Tag: organic food

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A Taste of…

Watching TV is so last century but as with many of my contemporaries, I like to watch the (big) box, free-to-air, no-frills. Yes, very last century. And as was the case last century the pickings have just gotten very lean as we slide into Xmas and the dreaded non-ratings season.

I’m a bit happy that the ABC is repeating selected food-themed Landline episodes on Fridays at 8, repeated on Sunday and readily available on I-View. http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/taste-of-landline/RA1502Q001S00

Last Friday’s stories included one of pastured eggs. These need not, of course, be organic but they are as free as free–range can be. I first became aware of this way of producing eggs from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqbOU07ZI2k

Pastured eggs aren’t necessarily going to be organic, but the chickens live like chickens. Their mobile cages men that the chooks get a varied diet while fertilising various fields.

Pastured eggs straight from the farm are becoming more readily available. Freo folks can buy their pastured eggs from the good folks at Nibali Stockfeed.

http://www.nibalistockfeed.com.au/

Another story Landline ran was about experiments to include omega 3 into feed for lambs in an attempt to improve the health outcomes of meat eaters. I’m thinking eat more fish, but then we know there just isn’t enough fish for all of us. Which will bring us back to the question of where will that Omega 3 come from. Feeding ourselves, who said it was easy?

Next week’s taste of landline will feature stories on cattlewomen, that’s right women and the mighty Murray cod. I’m keen to earn more about this prized fish I may never eat.

Watching TV is so last century but as with many of my contemporaries, I like to watch the (big) box, free-to-air, no-frills. Yes, very last century. And as was the case last century the pickings have just gotten very lean as we slide into Xmas and the dreaded non-ratings season.

I’m a bit happy that the ABC is repeating selected food-themed Landline episodes on Fridays at 8, repeated on Sunday and readily available on I-View.

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/taste-of-landline/RA1502Q001S00

Last Friday’s stories included one of pastured eggs. These need not, of course, be organic but they are as free as free–range can be. I first became aware of this way of producing eggs from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm. If you’ve never watched Food Inc, please do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqbOU07ZI2k

Pastured eggs aren’t necessarily going to be organic, but the chickens live like chickens. Their mobile cages men that the chooks get a varied, fresh and wholesome diet while fertilising various fields.

Pastured eggs straight from the farm are becoming more readily available. Freo folks can buy pastured eggs from the good folks at Nibali Stockfeed.

Another story Landline ran was about experiments to include omega 3 into feed for lambs in an attempt to improve the health outcomes of meat eaters. I’m thinking eat more fish, but then we know there just isn’t enough fish for the world. Which will bring us back to the question of where will that Omega 3 come from. Feeding ourselves, who said it was easy?

Next week’s taste of landline will feature stories on cattlewomen, that’s right women and the mighty Murray cod. I’m keen to earn more about this prized fish I may never eat.

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Which comes first, the chicken or the worker?

So here’s the issue. I love eating chicken, but I can’t say I love chickens – they’re scary little beady-eyed peckers. Yes, I’m a city girl if ever there was one, but I wish them no harm, after all they produce that most sacred of foods: the egg. I’d best not start on the egg or I won’t stop.

Vegans, look away now! I love eating poultry in preference to the meat of larger animals, but I still want to know that, however short the lives of animals I eat, they do not suffer unnecessarily. Live sheep exports are particularly abhorrent. I buy hideously expensive organic eggs, because I want to know that my potential chicken in a shell is the product of a parent who was well-fed and cared for: free-range. Besides they’re huge and frequently double yolked:

Okay I broke one!

I won’t go near Steggles and am ashamed of the days, (many years ago) when I bought a pack of their discount pieces. I stupidly wondered why these pieces were so misshapen. Many years have passed since then, now I do know that they were deformed due to their cramped conditions. Free-range certification is a nightmare and consumers are rightly confused about the real living conditions of the chooks. Buying certified organic means you can be assured that the facility is monitored to ensure they do have reasonable access to the great outdoors.

Here in WA buying free-range chicken means buying Mt Barker, by and large. They don’t look so flash. Then one glorious day I saw this in my supermarket fridge:

It looked like a proper plump chook. It cooked a treat, none of that slimy stuff you find on supermarket chooks. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. The massive 1.964 chook pictured cost just $11.64. I wondered how this was possible and then I bought it anyway.

So there I was happily roasting these fab chooks – 3 days of good eating per chook (hey, I’m a Jewish mother – roast chicken means there will be soup) Now fast-forward to May 4 and the Four Corners  expose on the exploitation of workers right here in glorious Oz.

