The Kitchen Sink #6
A Publication of the Whole Farm Co-operative
Editor, Author and Plumber; Tim King
| TABLE of CONTENTS: 1. SE Minnesota: A Third World Colony 2. Roy & Herman's Dream 3. Question Authority and Experts 4. Global Localism 5. Drink Your Kefir! It's Good forYou! 6. Creamy Maple Mocha Pudding |
SE Minnesota: A Third WorldColony? Southeastern Minnesota is being impoverished by its existingmethod of food production. The seven county region experiences a net lossof $800 million annually from status quo agriculture. This siphoning ofresources to other areas is draining the rural communities and placingfarm families first into near poverty and then into a state of peonage.A few fragile experiments in the area suggest there is a path to economicrecovery. These are the findings of a new report, "Finding Foodin Farm Country: The Economics of Food & Farming in Southeast Minnesota", commissioned by Hiawatha's Pantry Project and compiled by Ken Meter andJon Rosales. "Our key finding is that the existing economic structuresthrough which food products are bought and sold extract about $800 millionfrom the region's economy each year. All this money, currently earned bySoutheast Minnesota residents, is spent in ways that weaken the capacityof the region to build wealth for its citizens," write Rosales and Meter. The two, using existing government statistics, foundthat the region's farmers operated at an $80 million net loss in 1997.Additionally, those farmers purchased $400 million of farm inputs and creditfrom outside the region. And, they calculated, the regions residents spent$506 million buying food produced outside the region. Thus the calculated$800 million hemorrhage. Finding Food draws a dreary picture. It is, however,a call to action. Meter and Rosales devote half of the of the report tothe possibilities for a truly new economy. Two of the local food initiativealready existing in the region, Root River Market in Houston and Plainview'sRebekah's Restaurant were detailed in the October, 2000 issue of Hiawatha'sPantry. Both are recent entries into the effort to establish a self sustainingand nurturing regional economy. The authors also report on the tenaciouselder of the small community of Southeastern Minnesota businesses strivingtoward that goal: Full Circle Cooperative of Oak Center. "As we brought new farmers into the coop, it has gottenbetter for all of us," says Steve Schwen, who has helped coordinate organicproduce sales for Full Circle for over fifteen years. "We get more sales,better prices, and we make customers happier. [But] when we have pulledback and thought of each other as competitors, marketing entities placedus against each other , and our prices were driven down." Meter and Rosales put forward these three pioneer enterprisesas examples of how some of the $800 million drained from Southeastern Minnesotacan be recaptured through the simple acts of purchasing, cooking, and eatingfood grown in the area. The result, they assert, will be an increase inboth financial and social wealth. A full copy of the report can be obtained by writingto Nancy Bratrud, Hiawatha's Pantry, Rte 1 - Box 71, Lanesboro, MN 55949. | |
Roy & Herman's Dream Five years ago Roy Perish, who farms with his familynear Browerville, and Herman Hendrickson, whose huge garden is near LittleSauk, were looking at setting up either a cheese making or milk bottlingplant here in Central Minnesota. They explored cavernous abandoned plantsin Browerville and Aldrich. They scoured the countryside for used equipment.And they held dozens of meetings with farmers to discuss the possibilities. Then they teamed up with a bunch of farmers and startedWhole Farm Cooperative in 1997. In no time the co-op turned part of theirdream into reality. Whole Farm Co-op started making Grazer's Cheese, firstat Bass Lake Cheese in Wisconsin and, in recent years, at Stickney HillDairy in Kimball. This spring, thanks to financial assistance from NorthCentral Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education and the BlandinFoundation, we started bottling Grazer's milk. It's been a pretty exciting process. We all worked togetheron our beautiful label with the excellent guidance of a consultant hiredby Blandin. Herman, Roy, and Mike Salber have worked hard to develop asystem of getting milk from the farm to Main Street Dairy in Sauk Centerwhere it's bottled. And, before calving turned him back into a full timefarmer, Roy had been picking the newly bottled milk up and delivering itto customers that he's developed like Everybody's Market in Long Prairie,Steve's Country Market in Browerville, Shirley's in Eagle Bend and DownHome Foods in Wadena. As some customers know, we've had some problem with spoilagebefore the expiration date on the milk bottle is reached. Mike and Hermanare investigating that and will hopefully find out why that's happeningand fix it. As Roy says, "at least our milk has the courtesy of actuallyspoiling. It must be alive." A lot of milk produced in the heart of Minnesota dairycountry - that's also the same as Whole Farm Cooperative country - is puton big tanker trucks and shipped to processing factories outside the area.Herman and Roy's dream of bottling a little bit of that milk right herein our own back yard has now come true. They couldn't have done it without the support of ourexcellent customers. | |
