Organic Food Blog

It’s always exciting to see a new inspired restaurant open in a neighborhood, and this one’s influences are right in line with our inspired work, “fresh, local fare, family, sustainability, and community.” I can’t wait to stop by. I like that Sarah Peck, owner of Ortine, has brought in healthy and healing influences from her husband, Steve Guidi, who is a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) practitioner.  She has other family members helping her out too. Read more about the ideas behind Ortine in this press release: An “Ortín” is a word from an old Italian dialect that represents a small garden plot next to a farmhouse where farm workers grew food for themselves.  Inspired by this word that defines her own eating philosophies, Sarah Peck named her new 35-seat eatery, Ortine.  Set to open on Wednesday, December 17, 2008, Ortine is located on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, a neighborhood where both life-long locals and newcomers live side by side. Read the rest of this entry »

A new film called What’s on Your Plate? is currently in post production and will be released in Spring 2009. To give you a little background on the movie…. WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE? is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics. Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old African-American city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates. Read the rest of this entry »

From our friend Nathan Havey at Meet The Bloggers:

Congratulations! If you are reading this, you have found a fantastic resource for getting the information you need to live a sustainable life. We at Brave New Foundation are out to find resources that can help people to do something to affect positive social change. Meet the Bloggers is a new online show that, issue by issue, helps its viewers to make the unconscious conscious, and choose sustainable living.

Today, we are hosting Dr. Marion Nestle and getting real about the impacts of industrial food production. We present as an alternative shopping organic, shopping local, and learning how to by visiting www.sustainabletable.org. Here is a clip:

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

You can see the whole show at www.meetthebloggers.org. Come on by and spread the word. Let’s make this holiday season a record one for sustainably produced foods.

In my daily Vital Juice email today (a daily email for all things “healthy and wellthy”), they highlighted this fun New York area food wheel:

“Our food wheel is designed to help you figure out the best times of year to buy locally grown produce - food picked at the height of freshness that’s jam-packed with vitamins, minerals, and positive energy. Just turn the wheel to reveal the peak season and overall availability of our favorite fruits and vegetables. We’ve arranged the list from the most available (potatoes) to the least (asparagus) - so you’ll know the best time to indulge in your favorite foods.”

It’s from Chew on this. Happily Ruminating on the Future of Food. You can order them for only $11 or find them in various places around Brooklyn, Manhattan, and out of town at Stone Barns.

The weekly pick has been on my mind for weeks now, lasagne. I haven’t made any lately, but I think it’s time.

I just stumbled across this wonderful recipe for a Butternut Squash Lasagne on the Culinate website (it doesn’t have tomato sauce like the pic here!). Butternut squash is readily available, sustainable/local and even as it starts to get cold and many of our options are disappearing, squash will hold up for quite awhile.

If you are feeling really adventurous, you could even make your own mozzarella. Ricki’s 30 Minute Mozzarella Magic sounds like an easy way to go, she suggests local farm fresh milk to help the process along. Ricotta is another lasagne cheese favorite, and The Paupered Chef, gives us a great local organic milk ricotta cheese recipe on his website with pictures that are wonderful.

This should keep us busy this weekend. Good luck!

With the economy continuing to head in a downward direction, saving money is on the top of everyone’s mind. And often it’s the organic and sustainable foods on people’s list that get cut for cheaper, conventional options.

Here are two articles with some suggestions to keep eating healthy through these rough times.

Indystar.com, 4 ways to eat organic on a budget

“People are expecting food to be cheaper and cheaper, and there’s a high cost for that,” Zak Zaidman says. “It’s a very high cost that we’re paying in our health and in the health of the planet.”

His four tips: 1. Buy in bulk, 2. Cook your own meals, 3. Grow your own food, 4. Reconsider how much you spend on food.

Organicjar.com, 5 Ways to Spend Your Organic Food Dollars Wisely

“We all know organic food is more expensive, and here’s why: Organic food is more expensive to produce due to more manual labor - people are more expensive than petrochemicals. Demand is greater than supply - when demand is greater than supply, prices are higher. Finally, billion dollar subsidies are given to conventional farmers, not organic farmers - this lowers the prices of conventional (non-organic) food.”

Their five tips: 1. Buy smart, 2. Shop around, 3. Buy local, 4. Join a Co-op, 5. Grow your own.

I always find that planning in advance makes a huge difference. If I plan a few meals for my week, and take the time to shop at my coop- I can save money and end up eating healthier too! Not to mention I have wonderful leftovers to take to work, another great way to save money and not be limited by the bad food options near my office.

Yup - Sushi. Check it out in the new Blue Ocean Institute’s Guide to Ocean Friendly Sushi. Helping sushi lovers satisfy culinary cravings and desires to protect the ocean.

The guide includes: “32 color-coded, science-based environmental rankings for species commonly used in sushi.  And we include information on sushi tradition and sushi bar tips, provided by experts Hiroko Shimbo (author of The Sushi Experience) and Trevor Corson (author of The Story of Sushi).”

