July 12th, 2010 by Outreach Department
How long are you willing to wait for locally grown strawberries and are they worth the wait? Those big, perfectly shaped orange-red berries that always precede the locals are tempting, especially now that food science has been able to sweeten them up. Never “designed” for shipping, local berries are juicy, soft, and a deep, blood red color. Their sweet/tart flavor is something I dream about in January. By March I am all but counting the days until local berries ripen. I even view the arrival of the big orange berries as a sign that it won’t be much longer until local berries are ready. My intuition tells me that dark red color is a sign of higher antioxidant levels and the tart part of the flavor is what gives strawberries their exceptionally high vitamin C content. This is not why I eat them, I am fulfilling a year long wait for that combination of flavor, juiciness, and color that is so deeply satisfying. It is the strawberry who taught me to wait for fruits and vegetables to be in season where I live. I grew up eating Willamette Valley berries so I cannot be fooled by the orange berries from afar. I will wait, and I wait for other foods too like corn, tomatoes, and peaches.
Tags: Strawberries
Eat Local Week, Heirloom Foods, Local Farms, Sustainable Food, local food | 1 Comment »
July 1st, 2010 by Deli Department
The fourth of July is a great time to picnic and BBQ with friends and family. Following a few simple tips will ensure you have a fun food safe holiday.
• Wash your hands before you work with food, whenever you change tasks, and after you are done.
• Avoid cross contamination, change cutting boards and wash hands and knives in between tasks.
• Know your temperatures, Steaks, Roasts and Fish need to be cooked to an internal temperature of 145, Pork and Ground Beef – 160 degrees and Poultry 165 degrees.
• Food should not sit out of refrigeration for more than 2 hours, if the outside temperature is above 85 degrees
then this time reduces to 1 hour.
• Serve food on small platters and replenish often so thatyou can keep the majority of your food in the cooler or refrigerator until you need it.
Happy 4th of July everybody!
Michelle, Deli Manager
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June 28th, 2010 by Annie
For the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about how our Ashland School District is going to reclaim and run its own food service program, after using Sodexo for the past few years. The Co-op has always been interested in having healthy school lunches. Mary Shaw from Outreach has been on committees to improve our school lunches and was in on the discussions to take back our District’s program. Now we have a valley-wide organization to help connect farmers with schools…Rogue Valley Farm to School. At our Annual Meeting on June 26th, we heard a bit about this organization, and also that the Co-op and the Lions Club were going to make a nice donation toward their work for our school children. After the years of corporate run school lunches, who is going to now actually prepare and cook the food that will be served to students? I don’t know the answer to this question but apparently many school districts are asking the same question. And First Lady Michelle Obama is also wondering about this. When I found the article that I’m linking to you here, I thought about this question even more. Read the article and then share your thoughts on our Facebook page or in the comments on this blog. Happy reading….and thinking.
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May 31st, 2010 by Mary
After buying 3 dozen jumbo-size eggs ALL WITH DOUBLE YOLKS, I had to call the farm they came from to see if I was eligible for any kind of prize. Larry Martin assured me the prize was the eggs. He told me that he has a young flock and that it is not unusual for new layers to lay double yolk eggs. If ovulation is too rapid or if one yolk joins to another, the result is well,two yolks are better than one. Larry said that it takes a couple of months for a young hen’s reproductive cycle to synchronize, after that double yolk eggs are rarely laid. Generally these eggs are longer and thinner than an ordinary single-yolk egg, in fact many of Larry’s double yolk eggs were too big to fit in standard egg cartons. Of course I wondered if a double yolk egg would result in twin hatchlings. The prognosis for twins is not good as the white is insufficient to support two developing chicks, and sibling rivalry starts before the egg is even hatched. It’s been a couple dozen jumbo cartons since I’ve seen a double egg yolk, but at least when they were rolling in I could call my local egg supplier and get the real story “laid” out for me.
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April 15th, 2010 by Annie
Farmers/Ranchers Square-off in Debate About 100% Pasture Versus Feedlots
CORNUCOPIA, WI: The new USDA organic pasture rule strengthening the requirement for grazing and pasturing livestock may not apply to beef cattle and other ruminants in meat production. In fact, the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) is seeking comments from farmers and consumers on a proposal to allow some level of confinement in feedlots for, as an example, organic beef cattle during the last four months of their lives during the “finishing” period prior to slaughter (when industry standards would feed them mostly grain/corn).
The Cornucopia Institute, a farm policy research group based in Wisconsin, surveyed a broad spectrum of organic meat producers to better understand their production practices. The results reveal a wide range of practices.
Cornucopia found that the vast majority of organic beef producers graze their beef cattle on pasture until slaughter, never confining them to a feedlot. Approximately 60% of organic beef producers never feed any grain to their cattle (100% grass-fed). And another 20% maintain their cattle on pasture but provide small amounts of grain. The new rule’s proposed exemption for ruminant slaughter stock from obtaining feed from pasture is therefore not needed by the vast majority of farmers and ranchers producing organic beef. Read the whole story here
Tags: Action Alert, organic, Pastured Beef
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