2014 The Year of Good Food
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GoodFood World

Good food is everybody's business!

Welcome to GoodFood WorldMay 27, 2014
Fishermen's Terminal

It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.

Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish!  

 

The ocean contains 97% of the planet's water and covers 71% of the Earth's surface. Stand on the shore and its expanse and distant horizon imply an endless source of resources. Now we recognize that the oceans are not boundless and the numbers of fish are not endless. It wasn't until the late 20th Century that we understood the world production (harvest) of fish is on a downward trend and we will be out of fish by the middle of this century unless we take some drastic steps.

Fishing Vessel Constance, Sitka AK

 

Fish is a critically important protein source around the world and we need to protect the heavily fished wild stocks as well as carefully manage fish farms to prevent disease, pollution, and genetic contamination.

 

The fishery eco-system includes the ocean, the atmosphere, the surrounding landscape, the fish and the food they eat, the fishermen who harvest them, the handlers who process the fish, the retailers who sell them, the chefs who cook them, and the consumers who eat them. Fish and fisheries are not separate from their eco-systems and environment and must be managed as a whole.

Fishing Vessel Loki, Seattle WA

 

At GoodFood World, we've produced a comprehensive look at the world's fisheries, examining management alternatives including "Balanced Harvest" and eco-system management, wasteful bycatch, aquaculture (fish farming), genetic engineering of fish, and seafood traceability, in So Long. and Thanks For All the Fish.  

 

As part of this series on fish and fisheries, we will next present an analysis of Puget Sound salmon: the "business" of the salmon fishery, the local fishery ecosystem, threats to salmon and their habitat, and the cultural importance of salmon to Pacific Northwest tribes.

 

Following our analysis we will then profile several small boat fishermen - tribal and commercial fishermen and women - living as far north as Sitka Alaska, telling their stories and hearing from them what fishing means to their families and communities.

 

Keep reading and let's keep the conversation going!


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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New Video Series

Welcome to Your GMOcery! A Very Special Video Series Featuring Our Own Ina!

We live in a marvelous world of scientifically enhanced food. The GMO Fantastic Four known as: corn, soy, canola, and cotton, are omnipresent shape-shifters. From our corn we get flour, meal, oil, starch, syrup, and sweeteners. When you see the words fructose, dextrose, and glucose, you're seeing GMO Corn. And soy and canola are no better! 

Watch these three videos - the story in three parts - where Ina Denburg, our Healthy Eating columnist, tells us exactly what GMOs are and how they affect the environment, the animals that eat the modified plants, and us - the people eating those food animals.

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Ask Ina: Questions About Good and Not So Good Food

Ina Denburg, our Health Eating columnist, 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.

   

Are "Natural" Foods the Same as "Organic" Foods?
In short, there is no comparison between products that are certified organically grown and those that say natural. One is a real statement of fact, defining a certified process of growing food and the ingredients within a product. The other is just an advertising word. When it comes to advertising, it's only natural that it means nothing reliable.

Dreamfields Pasta - Real or a Bad Dream?
In my family we all love pasta and could eat it every day! Dreamfields claims that their pasta is healthier than regular pasta as their "unique manufacturing process creates a matrix within the pasta protecting 31 grams of carbs from being digested." Can you educate me on this??

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

One of the things most often noted about Japanese cuisine, is how exquisite it looks. Everything looks so impossibly perfect; small mounds of food look as if they have been sculpted rather than just prepared.  

 

Rose Silcox-Quimby, our Changing Food Cultures columnist teaches us about The Five Colors of Health and how to include white, black, yellow, green, and red foods on every plate.  

 

By the time they were planting, the good seeds were gone. The problem is that the other farmers didn't have money to buy the good seeds when they were available. Sometimes there's no money. A small loan can make all the difference.

As small farmers around the world say, "In farming, if you can't get the timing right, you keep trying. We gamble each time, but we keep playing, get better, and hopefully we will hit the jackpot!" Read how small loans to Liberian farmers helped them earn better profits from their efforts in our a piece from Nicholas Parkinson, our Global Food Systems contributor: Small Amounts of Financing Earn Big Rewards for Vegetable Farmers.
Op-Ed: Views on the News

Food and farming are increasingly in the news - in mainstream media and specialty publications focused on food and agriculture. This month we have two pieces looking at organic farming and urban agriculture.

Threats to Organic Farming 

We in the independent small farm sector need to keep an eye on new threats to organic farming. It seems there is no end of manipulation by industry to control markets and government continues to be driven by special interests. The combination of a changing climate and the destruction of ecological land and water integrity brought on by corporate food production is creating serious new disease and insect threats of epidemic proportions. We provide the only real long-term security by protecting and restoring what is left of our natural ecosystems. Read the whole story here.  

  

Urban Agriculture: Food Equity and Food Ecology 

Some of us feel a deeper sense of urgency about the sovereignty, access, and scarcity of our food in the face of rapidly escalating impacts of our changing climate. From my position as an ecologist, I'm worried about the structural resiliency of our bio-regions and our ability to hold together what we have left of our natural resource base, and to use it intelligently. Read more here. 

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.  

   

From Ice and Snow to Summer Delight

   

Near the end of April the ewes and lambs went to pasture and it was time to clean up the house yard and get the vegetable garden ready for planting.

 

With fewer sheep to care for there was more time to spend gardening, and despite an overabundance of rain, by June things were pretty much under control.

 

Read Lea's latest update here. Keep reading, there is always more at Voices From the Farm!  

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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!  

 

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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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