Stonyfield Organic Cooking Tour + Why Organic Food is Important
http://ift.tt/2GAuBxM A couple weeks ago I was invited to California by Stonyfield Organic for an organic farm and cooking tour. I’ve been a huge fan of the Stonyfield Organic brand for years. I’ve always loved their yogurt and I’m very interested in the organic food movement, so the trip seemed like a great opportunity. Add in the fact that we were going to meet Alice Waters, dine at Chez Panisse, tour and taste at Preston Farm and Organic Winery and meet Doug Lipton of SHED Healdsburg… I knew this trip was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. What I didn’t realize was how much I would learn about organic farming and how impressed I would be with the mission and people behind Stonyfield Organic. Gary Hirshberg, one of the co-founders, was on the trip with us and wow, he’s an amazing wealth of knowledge. You might look at him and think he’s just another businessman, but once you hear him talk for a minute you understand that his mission is way beyond selling more yogurt. He comes from an environmental science background, so he truly cares about the environment and chooses to promote organic farming practices because of their benefits for our health and the environmental impact. I learned so much from him just by listening as we rode around on the bus during our tour. PS, if you haven’t heard the How I Built This podcast episode with Gary yet, you have to check it out. It’s amazing to learn all the behind the scenes of how Stonyfield Organic came to be and the challenges they faced along the way. It’s really inspiring! Back to the tour — it started on a Monday morning. We drove from San Fran out to Healdsburg, California, to visit “HomeFarm” — the family farm of Cindy Daniel and Doug Lipton, the owners of SHED, a famous market and cafe focused on local food in downtown Healdsburg. Backyard goals… amirite? Doug graciously gave us the grand tour and talked about their organic farming practices including crop rotation and composting. We had a picnic lunch, sipped ginger kefir water (so good!) and then headed off to Preston, a nearby organic farm and winery. Preston makes biodynamic and organic wines, but they also have an organic farm on the vineyard and a wood-fired oven. This means you can sip a glass of wine while enjoying a freshly baked loaf of sourdough, homemade olive oil and pickles… and everything is delicious! If you’re interested in learning more about what makes a biodynamic wine, check out this article. That afternoon we had a “cooking with yogurt” class with the chef of SHED. We made a beet dip that was phenomenal so I definitely want to try to recreate it soon. We also made yogurt seaweed face masks, which I tried out that evening at Hotel Les Mars. I swear this mask saved my jet-lagged skin. That evening we had a group dinner at SHED, which was so amazing. I posted a photo on Instagram of one of the stunning salads we had. Click here to swoon over it like I did. Here I am sipping a pre-dinner apple cider vinegar shrub… as y’all know, I’m always down for a little apple cider vinegar action. The next day we met Alice Waters at the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley. This was SUCH A COOL experience — not only to meet Alice, world renowned chef, restaurateur, activist, author, and the first woman to win the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef, but also to see the original Edible Schoolyard in action. For lunch we enjoyed a meal at Alice’s restaurant, Chez Panisse, which was just as lovely as you’d imagine it to be. The menu changes twice daily based on what’s in season and available at the market and you can taste the freshness with each bite. Fresh bread and olives to start. Chicories with mustard vinaigrette, roasted beets and egg. Clams, rockfish and shrimp cooked in the wood oven with leeks, saffron, romesco and allioli. After lunch we drove up to Santa Cruz to check out the organic farming program at UC Santa Cruz, aka the Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems. This was a really special experience because this program is geared toward teaching the skills it takes to become an organic farmer. And let’s be real — farming is hard work and many people in the younger generation might not be familiar with it. We toured the beautiful campus with green farmland overlooking the Pacific Ocean, heard from two students about their experience with the program and then enjoyed a dinner at the school’s Hay Barn. Overall, the trip was such a lovely experience and one of the best blogger trips I’ve had the chance to be part of. The group was small so we really got the opportunity to connect with each other while learning from Gary and the Stonyfield team. With that, I just want to share a couple things I learned about organic farming on this trip because I truly believe we should all be buying organic when possible. Organic farming (and choosing to buy organic):
1) Helps reduce toxic persistent pesticides. Non-organic farms spray toxic pesticides and herbicides to keep pests at bay, and these chemicals are proving to be hugely harmful to pollinators (bees!) and other wildlife, as well as to human health. They break down very slowly, remaining in our soil, water and air. Some can continue to cause damage for decades after they are first used. Organic farming practices, however, forbid the use of toxic persistent pesticides. This makes for happier bees, livestock and wildlife, and safer, more nutritious food for us.
