organic

Weekly Food Thoughts 02/11/2010

Good article this week in the NewYork Times about "A federal effort to push junk food out of school" (link below). While I think the effort is somewhere praiseworthy, I also think it totally miss the real problem and here is why ...
Beyond the point, the article mentionned the whole "business" of selling, let's call it junk,  to help raise money to pay for new sport uniforms or other extra cruricular programs !!! quite paradoxal : selling junk to pay for sport equipments !! it is really sad to think that schools have to go to that extend because they don't have the adequate fundings!!!
Now to the point missed: I have cookies or cake every afternoon and I would not want someone to take it away from me (make me unpleasant).
BUT I bake my cookies/cake which usually include: sugar/flour/eggs/butter and, depending the mood and the week, from nuts to dry fruits to chocolate ... in short the usual home made organic taste delicious cookies.
NOW have you ever read mass produced cookies's labels ??? (yaya I went back to the store with my little notepad) I found out that they all have more or less the same ingredients from : palm kernel oil with TBHQ for freshness (no kidding and I am quoting) (see my google result below), cocoa processed with alkali, Polysorbate 60 (often used in cosmetics to solubilize essential oils into water-based products. Polysorbates are oily liquids derived from PEG-ylated sorbitan (a derivative of sorbitol) esterified with fatty acids.) yup I did not know either !! Vanillin : an artificial flavor (sic) (all spelled out), soy lecithin (even my chickens dont eat soy) etc etc etc from yellow #5 to red #40 you got it and here where the real problem is NOBODY goes after the manufacturers of that junk, of course kids (and grownups) are going to buy it : it is available in quantities and it is CHEAP (here again) and as long as nobody will forbid the food manufacturers to put in your food the same stuff you find in your body lotion (polysorbate) why should they stop ???
If we want to stop the health problems of generations of kids let's stop to produce the crap ... if kids are not buying it at school then they will buy it somewhere else.
Let's teach the kids to bake their own cookies with real ingredients, they will love it and dont give me the "no time" crap ...  
In the meantime you can buy real cookies at the farmer's market.
See you all on Saturday ....

TBHQ is another ingredient that is in alot of food products.
TBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, is an antioxidant derived from petroleum.
TBHQ is a form of butane, i.e LIGHTER FLUID, that the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food.
Ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause “nausea, vomitting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.” TBHQ used in lab rats has cause cancer, stomach ulcers, and damage to DNA.
Ingesting 5 grams can kill.
And here’s a gross fact about McNuggests from McDonalds (they love to see you smile). TBHQ is sprayed directly on the nugget or on the inside of the box is comes in to “help preserve freshness.” They “promise” that each nugget has 0.02 percent of TBHQ oil.

The next generation of Laying Girls ...

Weekly Food Thoughts 02/04/2010

I got an email from someone looking for "ways" to produce organic chicken feed CHEAP!!!

Ok People we need to get out of Cheap Food LaLaLand, either we change the way food out there is getting subsidies or we accept the fact that real food comes at a price and we need to change the way we eat.

Here is how the system works now : MegaFarm is producing corn at $10 a bushel (please don't quote me on numbers or names this just for the purpose of the example) so their cost is $10, here comes UncleSam giving MegaFarm $10 subsidies to each bushel of corn. At this point the cost of producing corn is Zero (0), arrive HFCS inc., mega food manufacturer, willing to pay $5 for the same bushel of corn, of course MegaFarm is happy to sell and makes a $5 profit. I simplified it but this is the principle. Now let's remove UncleSam subsidies. MegaFarm is still producing at $10/bushel and still wants to make $5 in profit therefor they will sell to HFCS inc. at $15/bushel !! Right here the price of your food tripled !!! Of course I am not taking into consideration all the ugly scheme this corn will go through before hitting your plate. Now you wonder where the $10 in subsidies comes from ??? I have news from you ... WE are paying with our tax $$ and subsequent Health Royalties for ever and this is the "beauty" of it : WE pay before we even buy !!! ... There is no miracle or magic formula, Real Food cost to produce, at $6/dozen for my eggs I pay the feed for the chickens that's all !!!

I went to a workshop called "small scale poultry raising" or something like that. Given by UF, the first speaker, PhD in nutrition, spent 17 minutes bashing organic practices, stating that if you want problems, snags, headaches (his words) that was the way to go !! I was wondering what I have been doing for the last two years or so ?? of course the only way he was promoting was factory farms, it amazed me that someone at that level was not more knowledgeable or at least open to organic practices, it shows how brain wash most people are about food, pretending that the food system in this country is one of the safest in the world ... welcome to LaLaLand. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, I was part of a backyard chickens workshop full of people wanting to raise their own chickens and realizing how dysfunctional the food system is. I loved it and made me want to start having backyard poultry workshops here at the farm, I will give you full details next week ...
Back to reality I have a ton of feed (literally) to unload ... hahaha ... see you all tomorrow ...

PS: I watch a great documentary called : food beware: the french organic revolution (Netflix) about how a small village gets its school cafeteria to go all organic and the impact on the community from the parents to the local farmers, a perfect example of how when there is a political will "things" happend. Watch it you will love it ....

Happy Hour at the farm  ...

WE GOT EGGS

.... and our eggs are unique ....

let me explain why ...

First our hens are fed a USDA certified organic feed without soy added. Which  means that we know what is in the feed, all the ingredients are certified organic and there is no filler or plastic pellets (yes it does exist). The feed is made of real grains not some pelletize form of you dont know what.

Second our hens roam freely, that is called pastured (not to be mixed with free range), all day long. They scratch for greens and bugs and just have fun being hens. At night they are cooped mainly to keep them safe from every foxes, coyotes and other predators that I am sure is waiting for a free diner at every corner of the property. Their coops are equiped with nesting boxes where they lay their eggs. We moved their coops around to make sure they get new and fresh pasture.

Third our hens have never been medicated. We do not give preventive medecine (and yes most bag of feed out there as some kind of antibiotic included). We keep their coops super clean and between the fun outdoor activities and the good food they just keep healthy. We also have a strict bio security system in place.

We are not yet USDA certified organic and therefor can not sell the eggs with the organic label but we are working on it.

If you want to try REAL eggs or just taste and feel the difference we are THE place and you know we do not cut corner to produce the very best.

We sell our eggs by the dozen from $5/dozen to $6.50/dozen depending on the eggs size, the inventory/production and the volume of the order.

Production line

The pick of the day

Hummmmmmmmm.... delicious ....