I Heart Farms

The HELLman's You Say: "Real Ingredients" Don't Mutate DNA

(Graphic: created by me in Photoshop.)

Though I am loathe to give up top billing to YellowWallFarm.com—about my favorite thing I get to do is shine light on the good and beautiful in the world…well, I've got a barrelful here for Hellman's^® and their completely ludicrous and cynical misuse of the words "real ingredients" when listing what actually goes into their products.

I am aware that Hellman's and Best Foods are the most popular mayonnaises in this country. I am also aware that some people eat ground beef at Taco Bell and McDonald's, so clearly we are a nation who likes to play fast and loose with our food safety.

You might be lulled into a sense of food security with the sincerity of words like "real" and "natural," and even "organic" and "free-range" or "cage-free." Then, last evening another pro-food (real food, not corporate chemicals in boxes and jars) food blogger, "Genie," aka @egratto, tweeted this little nugget:

"So. Hellman's Mayo has an ad campaign claiming they're making it from real ingredients. Here's the nutritional info: http://bit.ly/bWPawC"

And that's when my insta-cynic knew I was about to launch out the gate for a horserace to be the first to find out…WTF, HELLMANN'S?

Wordle, and an Awakening to Organic

Pictured here: my visit to "Wordle.net" produced this themed art of my own words about loving farms. Go try it out. You can enter a URL for your weblog, or any text you want. I used custom colors and a friendly font. Experimental play is the key. Make your own.

And now for something harvested after planting the seed, in a hostile climate, many years ago. It gives me hope for my (or your) relatives who think everything we do is crazy, expensive, or "too California."

Some time back, we shared a holiday meal with Some Family Members. While these people are good and funny and fun, they are essentially afraid of real food. My offering one Thanksgiving of an organic turkey with an herb crust and shiitake mushroom stuffing was greeted with skepticism: the turkey skin was discarded (to the dogs) from some plates, and few would even try the suspicious gravy or stuffing with the shiitakes. 

Free Milk!! (Seriously: Come to Sacramento to FREE RAW MILK, and receive free, raw milk!)

An update on Wednesday's rally in Sacramento: I am publishing this that I received from Jean Harrah at Deep Roots Ranch. It contains more information about the rally on Wednesday at our state capitol, in support of raw milk.

RAW MILK GETS ITS DAY

Assembly Woman Nicole Parra announces Ag Committee hearings on AB 1735 raw milk issue.

You must attend! Raw milk needs every one of you!

ASSEMBLY HEARING FOR EMERGENCY AG. BILL TO BE HELD WED. JAN 16. AT STATE CAPITOL

Raw Milk Supporters Urged to Attend and Speak Out

Congratulations to all of our customers and supporters! Your hard work writing letters and making calls has paid off! NOW IS THE OPPORTUNITY OF YOUR LIFETIME TO PROTECT RAW MILK IN CALIFORNIA. There is a meeting by the Assembly Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, January 16th. The Committee is currently scheduled to hear three bills. Pending approval by the State Assembly on Monday, a fourth bill will be added to this list. This bill will propose technical corrections to AB1735, which took effect on January 1st. If these corrections become law, our raw milk will continue to be available.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL THAT YOU BE THERE! We need the impact of a multitude upon these legislators, who will be hearing our side of the story for the first time. This is the most important thing you will do to insure your supply of raw milk for the future. Do whatever is necessary to be there. Take off work, school, reschedule appointments, make it a field trip for your kids.

You will be making history. Otherwise, raw milk may be history.

WHERE: California State Capitol Bldg. Room 4202

WHEN: WED. JAN 16, 2008 - 12 Noon - Meeting begins at 1:30

WHAT TO BRING: Your infants, toddlers, tweens and teens: healthy children speak volumes! Letters you've written over the course of our campaign. (Bring copies to leave there.) A 30-second testimonial -  How Raw Milk has Changed My Life Your favorite raw milk t shirt (available for sale on site - $10)

NOTE: For security reasons, do not bring anything you would not bring on an airplane. We will provide banners and signs for you.

