pics at the farm!

throwback to the tuesday group on the farm!

hanging out with the bees our first day...

... and with some soil and transplants on our last

Kendal's Post: Eating Animals

In conversation with Fiona’s post this week about making our own decisions, I would like you all to see this College Humor video (if you haven’t already) and sigh with me in recognition of the truth it spills.

Fair warning: the rest of this post is going to be pretty biased as I have come to these opinions throughout years of my own research and exposure to the topic. 

With this post, I seek to address an issue that has weighed on my heart for at least the past twenty formative years of my life: non-human animal welfare, especially the welfare of industrialized farm animals. I recognize that this concern may not take precedence for all of you, and I also understand that, for some of you like me, this issue and all of its components may be an overwhelming (and even triggering) one that you already feel educated about – and don’t need a gruesome reminder of. Wherever you fall on this spectrum, I encourage you not to shy away from the information in the links presented; however, I will tag those with violent imagery as gore because I understand how traumatizing they can be.

This Mercy for Animals video presents the facts, and sums up my thoughts on the problem quite nicely. I hope it also explains where the annoying, opinionated vegan stereotype (Q: How do you find out if someone is vegan? A: Don't worry; they'll tell you.) comes from.

Here are two more Mercy for Animals videos (without the cushy cartoon imagery) that expose further the cruelties food animals must undergo to sustain our appetites:

Cruelty at New York's Largest Dairy Farm (gore)

The Egg Industry's Tiniest Victims (gore)

Tragic. Stomach-turning. Heart-wrenching. And if that isn't enough to get you to think about what it means to eat animals, chew on this. My response to this information has been to take meat off my menu (with the exception of my time in Thailand, where it would have been rude not to eat the food my host families had worked hard to prepare for me, I have been a vegetarian for seven years), but I have never felt fully satisfied with that decision. For the reasons I am a vegetarian, I should really be a vegan. This (largely internal and individual) process has looked like this: stumble onto some appalling shit that humans have done in pursuit of profit, cry a lot, watch a documentary [I haven't seen all of these, but they're on my list, so I'm putting them here: Earthlings, Forks Over Knives, Vegucated, Food Inc., and Cowspiracy - it is my understanding all of these films contain gore.], cry a lot more, get really mad, find and compile a bunch of vegan recipes with the intent to cut out all animal products, and then...I don't do it. It's too hard. You have to learn how to cook, and then actually cook. You have to eat vegetables! Primarily vegetables! I have always said that I'll do it [insert next "convenient" span of time here], and then I don't. I feel guilty because I think of the amount of emotional and physical pain, torture, and bloodshed that carries on indefinitely for me to be able to eat a milkshake or an omelette. So guilty that I stunt myself into not trying, which is the worst place to be for my own mental well being, and, of course, the non-human animals whose lives I'm making a living hell by continuing to eat parts of them.

Recently, it has finally clicked for me that sustainable growth is the result of a gradual, mindful shift in personal habits. There are so many reasons why I have been wanting to adopt veganism (seriously, look at the health benefits!); now is the best time to take that first little step. I have a plan that involves written goals and a pretty solid system of support (though more is always welcome!), and I'm excited to use what I've been learning all quarter to finally help me actualize the life I've been visualizing for years.

There is so much to talk about with this, but I've chosen to keep it close to my personal journey with food animals, and I would love to hear your story. Do you believe the hype around all of this? Are the examples I've chosen to have us look at isolated incidents, or are they indicative of what and who is going into your bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin? Have any of these articles/images changed your mind about eating animals, or did you already have a clear idea of what was going on? General responses?

Finally, some helpful resources in case you're thinking about making a change, but don't know where to start:

• Find vegan-friendly restaurants
• Eating vegan on a budget/in school
• Egg substitutes

Thanks for reading. I look forward to talking this over with you in class on Thursday.

Week 10 on the Farm 2016: Gratitude

Weather Forecast: mid-80s, mostly sunny on Tuesday, 50% chance of rain on Wednesday.

As we move this class toward closure and the farm moves toward our first CSA harvest, I'd like to revisit Robin Wall Kimmerer's teachings on gratitude and honorable harvest. John and I are deeply grateful to have gotten to know each of you during this course. You've helped us with our spring work, lightening our load and relieving our sore muscles. You've taught us lots of new things (and new words like "entomophagy") and inspired us to reflect more deeply on the work that we do and its relationship to the world. I think the most important gift you've given us, though, is hope. Your willingness to open your minds and hearts to us and to each other, to ask hard questions with gentleness and grace, and to think deeply about your relationships to both the human and non-human beings with whom we share this planet (and your relationships to yourselves as well!) affirms for us the beautiful potential within humans. Thank you for sharing your beauty with us this quarter.

