Posts filed under 'Food'
New Food Preservation Committee Formed
Food Preservation Information
The Food Preservation committee is dedicated to helping gardeners preserve their bounty. One of the worst things that can happen to a gardener is to have a gorgeous crop only to see it go to waste or rot because it cannot be used before it goes bad. We hope to remedy this situation by giving you all the information we can on food preservation.
There are many ways of preserving food. Some of them are; dehydration, canning, pickling and freezing.
The main thing is to not be scared of the process. It is not necessary to put up an entire acre of food as was done in years past. It is possible to preserve a few jars or bags at a time. This is especially important these days when we all have to work at jobs away from home.
Some publications that might be helpful are the following.
Dry It You’ll Like It, by Gen Macmaniman. This is a self published book full of fun and neat ideas. It is available from amazon.com.. The last printing was 2000, and it may be only available as used. But if you are into drying food it is worth the effort to find it.
Ball Blue Book, Guide to Preserving, available online but not through the Ball canning jar company’s web site. This book has been around since 1909 and is still the definitive book on food preservation. It covers almost all aspects of food preservation from canning to pickling to freezing. All types of foods are included.
Preserve It Naturally, The Complete Guide To Food Dehydration. This book is put out by the Excalibur Dehydrator company and is available at www.excaliburdehydrator.com. This is an excellent guide to dehydrating all foods and is especially helpful by rating how well each food dries.
We will be having a table set up at the Sustainability Fair on Nov. 12. Be sure to stop by and see us.
Add comment November 6, 2009
The Botany of Desire – full program online
A PBS video available online featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants’ point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control.
Add comment November 3, 2009
Mayor’s Meeting on Agriculture Department Furloughs, October 27
Agriculture’s Plant Pest Control Branch employees as well as the furloughs for their agricultural inspectors, Mayor Charmaine Tavares will be hosting her third community meeting to bring important information to the public about the impacts of these staffing shortages. The meeting will be held at the Kaunoa West Senior Center on Tuesday, October 27th, beginning promptly at 6:00 p.m. Kaunoa West is located at 788 Pau‘oa Street in Lahaina. Proceed mauka on Lahainaluna Road and take the second right onto Pau‘oa Street. The meeting will include a Powerpoint presentation by Anna Mae Shishido, Maui County Supervisor for the Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture’s Plant Quarantine Branch. A panel discussion will follow to address the environment, impacts to agriculture and ranching, and how the community can help with early detection and reporting of pest species.
Panelists include:
Lissa Fox, Maui Invasive Species Committee Clark Hashimoto, Agricultural Specialist, Office of the Mayor Willilam Jacintho, Maui Cattlemen’s Association/Maui County Farm Bureau Kuhea Paracuelles, Environmental Coordinator, Office of the Mayor Anna Mae Shishido, Hawaii Department of Agriculture – Plant Quarantine Branch
Mahalo to Zeke Kalua and the West Maui Taxpayers Association for hosting this important meeting.
Add comment October 19, 2009
National Day of Action to Get Real Food in Schools – Labor Day, Sept. 7
Labor Day, Monday, September 7th
from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Front lawn of Baldwin High School, Wailuku
Time for Lunch is a national “Eat-In” of big, community pot-lucks to highlight the need to get real food into our schools.
Slow Food USA and its chapters nationwide have organized this event to encourage parents, teachers and citizens to urge our nation’s leaders to update the Child Nutrition Act NOW and provide children with real food in schools.
You are invited to join us and bring a homemade dish (as small as enough for two—they just want you to come!)
They’ll make it easy for you to write a letter, send an e-mail, make a phone call to our legislators urging them to insist on real food in our schools.
Add comment August 31, 2009
Maui Screening of: Food, Inc.
Friday, September 11
5:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Castle Theater, MACC
How much do we know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Though our food appears the same—a tomato still looks like a tomato—it has been radically transformed. Food, Inc. lifts the veil on the U.S. food industry—an industry that has often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihoods of American farmers, the safety of workers and our own environment. This is a must see movie for anyone concerned about sustainable food systems and understanding where your food comes from.