The program concerned food companies that force unreasonable schedules and pay unfair rates and who should get a mention, amongst others, but Lilydale . I was angry. I was horrified. I was confused. Here I am buying these chickens because they treat the animals reasonably, but not so the poor buggers employed to process them.

Cheap food and the quest to keep it cheap, is wreaking havoc on our farm sector. I would happily pay an extra $3 per kilo for these chickens. Perhaps your everyday chicken lover might not, but shouldn’t the selling point of a free-range chicken be its provenance not its price?

If this reads like latte-luvvy thinking, that I’m an urban elitist let me be clear. I’m a casually employed academic on a low income. Food is expensive but most of don’t even spend 20% of our income on our food, including take-away, while our grandparents spent more like 30%. My students complain about the high price of food whilst frantically checking for messages on brand new I-phones.

We hesitate to spend $15 on a free-range chicken, which can actually feed a family of four (and soup the next day). Meanwhile a Red Rooster “dinner” for four will cost $20. For this you will get an inferior chicken, copious chicken salt, soggy chips by the time you get them home and a great deal of grease. We readily fork out $20 to see a movie, never mind the popcorn. Our priorities are so skewed. I say us because last week I bought another Lilydale chicken.

So here’s my problem, which comes first the chicken or the worker?

I picked the chicken didn’t I?

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A Very Australian Story

If you missed last week’s Australian Story,

http://www.abc.net.au/austory/ then catch up on i-view before The Seeds of Wrath, concludes with part 2 tomorrow night. Catch part 1 on I-view regardless of your view of the issue.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Steve Marsh losing his organic certification because of his neighbour’s GM canola crop blowing onto his land. This poignant and dramatic event has seen the end of old friendships and split the town of Kojonup.

Marsh is appealing the loss of his court case:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-19/gm-canola-farmer-may-have-to-pay-court-costs-after-loss/5757218

Part 1 heard Marsh state something conservatives refuse to hear: ‘there’s money in them thar organics’. Marsh received a higher price for his organic grains yet we still hear organic farming referred to as though it is some hippy indulgence.

Northern Europe is clamouring for organic produce and products, we have a pristine environment, yet my local organic shop is full of imported products. We have high unemployment and relatively little locally produced value added organic foods available. No prizes for guessing my view on GM trials in WA – watch Australian story and decide for yourself.

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Feeding People

This week our Food For Thought lectures dealt with food choice and sustainability. It’s all about the competing messages from slow food exponents and fast food purveyors. It’s easy to tell from some student’s body language that we don’t tell them what they want to hear, as though we will tell them it’s good to eat a highly processed, high fat, high salt, high sugar diet.

If Slow Food and fast food are in competition, it’s a David vs Goliath struggle. Slow food began in Italy in 1986 to resist the opening of a MacDonald’s outlet near the iconic Spanish Steps in Rome. Slow Food want to help preserve traditional farming and cookery practices and to keep people alive to the wonder and joy of fresh food. (tomato pic)

I’d like to think I’m what Michael Pollan calls a “conscientious omnivore”. That is someone who eats a broad range of foods, including meat, but who tries to do so in an ethical fashion. So we know that red meat is not “sustainable” for a number of reasons including the methane emissions of cows, the amount of grain needed to feed those cows, land clearances and on it goes. Industrial farming, feedlots and caged chickens aren’t seen to be sustainable or ethical, so sustainability and ethics are inextricably linked.

In my second lecture I look at so-called alternative methods – including biodynamics. I offer Cullen winery as an example – to show them that organic, and indeed biodynamic farming (think moon charts and soil preparation) is not as left of centre as they may think. And so this morning I find an article in the West Australian that Cullen Diana Madeleine 2011 cabernet has been judged the WA wine of the year.

Some students glaze over as soon as we discuss these concepts – or indeed the idea that we all need to think about what we eat, what we waste and how we can better feed ourselves and the world.

Most of our students enjoy the material we present and try to improve their own eating. In truth we can all make changes that will bring us better health and improve the world’s situation. Not wasting food is top priority. Sure that rotting lettuce in the back of the fridge can’t be packed up and sent to Sudan, but many students refuse to accept that their behaviour may have consequences at all. We argue that if the developed world wasted less food there would theoretically be more food available – to donate, to sell, to distribute. If you don’t believe food waste is a problem, watch Supervalue: A look at food miles and food waste.

We can and do have an impact on global food production every time we go to the till. This month saw Jamie Oliver becoming the new face of Woolworth’s: they get the Jamie razzle-dazzle, he gets to see more sustainable and humane food supplies from a major food supplier.

