I’m talking about chickens, Internet, keeping ‘em, caring for ‘em, making ‘em part of our lives. Regard, if you will, this sad tale from Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore (a top-notch blog about folks living the locavore lifestyle all over this great land, with loads of great stories and information useful to any locavore). The condensed version of the story is that Jill woke up one morning to an email about two chickens free to a good home, and of course she thought “Yippee! What on earth could be better than two chickens of my very own!” (I’m paraphrasing). The chickens had been found in the street by someone who was not up to caring for them, but wanted to see them taken care of, and Jill was just the woman for the job. Unfortunately, the plot thickens: chickens are illegal in Jill’s town, and her boyfriend, who is running for city council, does not want his ambitions to serve his community dashed by a potential chicken scandal (though he would love to keep chickens once they are legal).
Internet, I’m sure you’re as confused here as I am: what the heck is so wrong with keeping chickens in your backyard? I mean, I can understand a regulating how many chickens you can keep, and I would actually support laws regulating how much space you need per chicken, but a chicken ban? Exiling chickens? What gives? Well, something must give because it turns out that chickens are pretty highly regulated in these United States. And that totally sucks! Keeping chickens in your backyard is pretty easy and very excellent. Plus, they eat weeds, bugs, and maggots in your yard. Could it get any better? It does. Chickens that eat weeds and bugs lay healthier eggs, eggs that you can give to your neighbors for a healthier, happier neighborhood (stronger communities are a real, wonderful benefit of local food in any form, but neighborhood eggs are just about the best thing ever). And really, why not keep chickens in your backyard? True, roosters can be aggressive (confession: I was attacked by a rooster at a young age and I still don’t trust them) but really, you run the same risk having kids or a dog.
There’s more, Internet. Witness this blog post from Slow Food USA (warning: the video on the post is very sad, and not really kid-friendly). The post is a dispatch from the Department of Justice/USDA hearings in Normal, AL about competition in the poultry industry. The gist of the hearings is that big poultry companies, which run huge monopolies, in which individual farmers are basically serfs, are accused of threatening and intimidating farmers, and finally sending them into financial ruin. Those familiar with stories of depression-era tenant farmers and sharecroppers will find a similar story: chicken farmers are given non-negotiable contracts by companies that are the only game in town (contracts which are often replaced a few years on by new ones with worse terms) and end up forced to spend huge sums of money on farm “improvements” (some of which are real improvements, some are debatable). To spend that kind of money, many have to take out loans, put their houses up as collateral, and few ever make the money back. This cycle of ever-increasing input costs and diminishing returns could actually be disrupted, at least a little bit, with a few backyard chickens. The reason that chicken farmers are forced to work for these companies is that we are used to getting our food from huge, global production structures. There simply aren’t ways for farmers to sell chickens close to home without huge companies as middlemen (or, at least, there aren’t enough ways). But what if the model for chicken farming was a little more “backyard”? Farmers closer to their customers, raising fewer chickens, spending less on raising them, cutting out the terrifying corporate middle-man. It’s not so far-fetched, Internet. Hopefully, Jill’s husband isn’t the only city council candidate who wants to raise chickens, because we could use more of them in our backyards.
That’s all it takes, a simple chicken coop. It doesn’t even have to be painted to look like a barn either, though that’s pretty cute. And the whole thing looks like it’s 8-feet long, max. Doesn’t even need a big yard.
This picture isn’t real. It is totally possible for humans and chickens to live together in harmony in urban areas.
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Tenzin is planting a tree!
Maria Finn is probably among the coolest people you will ever hear of.
Why?
Because she has a book, named “A Little Piece of Earth,” which is possibly the cutest thing in the world. It teaches you how to garden and how something as seemingly trivial as soil could grow into something amazing. As if that weren’t enough, she even helped WOYP? create our own window garden. She knows just about everything about urban gardening, which is great because not many people in the city do. We even have an apple tree on our balcony! Our little friend, Tenzin who is only five years old – and is also the cutest thing in the world, helped and he basically planted an entire garden (with Maria’s help.) You should read this book if you want to turn your apartment/house into a miniature forest.