Here's an 18-minute video of a TED talk by Kimmerer in which she talks about one of our first crops of the season and its teachings about giving, receiving, and gratitude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE

If you feel so moved, consider responding with a comment about something or someone you feel grateful for in your life right now.

Fiona's Post: Lookin' to the Future

Week 10!!!! Now that we are at the end of the quarter I wanted to take some time to reflect back on what we’ve learned in this class…. Over the past nine weeks we have examined and thought about a lot of the issues in our current food system. I know I’ve learned a lot from all of you, and have really changed the way I think about my food. I wanted to take a moment to thank all of you from bringing up so many important and crucial topics! I’ve noticed that so many topics have drawn from individual passions and interests. On that theme I wanted to attempt to synthesis some of what we’ve talked about (keeping everyones interests in mind) and start a conversation on how we are going to apply this class past K. I want to focus on solutions/personal empowerment for our last class, be it large scale or small scale.  

Okay, first I looked into ways to farm/garden anywhere in the U.S. 

Check out this article about the top 10 cities for urban farming and the circumstances that made their urban farming boom. 

http://inhabitat.com/top-10-cities-in-the-us-for-urban-farming/

Next I wanted to look into ways to grow your own food in a backyard OR an apartment:

Take a look at these: 

Starting your own small scale garden in a house: http://eartheasy.com/grow_backyard_vegetable_garden.html

Or an apartment: http://www.urbanorganicgardener.com/2012/01/7-location-ideas-for-apartment-and-urban-gardens/

In this vain I found a TED talk about one women finding a way to garden anywhere:

(please watch)

https://www.ted.com/talks/britta_riley_a_garden_in_my_apartment?language=en#t-13916

Okay, after watching that and looking at the articles I would love to hear your reflections. Does it seem doable? In what way could you make your own food? What issues do you see with this? How can you use this wherever you live next?  

If this seems like an unlikely solution for you that’s fine! I know after looking into it I really want to grow my own food, but will I? Will I make the time? So I also wanted to look at a more personal relationship with eating. I looked into eating with intention/love. I found a lot of articles, but mainly they were just bossy and judge, until I saw this one:

http://www.consumethisfirst.com/2013/01/18/the-bottom-line-eat-with-intention/

I liked this blog post because it points out that your relationship with food is yours. So often we get caught up in how to’s: how to be happy, eat right, lose weight, make better choices. And, we forget that each of us is the best judge of what we need. After looking at this how do you want to change or keep your relationship with food? Does eating with intention seem like a solution? If so how? If not what is a better solution for you? 

I know these are just a few solutions/ideas, and in no way fix all that is going on in our food system. I just wanted to dedicate some time to think about how, we can each positively impact ourselves and the world around us (in some way). 

SO, ultimately, in your response’s I’d like you to reflect on how you want to apply this class after K. 

Aya's Post: Culture, Religion, and Food

This post may be a slightly deviated from “slow farming,” but I believe this is still a very important food-related topic to discuss in this class. During my sophomore year, I took environmental science class here. One of the assignments was to write a paper about an environmental problem. I could choose any topic I wanted, so I chose “Japanese whaling” as my topic. When I selected the topic, I was ready to criticize the Japanese whalers. Some of the whale species they hunt are endangered, and obviously, people can still live without eating whale meat. But as I searched more and more about the historical background behind Japanese whaling, I got lost. While I understand whaling is a very unsustainable practice when you consider whales’ current status, I could also emphasize with the people who put so much cultural, dietary, and nutritional values on whale meat. Here, I give a few examples of people eating rare/endangered animals for various reasons.

Example 1: Japanese Whaling

The history of Japanese whaling dates back to the 7^th century. Whales have been an important part of Japanese diet for more than 1000 years. Whales were very important resources for living, as the following comment of a historian suggests: “We don’t waste any part of whale. We eat meat and blubber and use bone for fertilizer. Every part is used” (Iwasaki-Goodman, 1994; please follow the link below and take a look at the picture!). 

The cruelty of whale hunting, however, is not deniable. Today, whales are killed by using grenade-armed harpoons, and they suffer 10~35 minutes before dying. Additionally, environmentalists are concerned that Japanese whale hunting may deplete the whale populations, as the hunting rate is much faster than the whales’ reproduction rate. In addition, some of the whale species they hunt are endangered.  

Today, many young people do not know how whales taste like, as there are many policies that regulate whaling. However, some people consider that whaling is important to preserve cultural heritage.

Sources used (you do not need to read them. I just wanted to give credits to the sources):

Peace, Adrian. “The Whaling War: Conflicting Cultural Perspectives (Respond to This Article   at Http://www.thrai.org.uk/at/debate).” Anthropology today 26.3 (2010); 5-9. Print.

