100 Mile Diet Blog

Day 99 -

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:01:33 -0400

As we near the end of our 100 days of local eating, I can’t help my excitement about the olive oil and almonds and a few other things that I’m going to add back to my diet. I’m also planning to dine at our local Indian restaurant soon … very soon. But I’m also excited by some other plans. Our family Thanksgiving is Monday, technically day 101, or “the day after”. I’m to prepare a vegetable dish so I automatically started thinking about all of the local fresh produce that I’ll need for it. Of course, I don’t have to do 100-mile, but, really why wouldn’t I? I’m going to the market anyway, and I’ve become familiar with the venders there and local food tastes better, etc., etc.

Awesome! Momentum is there, connections have been made, habits have been formed. It’s obvious to me now, the many great reasons to buy local will still be directing my behaviour even after the 100 days are over. And that’s a sentiment I’ve heard time and again from other 100-milers, too. People are committed -- many folks will continue to eat locally and build on this summer’s experience.

In fact, I’m still getting emails from people announcing upcoming events about local foods and food security. Tony from the World Wildlife Fund told me about Localicious, a WWF program where participating restaurants in Toronto (and other Canadian cities) offer local menu items from October 2-18.

Lori Strothard passed on information about the upcoming Food Summit in Kitchener, November 16th and 17th: What are we doing about the hidden hunger in our community. Free, but limited seating.

Melissa Baer of Vibrant Farms gave me details of the new Farmers’ Market in uptown Waterloo Public Square (in front of Shoppers Drug Mart). Thursdays 4-8 pm, for the next 2 weeks, and will restart again in the spring. It is a market for producers and creators only. There is a website under construction at the moment: www.waterloofarmmarket.ca. Soon, there will be more information on Melissa’s website.

Other upcoming food related events include the monthly seminars that are part of the Waterloo Region Foodsystem Roundtable’s Healthy Food System Series

The next two seminars:

What's on the Label? What's on your Plate?
Tuesday, October 27, 7-9pm, Kitchener Public Library Main Branch, 85 Queen St N, Kitchener

Join the discussion as we learn about misleading labels and signs on our food products. Local food activist John McVicar reveals label shortcomings and advises vigilance when making your purchases at the grocery store. Heather Harding, project coordinator with Ontario Greenbelt Alliance, explains why you may not be pouring much Ontario pinot noir into your glass even though the wine says "product of Canada."

Fair Trade in the Waterloo Region and Internationally
Tuesday, November 24, 7-9pm, Kitchener Public Library Main Branch, 85 Queen St N, Kitchener

Sean Zister, owner of Seven Shores Urban Market & Café, will speak on the Impact Fair Trade has with Local and International Producers. What does Fair Trade mean? Can you make a difference? Did you know: 8% of Ontario Farmers are under the age of 35 … if farmers don’t get a fair price for their products, who is going to take over their operations?

And for those who aren’t aware, here is information about Vandana Shiva’s upcoming talk at UW:

The UW Hagey Lecture Series
with the support of Alternatives Journal and WPIRG
presents the 2009 Hagey Lecture

Vandana Shiva: Earth Democracy
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009 at 8 p.m.
Humanities Theatre, J.G. Hagey Hall of the Humanities, University of Waterloo

Free lecture, no ticket required, all welcome.

So congratulations! Almost there! And thanks to everyone who helped make this such a rich and rewarding experience! Feel good that the effort you all put in had a ripple effect on the whole community. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Michael

100-Mile Smoothie

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:28:06 -0400

My search for 100-mile protein powder has, alas, been as fruitless as my search for 100-mile beer. And because I like to stay active and require frequent nourishment(!), smoothies are a staple. So for much of the Challenge thus far, I was unsatisfied. I was making smoothies regularly, but using peanut butter, and I have reservations about eating too much peanut butter, due to its aflatoxin content.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was staring at the extra bags of Simon Jacques’ (pronounced “jake”) organic beans that I need to somehow “move” and a light bulb came on! I came up with the following recipe:

THE SIMON JACQUES SHAKE
Milk (3/4 cup)
Blueberries (1/2 cup)
Kale (2 or 3 leaves)
Kidney beans (1/2 cup)
Ground flax seed (1 tbsp)
Mojito mint leaves
Maple syrup (1 tsp) or stevia leaf

All 100-mile. It’s great. I cook my week’s supply of beans in the slow cooker overnight and store them in the fridge. As a self-proclaimed nutrition geek, I decided to analyze its nutrient value:

This shake has a low glycemic load (21) and is a great source of vitamin A, folate, Vitamin C, calcium, and a range of other vitamins and minerals. It provides ten grams of fibre, which is close to what most North Americans get in a whole day (sadly). And on www.nutritiondata.com, it scored the highest rating possible in terms of optimum nutrition (5.0 out of 5.0). Enjoy!