YOU WILL RECEIVE: Free quarts of Organic Pastures raw milk
"I Love Raw Milk" buttons to signal your support
Security-cleared rally signs
Satisfaction in mobilizing with the California "living foods" community!

OTHER PREPARATION: Before the hearing - Call the office of each member of the California State Assembly Committee on Agriculture and express key message points. Go to http://www.organicpastures.com/ag-assembly-info.htm for information on making calls

PLEASE RSVP at [email protected] if you plan to attend.

REMEMBER TO CALL EACH ASSEMBLY MEMBER PRIOR TO THE HEARING. Go to http://www.organicpastures.com/ag-assembly-info.htm  for contact info and message points.

• • • • • • • • • • •

If you are interested in carpooling from the Santa Cruz area, please contact me [tanabutler at gmail.com] and I will pass your name along to a group who's going.

Thanks!

Raw Milk Imperiled: California and New York

Pictured here: one of the sweet Jersey cows at Claravale Farm, one of California's two raw milk dairies.

CALIFORNIA
Others have written eloquent and informed pieces about AB (Agricultural Bill) 1735, a sneaky "Trojan horse" piece of legislation as has ever been passed. Amanda Rose wrote about it back in October at The Ethicurean. She says, "Coliform bacteria are a mixed lot. Some are beneficial, some are pathogenic. This legislation makes no distinction between the two." [Emphasis mine.]

And:

"Raw milk has coliforms. That is simply its nature. That is why it sours in my refrigerator. The beneficial strains of coliforms, the other beneficial bacteria, and the immunoglobulins are why I pay more for raw milk.

"I know that folks at the statehouse think I’m crazy and uninformed. They visit dairies regularly and know that it is increasingly common to find E. coli 0157:H7 in their cows. I am playing “Russian roulette,” they claim.

"But there is something that humans and cows have in common. When we are living on a diet that God intended for us, our intestines are less likely to be a breeding ground for pathogenic bacteria. When our gut is full of beneficial bacteria, it can fight back when we come into contact with pathogenic bacteria."

(I recommend reading the whole piece, which is intelligent and sensible, something you won't likely find inside Governor Schwarzeneger's office walls.)

There is also David Gumpert's piece at TheCompletePatient.com: "The reality, though, is that it is difficult to educate people about the true nature of coliform bacteria at varying levels. It’s also difficult to change legislation immediately after it's been passed. It’s especially difficult if the legislation was put into effect to accomplish a very serious long-term goal—namely, to deprive as many Americans as possible of the opportunity to obtain raw milk."

I have little more to add to the outcry beyond what I have already said here, but would like to direct your attention to something VERY IMPORTANT: Bonnie Powell, aka "Dairy Queen" at The Ethicurean, and deputy editor of Edible San Francisco, got a call from Collette Cassidy at Claravale Farm (one of the only raw dairies in California), alerting everyone to attend a rally on Wednesday in Sacramento. Assemblywoman Nicole Parra will hold a hearing on AB 1735, and your attendance could make a difference. Read Bonnie's talking points, please.

And if you can carpool and get to Sacramento, you might be part of making history. Failure to overturn this bill will effectively kill raw milk in California.

NEW YORK
Michael Ruhlman alerted me to Meadowsweet Farm in Lodi, New York, about an hour and a half southeast of Rochester. Meadowsweet Farm, owned by Steve and Barbara Smith, no longer sells raw milk products to the public, but to members of its LLC, a form of community supported agriculture that allows them to bypass the bureaucracy and mindless, uninformed restrictions that the state of New York would impose on them if they were doing business with the public.

The Smiths write: "Since March 2007, the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets has been trying to pressure us and Meadowsweet Dairy LLC out of business. For example, they have conducted numerous inspections, seized products, ordered the destruction of 260 pounds of raw dairy products, attempted to search our house, issued letters threatening fines and penalties, and have now issued an order requiring us and Meadowsweet Dairy LLC to show cause why the Department of Agriculture and Markets should not shut down the operation and levy fines. That show-cause order is now set for a hearing and a show down looms over whether the State’s police power extends to a group of private citizens who produce and consume their own food of their own choice."