We told you this was cool.
Click here to see Maria’s blog.
These cookies were originally made at the Capri Bakery on East 116th street in NYC. Now you can bake them right at home!
So this is how you make them:
Directions-
Serving size is 20 cookies. Courtesy of The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook.
Apart from being probably the most amazing cookies you will ever eat, they’re also really healthy. So you could eat them guilt-free.
Healthy Schools Campaign and the National Farm to School Network have set up a competition for students across America. They were challenged to concoct a new and improved healthy school lunch. The will be lasts for two days, from May 17-19th. The competition is meant to encourage schools to promote real food, rather then the cheap and gross substitutes. The students with the most ideal school lunch – meaning healthy and tasty – win. The finalists include The Tohono O’odham Community Action Cooking Club, who gave an interview recently on their experiences with the contest.
When asked about their experience, they said,
…it’s not only creating a healthy meal, it’s creating a healthy community. To show that healthy food tastes good. It’s our traditional way to be healthy and we need to get back to that with our traditional foods.
We think they’re doing a great job, and look forward to seeing the schools make positive change in the lunchroom.
Little Chefs
Okra is a delicious, high-fiber food with great taste and texture.
Enjoy it in this vegetable-packed stew, courtesy of The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook.
Ingredients:
Directions:
SERVES 4
Hey, Internet, so this week we’re celebrating School Nutrition Professional Week. You’re supposed show you cafeteria staff at school how much you appreciate them. Here are some tips we got from School Nutrition:
1. Be polite in line and give the professionals a special greeting. Please, thank you and a smile can go along way in making someone’s day.
2. Recognize your School Nutrition Professionals’ achievements during morning announcements or even during a special segment.
3. Ask the student government or another student group to help out in the cafeteria by cleaning tables, taking out trash, sweeping floors, etc.
4. Introduce your staff during the lunch period and prepare the students ahead of time to give them a standing ovation and a huge round of applause.
5. Arrange with your principal to have the teachers and their classes write notes of appreciation to your staff. Post them in the cafeteria for the customers to read.
Another cool idea would be interviewing the cafeteria staff about how they feel about school lunch. Here are some of our own ideas of things you could ask, also found in the WOYP? Curriculum guide:
1. How many meals are prepared each day?
2. What are the common items ordered?
3. How are the meals prepared?
4. How do you decide how much food and what foods to purchase?
5. Where does the food come from?
Feel free to make up your own questions as well!
You should also ask the staff if you could “tour” the lunchroom, while you’re at it. Keep notes on what you observe. For example, what kind of kitchen equipment does the lunchroom have? Do they use stoves or microwaves? Do they keep the nutritional facts? What ingredients are most commonly used?
Don’t forget to check out the WOYP? video clip, with our own school nutrition professional, Head Dietician Jackie Vargas!
Did you know you can make your own pickles?! We didn’t until we tried them, and they’re so yummy when you make them at home! This recipe comes from Grub, Anna Lappé and Bryant Terry’s book which was featured at the end of What’s On Your Plate? the movie.
This puppy comes to you courtesy of Marion L. Bell, of the Metropolitan Hospital Center and the Go Green East Harlem Cookbook, edited by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, which is filled with recipes by East Harlem residents. I did not choose it because of the name, but I could have. Thankfully, it’s also delicious, so you’re welcome.
You’ll need:
Serves 6-8. Enjoy!
This morning, on my way to the WOYP clubhouse, I saw some orange juice ads. That isn’t so unusual, of course, and neither is the fact that the orange juice was advertising itself as pure, non-concentrated, unsweetened, organic goodness, that’s what orange juice generally advertises itself as. What was interesting was that this was only the latest in an serious trend towards green, sustainable, and organic themes that I can only assume is sweeping the advertising world. Internet, I’m actually conflicted about this trend.
