learsfool’s Recent Comments

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  "Certified" organic

  And who, I wonder, told you that getting certified was as easy as pie?  Certainly the giant corporate farms that supply corporate food giants like Whole Foods find it easy to get "certified."  They have a platoon of lawyers and factotums who are paid nice salaries to sit in cool offices, in Aeron chairs, filling out pages of forms that bureaucrats in the Ag Department shuffle around until they can find the "Certified" stamp.  In the meantime, the small local farmer, who uses natural methods of crop control and wise land-use choices, out of conviction and concern for nurturing of his own land, does indeed find it onerous to work through the red tape that corporate farms, happy to capitalize on the fad of "organic" everything, have lobbied to set up.
  I am a newspaper food writer.  I got a call just today from a PR flack, a poor, well-meaning young woman, who wanted to pitch to me her firm's newest client, a maker of "organic water."  I am sure it was "certified" "organic water."  I usually try to be pleasant to PR flacks, telling them that our food page is recipe-driven and locally-focused, and we do not do product placement, but this time I had to tell her that I thought her product was patently phony.  I also got a letter from a reader who found a packaged "organic" food product on the shelves at Whole Foods.  The label said it was manufactured in China.  The reader was properly, I think, skeptical of that "certification."
  I guess I am spoiled.  Louisville is in the middle of a wonderful local food revival.  I can go to several different markets during the week, where the food is sold by the people who raise it.  I talk to them.  They have invited me to visit their farms.  I have been to a couple.  That is the way to know the provenance of your food. Read what Michael Pollan has to say about corporate organic food production in Omnivore's Dilemma, and then ask, what actually is involved in this "certification" process?  Does the process favor corporate farms?  How reasonable is it for a small family farmer to work through that process?  And as you do, keep in mind that "organic water."On How to ask hard questions of the people who grow your food posted 1 year, 3 months ago 14 Responses

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  What else is going on in that bathroom?

  I recall the Alexander Portnoy spent a lot of time in the bathroom too.  There may be other reasons teens sequester themselves naked in the bathroom other than hygienic ones.On Umbra on long, hot showers posted 1 year, 7 months ago 21 Responses

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  Know your farmer

  Several of the farmers at the local farmers' markets here have found that the bureaucracy around getting certified organic is more than they can or want to deal with.  As a result, they voluntarily and philosophically abide by organic farming principles, but tell their customers that they cannot legally use the "organic" label on their produce, because they refuse to spend their time and money on jumping through the hoops that government--and industrial "organic" agriculture-- has set up.  Because their customers come to know them, because they can visit the farms if they want, because the local farmers' market community trusts the farmers, they know the food is raised according to their standards, even if the label is not available.  
       I would rather trust the farmer I can talk to, than the "organic" label on food imported from China that I find at the local Whole Foods.On Umbra on organic vs. natural foods posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

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  Eat locally nonetheless

  Mega-industrial food must be getting worried; they are already starting to push their flacks to work up dopey arguments against the logic of eating real food.
       "Carbon footprint" is too-too trendy a concept, and too vague a one as well.  The computational energy needed to figure out its putative values is more than I have on my desktop.
        So ignore those arguments, and just use the better ones for eating from local food sources:  the food is fresher, usually more varied, often grown with less reliance on petro-chemical agriproducts, usually brought to market without extraneous cosmetic enhancements (waxes, polishes, blushers and so on)--and it is more likely to be actual food, not "food products."  Locally grown food is often of better quality, and buying it often makes you face and talk to the people who grew it or raised it.  Knowing people--actual people--who put food in your belly has a certain satisfaction that never seems to occur when shopping in the supermarket.  On If buying locally isn't the answer, then what is? posted 2 years, 2 months ago 28 Responses

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  Why is the light from compact fluorescents so ugly

  We would like to use more compact fluorescent bulbs, but the ones we have found have such a stark, bleak white light that we find we can't live with them. Are there brands or styles that have a softer warmth?  Does the technology of  fluorescent light make possible a armer, livable light?On Umbra on mercury in CFLs posted 2 years, 3 months ago 17 Responses