Iwasaki-Goodman, Masami, and Milton M.R. “Social and Cultural Significance of Whaling in Contemporary Japan: A Case Study of Small-Type Coastal Whaling.” Key Issues in              Hunter-gatherer Research (1994): n.pag. Web.

Example 2: Shark fin soup eaten as a delicacy in China

The popularity of shark fin soup rose in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries in China. People enjoyed shark fin soup as a symbol of high status and luxury, and shark fin soup is still considered “one of the eight treasured food from the sea” in China. Shark fins are also used for medicinal purposes.  People believe that eating shark fins would make their bodies energetic, nourish their blood, and strengthen their organs. However, there is no scientific evidence behind these claims.

Although eating shark fins is not illegal yet, people are seriously concerning about the declining shark population. Additionally, the shark finning practice is highly controversial. Often, shark fishermen only want shark fins, but they do not want the whole body. So what they usually do is to catch sharks, cut their fins, and return them to the ocean. Sharks often can’t swim properly after their fins are cut off, and die eventually.

Sources used (you do not need to read them. ):

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/shark-finning-sharks-turned-prey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup

These are just few examples.

In your comment, I would like you to:

Find one animal or plant (or any other food item) that is rare/has a slow reproductive rate but eaten by people for cultural and religious purposes. Please briefly discuss about the practice. I focused on Asian countries, as I feel more familiar to their cuisines. However, please feel free to bring examples from any other parts of the world.

In the following paragraph, please briefly discuss your thoughts on my post. There are many directions you can go, and the comments do not need to be super long.

You do not need to write this down, but before class on Thursday, please be sure to know some pros and cons of consuming that particular food item.  

Audra's Post:Cultural Appropriation and Cuisine

I wanted to begin this post by expressing how thankful I am for the mutual sharing we’ve done in this class. In perusing past posts, I’ve noticed (and enjoyed) how often commenters thank the discussion leader for sharing. I note this not to submit some strange request for you thanks (ha!), but to point out that no matter how “macro-level” we expect a topic to be, these issues are deeply connected to our individual experiences and often vulnerably so; we’ve seen how the “political” is personal. But, the personal is also political: the choices we make are exercises of our power and privilege that have real implications—however influential they might be. This, I think, is an entryway into discussing solutions through which we’ve begun to take steps. Let’s continue to use that lens! 

I wanted to devote this post to a topic that illuminates how tangled that personal-political relationship can be and how our personal choices when it comes to enjoying foods from cultures/traditions that are not our own are laden with power-dynamics and histories. I’ve thought a lot about—and felt incredibly paralyzed by—the imperial, oppressive, or otherwise problematic histories of many foods I like. My experience studying in Thailand, too, has compounded this confusion. Questions circulate about what, when, how, and with whom it is appropriate to consume certain cuisines. If our personal choices really do have meaningful and impactful political implications—like maybe contributing a little bit less to the oppression of marginalized people—what are guidelines for choosing “more justly” when it comes to eating outside of our own traditions or cultures?

I’d invite you to first read Soliel Ho's “Craving the Other: One Woman’s Beef with Cultural Appropriation and Cuisine.” She introduces the topic in a way that accentuates its concurrently political and personal nature. Click those other links she offers at the beginning of the piece if you choose (I’d highly suggest it). They each problematize and complicate “craving the Other” differently. (For instance, one author composed a comic that’s helpful to identifying how cultural appropriation operates in the realm of food).

What were your reactions to this piece? Did it elicit any memories about experiences you’ve had (either as appropriator or appropriated)?

Next, take a look at Phylisa Wisdom and Rachel Kuo's pieces concerning solutions (or partial solutions).

Are these compelling? Lacking? Problematic in their own right? If you can, focus your energy on thinking about solutions to avoiding (remedying?) appropriation (and evaluating those offered by the contributors above). 

I personally find this issue challenging, so I appreciate your willingness to help me learn from you all in this discussion!

Week 9: Scouting & Potatoes; Choices & Sacrifices

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, high of 82 degrees F, sunny. Wednesday, high of 82 degrees F, 60% chance of rain.

Last week I introduced you all to the concept of "scouting"--essentially checking to see what's going on in your garden or orchard. Which sounds simple and obvious, but this sort of close observation is an important skill that you can develop and refine over time. Here's a three-minute video that gives a nice overview of effective scouting techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq4b6gEWEFg.

