Tag Archives: local food

10 Weekend Links: Turkey Edition

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Alright, United States of Americans, Thanksgiving is almost here! I know of a certain toddler who has been asking for days to “Go to Thanksgiving,” after hearing promises of turkey, spaghetti (What? It’s a family tradition.) and pie. We seem to love talking about food here on Heifer Blog, so we’d be remiss if we didn’t present you with links to help you make the most of your (environmentally friendly!) Thanksgiving holiday.

Slow Food USA has a complete guide for Thanksgiving, from recipes to tips and tricks for making your holiday a slow one.

The Environmental Blog has a good handful of Green Thanksgiving Tips. Recyclebank and The Alternative consumer can help you have a greener holiday, too.

Grist wants you to know that real turkeys are making a comeback.

Ecocentric provides a good guide to finding a sustainably raised turkey.

If you’re responsible for cooking the turkey for your family, check out USDA’s tips on Thanksgiving planning and preparing a healthy and safe turkey.

Have a vegan cousin coming to your meal? Here are 9 Vegan Thanksgiving Recipes Carnivores Will Eat Too from treehugger.

Treehugger is also your hook-up for 9 Ways to Send Free Thanksgiving E-Cards, if you want to ditch the pen-and-paper route.

And if you’re in need of a good Thanksgiving laugh, watch this video of a wild turkey attempting revenge on an ABC News producer.

What are your Thanksgiving plans? Do you have any suggestions on celebrating the holiday in a way that’s gentle on the Earth?

Boycott National Fast Food Day!

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Today is National Fast Food Day in the United States, apparently. And I want you to boycott it in favor of real food. Why do I care? First, I have a personal interest in the health of our nation’s people. Second, fast food is practically the antithesis of food sovereignty, sustainable food sources, self-reliance and caring for the Earth.

Watch this video for a visual representation on how processed foods have changed American’s health:

Here are some alarming figures:
These are not reasons to celebrate fast food, if you ask me. These are reasons to become more educated about processed foods and, if you haven’t already, make an effort to increase the amount of real, whole foods in your diet.
Here are a couple of resources for you:
Bruce Bradley is a former marketing executive from food giants like General Mills, Pillsbury and Nabisco. Visit his blog, and read this interview Grist did with him about his past and current relationship with processed and real foods.
Once you’re convinced that you shouldn’t be buying, eating or feeding processed foods, head over to the Real Food Challenge and help shift $1 billion to real food by 2020. Also check out Slow Food USA and these articles by Grist and Constant Chatter to learn more about Real Food.

$5 Billion Is A Lot, But It Isn’t

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According to NPR’s food blog, The Salt, the local food movement looks like much more than a passing fad. An analysis by the United States Department of Agriculture reported that American farmers (those local men and women we’re always talking about) are selling $4.8 billion in products in local markets, which is great news and a ton of money. Except when you realize that it’s only two percent of total American agricultural sales. What’s the 98 percent? Commodity crops like soybeans and corn.

Commodity crops and the US Farm Bill are connected like peanut butter and jelly. The Farm Bill is up for renewal in 2012 and could be rewritten as early as November 23, 2011, according to our friends at Nourish. From the Nourish blog:

The potential to improve our current food policy is being challenged by a select group of Senate and House agriculture committees who propose $23 billion in cuts to federal spending on some of the most important programs related to nutrition and the future of small-scale, local, and organic farming. 

Watch this new video from Nourish featuring Michael Pollan, and visit the Nourish website to learn more about what you can do (in addition to voting local with your food dollars).

10 Ways to Travel Greener

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As the holiday season sneaks up on us again this year, it’s time to start planning our travel to see our friends, families and loved ones. As we all try to incorporate being green in our daily lives, let’s also try to incorporate being green in our travel plans.

Going to and from

1. Consider nonstop flights

When flying, choose a nonstop flight from your origin to your destination. Though sometimes they can be a little more costly, it reduces the energy per passenger since you’re not using a lot of fuel for multiple take offs.

2. Public Transportation

Help reduce emissions and take public transportation when you can this holiday season. Not only will you help ease congestion, but you’ll also be able to relax instead of fighting traffic. If you have subways, rail cars or buses in your city or the area you’re traveling to, consider using them this holiday season.

When it comes to what you eat

3. Eat Locally

Not only can you save money by eating locally, many times you can also eat better. Ask around where you’re visiting to find local restaurants that use sustainable ingredients in their meals.

4. Pack Your Own Utensils

It may be tempting to use disposable silverware, but consider packing your own travel size utensils to help reduce plastic waste in our planet. Sometimes it’s the simple things that can make the biggest impacts in the long run.

Packing it all up

5. Pack Light

Packing light not also saves your body from lugging around heavy luggage, it uses less resources for the transportation of your goods.

6. Re-wear

Challenge yourself to pack lightly and smarter. Can you wear a pair of jeans two days in a row? Or do you have a light pair of cargo pants you can wear in multiple ways? Think how you can wear your clothes before packing.

