So what brought armed members from three separate government agencies to raid the Pennsylvania farm of Amish farmer Dan Allgyer in the pre-dawn last month? What had them doing a year-long undercover investigative operation to gather incriminating evidence? Is he a subversive supplier of arms or drugs to the seedy criminal underbelly of Washington D.C.? Nah. He’s just a farmer selling his milk. Selling it in it’s — GASP! — raw, unpasteurized form.
Real Food Link Love
I hate this part of the Link Love post — the part where I try to summarize the post in a few handy sentences. Sometimes, it’s just downright impossible. I’ve tried different strategies over the years. Sometimes I’ve simply talked about my own week. Sometimes I’ve teased readers with a few of the post’s highlights. I’ll probably do all of those again. Today, I’m opting for full disclosure.
Summarizing this week’s Link Love post was hard, so hard I opted not to do it!
FDA Attacks Raw Milk
The FDA actually spent your tax dollars to create THIS — a poster they’re asking you to share with your friends and family about the dangers of raw milk. The absolute riskiest food in America to eat is LEAFY GREENS! Yet no one, not even the FDA, is saying that eating leafy greens is “playing Russian Roulette with your health.” No one is pushing for the sale of leafy greens to be illegal. And no one is using your tax dollars to create anti- leafy green vegetable posters.
The Raw Milk Revolution — Jill Richardson Gets It
This summer, the battle over food rights in the midst of proposed food safety legislation has bewildered and perplexed many people. HR 875, HR 2749, and a host of others like it elicited powerful grassroots responses that took congress by surprise as well as many bloggers reporting on the sustainable food beat. One of those bloggers was Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore fame.
Recently, Jill had the opportunity to review an early copy of David Gumpert’s The Raw Milk Revolution. And now, she reports, she finally “gets it.”
HR 2749 Nearly Passes And Spells The End Of Local Food
Well folks, it looks like Wendell Berry is going to get his chance to go to jail. Minutes ago the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2749, the so-called “Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.”
Of course, HR 2749 is not friendly to small farmers. In fact, it will likely put them out of business. The bill has a number of faults, but the most alarming one is that it finally sneaked the NAIS program into law, despite the huge groundswell of dissent among our nation’s public.
A Week of Real Food News
This week’s roundup is a bit on the lighter side. Sure, I’ve got two interesting news stories, but the real gems are some kid pleasing snack ideas and recipes to use up your summer abundance.
Hope you enjoy!
Meet An Organic Dairy Farmer
There was a time, just a few generations ago, when all food was local and organic. In the videos below, shared by the team at Cooking Up A Story, a third generation organic dairy farmer named Jon Bansen tells about how his grandfather did business. This was before pesticides & fertilizers, before milking machines & hormones & antibiotics.
Years later, modern day industrialized agriculture had taken over his farm. In the second video, Jon shares about his own journey towards transitioning to an organic dairy and producing real milk.
Top Five Thursdays — The Week’s Best Real Food Links
Week after week, I experiment with what to call my Thursday posts of the best links from around the web. What do you think of “Top-Five Thursdays”?
Anyhow, this week’s links proved delightfully diverse and include everything from an internet radio show to a divinely inspired raw dessert that will make you collapse with rapturous joy.
(Did I oversell it?)
Food Scare Of The Week
I’m sick of hearing about peanut recalls. Aren’t you? Well, it turns out that nothing in this bright world of ours is safe from contamination — not even potatoes. The culprit? A wiley little bacteria called listeria. You know, the same pathogen they use to frighten us into cooking all our food. Everything must be cooked, say the food scientists. Nothing consumed raw. No raw milk. No raw vegetables. No soft cheeses. No sushi or smoked salmon.
Breakfast Smoothies — Real Raw Food
They’re fast. They’re nutritious. We eat them every morning. And sometimes we eat them with lunch or dinner. Popular with kids as well as parents, smoothies enable you to sneak in all kinds of healthy vegetables and proteins your family members might otherwise turn their nose up at. Make them with totally fresh, raw ingredients…