Food, Inc. reveals how complicated and compromised the once simple process of growing crops and raising livestock to feed ourselves and our families has become. It also reminds us that despite what appears to be a hopeless situation, each of us has the ability to vote on this issue every day—at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Check out a great interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart and the Director of the film.
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli—the harmful bacteria that cause illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms’ Joe Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
In Food, Inc., producer-director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) lift the veil on the U.S. food industry—an industry that has often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihoods of American farmers, the safety of workers and our own environment.
With the use of animation and compelling graphics, the filmmakers expose the highly mechanized, Orwellian underbelly that’s been deliberately hidden from the American consumer.
They reveal how a handful of corporations control our nation’s food supply. Though the companies try to maintain the myth that our food still comes from farms with red barns and white picket fences, our food is actually raised on massive “factory farms” and processed in mega industrial plants. The animals grow fatter faster and are designed to fit the machines that slaughter them. Tomatoes are bred to be shipped without bruising and to stay edible for months. The system is highly productive, and Americans are spending less on food than ever before. But at what cost?
Cattle are given feed that their bodies are not biologically designed to digest, resulting in new strains of E. coli bacteria, which sickens roughly 73,000 Americans annually. And because of the high proliferation of processed foods derived from corn, Americans are facing epidemic levels of diabetes among adults and alarming increases in obesity, especially among children.
And, surprisingly, all of it is happening right under the noses of our government’s regulatory agencies, the USDA and the FDA. The film exposes a “revolving door” of executives from giant food corporations in and out of Washington D.C. that has resulted in a lack of oversight and illuminates how this dysfunctional political system often operates at the expense of the American consumer.
In the nation’s heartland, farmers have been silenced—afraid to talk about what’s happening to the nation’s food supply for fear of retaliation and lawsuits from giant corporations.
Our laws today are such that corporations are allowed to patent seeds for crops. As a result, Monsanto, the former chemical company that manufactured Agent Orange and DDT—in a span of 10 years—has landed its patented gene in 90% of the nation’s soybean seeds. Farmers are now forbidden to save and reuse these seeds and must instead buy new seed from Monsanto each season.
Armed with a team of employees dedicated to enforcing their seed patents, Monsanto spends millions every year to investigate, intimidate and sue farmers -many of whom are financially unable to fight the corporation.
Food, Inc. also introduces us to courageous people who refuse to helplessly stand by and do nothing. Some, like Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farm’s Joel Salatin, are finding ways to work inside and outside the system to improve the quality of our food. Others are brave men and women who have chosen to speak out, such as chicken farmer Carole Morison, seed cleaner Moe Parr and food safety advocate Barbara Kowalcyk. Their stories, both heartbreaking and heroic, serve to demonstrate the level of humanity and commitment it takes to fight the corporations that control the food industry.
It’s important to note that the filmmakers attempted to interview representatives from Monsanto, Tyson, Perdue and Smithfield, but they all declined.
Food, Inc. illustrates the dangers of a food system controlled by powerful corporations that don’t want you to see, to think about or to criticize how our food is made. The film reveals how complicated and compromised the once simple process of growing crops and raising livestock to feed ourselves and our families has become. But, it also reminds us that despite what appears to be at times a hopeless situation, each of us still has the ability to vote on this issue every day—at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Add comment August 24, 2009
Waste Not Want Not: Update
A FRUITFUL ENDEAVOR NEEDS ASSISTANCE
Maui Weekly, July 14, 2009, by Debra Lordan
You may remember me referring to my black thumb and my little greenhouse, aka my plant mortuary. On the other side of the spectrum, we have green-thumbed gardeners who can grow a veritable Garden of Eaten—those with orchards of oranges, acres of avocados, a bounty of bananas… well, you get it. Fruit trees often produce an abundance of food, and it may be difficult for those with fruit and nut trees to keep up with harvesting, which takes time and labor. The fruit might end up going to waste on the ground or end up in the trash.
