2014 The Year of Good Food
Fall Farm

GoodFood World

Good food is everybody's business!

Welcome to GoodFood WorldApril 23, 2014
When each generation reaches adulthood and leaves home, young people head out into the world full of idealism, energy, and great courage. My generation wanted to homestead in Alaska, hitchhike around the world, or join the Peace Corps. On our list of contributors, we've got two young women (Millennials, if you can bear the word!) who are off on their own food adventures!

Our newest contributor, Rose Silcox-Quimby, who will write about Changing Food Cultures, launched her column with a look at the changing food culture in Japan. We are very pleased to have her join us.    

Rose's column focuses on bringing back lost or disappearing food cultures. Since World War II, our whole understanding of food has been distorted by commercialization and the modern food industry. Today our food culture is mostly the one given us by the TV commercials we grew up with. The US is still a melting pot, but the food in that pot is being sold to please a market; so much so that pizza isn't really Italian and spaghetti comes in a can. 

   

Because we believe children should learn not only what to eat but how to eat from their parents and extended families, families that were once part of an ethnic origin and evolution, it is extremely important that cultural foundations not be lost.  

 

The richness of our understanding of food comes through the re-examination of authentic cultures as they evolved in diverse ecosystems - not as commercial artifacts, but as a synthesis of place and people over time - and that can help improve both our food and eating habits, and lead us to better health.

  

Rose has a degree in Asian Cultures, spent several years in Japan, and she speaks the language. She will explore and share the history and science about traditional foods and ingredients, help recapture the traditional food culture of Japan, and find new ways to incorporate them into our modern diets. At GoodFood World we are happy to be helping her achieve that goal. Read Rose's first article here: Changing Food Culture in Japan.

 

Kate McLean, Our Good Food on a Budget columnist, and her husband Ian started their married life in the late summer of 2013 WWOOFing in the North East. Their advice for others wanting to try it: "It's likely you'll also come out of it with a couple of good stories, some delicious recipes, a few great friends, and at least one place you'll always remember."

 

One year ago she was working three jobs. She pulled espresso at a coffee shop and shelved armloads of romance novels at a bookstore. At her favorite job, Kate would whip up elaborate breakfasts for sleepy-eyed travelers at a local B&B. She said, "We ate well and life was good. "

 

Just 8 months after their wedding, Kate and Ian have started a new chapter in their adventure and they are still Living the Good Life! 

 

Coming soon! Watch for news from Montana as we introduce another new writer joining GoodFood World: Casey Bailey. Casey is a young farmer raising organic small grains and organic grass-finished beef. His 1500-acre farm - located near Fort Benton MT - sits next to the 3,000-acre family farm that he grew up on.  

 

Well educated - two degrees - and a talented vocalist and musician, Casey will be sharing his philosophy, his challenges, and his successes. Read more about Casey here

 

We've sent Ina Denburg, our Healthy Living correspondent, down a new path. Ina answers questions everyday about how to buy, prepare, and eat good healthy food. And now she brings her knowledge and expertise to questions GoodFood World readers have.

Our first question: We are concerned about GMOs in our diet. Can you tell me which foods I should avoid to keep GMOs out of our pantry and off our plates?" Read Ina's suggestions and recommendations in Ask Ina: What Foods Should I Avoid to Keep GMOs Off Our Plates?

Have a question about good food? Trying to avoid "not good" food? Send your questions about healthy eating and good food to Ask Ina.

 

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 stewardship, and economic vitality - our primary measures of sustainability.
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Kamut International
Seeds, Starts, and Plants; Oh My!

How I Became a Plant Breeder
Frank Morton, Wild Garden Seed, has been growing plants and saving seeds for more than 30 years. Good healthy plants begin with good seed; this is how he got started:

Quinoa growing in Oregon
In 1983, my third spring as a market gardener, I was looking over a flat of lettuce grown from my first saved seed. The year before, I had allowed my peas, beans, and two lettuces to "run to seed," as my mother would have put it. This flat was the third sowing I had made from a bag of Salad Bowl lettuce seed, a commercial green oakleaf type, and my attention was drawn to a single red plant in the midst of 199 green ones. It was a "Red Salad Bowl," and I knew exactly how it came to be.

