healthy food - ATTACKING FOOD WASTE ON TWO FRONTS - SIBEJO

Celebrity chefs, including Tom Collichio, descended on Capitol Hill this week to testify about the roughly 70 billion pounds of food wasted annually in the United States.  They will join experts and advocates before the House Agriculture Committee, which is holding its first full hearing on the topic. The chefs urged lawmakers to support a bill sponsored by Representative Chellie Pingree, (D-Maine) that would adjust food labels with the goal of waste prevention. From there, the chefs head to the White House for a round-table discussion on food waste. Of course, they also ate--�recovered� food, pasture-raised beef tartare tendon, and trap-caught mackerel and Maryland oysters served with green garlic and herbs.

Source: NYT, 5/25/16, Celebrity Chefs Don't Waste Food

Scores of new companies are trying to spin profits out of food waste. Several start-ups are chasing ways to use food waste to make other edibles. Some are aiming to quickly distribute food that is about to be thrown out. And yet others are working to use every last ounce of ingredients. The business of food waste is not well tracked; most data available now is on funding for individual companies. But Back to the Roots, which sells products such as a mushroom-growing kit that uses coffee grounds, recently raised $5.8 million from individual investors like Michael Pollan. EcoScraps, which turns food waste into gardening products, has raised $13 million. Cerplus is an online go-between, linking farms and wholesalers with food on the verge of going to waste with restaurants and other businesses. The company started serving the Bay Area in January and now has shipped more than 13,000 pounds of food to more than 60 clients.

Source: NYT, 5/25/16, Food Waste for Profit

healthy food - Let�s reconnect�June is National fruit and vegetable month. - SIBEJO

Put winter doldrums to rest and reconnect this month with freshness.  It�s at your fingertips this month with local farmers markets and roadside stands.  Meander around a market and see what looks good to you and take in the abundance of fresh food your local farmers have been putting their energy and heart into.  

Perhaps it�s the ripe strawberries you haven�t had since last June or the garlic scapes your friend loves to pickle, asparagus, or simply, lettuce.  Look for your favorites or try something different.  This could be your opportunity to reach outside the food �box� and discover something that may become a new staple in your home.   Ask questions when you�re at the market; the consumer/farmer connection can be quite encouraging. 

Eating fruits and vegetables doesn�t have to be clich�cook up some rhubarb-strawberry jam so the bright freshness can be yours deep into the winter months.  Take it a step further and reconnect with a friend or relative you just haven�t had time to connect with and ask if they have a worthy recipe.  The best recipes are the tried and true ones that get passed along.  Better yet, invite them over to help.  An afternoon of cooking and banter is good for the soul.  

Another option to do all of this while keeping your kitchen clean, is to take a cooking class together.  TAUNY, in Canton, is holding a class June 22-�Beyond Pesto, Creative Condiments with North Country Herbs�.  Call 386-4289 to sign up!

Take the time to cook.  Take the time to reconnect.

Written by Jenelle Matthews, GardenShare Outreach Coordinator

healthy food - Gouverneur Famers Market opens tommorow, June 2 - SIBEJO

The Gouverneur Farmers Market opens on Thursday, June 2, on the Village Green in Gouverneur.  The market will be open from 9:00 to 2:00 every Thursday until October.

The Canton Farmers Market is open from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM every Tuesday and Friday until October.

The Potsdam Farmers Market is open from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM every Saturday until October.

Farmers markets in Hammond and Massena will open next month.

Farmers Markets are held rain or shine.

In June at the Farmers Markets, you may find asparagus, beets, broccoli, green onions, herbs, lettuce, peas, radishes, rhubarb, scallions, spinach, and strawberries, among other things.  In addition, the markets frequently have other food, wine, and craft vendors. 

All Farmers Markets in St. Lawrence County are equipped to accept debit cards or SNAP-EBT benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called food stamps).  To use these cards, the customer should visit the Market Manager's booth, where the cards can be swiped and tokens will be provided to spend with the farmers.  GardenShare manages this service for the Farmers Markets and more information can be found at http://gardenshare.org/content/farmers-markets

This year, thanks to a generous grant from Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, GardenShare will be able to double the value for anyone purchasing at the Farmers Market with a SNAP-EBT card.  For each $5.00 charged to the SNAP-EBT card, the customer will receive $10.00 worth of tokens that can be spent for SNAP approved items like fresh fruits and vegetables, seeds, or food plants at the Farmers Market.

In addition, SNAP-EBT customers will receive a frequent customer card.  After visiting and purchasing food at the market five different days, the SNAP-EBT customer will receive an additional $20.00 in tokens to be spent at the Farmers Market for these food items.  This benefit is also supported through the grant from Excellus BlueCross Blue Shield.