A group called Waste Not Want Not, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization comprised of community volunteer harvesters, have collected and distributed six tons of Maui-grown fruit, nuts and veggies since they began last December. Instead of becoming mulch or fruit fly food, WNWN collects edible fruit and produce from businesses and residents, which is then donated to the Maui Food Bank (MFB). MFB distributes the fresh food to Hale Makua and about 75 other organizations that provide services for keiki, the elderly and the homeless.
After you schedule an appointment with Waste Not Want Not, part of their crew of 35 volunteer harvesters come to your property to harvest your surplus. WNWN doesn’t charge for collection or delivery, and in exchange for their work, volunteers may receive a bit of the harvest.
But nonprofits can’t run on fruit alone. It takes money to run any organization. WNWN needs money for gas, administration fees, and software for taxes, scheduling and a donor database. They need equipment such as orchard ladders as well.
WNWN is currently using personal trucks, borrowed ladders and other equipment with the hope they can expand the operation and increase their harvesting ability to meet an increasing need.
The organization also requires money to hire a mechanic to either fix the old van donated by the MFB, or to buy another vehicle. Because the van is broken, they use a pickup truck, which limits what the group can harvest. They take the pickup out twice a week, but one pickup of food is gone after four or five deliveries to MFB recipient agencies. They could easily go out every day—there is that much food available—but they don’t have the financial support.
As we all know, times are hard and receiving this fresh produce means a lot to those in need—now more than ever. WNWN Co-founder and Director James Mylenek Sr. told me about a senior citizen who tearfully accepted a few tangerines, fresh fruit that she hadn’t been able to afford to buy for four years.
Don’t let these treasures go to waste.
To learn more about Waste Not, Want Not, to become a volunteer, donate fruit or make a contribution to support the program, visit waste-not-want-not.org or call 874-8038.
To find an organization near you that receives WNWN fruit through the Maui Food Bank, call 244-9500.
Add comment July 28, 2009
Food Inc.— Where our food comes from. How much it really costs.
David Brancaccio, PBS host for “NOW”, talks with filmmaker Robert Kenner, the director of “Food, Inc.,” which takes a hard look at the secretive and surprising journey food takes on the way from processing plants to our dinner tables. The two discuss why contemporary food processing secrets are so closely guarded, their impact on our health, and another surprising fact: how consumers are actually empowered to make a difference.
Watch the trailer for Food, Inc.
Related links:
Associated Press: Nebraska cattle herd tests positive for bovine TB
BBC: Chicken into Nuggets
Boston Globe: Demand and prices rise for organic food, but supply falls
Forbes: Wal-Mart milk to be hormone-free
The News Leader: Sustainable farmer featured in 2 new films
The New York Times: Second Company Is Implicated in Outbreak Linked to Spinach
Add comment June 7, 2009
Ecology Action
Ecology Action is a Santa Cruz, CA nonprofit environmental consultancy delivering cutting edge education services, technical assistance, and program implementation for initiatives that assist individuals, business and government to maximize environmental quality and community well being.
Since 1970 Ecology Action has combined municipal, foundation, and private funding to establish cutting-edge conservation programs, prove their effectiveness financially and operationally, and establish each program as a permanent community resource.
They seek innovative ways to instill environmental awareness, promote pragmatic change, and create opportunities for individuals, businesses, and community agencies to save money, create jobs, and contribute to a sustainable local economy.
Browse some of their current programs:
Add comment May 16, 2009
Watch out Hawaii: Veggies may harbor rare parasite
Three people in Hawaii have come down with what appears to be a rare parasitic disease called rat lungworm disease in recent weeks. Two of the victims (friends who had a meal together) told the Honolulu Star Bulletin that they experienced “agonizing pain” after eating raw vegetables – and physicians fear they may have accidentally swallowed slug larvae hidden inside folds of raw peppers.