On one hand, it is fairly obvious that many large companies – producers of orange juice, food, and anything else that can be made sustainably – have no intention of changing their manufacturing or distribution practices to reflect anything resembling a social or environmental conscience, and the ads are disingenuous, manipulative, and exploitative of many a well-intentioned consumer. On the other hand, ads appealing to conscientious consumers could represent the growing influence of environmental and social concerns over consumer trends. Perhaps this is the start of an exciting progression, and in a few years it will be impossible to sell anything that doesn’t come with some kind of promise of sustainability. It sounds unlikely, but why not be optimistic?
Well, because lots of smart people like Heather Rogers aren’t being optimistic for some very good reasons. Heather Rogers, who has a new book out, in which she decries what she calls “armchair environmentalism.” She’s justifiably annoyed with “green” products and ideas that at best hardly do any good, and at worst actually hurt the environment. For instance, the infinitely annoying “carbon offset” credits where you can pay someone to plant enough trees to balance out all the carbon you left in the atmosphere when you rode an airline or drove your car. The trees in question won’t absorb enough carbon for a good hundred years, if they aren’t cut down before that. And personally, I’m pretty sure carbon offsets are a lot like knocking the planet in the head, and then getting it an icepack. It doesn’t change the original offense, it just sort of makes us feel better. Heather Rogers’ point, in the interview I read, is that many of these “green” initiatives, like hybrid cars and food labeling, just help us ignore the larger problems cause by the way we live. Hybrid cars help us drive more and worry less, organic labels on food help us buy more and think less about what we buy.
But let’s go back, for a minute, to my optimistic take on organic themes in advertising. I think we are in the middle of a crucial time, when the current enthusiasm for conscientious consumption can either become a shallow passing fad, or grow into a new framework for how we conduct ourselves as consumers. What companies are doing with these ads is recognizing that people want to buy “green” products, figuring out how to frame their existing products as “green,” and courting consumers with ads that present those products as “green.” What we, as consumers, must do, is seize this moment when companies are looking at sustainable values and movements, and looking for how we decide if products fit these values. If we tell them that we decide based on what their ads say, or based on whether or not their ads “seem trustworthy” (which usually means getting actors and models for the ads, and ceos for the companies, that look and act like the target market) or whether or not the product has an “Organic” label of some kind stamped on it, (another of Heather Rogers’ points: many of the organizations that certify products with those labels aren’t exactly legit, and anyway a lot of those labels were just put there by the manufacturer and don’t mean anything) if we judge products based on advertising, spokespeople that look honest, or dubious labeling, what looks like a movement now will be a passe trend before you can say “focus group.” HOWEVER, if we do our homework and judge the products we buy based on where they come from, how they’re made, and who makes them (and I mean actually look that information up and don’t buy anything unless you’re certain you know it’s whole story down to every detail) I have faith that companies will realize that consumer attitudes are changing, and that conscientious products are the only ones people want to buy.
Before I end this post, I want to mention, briefly, this bit of news: Santa Clara County, CA, supervisors have passed a law prohibiting restaurants from selling meals that contain toys for kids if those meals do not meet minimum nutrition requirements. This law sends an important message to food producers: “if you want to sell food with toys in order to lure kids, that’s fine, but we expect you to uphold a standard of nutrition for those kids, and we are going to actually test your food to make sure you do so.” Similar nutrition laws have already passed here in New York and elsewhere, but point that these laws make, and that we can all help make by carefully choosing what we buy (vote with your dollar, to appropriate a free market mantra), is that we will judge products not on their advertised qualities, but on the factual details of their origin.
Spring is coming, and Caprese Salad is a traditional spring Italian dish. This recipe is from the big celebration meal at the end of the movie and it’s simple, healthy, and easy to make.
Caprese Salad (x 10)
