2014 The Year of Good Food
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GoodFood World

Good food is everybody's business!

Welcome to GoodFood WorldMarch 7, 2014
Where does your food come from? What's in it?

 

At GoodFood World, we've started digging deeply into specific food items - from bread to soup - to understand more about what really is good food. We're doing it because we want to know, and we think you want to know too.
Campbell's Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

This week we took a look at a full range of tomato soups - from canned condensed and boxed to frozen and fresh homemade - to determine what exactly is in that long-remembered comfort food of childhood. Is it as wholesome as we think (hope)? 

 

In Childhood Memories: Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, we reviewed the ingredients in 14 soups and ranked them as Very Good, Pretty Good, and Not So Good.  

 

Our favorite? Smoked Tomato Bisque from Got Soup?, a very small operation here in Seattle that buys ingredients from local farmers markets and sells soups at those same markets.  

 

Lentils (tiny little legumes often displayed in the "healthy grains" section of the supermarket) are not commonly on the dinner plate in most American households, even though they are a key element in the healthy - and highly recommended - Mediterranean diet.

  

You'll find lentils and other assorted grains and beans in bags and boxes on the shelves in every supermarket and in the bulk bins in nearly every natural food market. But how do you decide which ones to buy?   

 

In Peas and Beans and Lentils, Oh My! we provide a checklist to help you make the right choice. 

 

Marie Antoinette may - or may not - have said, "Let them eat cake!" when bread riots broke out in France in the late 18th century and launched the French Revolution. A new revolution starts here. Time to avoid fluffy, enriched, cake-like white bread - and its bagged "whole wheat" and "whole grain" cousins. It's time to say, "Let us eat bread, real bread!"

 

Chances are your family's daily bread is just another item on your list when you shop at your favorite supermarket. Take a closer look at what you're bringing home; your bread may be "in disguise."  

 

In Wonder Bread or Wonderful Bread? we look at the full range of breads from white bagged bread to artisan bread from a small bakery, and provide comments on the quality profile of each.

And here is a collection of articles we've published about bread and baking to encourage you to have a go at it yourself.

Watch for future reviews and analyses; we'll provide you with the details you need to make the best food choices for your family.

There's more, keep reading! Get a cup of coffee and join us at GoodFood World where we collect and report the news about good food from the source and analyze food operations to determine their merits on the basis of social responsibility, environmental resiliency, and economic vitality - our primary measures of sustainability.
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Feature Article

Around the world, women have traditionally managed much of food production and preparation while receiving little recognition, financial support, and education.  

 

Control of livestock production varies by culture and context; however, in general, men are responsible for large animals such as cattle, horses, and camels, while women manage smaller animals like goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry.

 

In Women Hold Up Half the Sky, we highlight four women farmers raising small livestock (one of whom has retired after 44 years of sheep farming) to recognize the commitments they have made to what is essentially "women's work" - that is, small ruminant husbandry.  

 

Farming is hard work and these women are all champions who have spent decades learning their craft and trade.  

Recipes - Time to Do It Yourself?

Tomato Dill Soup

 

This recipe is modified from a soup once made by the Ovens of Brittany, in a small cafe on a busy business thoroughfare in Madison WI.  

 

For nearly five years, I ate this soup at least once a week; it's still my very favorite tomato soup. And look at the ingredients; not one that I don't recognize or can't pronounce!   

 

Noodles Like Mama Used to Make

   

Even if you had a mother and aunts who cooked all weekend and made pasta by the basket full, you may be asking yourself, "Why would I make noodles when I can pop into my neighborhood grocery and get them for less than $2 a pound?"

 

And that question has a logical answer: Because if you make them, they are fresh, and you know exactly what goes into them. Here's how to do it.

Best to keep the pets and very small children somewhere else in the house during this process! Pasta drying on racks is just too tempting. Slightly older kids will love helping.
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Reading List

We met with investigative reporter Christopher Leonard to discuss his new book, The Meat Racket. It was a fascinating conversation!

 

Leonard looks closely at one company - Tyson Foods - which developed an entirely new business model, changed an industry, and made billionaires of the family that started it.

 

And if Leonard's book doesn't get your heart pounding, try Pandora's Lunchbox by Melanie Warner. Warner matches him step by step in skill and perseverance as she goes through the shady world of processed food.  

 

Every chapter describes the ways that food "manufacturers" use all the tools - mechanical and chemical - at their disposal to make food as cheap as possible and to give it a nearly indefinite shelf life. 

 

There are more books on GoodFood World and more coming every week. Read, learn, and enjoy!  

Good Food Around the World

Our correspondent in Africa, Nico Parkinson, sent us this dispatch from Liberia, one of Africa's poorest nations and a country steeped in a domestic food crisis.

 

There was a time before Liberia's civil wars when agriculture was an integral part of the education system. Now, ten years after the end of the war, the majority of Liberians live in poverty, depend on agriculture as a livelihood, and grow their own food for survival.

Read how these student farmers are learning both in the field and in the classroom in Student Farmers in Liberia Get Back to the Soil and Into the Classroom.
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Farm Talk: Voices From the Farm

She's baaaack! Our Minnesota shepherdess, Lea McEvilly, is back at her keyboard filling us in on her sheep raising adventures and misadventures. Catch up by reading Lea's latest installments here.

   

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back  

A new year and we were hoping for better things. I knew I should start the process of looking for a new guardian animal for the sheep, but my heart was not in it.

 

A little time needed to pass after we lost Sheba and Red Rover, before I eventually got back into my daily routines.

 

Keep reading, there is always more at Voices From the Farm!  

It Takes a Village -- And You! 

GoodFood World is an important platform to help re-establish the missing connection with our food and our farmers, fishermen, millers, and bakers - all the people who grow and prepare it. We've sought out sources of local or regional, whole or minimally-processed meat, fish, produce, grain, dairy, and more. We introduce producers who are growing and harvesting good food. We promote food products that we believe are not only good food, but are food produced in a way that is environmentally sensitive and socially responsible.   

 

In October 2013, we celebrated the third anniversary of GoodFood World! And today we can proudly say that we have published over 1000 articles, book summaries, and videos - of which more than 60 percent are original and exclusive content. We've also issued nearly 100 newsletters to thousands of subscribers. We now have more than a dozen contributing writers, five of whom are regular columnists from across the US and as far away as Liberia.  

 

Publishing an online magazine, particularly one dedicated to deep research and careful coverage - the "long read" - takes a team. It takes writers, editors, and committed readers like you.  

 

We are counting on you to be our partner to keep good food on our tables and grocery shelves so we can all eat better and be healthier!

 

Whether you consider it an investment, a donation, or a contribution,  

please make it here.  

 

As part of our team, your contribution of $25, $50, $100, or more, will keep GoodFood World online and on the road, working one-on-one with creative, dedicated, and tireless good food producers so they can succeed and thrive; and we never lose our connection with the sources of our food! 
Contribute Content, Advice, Input

We welcome photos, tips, observations, and links to stories about the world of good food. Send us stories about what you've seen or heard. Tell us what we're doing right. We like "atta boys!" Got a beef? Send it on... we need to know! Here's the place to do it.   

 

Take care, eat well, and be well!

 

Gail Nickel-Kailing and Ken Kailing

Co-Publishers/Editors

 

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