(Of course, if anyone needs to buy some dried beans, please let me know!)

100-Mile Alcohol

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:30:40 -0400

Drinking alcohol for Waterloo Region locavores is certainly possible, thanks in large part to the Niagara Region. However, as with other food items, we have to be selective, be alert and choose carefully. Inductive reasoning doesn’t always work (if it quacks like a duck, it isn’t necessarily a duck!).

Wine

Going to the “Canadian Wine” section of the liquor store and searching for Niagara wines will not guarantee you a 100-mile choice. As shown in this video by CBC, up to 70% of grapes used for wine that was “cellared in Canada” can be imported; only 30% needs to be domestically grown. You must look for the “VQA” label in order to guarantee a truly local wine.

Two 100-mile options from Niagara-on-the-Lake that I have tried are 20 Bees, and Frog Pond Farm, Ontario’s only certified organic wine.

Beer

After much research, we haven’t been able to find a truly 100-mile beer. The gentleman who works at Gold Crown had been telling us that yes, the barley was grown near Fergus and no, the hops isn’t local right now, but hops only comprises less than 1% of the beer. “Great!” we thought. “Cheers”! But I ended up talking to their brewmaster and called the distribution company in Fergus where Gold Crown gets their barley and, alas, they said the barley was grown in Western Canada. D-oh!

Spirits

Kittling Ridge from Grimsby has a selection of 100-Mile options. Vice-president of sales Tim Burrows assures me that their vodkas (Prince Igor and Eight Below), their whiskeys (Forty Creek, Mountain Rock, and Pure Gold), and their Small Cask Brandy are all grown and processed within the 100-mile. Great! Now let’s think of some 100-Mile cocktails shall we?

(Thanks to Marc Sargent who helped with the research!)

3000 Easterners pledge to eat a local diet.

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:48:20 -0400

According to today’s Globe and Mail, several thousand Eastern Canadians have pledged to eat only foods from the four Atlantic provinces this Friday. The Eat Atlantic Challenge was organized by Co-op Atlantic, and is encouraging Maritimers to be strict with what they eat for the day. It sounds like it will be more challenging to source local foods for them than it is for us. I know my friends in St. John’s Newfoundland have a hard time growing anything in their garden!

Go here for the full story.

Mid-way Musings

nospam@example.com (Rachel Vanden Berg) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:11:42 -0400

We’re over half way! Is it just me, or does time fly when you’re having fun?

Okay, maybe it hasn’t all been fun, but all told, I think I’m enjoying this challenge more than I had anticipated. My favourite things thus far include my clean and tidy (read empty) cupboards, our food box from LOFT, my herb garden (which I have had for a few years, but am finally using) , freezing and canning (again, always meant to, but now I’m actually doing it), and the simplicity of our meals. We know where every bite of our food comes from, and pureness of creating everything from scratch simply feels good for us.

I’ll admit, I’ve also found it tough at times. I feel a lack of quick foods, and when we’re on the go, I miss convenience. I tend to need food NOW when I’m hungry, and find that I’m often looking for quick carbs and settling on a bowl of yogurt. I have yet to perfect home-made spelt sourdough bread. However, we recently made 100-mile granola (works great with spelt flakes). That’s been a treat, but in our house, granola never lasts very long.

I also find visiting tricky and do find myself eating non-locally when a guest in someone else’s home. I struggled with it for a bit, but have decided that when in Rome…. At the same time, I have been incredibly impressed by the creativity and enthusiasm of non-participating friends and family members. My mother-in-law serves 100-mile meats and produce whenever we visit (and often when we’re not visiting too). It’s just the condiments that come from afar. My friends have eagerly sought out local flours to whip up a batch of muffins when we come for tea. I’m encouraged by this enthusiasm, and see it a small example of the profound ripple effect that we are creating in our community.

I tried to survey my family members to see what they have thought so far. My husband misses coffee and orange juice, but says otherwise it’s fine. Our 2-year is indifferent, and our 5-year claims that he’s not actually doing the 100-mile diet. When pressed a little further, he says that his favourite part so far is the tarts he enjoyed at the last potluck. He misses 1,000-mile food, and is planning a trip to the rainforest where he plans to harvest “local chocolate chips”.

With 43 days to go, I’m curious how I’ll feel at the end of all. I like to think that I’ll continue eating pretty much locally anyway, but then I start to think the foods I would want to re-introduce: hummus, olives, green and black teas, chocolate, almonds, avacados….. We’ll have to wait and see. Until then, I’m (for the most part) loving local eating, and am going to help myself to the last little bit of granola.

