Ed, sold their farm and opened a restaurant, which she ran right along with him until 1951. That's when Ed, who was twenty years her senior, died. Betty kept the restaurant going and did most of the cooking for another thirty-plus years. At 75, she sold the place to her nephew but hardly retired. She cooked for and took care of "old folks" (many of them a decade or more younger than she) for the next seventeen years. |  Shop your farmer's market if that's available. Use organic produce, grains, and animal products, especially butter, whenever you can. Try to eat at least five to seven servings of fresh vegetables and fruits every day. The focus of a healthy diet is fresh vegetables and adding other whole foods to balance that. Search out the highest quality fish in your area. Avoid the large fishes (examples: swordfish, tuna, and shark), which may contain more ocean toxins, such as mercury, and avoid farmed fish, which test higher for mercury and other chemicals. | | Sixty years after the Green Revolution, 80 percent of all corn grown in Mexico still consisted of local criollos, planted year after year from a farmer's harvested seed. The heady days of the Rockefeller program in the 1940s and '50s, when Mexico became self-sufficient in corn, were long gone. Six million tons of corn were imported from the United States each year—from grain elevators that did not separate GM from non-GM types. This was commingled grain that U.S. farmers could not sell to their big markets in Europe and Japan because of bans on GM products. | | And the day the American farm started using this type of artificial fertilizer was the day the American farmer's fortune started to decline. Such poor soil management robbed our land of one-fourth of its topsoil.
It takes about seven hundred years to create one single inch of topsoil—and a small fraction of that time to lose it. Most of the early settlers and pioneers were not concerned with soil conservation because, after all, land was cheap or free. | | Or genetically modified canola pollen from a neighboring farmer's land could have been borne on the wind, or carried by bees, and pollinated his conventional crop. In a combative move, Schmeiser countersued Monsanto for $4.2 million. He charged that the company's private detectives had trespassed on his land and that Monsanto had contaminated his crop and defamed him. Schmeiser accused the company of "arrogant, high-handed, and shocking conduct and callous disregard for the environment." Far from being a seed thief, he maintained, he was a victim of the new technology invading his property. |  In roaming outside to look for something green, he noticed the farmer's fields of alfalfa.
After announcing to the couple what he intended to give to his sick patient, the farmer's wife gave him a flabbergasted look. At first she thought he was joking, but soon realized he was earnest in his intention.
"I instructed her to gather the tender little alfalfa shoots, mince them very fine and mix them with water and grapefruit juice, which was available at a grocery many miles away. |  A brief letter from a sheep farmer's wife in New Zealand brings in a very interesting point in that the mussel extract can help with conditions such as ankylosing spondylitis.
I would like you to know that your Green-Lipped Mussel Extract capsules are helping my husband who has ankylosing spondylitis of the neck, spine and hips (for over twenty years). He finds considerable relief in his back and is able to drench sheep in comfort. He is fifty-five and his stoop had been getting progressively worse over the years. | |
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