We editors at the Real Food Journal are thoroughly enjoying the large number (and variety) of entries for the inaugural writing contest. Expect to hear an announcement of the winners around September 15th. In the meantime, keep creating–both with words and foods!
Contest update
August 23rd, 2010Egg recall
August 23rd, 2010Another (unfortunate) reason to have your own chickens–
You still need to be conscious of safety and cleanliness if you have your own chickens, of course, but at least you have control.
Food Deserts
August 15th, 2010It’s an appropriate term to refer to those places, particularly in cities, where the only “food” available is pre-packaged sugar, formed into different shapes but with same basic nutritional value–none. This is particularly problematic for those people without cars or other convenient transportation to go to real grocery stores or markets; the result is they do much of their grocery shopping at convenient stores instead. See a radio piece on “food deserts” and one attempt to introduce real food: Food deserts .
Real Food legislation tracker: Feed the Kids
August 4th, 2010Michelle Obama and Republican Senator Richard Lugar have penned Op-Ed articles in the Washington Post and New York Times, respectively, over the last week calling for the Senate to calendar and pass the bi-partisan and wholly necessary Child Nutrition Bill. One in three American kids are overweight or obese and we spend more than $150 billion per year fighting obesity-related disease. This is unacceptable. Call your federal Senators and ask them to pass this bill with their influence on the calendar and their vote “yes” on the floor.
Contact lenses for chickens
August 2nd, 2010Read about one of the more interesting inventions to help farming:
http://www.uselessinformation.org/chickens/index.html
Chickens under red lights are indeed less aggressive, which is why a lot of people use red lights in their brooders (the heated area where you keep young chicks). But when you only have a few hens, the contact lenses are probably more for style.
Peachicks!
July 29th, 2010
Real Food Legislation Tracker
July 8th, 2010We learn to eat when we’re young. Today, a significant percentage of public school children are part of the federal schools lunch program. At the United States of Food, we know our seedlings need the best nutrition to be successful in their adulthood; it is no different with children. This proposed legislation deserves full funding, because nothing is more important than making sure our kids get a fair shot out of the gate.
http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2010/06/improving-nutrition-for-americ.shtml
USOF will keep out eye on this and other government action affecting the real food movement. Stay tuned for updates!
Contests
July 7th, 2010Three more days for the contest–polish and send in those final submissions. Once we have all the entries together, we will post an expected time for the announcement of the winners. Good luck!
Another Hot One
July 7th, 2010Across the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeast. If you don’t have a drip irrigation system set on a timer, make sure that you water your plants in the morning and the mid-afternoon. If you do have a timer set up, you might want to extend the watering times. Check our garden care guide (on the Gardens page) to read more.
More pests
July 3rd, 2010
The Japanese beetles are also doing their best to take down some of our grapes and trees at the Homestead–above are pictures of their damage to a cherry tree, and a picture of one beetle munching away at a leaf. For more information on Japanese beetles, read this USDA Handbook (click on it to read it), which includes some ideas for both chemical and biological controls. We certainly prefer the biological controls, for as the handbook says, ”While [the biological controls] take a little longer to produce the same results as insecticides, biological control agents last longer in the environment. More importantly, they do not adversely affect nontarget or potentially beneficial organisms.”