I had grown Red Winter Cos (a rare French heirloom, at the time) alongside the Salad Bowl, and this was a cross! A little light came on - this plant could make seed for a new lettuce! It would be unique to my little farm near Seabeck, Washington.  

 

I set that seedling into a special place and allowed it to flower and make seeds - only 65 seeds as it turned out... because it was so late in the season when the cross had appeared. Had it appeared in the next sowing, no seeds would have been borne.

 

I planted all 65 seeds the next spring, expecting to see a flush of Red Salad Bowl lettuces, but instead, up came a rainbow of genetic variations that I had no idea existed.  Here's the whole story: How I Became a Plant Breeder.

 

Grow Your Own 

Across the country, spring can't come soon enough and the call to garden is getting louder and louder! We had the opportunity to speak to Lisa Taylor, author of Your Farm in the City, and get a little advice for new and beginning gardeners. It's never too early - or too late - to tuck a few seeds in some soil and get growing! Here's how Lisa describes her garden:

 

I envisioned a yard filled with vegetables and herbs, with fruit trees along the fence line, and grapevines climbing an arbor over our porch swing. I wanted a place where I could pick my dinner just moments before it came into the kitchen. And that's exactly what I have now.

 

Order something from Wild Garden Seed, dig up the dirt and Grow Your Own - Food, That Is

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Surrounded by Water

In Puget Sound, we are surrounded with water in so many forms - salt water, fresh water, snow, rain, and occasionally hail and ice. All that water means challenges to farmers raising fruit, vegetables, and animals, as well as farmers raising shellfish. And small family farms, whether in the rich river valleys or on the Sound's tide flats, are constantly at risk. 

 

Water - the Farmers' Dilemma 

Seattle area consumers have marginal farmland just minutes away in floodplains and deltas; including growing locations in the Snoqualmie River valley.  

 

Jubilee Biodynamic Farm, Carnation WA 

The Snoqualmie drains water from the surrounding hills, many of which are covered with expensive homes built in the last 20 years. Construction in the watershed has removed forests, increased the amount of "hardscape," and changed water patterns.


This spring, Jubilee Biodynamic Farms in Carnation was once again flooded; no traffic in or out of the farm. Outbuildings were inundated and the only way from house to barn was by boat. Thank goodness the cattle and barn are elevated above current high water levels.  

 

Read Eric Haakenson's plea for changes in water management in the Snoqualmie Valley, in Spring Floods: The Farmers' Dilemma.

Water - the Shellfish Farmers' Dilemma
Taylor Shellfish Farms, Bow WA
By the time the first settlers reached the small spit of land that was ultimately to become part of Seattle in 1850, the Olympia oyster population on the Pacific coast was already beginning to be over harvested. And in the early 1900s, poor water quality in Puget Sound threatened to finish it off.

Puget Sound shellfish are at risk again. Combine agriculture runoff and rising carbon dioxide levels in air and water and you have a prescription for shellfish collapse. Not only is climate change affecting the acidity of the water, the projected rise in ocean temperatures in the coming decades will likely bring more toxic algal blooms.

And with heavy winter and spring rains there is more runoff. The more runoff you have, the more nutrients washed into the waterways, and with more nutrients come more algae and higher chances that the algae may be toxic. Read more in Puget Sound Shellfish at Risk.
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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. 

   

A Heroic Rescue Trip and the Storm Queen Arrives   

Following the loss of Red Rover, Lisa had been encouraging me to start looking for a new guard animal. However, I was still depressed at the death of the little alpaca, who had entered our lives for a charmed period that ended badly.  

 

I was reluctant to pursue the search for a replacement. Then one day Lisa emailed that I should look online at "Pet Finders," as there was a dog there that I should see.  

 

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

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We Need Your Help!

 

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 help keep good food on our tables and grocery shelves so we can all eat better and be healthy!

 

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.

 

As part of our team, your contribution of $100, $50, $25, 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!  

 

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

please make it here.  

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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