Question Authority AND Experts! Do you believe what the experts tell you when you readnewspapers or view their televised comments? You'd be a better informedcitizen if you could read or view what they had to say in the stories thatthe media kills before publication, according to Sheldon Rampton and JohnStauber, authors of "Trust Us, We're Expert's". Fox network affiliate WTVT, in Tampa Florida, investedsubstantial time and money into a 1997 story on genetically engineeredbovine growth hormone. The story was developed by veteran investigativejournalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. Among the principle points thestory would cover were: *Bovine Growth Hormone was never adequately tested beforeFDA allowed its' use on dairy cows. *Some Florida dairy herds grew sick shortly after startingrBGH treatment. *Florida dairy officials refused to back up rBGH manufacturerMonsanto's claim that every truck load of milk from rBGH treated cows wastested for excessive antibiotic use. *Of seven random dairy farms visited by the reportersall were using rBGH on their cows. *Area supermarket chains who had promised customers notto sell milk from rBGH cows had not kept their promises. *rBGH may be linked to cancer. WTVT promoted the four part series heavily in the weekbefore it was scheduled to run. Then, on the eve of the broadcast, Foxreceived a threatening letter from Monsanto. Fox killed the story. Akreand Wilson eventually left the station and sued Fox. They won their suit.But the public never saw the report. Monsanto had successfully quelledpublic discourse. That is just one of the chilling stories from "TrustUs, We're Expert's: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With YourFuture.", Rampton and Stauber's new book. Rampton and Stauber have spent the last decade shininga light on the illicit attempts of corporations and their public relationscourtiers. Their newsletter, PR Watch, and their earlier books "Toxic SludgeIs Good for You" and "Mad Cow USA", have shown how PR flacks have twistedpublic opinion to favor the causes of their sometimes nefarious clients.v"Trust Us, We're Experts!" is their most comprehensive expose' of theunholy corporate-PR industry alliance yet. The book's major accomplishment is to expose the industry'sshameful use of third party endorsement of a product or behavior. Whetherit's a shoe company paying millions to an athlete to endorse a shoe ora tobacco company prostituting doctors by paying them to write newspaperopinions articles favoring tobacco, PR firms know this truth: "We counton the experts. They tell us who to vote for, what to eat, how to raiseour children. We watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, read theiropinions in magazine and newspaper articles and letter to the editor." "Trust Us, We're Experts" shows that we can count onindependent third party experts. That is, we can count on a fair proportionto be bought and paid for. We can count on some of them not to be independentat all. Monsanto used heavy handed legal threats to shut downthe Fox rBGH report. That act chilled public discourse on rBGH in Florida.Monsanto also used third party experts to assure discourse was limitedto Monsanto's message. Rampton and Stauber write that Monsanto hired the PRfirm Capitoline/MS&L to create the rBGH spokesgroup, the Dairy Coalition.Dairy Coalitiom members and rBGH boosters included: *The American FarmBureau *The Grocery Manufacturers of America *The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture *The American Dietetic Association The Coalition members, informed by their corporate handlers,then went about informing the public regarding the safety and value ofMonsanto's new product. Rampton and Stauber quote Edward Bernays, early 20thcentury PR pioneer, on the value of bought and paid for independent experts: "Leaders offer the propagandist a means of reaching vastnumbers of individuals, for with so many confusing and conflicting ideascompeting for the individuals attention, he is forced to look to othersfor authority." Monsanto, and it's Brave New World new economy partners,didn't invent the velvet glove and iron fist system of information control.Rampton and Stauber layout a similar pattern in both the lead and silicamining industries in hair raising detail. They