You can text for the sustainability details from your phone too. If you’re already out for the evening and forgot your guide, text the FishPhone (text FISH, a space, and the species name to 30644 for instant sustainability information). Pretty handy.

You can download the guide here, or read it online.

From Blue Ocean Institute, “Using the sushi guide is a process–it will take time to become familiar enough with the sushi offerings at your favorite sushi bar before you feel like you are making good choices.  It’s important to be flexible; our guide gives you options for many types of sushi you can eat and it also helps you to explore new and delicious delicious dishes.  Sushi lovers can select species from abundant, well-managed fisheries or try those species that are raised using sustainable aquaculture methods. One conversation at a time, sushi customers and sushi chefs can make a difference for our ocean.”

For each type of fish, Blue Ocean goes into incredible detail about why they have rated it they way they have.  They have also partnered with the Marine Stewardship Council to advise on best environmental choice and with the Environmental Defense Fund to advise on mercury levels.

Everyone learns things in different ways. I know people who are afraid of cookbooks, and feel they will never learn to cook. What about watching a video? Learning to cook by watching is definitely not as scary as attempting a recipe on your own from a book with too many instructions.

And there are 3 great video series that come to my mind if you are the cookbook fearing kind:

Keith Snow of Harvest Eating - great simple recipes, and lots of them.

Cynthia Lair of Cookus Interuptus - funny videos with storyline, and healthy, yummy recipes that are easy to make.

Myra Goodman of Earthbound Farm - new videos highlighting organic food, demonstrating quick and delicious recipes.

I often have people ask me if kosher meat encompasses sustainable practices, and I hate to crush the fantasy, but most often it does not. With the kosher seal, most people assume that the certification has taken into consideration the life and death of the animal- but this is a much bigger discussion. As detailed in this informative NYTimes article from this weekend’s Food Issue, when Agriprocessors, the processing plant that was responsible for up to 60% of the kosher beef and 40% of kosher poultry nationwide was raided in 2006 for immigration violations, and had already had a string of bad press for animal abuse and health and safety violations… “The allegations against Agriprocessors galvanized a small but thriving Jewish environmental movement and took its concerns to a much wider audience. In some American Jewish households, the raid on Agriprocessors started a deep conversation about the very meaning of kosher: is it simply about cutting an animal’s neck and butchering it in a specific way? Or is the ritual also meant to minimize an animal’s pain or to bring sanctity to its death? Does it matter how the animal was treated when it was alive? How about the workers who processed it? Is reverence for life possible in a factory-farming setting?”

And now there is quite a movement to make kosher and sustainable meat available to people, and there is a large demand. Devora Kimelman-Block is an active member in this movement, when she realized that it was almost impossible to find kosher and sustainable meat, she created a local, grassfed, organic, kosher meat business in Washington, DC, KOL Foods- Kosher Organic-Raised Local -which has since expanded with drop-offs in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and South Orange, NJ. She has gotten quite a bit of press lately, mentioned in the “Kosher Wars” article from the NYTimes this weekend, and also a recent mention in the HometownAnnpolis.com article “Jewish celebrants embrace eco-friendly foods.” Both are such fascinating pieces about the truth of industrial food slowly seeping into the mainstream and the people who are trying to pick up the pieces. Thank you to Devora for getting out into the community and sharing her knowledge, I know she speaks often in Jewish community to educate people about factory farming, sustainable food, and the new food models we need to support.

And speaking of getting the word out into the mainstream, today Oprah had a show - Lisa Ling Reports: How We Treat The Animals We Eat. I hope that the 10 million + viewers who usually watch her show were sitting on the edge of their seat… we need some more support for small family farmers! Thanks Oprah and Lisa too!

Here is an exciting new service from Fleisher’s Meats- grass-fed organic meats packaged and delivered the same day to your doorstep!  Here is note from owner, Jessica Applestone:

I’ve got some exciting news for you: Fleisher’s Grass-fed & Organic Meats is about to start a door-to-door, fresh meat delivery service to Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island City. Fleisher’s was recently named “one of the best butchers in the country” by Bon Appetit magazine but until now you have had to visit one our shops in Kingston, NY or Rhinebeck, NY to enjoy our products. That’s about to change.

Fleisher’s sources directly from local Hudson Valley farms and only sells meat that comes from well-treated, healthy, drug-free animals. Serious cooks and serious carnivores know it’s nearly impossible to find local pasture-raised, antibiotic and hormone-free meat in the City.  And you know what you’re missing if you’ve ever tried Fleisher’s intensely flavorful beef (including steaks, burgers and absurdly good hot dogs), the revelatory Berkshire pork, the 100% organic chicken (which will remind you why a simple roast chicken is one of life’s greatest pleasures) and the lamb? Fuhgeddabouddit!

So forget pounding the pavement for inferior product or standing in line at the green market for frozen meat. Fleisher’s will bring whatever it is you want right to your home or office. And everything that arrives on your doorstep is cut, ground and packaged the same day. If you are interested go to our website www.fleishers.com, click on the NYC Delivery tab, give us your information and we will keep you updated.