Day 27 - 1. Answer Questions, 2. Win Prizes, 3. See Movie

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:23:30 -0400

We're more than 1/4 of the way into our 100-day Challenge! We've learned how to bake 100-mile bread, taken a cooking class together, shared food that we've made at a local farm and -- if you're anything like me -- spent a lot more time than usual trying to find food to eat. Tonight, we go to the movies!

Food, Inc.
at the Princess Cinema (the one on Princess street, NOT the Princess Twin)
9 pm.

For those who want to meet ahead of time, come to Princess Cafe at 8 pm. Marc, the manager, has arranged to have 100-mile beer (Gold Crown) and local apple cider for tonight. As well, they are doing up a local veggie plate, just for us. Nice to see the support!

We still have free passes available to the movie PLUS a year-long Princess membership. This is your chance to win prizes! The first three people to post a comment with an answer to EITHER of the following questions can get a free double-pass to Food, Inc., plus a Princess membership!

Question 1 from Wendy Kelly:

I'm trying to find mustard seed locally any leads ?

Question 2 from Matthew Kadey:

I am hoping to find a soure of free-range eggs. The real free range eggs where the chickens spend most of the day foraging outside. I know how much better these taste and how much better they are nutritionally. The yolk is a dead giveaway. Free range eggs have a yolk that is more orange. Anyways, I'd love to find a source close to Waterloo if you can help out.

Also, Wendy sent me this really good video about eating local food in Canada. Notice the reference to Kitchener-Waterloo. Thanks Wendy!

Condiments

nospam@example.com (Rachel Vanden Berg) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:18:18 -0400

I don’t know about you, but I find that with all the local foods we’re eating, everything tastes so great that we barely need toppings and sauces…. But that’s a bit of a cop-out in a blog about condiments… and, to be honest, I could really use another salad dressing option.
Here are some of the condiment options we’ve come up. Thanks to those of you who have submitted suggestions! Keep them coming!

Vinegars:
Organic apple cider vinegar is available at Pfennings in St. Agatha.
Delicious red and white wine vinegars from Niagara Vinegar can be found in Guelph at Oudekirk and Taylor at 3 Wyndam St. North. Bailey’s Local Foods carries Pristine Gourmet wine vinegars.

Oils:
FlorAlp’s organic, cold pressed sunflower oil is available from Pfennings, Seven Shores and Eating Well Organically.
Bailey’s also has local canola and soy oils.

Other:
Local honey is available at both markets. Maple syrup, of course, is readily available too!
You can also get peanut butter from Oakridge Acres or order it from Bailey’s.
Marc Sargent, one of our participants, posted this recipe for ketchup.
My husband made mayo with this recipe, using Sunflower oil and apple cider vinegar. It’s quite strong. In our opinions it is best left off our burgers and sausages, and should be saved for mixing into things – it was a great addition to our potato salad. Now that we have discovered soy and canola, we might be making another batch.

Check out Gmach produce at the Kitchener Market. They have mustards, sauerkraut, relishes and all sorts of other preserves. The main ingredients are all local, but they do add small amounts of non-local vinegars or other additives. You can check out the 99% rule and make your call on whether or not you want to include them. As an aside – they also have fabulous non-sprayed produce.

Have you discovered anything else that we should know about? Please do keep us posted. Happy Eating!

Meats

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:25:23 -0400

Meat (or “mmmmeat” as my sister likes to say, with a distinctly Homeresque intonation) is one of the food categories that should be easy to source locally in Waterloo Region. Should be but isn’t. As we saw from the Region’s Food Flow Study (see blog entry from July 9th), going to the supermarket is not going to cut it for the 100-Mile Challenge. Like with everything else, we need to put a little more effort into our shopping habits in order to be sure our meats are local.

Luckily, there are several good places to start. The Healthy Butcher is located within the Healthy Haven on Bruce St. in Kitchener. When you walk up to the counter the first thing you see is a huge map of southwestern Ontario and the locations marked where their meat is sourced. Almost all are within the 100-miles! Oakridge Acres, home of our first potluck, stocks fresh and frozen meats from many nearby farms. Plus the owners, Mark and Cindy Gerber, are two of the nicest people in the 100-mile radius. Our Farmers Choice on Courtland in Kitchener is tucked out of the way, but a real treasure trove for local naturally raised hormone free meats, as well as produce, dairy and other local goods.

Francine Lafontaine has this to offer:
At the suggestion of a friend I checked out Brady's Meats on Phillip St. this past Saturday. They carry a wide range of meat products from beef, pork, poultry, as well as game. Rob is the owner and he spoke to me at length about the local farms that supply him. He is very passionate about the products that he carries and is very interested in the 100 mile challenge. While not all of his meats are organic, they are drug free, free range etc. Thought other 100 milers might be interested in checking it out and if they go in they should make a point of talking to Rob as he would be very happy to answer all their questions about his products.