Sleep smart

7. Use the ‘Do Not Disturb”

Save energy and water by re-using your towels and sheets of a hotel room.

8. Research green hotels

Check out www.EnvironmentallyFriendlyHotels.com to find places to stay who believe in being green in their practices.

Other things to keep in mind

9. Pack reusable bottles

Whether you’re stopping for a water break or needing a drink to go, take a reusable bottle to fill up for hydration.

10. Use your electronics

If you’re flying, see if you can use your smartphone for your boarding pass. Instead of buying a map to get around, use your smartphone to also find your way around your travel destination.

As we all get ready to travel in the next few weeks, consider using these 10 ways on how you can travel greener.

Safe travels to all!

75 Percent of Honey Sold in Stores Not Actually Honey

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Participants of a Heifer beekeeping
project in Tennessee examine their hives.

Did you hear about this? According to testing by Food Safety News, more than 75 percent of the honey sold in grocery stores in the United States isn’t true honey. What’s missing? The pollen. From the article:

The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey. However, the FDA isn’t checking honey sold here to see if it contains honey.

Read the full article for a list of honey brands tested and failed.

Want to make sure your honey is honey? Buy local, directly from the beekeeper if you can, organic if you can’t. Look for “raw” on the label. 

How to Eat Local Year-Round

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It’s November. In my neck of the woods, November signals the end of farmers market season. Not long ago, this put a major damper on my local food diet until spring. But thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I can shop for local vegetables, meats, dairy, baked goods and herbs through the dead of winter.

Here in Little Rock, the Arkansas Sustainability Network hosts the ASN Local Food Club, which has pick-up options on both Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Each week I get an email telling me the market is open for ordering. I head over the the online market and browse the week’s offerings. During the fall and winter, there are still quite a few options available for vegetables, especially those that can be grown in a greenhouse. Fruits range from fresh-picked apples to berries harvested and frozen at their spring or summer peak. The online market is my favorite way to buy local meats all year, since our traditional farmers markets don’t often have many vendors selling meats. I fill up my cart with what I want and then “check out.” You don’t actually pay at the time you place your order, in case a vendor isn’t able to complete the order after all (like if they get snowed in or something and can’t make the delivery). Pick up is a good time to say hi to my fellow locavores–I’m always bound to run into someone I know.

The great news? This isn’t something only done in Little Rock. LocallyGrown.net hosts online farmers markets just like the one I use all over the country.

If you live somewhere without a farm-to-consumer online market, or if you want to expand your purchasing options but still buy from small farmers, you should also check out LocalHarvest and Farmer’s Market Online.

In Search of a Good Burger

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Today is Blog Action Day 2011. It is also World Food Day. This year’s theme for Blog Action Day is Food. Bloggers all over the world are writing about this one theme, from their own unique perspective. To find out more, visit the Blog Action Day website. Read more of our Blog Action Day posts on Heifer Blog here. 


The following post is by Tina Hall, communications director at Heifer International. 

I am a meat eater surrounded by vegetarians and vegans and even something called freegans that I learned about this week. Apparently freegans eat food that has been thrown into the garbage. This goes well beyond the 30-second rule and George Costanza eating an éclair plucked from a kitchen trash can: “No, no, no. It was not trash … It wasn’t down in. It was sort of on top.”
My burger love extends back to childhood with Happy Meals for good report cards and memories of holiday barbecues with my family. How can something so good be so bad?  The adult version of me has fought against a growing awareness of how those hamburgers I eat have an impact not only on our waistlines, but also the environment.
So imagine my happiness to find a restaurant called b.good on a recent trip to Boston. The owners Anthony and Jon explain on the company website, “We loved fast-food, but hated how it made us feel. So, we created a place where you can feel good about burgers and fries.” Their approach includes making all food themselves with the assistance of local farmers and growers.
Is it still meat? Yes, of course, but at least words like all-natural and local are involved in the conversation. And yes, it was a very good burger.
As we vote with our dollars in favor of locally or sustainably sourced meat (or at least not ground beef treated with ammonia), more and more restaurants are providing us with burgers not so far from home. Are there restaurants in your city or town serving local meats or other foods?

Eating with the Seasons

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Today is Blog Action Day 2011. It is also World Food Day. This year’s theme for Blog Action Day is Food. Bloggers all over the world are writing about this one theme, from their own unique perspective. To find out more, visit the Blog Action Day website. Read more of our Blog Action Day posts on Heifer Blog here. 


The following post is by Kim Machnik, senior coordinator of school programs at Heifer International. 

Photo by NancyK. Creative Commons.

It’sOctober, and where I come from, that means it’s time to celebrate. The applesare here. During the summer, we’re busy with sugar-sweet berries, juicy cornthe color of butter, and tomatoes bursting with sunshine, but those are pastnow. It’s the season of the apple, and with it the sensation of spicy steamfrom a mug of mulled cider against the backdrop of trees in their Sunday bestand air crisp as the pages of a new book. The first bite of a freshly pickedCortland apple is the trumpet call of autumn for me- anticipated but somehowunexpected.