I made an unpleasant discovery while scouting our newly-planted spinach this weekend. I noticed that some of the plants were wilting over even though the soil was plenty moist around them. Digging up one of the wilted plants, I found these around its roots:

A little searching through my plant books confirmed that these are seedcorn maggots. I'd never heard of seedcorn maggots until last year when they knocked out my first planting of melons. The seedcorn maggot fly likes to lay its eggs in moist, freshly worked soil that contains a lot of organic material; our freshly prepared beds with all of their compost are a perfect environment for them. They feed indiscriminately on a variety of crops including melons, spinach, corn, beans, and the cabbage family (yup, they are in the kale too).

So, we're waiting to see how much damage they are going to do. Maybe they'll knock out the whole spinach crop, maybe they won't. They've taken out several of the Baltic Red Kale, but I'm not sure yet how much damage they're going to do to the rest of the kale, pac choi, and broccoli. If they just take out a few plants here and there, we should have plenty left in the hoophouse to replant. If they do more damage than that, maybe we'll have to call one or more of those crops a loss for this year.

And that's just how this business goes--there's always a new pest, a new disease, a new weather catastrophe to keep you humble. No matter how much you know, nature knows more and he/she/they reminds you of that every single day. And as frustrating as that is, it's also why I love farming. It challenges me to be always learning, growing, changing. One of the lessons of the seedcorn maggot is that I need to re-evaluate my soil preparation methods. Adding loads of compost just prior to planting has worked for years, but if that's now going to attract this maggot fly then perhaps I need to think about different ways I can add organic matter to the soil, either by using it as a mulch after plants are established or by adding it in the fall so that it is well-broken down before maggot egg-laying time. These methods could be beneficial to the soil ecology as well, since I wouldn't be doing as much soil disturbance in the spring.

We've got a long to-do list for this week, but one thing we hope to accomplish while you are out on the farm is planting the rest of our potatoes. Here are two videos that describe two very different food systems involving potatoes. The first is 10 minutes; the second is 15 minutes long. Take a look and let's talk about the implications of each. Which system do you think will best feed us and future generations?

100 Circle Farms, Washington State: http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/food/food_quality/see_what_we_are_made_of/meet_our_suppliers/100_circle_farms.html

Potato Park, Peru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLI2KySC9-U

And here's the website for the Potato Park if you'd like to learn more: http://www.parquedelapapa.org/.

Finally, a quote for you to ponder from Muriel Rukeyser: "I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice."

I've been thinking a lot about these words this week. I could make a long list of all of the things I've given up in order to run this CSA. Some of those things I miss a lot. But it's also true that I've wanted to do this work more than I've wanted those things in my life. That doesn't mean that giving them up doesn't hurt and that I'm not trying to find ways to bring this work into a better balance with other things that are important to me. But I think there is something important in Rukeyser's use of the word "choice" rather than "sacrifice." 

What do you want so much that in making that choice and letting other things fall away there is no sacrifice, only a movement towards your heart's deepest desire?

Respond sometime before late Wednesday night!

Anyone amongst you have a nut or other food allergy? Fina and I will be providing some breakfast goodies on Thursday: I believe gluten and dairy-free is already in the books.
See y'all later this week!

Week 8 on the Farm 2016: Slow Tools

Weather Forecast: Low to mid-60s, partly sunny.

On the agenda for this week: planting! And more planting. By the end of the week we hope to have carrots, turnips, arugula, pac choi (2nd planting), broccoli, beets (2nd planting), mustards, cilantro, and dill in the ground. And maybe even (if the weather looks cooperative), the first tomatoes. We also need to get our cucumbers, melons, and squashes started indoors.

I think all of you (or at least most of you) had an opportunity to see our new seedbed roller last week. We hope this tool will help speed up our planting process by marking rows and transplant holes quickly while firming the garden beds. I talked with some of you about the need for new designs for good small-scale tools to match the new/old farming methods that are being both revived and innovated upon. Here's a short article that describes an project that's working to fill that need: https://www.stonebarnscenter.org/farm/news/slow-tools-fast-change.html.

Another movement working on appropriately-scaled farm technology is Farm Hack. Take a read through its website to find out more. Make sure you watch the 3 minute video on the "Getting Started" page: http://farmhack.org/wiki/getting-started.

And here's a short video report on a Farm Hack event in Manchester: https://vimeo.com/149761716.

I also really enjoy browsing through the Slow Tools Facebook page. Some of the links they've got posted feature tools that are neither slow nor small, but they're still fun to watch! I think the robotic tomato grafter is my favorite. https://www.facebook.com/slowtools

Olivia's Post: More touchy-feely stuff

I first heard the words “relationship to food” together some time during middle school. I was a super-active girl at the tail end of a growth spurt that would dwarf many of my peers, and not yet coordinated with the new lengths of my limbs. I was the girl who had always dominated the boys-only games at recesses, made freshly uncomfortable by my strength and my height, and caught in all of my pubescent glory prior to my discovery of the sports that would make me comfortable again. Like most of us, I was unsettled by the imagery of a health and phys-ed classroom whose message was delivered in “don’t have an eating disorder, watch this thin and beautiful girl have one instead” format. I have my doubts about the method’s efficacy, to say the least.