Adria Cehovin likes Charles Quality Meats:
My suggestion for buying local and affordable meat (no hormones or antibiotics), would be from Charles Quality Meats. I have been a customer for years and have been very impressed. They have three locations to reach them and also raise their own livestock. They have a store in St Agatha, and a booth at both the Kitchener and St Jacob markets. They have beef, pork (‘nitrate free’ (same as free of chemical nitrates for Canada does not distingush between natural and chemical nitrate), and lamb. From my experience once you taste their meat it is hard to go back to anything else! Their phone number in St. Agatha is: 519-886-7931.

Matthew Kadey suggests the following local yet exotic option:
I have discovered an excellent local meat source you may want to tell the 100 milers on your website. The Banbury Farm in St. Agatha has wonderful emu meat. Though people may think it is strange, it tastes a lot like beef but much more healthy. And very reasonably priced. A pound of ground is only $4. I was paying $7 for a pound of elk before. The steaks are very flavourful and Michael who raises the emu is always happy to show people around the farm to see how he raises these prehistoric birds.

Farmers’ markets are a good source for local meats, but you still have to ask questions. Andrea Yurkiw had this experience:
On Saturday, I was at the Kitchener Market and decided to ask the staff at Witteeven Meats where their beef comes from. I have been purchasing meat from them for a long time and decided that I would check that it was 100 mile meat. Since they are from St. George it made sense that it would be ‘local’. Much to my chagrin I was informed that most of it is from Ontario but some of it is from Alberta. The young man could not tell me which was ‘local’ and which was not. Needless to say, I left that stall with no beef. I proceeded to go to Charles Quality Meats and ask the same question. Their reply was that not only was it local, it was from their own farm. I guess it just goes to show that you have to ask in order to be certain what is local!

Thanks for your suggestions everyone!

100-Mile Birthday Bash!

nospam@example.com (Rachel Vanden Berg) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:47:37 -0400

We just celebrated our kids’ 5th and 2nd birthdays! With aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, we had 7 kids and 13 adults present. I’ll admit to sweating the menu a bit, but it became a communal effort, and was great success!
Here’s what we served:

Appetizers
Cherries– from the St. Jacobs market
Kernels Peanuts in the Shell – available from Oakridge Acres
Homemade spelt crackers - I used this “everything spelt cracker" recipe with a few substitutions: sifto salt replace the coarse salt recommended, and the herbs were replaced by fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden.
Basil and Garlic Scape Pesto

Main Dishes
Garden Salad: Leaf lettuce, radishes, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms garden herbs (basil, cilantro)
Dressing: Sunflower oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup
Potato Salad: 10 Potatoes, 6 boiled eggs, chives, cilantro, dill, sunflower oil, apple cider vinegar
BBQ Veggies: zucchini, mushrooms, red / yellow and orange peppers with a light coat of sunflower oil and a sprinkle of sifto salt – we barbeque them in cast iron fry pans
Meat Skewers: Hilltop Poultry Chicken thighs and Steak from Oakridge Acres

Dessert
I’m not sure what this dish is called, but it was the hit of the party. Maple crust, custard, strawberries and whipped cream – literally a party in our mouths!

MATTHEW & KAIA’S 100-MILE DIET BIRTHDAY “CAKE”

Dough:
1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted butter or ½ of each
1/3 cup honey
1 cup rolled oats (can substitute flour)
1 ½ cup wheat or spelt flour (I used light)
¼ tsp (or less) salt

Filling (custard and fruit)
1 ½ cups milk
¼ maple syrup / honey
¼ tsp (or less) salt

¼ cup milk
1/3 c unbleached white or spelt flour
2 or 3 eggs

2 quarts strawberries quartered or halved (depending on size)
1 tbsp honey (approx)

Topping:
1 pint (or more) whipping cream whipped and sweetened with ½ tbsp maple syrup

- Toss together ingredients for the dough, adjusting the flour / oil as needed to achieve consistency of cornmeal. Press into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Set aside.
- Combine milk, maple syrup or honey (I used ½ of each) and salt and slowly bring to a boil, stirring regularly to keep it from burning. In a separate bowl mix ¼ cup milk, flour and eggs till smooth and set aside. When milk mixture is close to boiling stir about a 1/3 cup into the egg mixture, then add the egg mixture to the milk mixture. Continue to heat until mixture resembles a thick pudding.
- Wash and prepare strawberries, drizzle with the honey and set aside
- Assemble the “cake” by layering dough with ½ of the custard and ½ of the strawberries, then repeat.
- When ready to serve, layer on whipping cream

Comments/Suggestions: Vary fruit according to season / taste. When I made this, local oats were not available so I substituted flour. Add a thin layer of yogurt sweetened with about a tbsp maple syrup. Be creative! I “concocted” this from a variety of recipes I’ve used over the years. This recipe has just a bit more than a ½ cup "sugar" (honey and maple syrup). It was a hit with kids and grown-ups.