Judgingon the basis of flavor alone, one has to conclude that to eat seasonally ispreferable. I can say with confidence that there is no one who prefers ananemic tomato shivering in a produce bin in February to a late-July braggart ofa fruit, puffed up with its own evident importance and months of sunshine andwarm soil. A limp head of November lettuce, compared to its rigid and robustMay counterpart? No contest. And it may just be me, but no apple from a supermarketshelf in March will ever compare to that jeweled treasure plucked from abeneficent tree in October.


Whata loss it has been to our society to step away from eating foods in their ownseasons! To wait through the dark months for the first stalk of tender greenasparagus, to cry with joy at the first appearance of a raspberry on its bush,to settle in to the first frozen night of early winter with a deep bowl ofcreamy-spicy squash soup- these are profoundly human, deeply culturalexperiences that help us to richly experience the passage of time. Born andraised in Massachusetts, when I bake my first apple pie of the year, I amconnected to generations of New Englanders who have celebrated the turning ofthe seasons in the same way. In Arkansas, my current home, it’s greens in thespring and peaches in the summer that have been celebrated and enjoyedcommunally for time immemorial. 


Whatis more worthy of our patience, anticipation, and joy than that which sustainsus? What greater earthly reward for our forbearance is there than a gift fromthe soil and sun, presented at its absolute prime? What keeps us connected toour homelands and communities better than the shared experience of the best oftheir bounty? I contend that there is nothing. If you disagree, I suggest you findyourself an orchard and pick some apples.

World Egg Day: Are Backyard Chickens Right For You?

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Happy World Egg Day!

We talk a lot about how chickens (and ducks and geese) and their eggs can have a great impact on Heifer project participant families. But you don’t have to live on a farm in Honduras (or even Indiana) to see the benefits of raising domestic birds for their eggs.

Purslane in her chicken tractor 

In fact, my family has a tiny flock of chickens in our backyard. In Little Rock, Arkansas. In my neighborhood, this is actually not that uncommon (admittedly, most of the other chicken-raising families are friends of ours).

The decision to take on an animal, whether a pet or livestock, should be made after careful consideration and even research. The same is true for backyard chickens. We decided to begin raising chickens for several reasons: we want to have eggs from animals we know are healthy and well taken care of, we want to reduce our “footprint” by having a source of food right out our back door, and we want our daughter to know where some of her food comes from.

Here are a few things to consider if you’re thinking about raising chickens in an urban setting.

  • Do you like eggs? This seems obvious, but if you really only sort-of like them, they won’t be worth the investment of time and money. If you do a lot of baking, however, these are the freshest eggs you’ll ever have.
  • Is your yard/situation appropriate for chickens? Our flock started out in a bottomless pen (sometimes called a chicken tractor), but now they’re totally free range, which wouldn’t be possible without our six-foot security fence (or with bloodthirsty dogs). Our friends down the street have a chicken coop.  
  • Are you even allowed to have chickens? The best way to find out is to check the municipal code for your city. The requirements in Little Rock are that chickens must have a minimum of three square feet of floor space per bird over four months of age, they must be kept at least five feet from the owner’s residence, and they must be kept at least 25 feet from the nearest neighbor. Pretty laid back. Just across the river in North Little Rock, however, you have to have a permit, and the minimum distance from neighboring houses is 75 feet (this was a deal-breaker for a friend of mine thinking of starting a flock).
  • How many do you want? Chickens lay an egg about every 24 to 26 hours. We started out with four chickens, and for the three of us, we were up to our eyeballs. It’ll make you pretty popular with your friends and colleagues if you’re always giving away eggs. We now have two gals, and this seems to be a good number for us to maintain. We always have eggs when we want them, and though we aren’t giving them away by the dozen anymore, we can generally be relied on for friends in a pinch.
A common misconception is that you have to have a rooster, or else your hens won’t lay eggs. This is not true. You need a rooster if you want your eggs to hatch into baby chicks. But if you’re raising chickens in your backyard so you can eat the eggs… you probably don’t want that to happen. Many cities won’t allow the noisy boys anyway.
If your’e interested in chickens, here are a few things to check out:

Local Food Away From Home

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Hungry travelers passing through Chicago O’Hare won’t be stuck with hotplate Chinese food or plastic-wrapped ham sandwiches anymore. The menu is broadening to include some hyper-local fare, conveniently grown between terminals 2 and 3.

Dozens of types of veggies and herbs sprout from holes in the sides of 23 white cylinders that reach 8 feet high. The plants are fed with minerals and water, but no soil. Special grow lights hang overhead.

Harvests will go to restaurants within the airport, where customers have been asking for fresher fare. Officials at O’Hare say theirs is the first urban garden inside an airport. It will be interesting to see if the concept takes off elsewhere.

Read more about fresh airport food here.