show how, when the dangerof both substances is discovered, the various industries - the Ethyl GasolineCorporation in the case of lead and Union Carbide in the case of silica- purchased scientists, journalists, and PR firms to promulgate their twistedtruth. And anybody who reported another version of truth risked intimidationand professional ruin. Meanwhile, a confused public wondered why minersand sandblasters lungs collapsed from silica inhalation and children werepermanently poisoned from lead paint or gasoline poisoning. Industry candisinform, propagandize, lie, and coerce for decades in the face of mountinginjury and death tolls, Rampton and Stauber show us. All for a bit moreprofit. David Onzoff, of Boston University, testified in theasbestos trials and described the industries decades long defense strategy.You may interchange the word tobacco for asbestos, if you wish. "Asbestos doesn't hurt your health. Ok, it does hurtyour health but it doesn't cause cancer. OK, asbestos does cause cancerbut not our kind of asbestos. Ok, our kind of asbestos can cause cancerbut not at the doses to which this person was exposed. OK, asbestos doescause cancer , and at this dosage, but this person got his disease fromsomething else, like smoking. OK, he was exposed to our asbestos and itdid cause his cancer, but we did not know about the danger when we exposedhim. OK, we knew about the danger when we exposed him, but the statuteof limitations has run out. OK, the statute of limitations hasn't run out,but if we're guilty we'll go out of business and everyone will be worseoff. OK, we'll agree to go out of business, but only if you'll let us keeppart of our company intact, and only if you limit our liability for theharms we have caused." Does this nightmare have a ring of familiarity to it?Did anybody count the bodies that fell or measure the pain during the decadesthat sleek lawyers spun this web of deception in courtrooms and while theindustry paid and prostituted independent experts smeared it across theopinion pages and talk shows of this well informed country? You can read "Trust Us, We're Experts!" to discover thetruth and be depressed by it. Or you can read Rampton and Stauber's sterlingjournalism and be galvanized to action. But, if you want to raise off theshackles of corporate manipulation, too have the scales removed from youeyes, you must read it a soon as possible. Independent Third Party Disclaimer: John Stauber gaveme his $24.95 book for free. Trust Us, We're Expert's!: How Industry Manipulates Scienceand Gambles With Your Future, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Tarcher/Putnam. | |
Global Localism I first learned of the Rural Coalition http://www.supermarketcoop.comin 1993. That fall I interviewed Carlos Marentes, the the Chairman of theBoard of this organization that links local rural organizing efforts acrossthe U.S and across the US/Mexican border, at his ramshackle offices insouth-side El Paso. Marentes was organizing undocumented chili pickerswho were sleeping nights on the south side's mean streets and picking chiliesover near Hatch, NM during the day. Next time I met Marentes we workedtogether, along with Rural Coalition Executive Director Lorette Piciano,to field a team of international observers to the 1994 elections in theMexican state of Chihuahua. By then Carlos Marentes was breaking groundfor a clinic, dormitory, and day care center that would get the chili pickersoff the streets and provide them health care. The Rural Coalition's members have always organized amongstpeople with the least resources. There's Marente's work with the chilipickers. And the organization's efforts with the Raramuri Indians in theMexican Sierra Tarahumara. Their members also include struggling AfricanAmerican co-ops in the deep South and cooperative efforts by people inMaine to pull themselves up by their boot straps. The RC's new on-line supermarket is a lot like what we'vedone with Whole Farm Cooperative these last four years. The differenceis that, instead of linking farmers together, it's linked cooperativesin Mexico and the US together. This linkage isn't really a supermarket.When you look at the beautiful quilts and pillow cases from Mileston CooperativeAssociation, in Mississippi, or the hand woven products from the EmmausSan Juan Weaving Cooperative in Guatemala, you'll know you're in neithera virtual nor a real supermarket. You'll know you're in a place where theremarkable vision and intelligence of diverse rural people has come togetherand created a small ray of hope. You've patronized Whole Farm Cooperative.Thank you so much. I hope you'll visit the Rural Coalition's site http://www.supermarketcoop.comand consider patronizing their members. Warning: These folks are creatingsomething new just as we are. Be as patient with them as you've been withus. | |