Physicians at Hilo Medical Center on the Big Island of Hawaii reportedly discharged the patients several times before finally admitting them in mid-December, because they could not find anything wrong with them; one of the pals is now in a coma, the newspaper reports.
Rat lungworm is a tropical disease found in warm, moist climes that is caused by Angiostrongylus cantonensis, a parasitic worm carried by rats (the parasites live in the pulmonary arteries of rats, hence the name “rat lungworm”). The rats excrete worm larvae in their feces, which are sometimes eaten by small snails and slugs that often nestle in the folds of lettuce, peppers and other produce.
“Many different species of slugs and snails are known to be carriers of this particular nematode [rat lungworm parasite],” Robert Hollingsworth, an entomologist at the U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hilo told ScientificAmerican.com. When people ingest the worm, it travels from the gastrointestinal tract to the central nervous system. Most people experience no symptoms or only mild ones such as muscle aches and sensitivity to light and recover without treatment, in most cases without ever suspecting a parasite (which typically dies off in a few weeks).
In rare instances, the worm causes potentially deadly meningitis, an infection of the fluid that bathes the spinal cord and brain. Symptoms include severe headache, stiff neck, tingling or painful feelings in the skin, low-grade fever, nausea, and vomiting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “There have been documented deaths but they are very rare,” says Sarah Park, the state epidemiologist for Hawaii. The severity of the illness seems to depend on how many worms are ingested, how strong a person’s immune system happens to be, and how long the worm stays in the central nervous system, she notes, adding that it in some cases worms have survived for up to several months.
“We don’t know about all the cases out there,” because there is no diagnostic test for the disease, Park told ScientificAmerican.com, saying that diagnoses are made based on clinical observations, suspicion of exposure to the parasite, and the presence of elevated levels of eosinophils, white blood cells in the cerebrospinal fluid that might indicate a parasitic infection.
A 2007 study published in the journal Pacific Science suggests that the prevalence of rat lungworm disease may be on the rise. According to the paper (co-authored by Hollingsworth), an invasive slug species from Southeast Asia, Parmarion martensi, arrived in Hawaii in 2004 and began out-competing the Cuban slug, Veronicella cubensis, one of the most common large slug species in Hawaii. Researchers found that 77.5 percent of the invasive species were carrying the rat lungworm parasite compared to 24.3 percent of the Cuban slugs.
“The transmission potential of this species may be higher than that of other slugs and snails in Hawaii,” the researchers wrote.
The best way to avoid rat lungworm disease? Don’t eat raw snails or slugs and wash your vegetables and fruit very well, Park advises, noting that they are small [as short as 2 mm in length] and can easily escape notice if hiding in creases of produce.
Image credit ©iStockphoto.com/Effinity Stock Photography
Article from Scientific American Blog.
Add comment March 24, 2009
First Family To Plant White House Veggie Garden
March 18, 2009 11:57 AM
ABC News’ Brian Hartman Reports: President Obama’s latest shovel-ready project is close to home — in fact, right in his own yard. In an effort to promote healthy eating, the first family will be planting a vegetable garden right on the White House grounds.
ABC News’ Ann Compton and Sunlen Miller report that the new White House vegetable garden will be dug up and planted on the South grounds of the White House — near the fountain but out of view of the main house.
Though the 16-acre complex is maintained by the National Park Service, one worker who preferred to remain anonymous assured ABC News that National Park Service staff won’t do the sowing and planting. The White House residence staff will handle that.
As first reported online by food writer Eddie Gehman Kohan, who reports on food issues related to the Obamas, First Lady Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine, “We’re … working on a wonderful new garden project.”
In the April issue of the magazine, Mrs. Obama tells Winfrey, “We want to use it as a point of education, to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet.”
A variety of organic food and sustainable agriculture advocates have been pressing the Obamas to plant such a garden.
1 comment March 18, 2009