In high school, this terminology was used increasingly in an unusual physical setting  -  so often in the small group components of the Christian youth group I participated in. Interestingly, I found that in this setting food, and the way we discussed it, was often an outlet for feelings of both grief and guilt. During the same period, my participation in sports, fervent exercise and what amounted to a starter coarse on dietary trends made me a glutton for the state of my glutes, and then aware of my egocentricity on a vast plane. All of these aspects together began to really make eating feel like a moral choice, which may be part of why I got aboard the “health food train” to begin with. Independent at last in college and quite adept at preparing healthy meals on my own, I was unprepared for the stress of constantly being surrounded by my peers, and found the comparison-making so overwhelming that I developed the types of behaviors that would have troubled my middle school phys ed teacher. Recovery necessitated the courage and perspective to view myself gently, to non-judgmentally assess the aggression I was subjecting myself to, and to regain respect from that place. This post is a little cheesy, but has a decent explanation of mindful eating practice and doesn’t get overly zen to be accessible: http://naturalepicurean.com/mealtime-mindfulness/. This sort of reflection has helped me tremendously, though there will probably never be a time when I don’t “lose it” on occasion.

In thinking about this post, talking with Josie, and reflecting on some of my personal struggles with eating disorders, I have been struck by how frequently writers and bloggers equate nutrition to morality. Some go as far as to equate it to religion: http://news.nationalpost.com/life/food-drink/the-new-religion-how-the-emphasis-on-clean-eating-has-created-a-moral-hierarchy-for-food. While I can’t say I agree with the entire premise, it’s interesting to me to consider that nearly every religion I can think of has some tradition related to food (mainly symbolic meals and a ritual of expressing gratitude before a meal) and that our national obsession over diets correlates to a decreased participation in conventional religion. Others have rather lengthy premises equating food to sex – per our relatively-new “unrestricted” access to both, and societal rules relating to each. http://www.hoover.org/research/food-new-sex. This premise I’m not so moved by, but do find it interesting and sort of funny... until I think about the things students partake in after a night of drinking, or about the words we use to describe such things.

The fact alone that such studies are being organized and funded implies brokenness between our present food systems (well, maybe our thoughts on both subjects, but let’s limit ourselves a bit here) and our sense of right, natural, and pure. The National Post article relates many of the same virtues found in religion as being represented in the various clean food movements. In the sense that the article describes, this similarity links food and ethics closely and ties both to religious practice and fervor. I have been thinking for some time not about religion specifically but about spirituality and food, and about the concept of living beings (plants included) having a sort of soul, they and we players in indistinct energetic pathways through which nourishment has psychological, social and spiritual effects as well as physiological. The very ease of meal acquisition for many Americans seems to play in to the sense of disrespect to our food sources. In many ways, strife –like scarcity- yields respect. That consciousness and that respect can feed back in to our systems and nourish us on a whole-being scale that we have seen can be also nourishing for our earth, yet forgiving of our occasional need to simply do our best.

            Some things to reflect on:

Your own relationship with food – this is intimate to many and by all means feel free to just keep that one in your head space.

Do you think that spirituality (or lack thereof) affects how we perceive our experiences at mealtimes? What about the choices in meal production?

How does a moral conception of food sourcing or of dieting serve the current food systems? How do we remove the “judgy-ness” behind an otherwise “good” thing?

How do we re-establish respect across a culture that so dearly values efficiency? What are some practical ways to incorporate mindful consumption across demographics?

Josie's Post: Examining our Relationship with Food

During fifth week Isabelle ended our class with a beautiful thought: that at the end of all “this” we need to love and respect ourselves if we hope to help those around us.  I have tried to carry that thought with me for the past few weeks and have found that I still have a certain guilt when I make decisions about food and what I put into my body. Do I respect myself when I eat “unhealthy” foods? Am I treating my body “correctly”? Eating healthy is not an accessible option for everyone, but how do we even approach that problem when the word healthy has been warped into diet trends and “clean eating”.

It seems that for as long as I can remember there have been diet trends released on Good Morning America and on People magazine covers telling consumers how they should eat in order to be healthy. I can remember my parents trying the atkins diet years ago and I know that this comes from their internalized fear of seeing their parents suffer from diabetes and dangerously high cholesterol. For some, this relationship to food is shaped by the scientific and cultural definition of “healthy food”. For others, they have been forced to find a new way to eat because of serious food allergies and digestive intolerances. We have also discussed in this class that certain groups do not even have the opportunity to choose healthy foods and follow these trends. This week I want us to explore the messages we have received past and present about what it means to eat “right”.