Food, Inc.: Let's go to the Movies!

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:22:18 -0400

People are deciding to participate in the 100-Mile Challenge for many reasons; and my hunch is that it’s not because you thought it would be “fun” to give up chocolate and coffee and eat more kohlrabi and potatoes. There are profound political and social implications to our current food system and by choosing to eat more local foods, we are not only building our own awareness about the foods we eat, but we are having an impact on that food system.

There is a new movie called Food, Inc. coming to the Princess Cinema (the one on Princess St.) that addresses food issues, and 100-Miler Eleanor Grant suggested that a group of us could go see it together. We think that’s a great idea, so we’ve set a date for Thursday July 30th. The movie is at 9 pm, so I am suggesting that we meet at the Princess Café at 8 pm for socializing. Marc Lecompte from the Café said that he will do his best to provide 100-mile options for us. Thanks Marc!

Remember, anyone who brings a restaurant on board to the 100-Mile Challenge, can get a pair of free tickets to Food, Inc., as well as a 1-yr membership to the Princess!

Eleanor sent us the following information about the movie:

View trailer here.

Review by Maria Garcia, Film Journal Int, which appears in Princess July-Aug movie guide:

Mass production and corporate control of our food is the frightening reality that led Robert Kenner to make Food, Inc., a cleverly written and well-produced documentary that illustrates the fast-food model for growing cows, chickens, pigs, and legumes.

Kenner anchors the film's reporting with two authors, Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma). Schlosser and Pollan are the analysts for the information Kenner garners from his interviews with farmers, ranchers, and chicken farmers.

Food, Inc. isn't a mindless Big Brother alert, nor is it a blatant advocacy campaign. Kenner crafts an intelligent, visually compelling argument grounded in old-fashioned investigative research and journalism. For instance, the film-maker points to the appalling dearth of government regulation and resulting lack of government testing, citing the fact that in 1972 the FDA conducted 50,000 food inspections, and in 2006 it conducted fewer than 9200.

The consolidation of food production in the hands of a few corporations is another major focus of the documentary, as is the number of people from corporate America who end up in government jobs overseeing the industry.

Statistics and facts roll across the screen in inter-titles - but the high points are Kenner's conversations with ordinary farmers, some of whom have been bankrupted by their battles with corporate food giants. Kenner mixes the bad news about the consolidation and mechanization of food production with the options consumers can exercise to avoid heavily processed foods.

One unforgettable interview will haunt everyone who sees Food, Inc. It's with Moe Parr, who has one of the last remaining seed cleaners in the United States. Seed cleaners garner seed from whatever has been grown so that farmers can use it for their next planting. Parr was forced out of business by Monsanto who brought suit against him, charging that he helped a farmer harvest their Round-Up Ready soybean seed, a product that dominates its market, and which requires farmers to sign a contract with Monsanto that prevents them from seed harvesting. Aside from the David-and-Goliath dimensions of Parr's story, there is the nightmare scenario of a company altering the way people have been farming for millennia.

Day 11

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:18:26 -0400

I’m impressed. The amount of enthusiasm for local foods in this 100-Mile community is amazing. Check out some of the blogs that we've linked to in the right margin! These are 100-Mile-Challengers who are offering recipes, menus, and local eating tips to whomever is reading. For example, Marc Sargent has a recipe for ketchup (anyone else out there missing sauces?).

The number of participants emailing us with their suggestions is also high. Below are a few of the suggestions that arrived in my inbox recently.

Leanne Brum had this suggestion about her weekend find:

This past Saturday, my husband and I made a trip to Sussman's in Arthur. The ladies there recommended a lovely spot for lunch. Shepherd's Watch 100 Mile Market is a unique shop that features all local products including meat, artisan sheep cheese (their own), baked goods, grains, pastas, vegetables, fruits and well as local crafts. We had an amazing lunch on their front porch and left with a big bag of stuff.

As part of a day trip to Elora, this would make a wonderful stop for anyone looking for a something special.

If you would like to reach them, their e-mail address is sauve@wrightman.ca and they are located at 211 Smith St., Arthur. Lynda and Carol were extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

We thought the 100 Mile Club would appreciate this information.

Heather McDiarmid noticed this CBC article today on five Sobey’s grocery stores that decided to form an independent grocery store co-op because they found Sobey’s purchasing policies too restrictive and wanted to offer more local produce. Unfortunately none of them are in KW.