Drink Your Kefir! It's Goodfor You! Kefir dates back more than a thousand years to the shepherdsof the Caucasus mountains. They discovered that fresh milk carried in leatherpouches would occasionally ferment into a naturally effervescent beverage.Marco Polo must have drunk kefir. He wrote about it in the journals ofhis travels. Now days some say kefir is the perfect dairy food. It'start flavor is similar to a drinkable yogurt. In addition to the naturallyoccurring healthful bacteria that yogurt has, kefir has beneficial yeasts.The yeast and the bacteria work together to provide one of the drink'sprinciple health benefits. They assist in the digestive process by givingthe bacteria in your stomach a boost. Additionally they provide an antibioticeffect for unfriendly bacteria. If you are lactose intolerant the proponents of the benefitsof kefir say you can drink it without the same problems you have with unculturedmilk. Kefir's beneficial yeast and bacteria provide lactase, an enzymewhich consumes most of the lactose left after the culturing process. Peoplewho don't like drinking milk may like drinking kefir for that reason. Thelow levels of lactose make kefir easy for everybody to digest. The completeproteins in kefir are partially digested during the culturing process andare therefore more easily used by the body. Kefir proponents say it builds the immune system, stimulatesthe digestive system, and has a tranquilizing effect that calms the nerves.The presence of tryptophan, one of the essential amino acids abundant inkefir, is said to be the cause for kefir's relaxing effect on the nervoussystem. High levels of calcium and magnesium are present in kefir. Bothminerals are necessary for a healthy nervous system and their presencein kefir add to its relaxing effect. Kefir's ample supply of phosphorus,the second most abundant mineral in our bodies, helps utilize carbohydrates,fats, and proteins for cell growth, maintenance and energy. Kefir is high in Vitamins B12, B1, and Vitamin K. Itis also an excellent source of biotin which aids the body's assimilationof other B Vitamins, such as folic acid, pantothenic acid, and B12. The information for this article was originally obtainedfrom the world wide web at www.kefir.netand www.kefir.com and published in TheLand www.the-land.com in June of2000. | |
Creamy Maple Mocha Pudding As I write this we've got maple sap cooking down to syrupon our Stanley wood cook stove. We collected the first sap the week ofthe 19th of March. Getting to the four trees we tap required wading throughwaste deep snow. I heard John and Susan Kroll, who tap a thousand trees,had an awful time getting the taps in with the deep snow. There are a lot of events that herald spring. SigurdOlsen argued that the spawning of eelpout in February was spring's openingbell. Jan and I saw a migrating bald eagle over the Little Sauk River onMarch 14th. That was a fine herald to spring. This morning, April 3rd,there were geese and sandhill cranes in the Long Prairie River Valley belowour home and a small group of swans flew over head. Two nights ago thewood cock were doing their crazy dance under the moon. The Coopers hawkis back and I saw the flash of the red eye of a transient goshawk as itsavaged chickadees at our bird feeder. These are all harbingers of springfor me even though there's still a foot of snow on the ground. But the surest, most inevitable, measure of spring'sarrival at Maple Hill Farm is the rising of crystalline sap from deep inthe earth to the tips of every maple bud. We like to catch some of thatand use it for Creamy Maple Mocha Pudding. Here's the recipe. It's fromKen Haedrich's "The Maple Syrup Cookbook". 4 tablespoons cornstarch 1 tablespoon powdered instant coffee orespresso 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa pinch of salt 3 egg yolks 3 cups milk 1/2 cup maple syrup (you can adjust to yourtastes - this amount is a tad sweet for mine) 1 tablespoon unsalted butter cut into pieces 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Combine and mix the cornstarch, coffee, cocoa, and saltin a large, heavy bottomed pot. In a bowl whisk the egg yolks slightly,then add the milk and maple syrup to the eggs. Stir this mixture into thepot with the dry ingredients and begin heating over medium-high heat. Gradually bring the mixture to a boil, stirring gentlywith a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Keep scraping the sides and bottomof the pan as you stir. When the mixture boils keep stirring and let itboil for a minute to cook the corn starch. Remove it from the heat andstir in the butter and vanilla. Put the pudding into four or five separateserving containers, cover, and refrigerate for several hours after it'scompletely cool. Note: Haedrich likes his butter. We've never used it.It's your call not mine. |