Social media has used these trends to their advantage. Check out these diagrams published by buzzfeed last year. https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolynkylstra/healthy-eating-charts?utm_term=.baebA56XD#.ugyMOXRoy

Do you all think that these diagrams and “tips” are positive or negative, and why? What audiences are they reaching?

What kind of message does this send for immigrants and their families in the US? I know that an Argentinian’s diet does not fit in any of those charts. Certain portions for foods like rice and legumes are unrealistic for people from countries like Costa Rica where these are a major food group. Emma had us dig into cuisine and our experiences on study abroad during fifth week and I feel that revisiting some of those topics could be beneficial for our class discussion.

Class discussions in other academic settings as well as seeing these trends play out in my hometown have made it obvious that middle/upper class society members are the people able to indulge in these trends. Check out this huffingtonpost link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/taste/

I only ask of you to read the titles and captions, what stands out?

Much of the conversations surrounding food  are attached to scientific findings, and the knowledge of nutritionists. I do not intend for this blog post to be a nutrition lesson. Personally, I feel that I am still figuring out what is best for me and what makes me feel “healthy” . My first year here at K, I took full advantage of the cafeteria and ate dessert after almost every meal (my parents were sugarphobics and according to them, aside from family gatherings, birthdays, and holidays, dessert was the enemy). I came home to my honest (but loving) female family members telling me that I did not escape the freshman 15. Insecurities aside, I knew that I probably was not putting the best ingredients into my body but getting up for seconds and thirds in the cafeteria helped me deal with stress.

The summer after my first year at K my father and I attempted to live with the Paleo diet for a few weeks. While I lived almost for the first time in my life with no farts (TMI..) I woke up craving sugar and had to stop going out with friends because I ended up eating iceberg lettuce salads while they enjoyed burgers and nachos. I would follow the strict guidelines for about a week and then purge on sweets and cheddar cheese. These moments of “cheating” made me feel guilty and confused. Was I the healthy one during those weeks? Or were my friends making the “right” choice?

Please read the article below. I do not agree with all of the author’s points but it does shed some insight on diet culture in general.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/ruby-tandoh-eat-clean-wellness?utm_source=vicetwitteruk

I realize it is lengthy, but if you have time please read some of the comments in response to the article.

How do people with food allergies react to this author’s points about gluten’s comparison to MSG? Feel free to respond in your comments about initial thoughts and responses to Tandoh's claims. As someone who has pretty uncomfortable reactions to dairy, I find her critique a bit intense. I have friends and colleagues who have made conscious decisions about their diet, whether it be going paleo or gluten-free, and it has changed their lives for the better.  

Reflecting on what is written this whole post seems like a giant contradiction. And it is! I hope to unpack this contradiction in class and to look into personal insights for the “right” way to eat (Or if there even is one…?). This entry is a bit anecdotal and personal but I believe food is personal. This topic can be difficult and I hope to make our class on Thursday an open space. Feel free to respond in however you feel comfortable to this blog. It can be open and free flowing. You can think about:

What messages have you all been given about what is the “right” food to eat? Was that put into question when you came into college?

Have there been times in your life where you have been forced to reevaluate your relationship to food? Has this class made you reevaluate your relationship to food? 

If you all could create a new food trend in hopes of creating a less confusing rhetoric, what would it be? What messages would you hope to send?

Week 7 on the Farm: Bees

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, high of 63 degrees F, 60% chance of rain. Wednesday, high of 75 degrees F, partly cloudy.

John and I have had a busy weekend racing ahead of Tuesday's forecasted rain! It's 10pm now and as soon as I finish up this blog post I get to have dinner. :) But we accomplished a lot: two rows of the strawberries are entirely weeded; the first batch of head lettuces are in the ground, as are beets, chard, and cabbages; the salad mix bed is prepped for planting later this week; codling moth traps are set in the orchard; the petal fall nutritional sprays are on the peaches; the garden across the driveway is cleared and one bed is composted and ready to plant; and I got a new compost pile started.

Also, I became acquainted with a new insect this weekend: the green pug moth, whose larva is chewing the middles out of my apple blossoms: http://bugguide.net/node/view/355667. Little bugger.

Of course there are lot more things I WISH we could get done before another rain moves in! I'm especially concerned about finishing weeding the strawberries before they get too far along in their bloom, since the weeds are competing with them for nutrients during this critical time. I also don't like disturbing their roots too much while they are trying to set fruit so I want that job done so that I can leave them alone to make their lovely little fruits.