Are Woolies doing this because of their ethical concerns? Of course not. They have found an excellent way to build on their “Fresh Food People” branding by becoming the sustainable food people, at least in their advertising. They are responding to public sentiment. The case of free-range eggs and indeed chickens is an excellent example. When I first began buying free range eggs about 10 years ago, they were twice the price of cage eggs. Now the difference is far less because the demand has increased. There’s money in those happy chooks, just as there is in organic produce.

It’s important that we realise that we do have choices and our food dollars have power. There are a number of ways that you, yes you, can be a more conscientious omnivore.

Avoid or cut down on processed food, redolent with salt, fat, sugar or fructose in the form of corn syrup. Refined grains like white flour and white sugar give you a quick energy hit followed by a big drop. They also make you fat.

Generally eat locally sourced produce in preference to imported – less fuel is used to get it to you, you support your local farmers and in the case of fruit and vegetables it should be fresher. That means eating seasonally and nature provides well for us in this regard. After all, why do we get abundant oranges, mandarins and lemons in winter…?

Cook from scratch whenever you can: Michael Pollan says almost anything you cook for your self will be more nutritious than fast food, packaged and processed convenience foods. I say that the exception might be Elvis-style deep fried peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

Grow something to eat – anything! One of the principles of permaculture gardening is that you should always obtain a yield.  Community gardens are appearing all over as are school kitchen gardens. I may be the world’s worst gardener, but a major breakthrough for me was realising you had to water regularly. I have a veggie garden thanks to my green thumbed ex. Insects continue to thwart me, as does lack of time and energy, but the mandarin tree I transplanted when we moved is thriving. The miserable mulberry tree that my mother potted from a sprout from the original years ago has followed us to the new house. Replanted it’s now almost thriving, but my proudest effort is the blueberry – now in its third year it is producing whole handfuls of sweet berries at a time with my first crop being a single handful. If you have a small garden you can grow in pots as our students do for their “home garden” assignment. Or you can just grow some fresh herbs on your window sill. If you have a lemon tree why not put a big box full on the verge with a help yourself sign as some kind folks in my street have done? Take these ideas a little further and anything can happen. Do take  the time to listen to the remarkable Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes

No-one needs to be a martyr to the cause of culinary correctness. But we can and should eat better, we can all contribute to feeding the world.

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Slow and Local

Last weekend I was fortunate to find myself in a somewhat more upmarket shopping precinct than I usually frequent. Finding our destination closed, I steered my friend into a nearby, legendary food provedore.

Barely had we found the extra-virgin olive oil, then we were offered a complimentary cup of coffee. That the extra ten minutes spent in the store would, of course, give me more time to look on the shelves and more temptation to buy.

Perusing the shelves I was struck by how far this food had travelled. Sure, a massive blackboard proudly proclaimed just one local ingredient: “Manjimup truffles $2,500 per kg”. Well I guess we’d all write that on our blackboard if we had the chance.

The shelves displayed beautifully packaged pastes and potions from Christine Manfield but everything else seemed to be from very far away, as in organic “ketchup” from Spain, organic biscuits from the UK, bottled pears from Italy and so it went.

So for days now I’ve been pondering this slow dilemma: can we justify our desire for high quality food, especially organic, when it is shipped from afar? Organic food may be better for one’s health, it certainly makes consumers feel better about themselves, but what about the carbon foot print?

The obvious response is “Oh but it isn’t available here” and that is often the case. “Boutique” products cannot be mass-produced. However, if as it appears, there is a market for such foods, why isn’t more of it produced here in Australia?

Having struggled for accreditation, with the additional workload and costs and a marketplace demanding cheap food, organic farmers are finally in a position where their products are in demand. However, being smaller producers they may not have the resources needed to add value to their produce.

So who will give small, sustainable farmers support? Clearly not our authorities. Australia’s Risk Assessment Appeals Panel thinks we should be importing apples from China, and now New Zealand too. Here in WA we’ve seen the go ahead given for GM canola trials, though as yet we still can’t prevent GM crops contaminating non-GM crops.

On the other hand we could consider the words of Joel Salatin, who features so prominently in Food Inc. Salatin’s farm aims to provide clean food and educate consumers and food producers. Visitors are invited to:

Experience the satisfaction of knowing your food and your farmer, building community.  We are your clean meat connection.

When asked what he will do when demand exceeds supply, Salatin is unequivocal – he cannot do what he does on a large scale. He can only provide for his immediate area while encouraging and assisting farmers elsewhere to give it a go.

Salatin will be running workshops in Australia later this year, November for the ACT. A good chance to hear a universal message – slow down, smell the roses and eat local.

 

Dr Felicity Newman is a member of the Centre for Everyday Life at Murdoch University