If you check out that article, watch the video on Canadian wines that is offered in the margin. The story is pointing out how so many Canadian wines are “cellared” in Canada, but grown with imported grapes.

Participant Michelle Herrle had this to offer about her store:

It may be helpful information to let 100 Milers know that at Herrle's Country Farm Market, we also have all of our 100 Mile produce and products identified with Buy Local Buy Fresh stickers that say the name of the town where it was grown/comes from. We have been doing this for a couple of years now.

And Almut Pfenning also contacted us. Here is what she said:

Recently, we read about your local initiative to inspire people to pursue the 100 mile diet. We here at a href="http://www.pfenningsorganic.com" title="Pfenning's Organic & More">Pfenning's Organic & More are aware of the challenges involved, since we have been proponents of eating locally grown foods, especially organic, f Perhaps it may be of interest to your participants to learn that Pfenning's are a notable source of local organic food and local production. We may also be able to raise awareness of what truly qualifies as "local," or what merely bears that label.

Thanks everyone!

Food Flow Study

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:12:56 -0400

The Region of Waterloo Public Health Department has been doing extensive work to try and understand where our food comes from. Marc Xuereb from Public Health sent me the following information for our interest. Thanks Marc!

It seems that readers of this blog have realized very quickly how little of the food that is available to us comes from local sources. You may be interested to know that Region of Waterloo Public Health did a study in 2005 which tried to get a precise answer to the question of how much of the food that is consumed in the region has been grown, raised, and/or processed here.

The link to the full study is here:

Region of Waterloo Food Flow Analysis Study
Authors: Harry Cummings & Associates Inc., (for Region of Waterloo Public Health)
Published: November 2005

The paper is 125 pages long! That is because the researchers found that there was no quick answer, and that the answer was going to be very different depending on the food in question. So they came up with a methodology that involved selecting a basket of 20 foods that are typical of what our population eats, searching for these foods on supermarket and convenience store shelves, and then contacting the companies to find out where each of these products came from.

The following table is a summary of the results:

Degree of Ontario and Waterloo Region Sourcing of Selected Foods in WR Retail Outlets

<10% very low / 10-29% low / 30-59% moderate / 60-79% high / >80% very high

The report contains several pages of findings for all twenty of the foods, including the twelve in the table above. The stories are fascinating for their description of which companies dominate the market for each food, and where the companies get their foods from (which often are just estimates).

The report contains also some very interesting figures which tell a detailed story one page for some of the food products. Look for these figures on the following pages:
pork - page 39
milk - page 47
eggs - page 53
grain - page 57
apples - page 65

You’ll find, for example, that 62% of the milk in supermarkets is made by Neilson, whereas 80% of the milk available in convenience stores is made by Parmalat. And that almost half of all the milk produced on Waterloo Region farms is shipped to Gay Lea in Guelph to be processed into butters, cottage cheeses, sour cream, etc., and that 23% goes to Neilson in Georgetown, and 3% to Parmalat in Bramption.

The study is a useful for resource for those times where you find yourself wondering questions like: “where do all the chickens raised in Waterloo Region end up?” Enjoy!

Day Four

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:13:37 -0400

What? Day Four and we don’t have enough vegetables in the fridge? Not as prepared as I thought! Maybe I should spend less time blogging and more time finding food.

Luckily I could swing by Seven Shores on the way home from work and stock up. Yesss. When I got home I remembered there are vegetables growing in our community garden plot just waiting to be harvested. Oh right. More salad greens anyone?

Here was my 100-Mile menu today:

BREAKFAST:
Spelt flakes from Saugeen Specialty Grains
Strawberries
Eggs

LUNCH:
Chicken from Oakridge Acres
Collards from our garden
Asparagus

SNACK:
Cherry tomatoes, an apple

DINNER:
Meatballs with homemade tzatziki (yogurt, cucumber and fresh dill)
My Uncle Lloyd’s beets from 2008, arugula salad and zucchini

SNACK:
100-Mile Sourdough Spelt from Golden Hearth and a spread made with black beans from Guelph’s Simon Jacques plus garden-grown cilantro, tomato, and my dad’s garlic powder

Not bad but I was kind of hungry a times. 100-Mile snacks are a bit challenging. I miss protein powder! Any suggestions?

I know there are several participants out there on their own adventures, looking for local sources of specialty items. Necessity breeds invention! Dana Hergott, for example, has made it her mission to find local mustard. If you are desperately looking for a local source for your favourite food let us know how it’s going. Send us an email or post a comment.

In fact, for anyone taking the Challenge, we want to hear from you! Please post a comment below. Finding it hard? Are you hungry? Is it incredibly easy? Did you forget to start? Vent! Share! Post your own one-day menu. And it’s not too late to join! Come aboard for 95 days or 90 days or even 1 day.