And . . . the kale, pac choi, and spinach all need to be planted. And the carrots. And the turnips. And the arugula. And the onions. And I need to put up the fence around the garden across the drive. And it's time to start seeding curcurbits indoors. It must be May!

As usual, what we do this week will be very dependent on the weather. It looks like we've got a good chance of rain on Tuesday afternoon, so we may end up working on what the Wednesday group did last week--taking apart supers and frames from our beehive that died out over the winter so that we can clean them up and make them ready for re-use. That will give us an opportunity to talk a little more about bees, their importance to agriculture, and the difficulties beekeepers have been having in recent years in keeping them alive.

Here are a couple of videos that will give you a little background on Colony Collapse Disorder, which has been plaguing our honeybee populations for quite awhile now, including one on beekeeping in cities:

Marla Spivak on Colony Collapse Disorder: http://www.ted.com/talks/marla_spivak_why_bees_are_disappearing

Noah Wilson-Rich on Urban Beekeeping:  http://www.ted.com/talks/noah_wilson_rich_every_city_needs_healthy_honey_bees

And from PBS's Nature, a clip on the "dance-language" of bees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-8QuBDkkw

Aren't bees amazing? Honestly, when people ask me why I keep bees (or try to!) I struggle to answer. It's an expensive hobby and although we like honey a lot, that's not really the reason. Nor is pollination--our wild bees are very capable of doing that job (of course, we need to quit poisoning them too). But I think the truth is that keeping bees lets me peer into a different world, the world of insects, in an intimate way, a way that lets me try to imagine the world through their experience. It shakes up my human perspective and makes me realize how much I don't know about what's happening right under my nose in this world. The bees humble me as they amaze me.

Wednesday folks, we're going to have to see what the weather does to us. If we don't get a big soaking rain on Tuesday and the ground is drying enough by Wednesday afternoon, we'll dig into planting. If everything is soaked, we'll punt. 

See ya'll soon!

Henry's Post: problems with agricultural innovation

Just starting off with the problems behind entomophagy may not make as much sense as it could if we all had an introduction to it. It would be helpful to read Michael's post before this one just to avoid restating anything or wasting anyone's time.

This post will be focused on the barriers to entomophagy and ,in a broader context, barriers to food and agriculture innovation. 

As we have heard in the Ted Talk that Michael has shared with us, insects seem like the next place we should be turning for our protein, much of the world has already been doing this. Western cultures have been slow to adapt to this idea for many reasons. Most of which being that insects are "gross" or "yucky" as though they are any more gross than other animals that we eat. In american culture we don't like to see the sources of our protein, I'll admit that I don't like the notion that something had to die in order for me to eat and I don't like to think of the animal as I am eating. We have touched on this before but I offer to you that if we can't see the insects as "bugs" then the same yuckiness that taking a bite of a whole cow or chicken is removed. This is what many people (including us at Colony Farm) are doing within the entomophagy movement are doing.

I realize that this reasoning doesn't make sense for people who do not already eat animal protein but the plants that are grown in traditional agriculture are just as unhappy as the animals. When it comes to insects however, they are more than accustomed to crawling all over each other. High concentrations of insects is not seen as inhumane unlike chickens being crammed into tight quarters with one another or row after row of the same plants all competing with each other and breeding pests and sickness. As we have already learned from Michael, insects are a much more sustainable protein source than traditional protein. This movement is also broadening our sources of protein and could be fed on food byproducts such as wheat bran.

The following is an article posted by an Icelandic company and their struggles with legal issues in their home country, please find your way to the comment section as well:

http://www.junglebar.co/blogs/news/84694276-what-to-do-with-jungle-bar-insects-legalizeit-europe

As of now there is no such legislation in America but we expect that there might be in the near future as this movement gains more traction and starts to threaten traditional protein.

The following ink is to an FDA website that shows the tolerance of different contaminates that are allowed in our food products. The first link is to the FDA website the second is to a condensed version of just some of the ones that contain insects on Wikipedia. CONTENT WARNING: you may find his disturbing but I urge you to at least take a quick look at what you are already eating.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocumentsRegulatoryInformation/SanitationTransportation/ucm056174.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels

After reading these few pages lease respond to the following questions to the best of your abilities.

First I'd like to ask who of you would be willing to try insects? Who would be willing to incorporate insect protein into their daily diet? If not what are your reservations (feel free to say "'cause it's yucky")?

Part of what we are trying to do at Colony Farm is keep a conversation with the public that we intend to serve. I ask that you offer some solutions to getting around the yuck-factor of eating insects.