There are two hearings coming up, and the Smiths would love your attendance at those:

January 17, 11 AM
Department of Agriculture and Markets
10B Airline Drive
Albany, NY
(Right next to the airport)

January 22, 1:30 PM
Seneca County Court
48 West Williams Street
Waterloo, NY

Please go to the link above and read what they have to say.

• • • • • • • • • • •

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: "Never confuse movement with action." — Ernest Hemingway

I am really really really busy with work, and the weather's been horrid...but it's getting better and I hope to get out to a real farm real soon.

 

Thanks for visiting. Go rattle some bars in a government office: it'll feel good.

ACTION ALERT: About the Raw Milk Legislation from Claravale Dairy

Folks, this is urgent. Please take a little time out from your day to contact lawmakers, to undo the grave legislation that would decimate the raw milk industry in California. You can do that with information at the first link, and read more about the situation at the second link.

1) OrganicPastures.com
2) TheCompetePatient.com

Here is a letter from Ron Garthwaite, owner of Claravale Farm, which is pictured above. Well, it's his former location that I once visited: last year was rough for Claravale, when their lease was yanked unceremoniously so the owners could get a higher-paying tenant on the land. Relocating to San Benito County after having spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, trying to get the permits necessary from the visionary-impaired bureaucrats in Santa Cruz County, Ron built a new dairy facility that cost about $1M.

From TheCompletePatient.com:

What's made AB 1735 especially shocking to Ronald is that he was submitting plans and having inspections by the California Department of Food and Agriculture during recent months. “Had they informed us of this new regulation we could have made changes to the facilities in order to have a better chance of meeting the new regulation,” he says in an email he just sent to his customers. “Or we may have decided not to build at all.  Or we may have decided to construct it to produce products other than raw milk.

Here is a letter from Ron, which is necessarily long: there is scientific and political information that you need to know. Ron concludes the letter:

If you want to continue to be able to obtain raw milk in California you should fight this law with everything you have. Even if you are not a raw milk drinker but want to be able to get fresh, unadulterated produce or meat or, in fact any fresh food in the future you should be fighting this law. This is only one additional step in the State’s campaign to pasteurize or sterilize everything.

On behalf of the raw milk dairies in California, I thank you.

Edible Communities: Spreading the Good Word

This picture was taken on October 18, 2003, at Coleman Family Farm in Carpinteria, California. In the lower left corner, you can see the beaming face of Evan Kleiman, who with her small and dedicated crew from Angeli Caffe in Los Angeles, had just prepared the most delightful al fresco dinner for the crowd you see. Across the table, peeking out from the profile of the man in the blue shirt—and unbeknownst to me at the time—is Tracey Ryder, publisher of what was then a small quarterly local newsletter known as Edible Ojai.

Little did I know that six months later, in one of a steady stream of e-mails pertaining to food and farms and beauty like the kind you see here, one of my oldest (as in "long-lived friendships") friends in the world, Maria Nation, would send an e-mail about Edible Ojai and her friends, who published it.

You MUST meet my friends Carole (Topalian) and Tracey (Ryder). They live in Ojai near my sister and are major foodies (Carol is also a professional photog AND they do web designs and corp designs as a living - you have much in common - AND they are cool and wonderful.)  Anyway - they launched what has become a very successful magazine:  Edible Ojai—and here in its 2nd year it was voted one of the best food magazines by Saveur or something.  It was very impressive.  It's all about local people writing about local
food/farms/ideas etc.  Very cool and might give you some ideas on putting Santa Cruz on the map.

Well, of course I was gobsmacked when I saw Carole's photographs, and double gobsmacked to find out that Tracey had attended the dinner I was photographing at the recommendation of a mutual friend of hers and Maria's.

