nytimes article on eating only organics

For Three Years, Every Bite Organic

"Dr. Greene said he was inspired to go all-organic after talking to a dairy farmer who noted that livestock got sick less after a switch to organic practices. He wondered if becoming 100 percent organic might improve his own health.

Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill."

He also notes that he cut down on meat, in order to keep food costs in line with his prior habits, organic meat costing more. imho, that might be why he is sick less.

Eating Locally on a Budget

When feeling the pinch of trying economic times and thinking about what changes to make in our personal budgets, it is important that we don't overlook the importance of eating healthy. In 2009 Locally Known is making it easy for consumers not to ditch local for cheaper options because our salads are priced evenly with the competition from California. As a leading locally grown brand in New England, Locally Known feels that it is important for consumers to see that local products can be the same price as competing products from other companies.

In 2009 the company will also be offering a full line of competitively priced culinary herbs and root crops for the fall and winter. These items will contribute to the companys diversity and expand on the options available to consumers looking to buy local at food retailers in the region.

30 Second Recipe: Spinach Smoothie

other flavors to add to this basic recipe (one or two at a time):

• basil
  
• mint
• lemon
• cilantro
• vanilla

Getting so many greens is what makes it so healthy-  blended up, you can take in far more spinach or lettuce than you would in a salad.

Locally Known- about the farm video

Living Well

from the Portland Press Herald:









the tractor photoshoot was pretty fun...

recipes!

A number of new recipes in our Chef's Corner. So far, they're all from my kitchen, but please email me if you have something you'd like to add! brook @ locallyknownfoods.com.

nutrition science

There are a number of reasons to eat organic and local. Here's a study that reports organic foods are, on average, more nutritious than conventional-chemically farmed foods. What's interesting about this study is that it's actually a study of other studies. The researchers screened reports from as far back as 1980, and selected 97 reports to base their research on.

As most people realize, and Michael Pollan says best, nutrition science is changing rapidly. Various elements of foods, such as polyphenols and antioxidants, were unimportant to the public mind 10 or 20 years ago, and now are widely recognized as essential to good nutrition.

There are reasons to eat organic that are easy to understand: pesticides & chemical fertilizers leave residue that is harmful to the land, and potentially harmful to the people who have to work with them. It seems logical that those chemical residues shouldn't be ingested, and there is evidence that organic food is more nutritious.

Organic food, in the US certification system, can't be irradiated, which potentially kills the healthful enzymes in the food that aid in digestion.

However, it is the system, the gestalt, the whole, of the food and the farmland that is still tricky to know and perhaps the best reason to choose organic: we understand food and nutrition less than we should to experiment with it on our own bodies. I know that if I eat organic foods, they are the closest to what my body has evolved to thrive on.