"Shopping at our local Farmers Markets is certainly a fun way to meet your neighbors and area farmers while picking up the freshest, healthiest produce possible," said Gloria McAdam, executive director of GardenShare.  "Shopping at the Farmers Markets is especially important because it supports our local farmers and keeps that money in the local economy.  Everyone deserves the chance to take part in the community-building of a Farmers Market and to eat the great food.  GardenShare is happy we can make the benefit of this healthy, locally-grown food accessible to our lower-income neighbors."

healthy food - Summer intern starts - SIBEJO

Greetings! My name is Amanda Korb, a rising Junior at St. Lawrence University studying Environmental Studies and English with a minor in Outdoor Studies. I am ecstatic to be interning for GardenShare this summer for ten weeks!

Hailing from a rural town, one mimicking those similar to the North Country, I understand how in a smaller setting there is prospect for connectivity in the community. With that said, to think hunger issues are relevant only in far off places is easy. GardenShare is a concentrated bite of the larger conversation as they connect local farmers to families in the area. In this way, the issues of food insecurity, poverty, and job security are addressed using the unique bonds of the community. Everyone deserves a right to eat healthy nutritious food as well as know where that food originates!

In my spare time, I enjoy digging my toes in rich humus while boogieing to Paul Simon. You can also find me hiking ADK peaks, reading a Jane Austen novel by the river, or cracking corny jokes with my dad- who I strive to emulate each day (I once brought him to show-and-tell in second grade). Hobbies aside, I look forward to studying off the grid in a yurt village on Massawepie Lake this coming fall, exploring the way humans connect to nature and in turn each other. As it rounds lunchtime here at the office, I will unpack the cooler in my car (because my refrigerator is still in storage) filled with cantaloupe, trail mix, a baggie of mixed veggies, fresh blueberries, wilted spinach, a jar of peanut butter and a half gallon of orange juice.

healthy food - MODERNIZING SNAP BENEFITS - SIBEJO

SNAP  benefit levels are �based on increasingly outdated assumptions, including unreasonable expectations about households� availability of time to prepare food, and need to be modernized,� a new paper explains. It calls for a 20% benefit increase in the short term and more research to modernize the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) � the estimate of a bare-bones, nutritionally adequate diet that USDA uses to calculate SNAP benefits.  The cost of the TFP, which hasn�t been updated to reflect changes in dietary recommendations since the 1970s, �assumes that low-income households can spend an unlimited amount of time preparing food from scratch and has consequently shifted toward the food items that are lowest cost but most time-intensive,� according to the paper.

Source: Center for Budget & Policy Priorities, 5/25/16, SNAP

healthy food - SNAP fraud by state employees denies people benefits - SIBEJO

New Mexico is supposed to grant people in dire financial situations expedited SNAP benefits within seven days, rather than the 30 it takes to process regular applications. But  thousands of New Mexico residents may have been cheated out of those benefits, according to new allegations that claim SNAP administrators in the Human Services Department tampered with applications to disqualify people from the program. Nine former and current HSD employees have testified that if the department hadn�t met the required seven-day processing deadline, they were told to give the case file to a supervisor. When the files were handed back to them, they say, the data on the application had been altered. Assets were added and the applicant no longer qualified for the emergency benefits. The practice, which may have been going on since 2003, allows HSD to take the longer, 30-day timeline to process the application. That way, the delay doesn�t count against its court-ordered efforts to comply with regulations.

Source: Think Progress, 5/25/16, SNAP Fraud @ the Top

healthy food - The Impact of Minimum Wage Increases on Agriculture - SIBEJO

This is such a complicated issue and I have not waded into it yet as a result.  I found this piece on Local Harvest and thought it addressed the issues involved quite well and so just wanted to point GardenShare friends to it.

Gloria

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LocalHarvest Newsletter, May 27, 2016
The Fight for Living Wages

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Photo by: Wrecking Barn Farm

Welcome back to the LocalHarvest newsletter.

I need to preface this discussion by pointing out my - and LocalHarvest's - longstanding commitment to social justice, fair trade, and living wages. Yet, as a recovering farmer who had a business large enough to have employees, I also understand the invisible math that most people never get to see. In the December newsletter we spoke to some of the challenges that US farmers face when competing with cheaper, imported food. If a retailer or a consumer can get a cheaper organic tomato grown for a 10th of the labor costs as a US organic tomato, they just might do that. Now imagine if those US labor costs were to go up 50%?

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