Organic farmers use techniques like crop rotation, composting, pest-resistant plant varieties and beneficial organisms, like ladybugs, that don’t harm the crops while munching away at unwanted critters. If needed organic farmers are also able to use natural substances as pesticides that don’t have harmful effects on people or the environment and that don’t persist in our soil, water or air. Organic farmers have access to roughly 20 substances, whereas there are 900-plus synthetic active pesticide products registered for use in conventional farming by the EPA.
2.) Helps fight climate change and sequesters more carbon than conventional farming. Agriculture is responsible for roughly 15% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s now been shown that organic soil sequesters 26% more carbon than non-organic soil. In other words, organic agriculture has the potential to be part of the solution to climate change, and that’s huge for the future of farming. Carbon is a necessary component of healthy soil, but years of conventional farming practices have severely depleted carbon levels in US farmlands. New studies show that organic farming methods can restore this element to the soil, where it should be, and remove CO2 from the air, where it is causing rapid climate change. This process is called “soil sequestration” and it is one of the most exciting environmental solutions that organic farming provides. Additionally, studies show that even when calculated on a per-yield basis, organic farms are still more energy efficient than conventional farms. 3.) Fosters greater biodiversity. Compared to conventional farms, organic farms support a greater diversity of life, including carabid beetles, spiders, earthworms, beneficial parasitoids, vascular plants, bees and other native pollinators, birds, soil microbes and fungi, and small rodents. And a couple additional notes around organic/non-GMO/pasture-based practices:
Want to learn even more? Check out my post about when and why to buy organic food, as well as this post about how to shop for organic products on a budget. This post is in partnership with Stonyfield Organic, but as always opinions are my own.
The post Stonyfield Organic Cooking Tour + Why Organic Food is Important appeared first on Eating Bird Food. Recipes via Eating Bird Food http://ift.tt/1L45wsH February 22, 2018 at 08:53AM
The Flat Belly FixThis is the only 21-day rapid weight loss system that allows you to easily lose an average of 1 lb a day for 21 days without feeling hungry or deprived. The unique and brand new techniques used in this System are proven SAFE. And they do not cause the rebound weight gain common to all the other rapid weight loss systems that are not backed by the latest science. The Flat Belly Fix System takes advantage of a recent scientific discovery that proves the effective weight loss power of an ancient spice. Combined with other cutting-edge ingredients in the patent-pending Flat Belly Fix Tea™ — that you can make right in your own kitchen in minutes — this System is the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable way to quickly get the body you desire and deserve. Click Here
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
The Flat Belly FixThis is the only 21-day rapid weight loss system that allows you to easily lose an average of 1 lb a day for 21 days without feeling hungry or deprived. The unique and brand new techniques used in this System are proven SAFE. And they do not cause the rebound weight gain common to all the other rapid weight loss systems that are not backed by the latest science. The Flat Belly Fix System takes advantage of a recent scientific discovery that proves the effective weight loss power of an ancient spice. Combined with other cutting-edge ingredients in the patent-pending Flat Belly Fix Tea™ — that you can make right in your own kitchen in minutes — this System is the quickest, easiest and most enjoyable way to quickly get the body you desire and deserve. Click HereCategories
All
Archives
November 2020
|