Speaking to the legal issues that Crowbar Protein, what is your take on this? Please also respond to a few of the comments that people have posted to that thread. Do you see that we might see anything like this in America with the entomophagy movement?

If you were able to stomach the final two links, how do you feel about the federal regulations of what is allowed in your food? How does it sit with you that companies are not required to put these ingredients on the list of what is actually in your food? 

Lastly I'd like to open up the discussion on this forum and in class as to other innovative approaches to agriculture? Please draw from your personal experiences and bring your own flavor to what these new systems would look like and how they could be implemented.

Micro Animal Husbandry, Entomophagy, & You

It's clear that there are many issues with today's agricultural industry. Our numerous discussions have tackled issues from migrant farmworker justice, the culture of food, and everything in between. For this week's discussion, I would like to address a [reemerging field of agriculture] that is gaining ground in the West. Micro animal husbandry and entomophagy stand as viable solutions to combat the growing needs of the global human population as well as the damaging pervasiveness of the established monoculture surrounding food in the US.

Watch this [TED Talk by Marcel Dicke] to understand just a few of the many reasons why we should be eating insects.

...

You back? Cool. Let's talk about that.

What are some of your initial reactions to the videos? Had you heard of entomophagy or considered eating insects prior to your time in this course? Were there any pieces of information that surprised you? Why might you still be skeptical?

As I have stated time and time again in our discussions, I feel that many of the problems with our agricultural industry are tied to a disconnect with food. In particular, we have lost many of the old, sustaining techniques and foods that our ancestors were able to thrive from. In their place, we have well-established monoculture that places a great deal of importance on efficiency at the cost of diversity and the health of the planet. I believe that entomophagy and the practice of micro animal husbandry are ways in which we can look to our past to push back against the tide of the current system while still aiming to progress as a society.

Slow, organic farming, and micro animal husbandry are just a few ways that farmers today are bringing back lost practices with the hope of benefiting humanity and the planet. What are some other ways that we can utilize the knowledge of our ancestors to this end? Do you feel like this is a viable alternative? How might we need to adapt these practices to accommodate the growing needs of the human population?

Head on over to Henry's post to discuss major issues facing the entomophagy movement as well as other innovative solutions.

Week 6 on the Farm 2016: Poetry

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, high of 64 degrees F, sunny. Wednesday, high of 50 degrees F, 50% chance of rain.

After all the rain we've had this past week, the fields and woods are really greening up around here! Now we very much need the rain to stop and the sun to shine for a few days, because it's planting time and we need to be able to work with the soil.

It sounds like Tuesday will be lovely. Tuesday folks, we'll take you out ramp foraging and then come back to the strawberry patch to see if we can't get the rest of the weeds cleared away from the plants and some compost spread around them so they'll have a good shot at producing nice berries this year.

Wednesday people, we'll have to see what the weather does. If it doesn't rain, we may try to get some plants and seeds in the ground! We may also check on our compost pile and see whether it's time to turn it.

One of the highlights of my time at the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Summit was meeting Rowen White, founder of Sierra Seeds (http://sierraseeds.org/). Here's a two and a half minute video in which she talks a bit about her approach to healing the wounds of colonization through food and seed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obx_UAAKfaE.

In one of our conversations, Rowen reminded me about the poet David Whyte, whose degree in marine zoology landed him on the Galapagos Islands. In an interview with On Being's Krista Tippet, Whyte says "I went back into poetry because I felt like scientific language wasn’t precise enough to describe the experiences that I had in Galapagos. Science, rightly, is always trying to remove the “I.” But I was really interested in the way that the “I” deepened the more you paid attention." (This isn't assigned listening/reading, but if you want to hear the whole interview,  you can find it here: http://www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/transcript/8581.)

This rings true in my experience--that there are things afoot in the world that the "objective language" of science isn't able to comprehend and express at this time. I think that may be because there are certain things that you can know only when you give up the separateness required by objectivity and enter deeply into relationship (perhaps symbiosis is another word for it, connecting back to Rowen's video). The language of poetry is better suited for this kind of knowing. And so, this week, I give you poetry:

One by Wendell Berry:


The Man Born to Farming

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?

© Wendell Berry. This poem is excerpted from "The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry,"  Counterpoint Press. (http://www.onbeing.org/program/ellen-davis-and-wendell-berry-the-poetry-of-creatures/extra/the-man-born-to-farming-by)

And two by Marge Piercy:

The Seven Of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us 
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

~ Marge Piercy ~

To be of use

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

from Circles on the Water. Copyright © 1982 by Marge Piercy. 

(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57673)

As you think about moving across the threshold of graduation and into this next phase in your life, what work calls to your heart? How will you put your love to use in the world?