One Answer to Flawed Thinking: "California's Real Water War"

Pictured here: a recent visit to one of Santa Cruz's best places to eat and mingle: Soif Wine Bar & Merchants. I was recently hired to do some photography for their new website—they're in the process of selecting photos now. The wine is a dry moscato, Oppidum, from Italy, and the padrón peppers are from Meder Street Farm, up near UCSC.

I will write more about them another time: it is a wonderful place to go.

This is going to be brief, but Bob handed me the newspaper yesterday, and it contains an answer to the flawed thinking of Mr. Fred Freid (and allegedly, his professors). Mr. Freid wrote:  Our professors in the subjects of Botany and Agriculture have both stated that there is no scientific basis for Organic foods to be healthier than Conventionally grown foods. I took a course on Botany, and will say now that nutrient density is not based on the amount of pesticide sprayed. The words straight from my professors mouth: "The Organic craze is nothing but un-researched, hippy-spread bull****."

In yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle, a long article appeared called "California's Real Water War." It is a series on the urgent issue, and the gist of it is this:

"In 2004 alone, tens of thousands of Central Valley residents received bright orange notices from their public drinking water systems saying their water was not safe to drink and exceeded legal contaminant levels. Many Central Valley residents drive 30 to 50 miles each week just to buy bottled water, effectively doubling the price for this basic need.

"More than 90 percent of Central Valley communities depend on water stored underground for their drinking water. Unfortunately, years of intensive farming with uncontrolled chemical use has heavily poisoned that source. Recent groundwater sampling in Tulare County found that 3 out of 4 homes with private wells have contaminated water that is unsafe to drink."

Paging CASFS, Paging CASFS: Come In, Do You Read Me?

The man pictured here is well known to a great many of my friends, and I am reluctant to name him, as he doesn't seem to seek the limelight. I think he'd rather you look at the things he grows than at him, and I understand that.

But because of his 30-year dedication to teaching hundreds and hundreds of people how to farm sustainably up on the UCSC farm, I immediately thought of Orin Martin when I received the following series of communications from one Fred Freid in Missouri. I would like to be respectful of Mr. Freid, but my golly, I'm having to bite my tongue right now.

I am just going to post Fred's comments to a separate page, and beg Orin and anyone involved in sustainable farming—people who give their very lives to DO THE RIGHT THING—to address Fred's beliefs.

I feel so deeply that the farmers I know are the true heroes on this planet, because they do REAL work—backbreaking work, sweating work, dawn-to-dark (not dusk) work—and nobody I know is gettin' rich from it.

Action Alert: Claravale Dairy

It's been a while since I visited Claravale Farm—Ron Garthwaite and Collette Cassidy have been under siege in legal woes that you, dear reader, can help with.

I've written before about the how the Santa Cruz county bureaucracy threw up hurdle after ridiculous hurdle when Ron and Collette's landlords unexpectedly set about evicting from their Watsonville site.

This week, I heard from Ron and Collette, who sent out the following e-mail.

• • • • • • • • • • •

"The Only Leverage We Have": Jeff Fiorovich of Crystal Bay Farm

Pictured here: beautiful squash blossoms, held by Lori Fiorovich of Crystal Bay Farm.

On Monday morning this week, I got a phone call from a farmer friend, Jeff Fiorovich, who runs Crystal Bay Farm with his wife, Lori. He asked for my help, and he's getting it.

Jeff is about as down to earth as anyone alive: his trade is building, but he farms out of love for the land. Originally, Jeff's mother leased the small farm to conventional growers (if, by "convention," you mean "the tradition of poisoning the earth and its inhabitants with toxins unnecessary for the health of the produce or the consumers"). Jeff began to reconsider this arrangement, and eventually, took over the land to grow organically. Specialities include culinary squashes and pumpkins (which turn into a wonderful pumpkin patch at Halloween), as well as giant strawberries, some of which are dipped in organic chocolate and sold at their roadside farm stand.