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Thursday, June 23, 2011

No more bees' knees...


Or wings, or stripey little bodies. If you hadn't heard, there is a  huge problem of honeybee colony collapse. And without bees' knees bending and sipping that nectar, not only will there be no honey, but there will be no anything that requires pollination to produce. And I truly don't think the answer is to find a way to grow things without pollinators. There is a reason - a PROBLEM - why hives are collapsing and I hope that the people who are hard at work find a solution that saves bees, honey and, in the end, the security of our food supply!

Read about it here. And consider, that this problem is occurring everywhere.  It is happening around the world as shown in the article from Great Britain where the lovely photo above appears....click the link under the photo for more information - particularly the 10 things that children can do to help honeybees (a PDF file).

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Edible Michiana

Good news food lovers! We are about to have our own magazine devoted to food! Long in coming, perhaps, given that Michigan is the state that taught California how to grow produce. But, nonetheless, the magazine, Edible Michiana is about to launch here in the heartland. The premiere issue will be available July 1 and quarterly after that. In my opinion it is long overdue and welcome. While the awareness is growing about the area I live in as a wonderful agricultural area, there is still too much farmland being lost to development. This is an area that is worth visiting precisely because of what ISN'T here. It's not quite lost to chains, water parks and mega stuff. Not yet, but it's still possible that this fertile, beautiful contributor to our tables could be. Let's hope not.

Look for Edible Michiana and see what's here...


Wednesday, June 8, 2011

In the U. S. National Archives there are all kinds of things about our country's history, including this picture from 1915 of a boy tending a market stall in Washington DC. Ironically, that market was razed to build the building where the National Archives are housed. What is in that picture from just about 100 years ago very likely includes varieties of produce and fruit that are no longer available - they have gone extinct. Flavors never to be tasted. Possible benefits never to be realized. Eating locally can't solve this problem.

It really is true that you don't miss your water til your well runs dry. In this case, when things are already extinct, never to be seen again. Today's increasingly limited number of strains, varieties and choices for consumers continue the problem. Without a clear connection between how food is grown and what appears on the table it is hard to make choices that consistently are in our long-run best interest.

Young boy tending freshly stocked fruit and vegetable stand at Center Market, 02/18/1915