Also, if you are in the Waterloo Region and taking the 100-Mile Challenge, but aren’t on our email list, let us know! We’d love to figure out how many people are participating! We think there are at least 200, but there are probably more!

Thanks to Mark and Cindy Gerber, Seven Shores, Charbries, and everyone who came out to the Kick-off potluck at Oakridge Acres on Saturday. It was a fun event with fantastic food! Everyone did so well! We will post the recipes as soon as we can. Happy eating everyone!

Dairy and Alternatives

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:48:46 -0400

July 4th is, well, around the corner. Day one, people! Let’s get this party started!
Today’s topic is dairy. We are lucky to have several good options.

Harmony Organic - 100-Miler Heather Westwood contacted Harmony Organic to find out whether their dairy products would qualify to be within KW’s 100-miles. Good news! They do! Here is how Harmony's marketing assistant Sue Earle responded:

We have 14 producers, which would all range within 100 miles of K-W.
They are located from near Port Elgin, to Ridgetown area and across to
New Hamburg. You have found your milk for the Challenge.

Harmony has a variety of milk products ranging from bottled milk and cream to buttermilk and even brie! These products are available at many health foodstores in KW. There is a list of these stores on their website www.harmonyorganic.on.ca

Millbank Cheese Factory is in Millbank (halfway between Listowel and KW) and offers a variety of cheeses. Millbank cheese has got a long history, as it recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. This is the real deal!

Mapleton's Organic is a family owned and operated dairy farm near Palmerston, less than 60 km from KW. Besides cows, the farm has a CSA, chickens, turkeys, and pigs. Mapleton’s has organic yogurt readily available all across the Region. Their website lists the locations.

Hewitt's Dairy - For people with an allergy to cow’s milk, goat’s milk products can provide a great alternative. Hewitt’s Dairy is located in Hagersville, Ontario. They produce goat’s milk and yogurt, as well as goat cream butter and organic goat’s milk. They also distribute Woolwich’s goat cheese. These goat milk products are readily available in health food stores.

For dairy alternatives, we have to get creative. There are local organic soy beans available but I haven’t found locally-made soy milk (yet?). So in the spirit of DIY, I pulled out my ragged copy of “The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook”, a hippie classic from 1975. Recipes include making your own tofu, tempeh and soy milk. I haven’t tried it, but I have included their recipe for soymilk below. If you give it a try, we want a full report please!

SOYMILK

Preparation

Rinse 2 ½ cups whole soybeans and soak in 5 cups of water, following one of the methods described below. After the beans are soaked, transfer to a colander and rinse again.

Soak Method 1: Soak rinsed soybeans in a bowl or pot of cold water for 8-10 hours or overnight. IN hot weather the soaking beans should be kept in the refrigerator to prevent souring. Slightly soured beans will make thinner milk.

Soak Method 2: For quick soaking, pour boiling water over rinsed beans and allow to soak 2-4 hours. Beans will double in size and be free of wrinkles when done. They will have a flat, not concave, surface when split in half.

Grinding the beans:

Method 1: Combine in a blender 1 cup soaked soybeans and 2 ½ cups water. You can use either cold water or nearly boiling water in this step. The advantage of using hot water is a slightly milder flavour and a shorter wait for your mixture to come to a boil. Blend the beans at high speed to a fine slurry (about 1 minute). Pour contents into a large heavy pot or double boiler (it won’t burn as easily). Repeat blender process until all beans are blended.

Method 2: Grind the soaked beans using a hand grain-mill or a food grinder (use the plate with the smallest holes). When using a hand grain-mill, set the grind pretty tight, so that it easily allows a fine but slightly gritty bean paste to pass through the stones. With finely ground beans, more protein will be released in the milk and the yield of tofu will be higher. However, if the grind is too fine, it will be difficult to strain and will cause a pulpy soymilk. Add the ground bean paste to a pot of 13 cups boiling water.

Cooking the Soymilk:

Cook the soymilk in a 1 ½ - 2 gallon heavy bottom pot or double boiler. Set over a medium-high flame and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Watch the pot carefully. When the soymilk first starts to boil, turn down the heat immediately and simmer at a low boil for 20 minutes. It’s important to be right there with your pot at this step. Soymilk will foam up and boil over quickly, so watch it carefully. If you use an electric stove, remove the pot from the burner when it comes to a boil while you adjust the heat.

Straining the Soymilk:

Set a cloth-lined colander (thin cotton or nylon) over a pot with at least 1-gallon capacity. After the soymilk is cooked, pour or ladle it into the colander, catching the pulp in the cloth and the milk in the pot below. Twist the cloth tightly closed. With a wooden spoon or a jar, press on the bag to extract as much milk as possible. To rinse through any milk left in the pulp, re-open the cloth, stir in 2 cups boiling water, twist and press again. Set pulp aside to be used in cooking.

