Pasture Post – (barely) February 2008

Check out our newsletter for Sustainable Table and The Meatrix! Just made it on this leap year Friday for February!

• I can’t believe it’s March – New Feature Article
• Platter Chatter – Mary Cleaver
• Sustainable News – Largest Beef Recall in the US
• The Weekly Pick – Animal Welfare Institute
• Recipe of the Month – Oven-Roasted Free Range Chicken with Butternut Squash, Oyster Mushrooms and Garlic
• Schools, Food & Community
• Take Action!
• Please help us – Sustainable Table survey up for 1 more month
• Share sustainability with your friends
• Stay in touch

New Feature Article – From Farm to Fork

It’s hard to believe that March is here – January and February have disappeared, and we’re heading towards spring! It’s still cold and snowy but I’ve heard from several people that they have seeds in hand and are waiting for that perfect moment to start planting. I hope everyone has had some luck eating locally and sustainably through the winter, but if you need inspiration to get through the next month or so, please check out our new feature article from Jayni Carey.

From Farm to Fork: Janyi, from Jayni’s Kitchen, along with Simran Sethi, created a local meal on Jayni’s cooking show recently in Kansas – with most of the ingredients sourced within 47 miles of Jayni’s home (including some from her backyard!). Check out the recipes too.

Platter Chatter

Platter Chatter: Conversations about Food is our new blog column where people in the sustainable food world share their thoughts on sustainable, local and organic. We recently featured Mary Cleaver – owner of The Cleaver Co. and The Green Table in New York City.

Says Mary;

What’s your definition of local?
From New York City I define local as somewhere you can travel to and from in a day.

What’s your definition of sustainable?
Sustainable means to practice an integrated system of production that enhances environmental quality and economic viability while supporting cultural integrity and quality of life.

When you think of local, sustainable, and community, how would you rank the three (from most important to least) and why?
I don’t think you can put one before the other. Sustainable implies local and community.

What’s one thing people can do to be more local and sustainable?
Be conscious of directing each dollar you spend to a source you want to be supporting.

Check out the rest of this blog and all of our Platter Chatter.

Sustainable News – Largest Beef Recall in the US

Huge Beef Recall Issued – Organic Consumers Association
About 143 million pounds are targeted, but the amount may be much greater due to processing methods.

Humane Slaughter – Plenty Magazine
With much concern over downer cows in the food system, Plenty Magazine acknowledges the horrific treatment of the animals.

From our blog: The Weekly Pick – Animal Welfare Institute

The Animal Welfare Institute was started in 1951 to reduce the pain and fear inflicted on animals by people. They cover many facets of this issue; fur, experimentation and agriculture to name a few.

“I first saw them in action this summer when we visited Paul Willis’ ranch in Iowa. Paul’s ranch is AWI approved. AWI approval is a wonderful seal that is only awarded to family farmers. These are farmers ‘who own, labor on and earn a meaningful livelihood from their farms have a true commitment and connection to their animals that is lost on factory farms managed by distant, corporate owners and run by hired hands. Furthermore, unlike other labeling programs, Animal Welfare Approved requires farmers to raise all animals of an approved species according to high welfare standards.’”

Read the whole entry here.

Recipe of the Month – Oven-Roasted Free Range Chicken with Butternut Squash, Oyster Mushrooms and Garlic

This is one of the local recipes prepared on Jayni’s Kitchen. She lists where all of the ingredients come from, and I bet if you look around your local farmers market, you might be able to do the same.

1 free range chicken, about 3 1/2 pounds (Bauman’s Cedar Valley Farms)

Marinade:
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (Jayni’s backyard garden)
1 teaspoon each fresh rosemary, thyme, oregano and marjoram, chopped (Jayni’s backyard garden)
1/3 cup white wine (Davenport Orchard and Winery)
1 teaspoon natural sea salt
1/4 teaspoon organic black pepper
3 tablespoons organic extra-virgin olive oil

2 small heads garlic (Jayni’s backyard garden)
4 tablespoons organic extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 medium butternut squash, about 1 – to 2 pounds (locally grown)
1 medium organic leek
4 ounces oyster mushrooms, cleaned and stemmed (Wakarusa Valley Farm)
natural sea salt and organic black pepper, to taste

1/4 cup white wine (Davenport Orchards and Winery)

For complete instructions please visit our recipe page.

Schools, Food and Community

Friday April 11th – Saturday April 12th, 2008

The Nutrition Department, Teachers College Columbia University, and Baum Forum will co-host this day and a half of conference sessions, workshops, resource fair, entertainment, and seasonal luncheon. For teachers, administrators, food service, and public health professionals, advocates, youth and parents. This is our third conference on the school food revolution! Topics on media and messaging, school food and sustainable development, farm to school programs and policy, NYC school gardening, youth and access to healthy foods, green schools and more.

Friday, April 11th 3:00pm – 6:30pm; Reception and Cabaret 6:30pm – 9pm
Saturday, April 12th 9:00am – 6:00 pm

Pre-registration required. Sliding scale admission. For more information please visit www.baumforum.org or call 718 884 5716.

Take Action!

From Food & Water Watch: Tell the FDA you want to know all of the ingredients in the cheese you buy!
The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a change to the rules for labeling cheese. They want to allow cheese producers to use something called “ultrafiltered milk” but list it simply as “milk” on the ingredient list. The problem is, ultrafiltered milk isn’t the same as milk.

From Food & Water Watch: Protect “rBGH-Free” Labeling!
PA, NJ, & IN have already proposed a rule to ban rBGH-free labeling, and OH, KS and UT are considering a similar rule. Help us stop this trend before it’s too late by contacting your State Governor, and telling them to protect “rBGH-Free” Dairy Labels.

From the Organic Consumers Association: EPA to Rid of Clean Air Standards for Factory Farms.
The EPA is accepting public comments until March 27, 2008 on its proposal to eliminate clean air standards for factory farms.

From Animal Welfare Institute: USDA Seeks Comments from Public on Definition of Labeling Meat Products as “NATURALLY RAISED” DEADLINE MARCH 3RD!
The AWI believes that a solid definition of “naturally raised” must be adopted by USDA to serve consumers, farmers and particularly the farm animals by differentiating the practices of farmers who address the physical and behavioral needs of their animals from the factory farms that don’t.
Help Us- Sustainable Table survey!

We have decided to keep our survey up for one more month, so if you haven’t taken it yet, please do! The survey should only take 10 minutes or less and is designed to help provide you with the best information we can about our website, blog, and new educational kits.

To everyone who filled the survey out already, thank you! We can see from the results so far that many of you are parents, you are interested in buying and eating local, and that you would like to encourage consumers to take positive actions!

Please share sustainability with your friends!

Help us spread the word about sustainable food and what we’re doing here at Sustainable Table. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends – and encourage them to get involved on our site, blog, forum, or MySpace and Facebook pages. The only way we’re going to save family farms and be able to provide local, sustainable food for everyone is if we all join in and work on this together.

Please stay in touch with us!

The Parlour, our forum

Comment on our blog!

MySpace – Moopheus & Sustainable Table

Sustainable Table on Facebook

Great Pics on Flickr