Monday, September 22, 2008

A little plug for the farmers market

The best vote, is your local farmers market to buy organics, or 'used no pesticide' produce. ;)

Honestly, there are some brands in the store that still hold high ideals. Organic Valley is one. They are an amazing company that is really trying to hold local food ideals. None of their food is shipped more than 300 miles from their factories. They process mostly local food from small(er) farms... and they highly support sustainable agriculture.

Earth Bound Organics is another one. They are based in CA, but they started out as a very small farm, and have tried to maintain these ideals as much as they can. They are organic, grown in the USA, and pay their workers a living wage.

The ones I would never purchase are Stonyfield Farms, or Brown Cow (owned by Stonyfield Farm). Them and companies like them are the reason why people have started to use the terms "Locavore" and "Beyond Organic". The huge organic companies are removing pesticide from our planet... which is wonderful. But the lives of the animals making your cheese and eggs are no different than the lives of the 'conventional' cow or chicken (meaning downright barbaric). The miles of single variety produce that they grow (and when I saw miles, I mean many hundreds of miles) creates an issue with mono-cropping.

For more info, here are some links:

Who Owns What?

The Battle for the Soul of the Organic Market

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2 comments

Shauna said...

this is a little off topic but... I have a friend who shared your blog w/ me, knowing I was going to be moving across the state soon (to Olympia). She knew you were from there and thought I could get good info from you. I was just there last week checking out the area and was impressed by the farmers market! I was stoked just pulling into the parking lot. Anyways- I was curious to know if you might have any suggestions on which areas are good to be house hunting in? We really dont care about the age of the home...whats more important for me is a YARD. I'm shocked at how small the "newer" homes lot sizes are.

Sorry to be posting this in your comments but I had no other way to try and pick your brain. I hope you don't mind! I really enjoy reading your blog---- and I tried out that recipe for the kale/parmesan/linguine-- it was GREAT. :)

Val in the Rose Garden said...

Nice to meet you Shauna! I don't have any way to contact you except for this so hopefully you check back here.

I would love to chat with you about this more. My email is BlueRoseMama @ hotmail.com Feel free to email any time!

Welcome to the neighborhood. :)

Val

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