Cooling the Soymilk:

You can drink the soymilk hot or you can cool it by placing the pot in a sink of cold water, replenishing the cold water as necessary. When cooled, transfer into covered containers and refrigerate or freeze. The quicker the soymilk is cooled and the colder it is kept, the longer it will last. It has an approximate shelf life of 4-5 days. If it starts to sour, use it for baking in cakes, biscuits, or breed.

Unlike cow’s milk, soymilk contains very few natural sugars. For drinking, most people prefer to add a sweetener, vanilla or cocoa, and a dash of salt. Soymilk can be made thicker or thinner by adjusting the proportion of beans to water in this recipe.

Baking and Desserts

nospam@example.com (Michael Torreiter) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:02:49 -0400

Baking during the 100-Mile Summer of ‘09 is going to be one of our challenges, there seems to be no way around it. But lucky for us, urban homesteader Karin Kliewer of Little City Farm loves to make desserts, and loves local food. She has decided to post one 100-Mile Dessert per week for the duration of the project. Check out her blog! She’s already started!

Baking soda, baking powder, and yeast are not readily available commercially within the 100-miles around Waterloo Region. But 100-Miler Marc Sargent has the following suggestions for us:

Baking Soda is not a grown product but rather a chemical composition that is produced rather than grown. As such if you feel the need to find this locally I would think any good laboratory could produce a batch. I think it should not be consider a food but rather a food additive, sort of like adding red dye to make your cake look nice except this make the food rise. Baking power follows right behind it as it is a mixture of baking soda and a powdered acid, and has the added benefit of not requiring an acid in the food you are baking to be active. Again I personally think (although I am not the referee) that this also is a food additive and not a food.

Let’s look at yeast now. This is a fungus and can be grown. I have done a little bit of research on it and think I have a viable solution to the problem. I will note that I have not seen this done and to this point have not tried it myself. I did some reading and many people making beer reuse yeast. My original thought (you can read it on my blog) was to reuse the yeast over and over keeping it in the freezer between uses. After reading I discovered that there would be a problem with this approach as apparently yeast will mutate over generations. Most everything I have read states that you can use from 4-20 generations without any problems.

So my solution is get some yeast from where ever you want to get yeast, spend some money and get a good quality yeast. Next fill a measuring cup with enough warm (30 degree C) water to fill and ice cube tray, that was approx 640ml for me for a 16 cube tray, you will likely only need 10 cube but better safe than sorry. To this add some honey (I am guessing 5-6 teaspoons would be more than enough) add your yeast put in a bit more than you need again I suspect you will want 5-6 individual packages of yeast and stir. Proof the yeast for 5 minutes (let it sit), if the water smells yeasty and bubbles are forming on the top it should be good.

Mix the yeast water well and pour it into an ice cube tray. Pop it into the freezer for 24 hours. Take the frozen yeast cubes out of the tray and put them into a freezer bag. Take one of the ice cube and add it to enough water to fill an ice cube tray add honey as above and allow to proof. This is strictly a guess on my part but I think that 5 minutes might be good. Again this should smell yeasty when it is good. Freeze this mixture back into the ice cube tray. Again this could be removed from the ice cube tray after it is frozen. If you do that make sure you do not confuse these cubes with the original cubes.

Now each day you want to make a bread remove 1 cube and melt it in a quarter cup of warm water with a teaspoon on honey. Let this proof and then add it to your bread dough and proceed as normal. I think that you will need to reduce the amount of sweeter (honey/sugar/maple syrup) and water (by that 125ml in the yeast water) that the recipe calls for. Once you run out of cubes from the second tray, pull out a cube from the original batch and repeat.

Technically this should yield 256 loaves of bread (assuming a 16 cube tray, which mine is) which should be more than enough to last the 100 days. The only set back I can see to this is that maybe the frozen yeast will die. I read that it should be good for 3-4 months but that is based on reusing beer yeast not bread yeast.

A final note if you are trying this and using a bread maker do not use the delay function, the bread must be made immediately once the yeast is done proofing.

And he had the following to add:

I was just reading a blog which suggested many places to get yeast including growing your own from grape skins to using yeast from the berries from cedar trees. The best blog I read suggested several places where you could buy fresh yeast the nost popular suggestion was:

Tre Marie Bakery
1311 St. Clair Ave West
“check the cheese section - it will be wrapped in saran wrap”
“The proprietor told me that I can cube it and freeze it.”
From http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/592857

They also suggested any old style bakery likely would have it.

Many thanks Marc! Great food for thought.