Tag Archives: procurement

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Asparagus* | Lucky Peach

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IN THE FIELD

It’s a spring afternoon in the middle of asparagus season, and I’m crouching in a field with Jim Durst, an organic farmer in California’s Yolo County, northwest of Sacramento. Here and there green spears poke upward through the dirt. These asparagus will be picked tomorrow; they can grow whole inches overnight. “It looks totally different in the morning,” Jim tells me. “It looks like a little forest of trees, sticking up. And after they harvest, it looks like somebody logged it.”

Asparagus is a member of the lily family, so it has very extensive root systems. It grows mostly along waterways. The roots can go down about anywhere from twelve to twenty feet.

The warmer soil temperature stimulates growth, so as soon as it warms up in the spring, the spears start to emerge. We harvest every day, because the spears can grow two to three inches a day. The spear is actually a branch trying to get up and get going. Once you cut a spear off, the plant sends up another shoot. So harvesting stimulates production—it keeps it going. During the harvest time, we are cutting the field every day. We harvest particularly spears of a certain height, ’cause that’s what we put in our box. The market determines that to be nine and a half inches.

via Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Asparagus* | Lucky Peach.

This Video Explains How So Much Food Gets Wasted In America

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There’s a certain school of thought about sustainability that argues that the worst problem in the food system today is waste. The idea is that we expend a tremendous amount of resources — water, gasoline, fertilizer, pesticides, labor — growing food that never actually feeds anyone. Food waste advocates also argue that the world’s farms already produce enough food to end hunger for good, if only the food that’s currently thrown out could make it to the dinner plates of those in need.

The most obvious source of food waste is in the home. Who, after all, hasn’t had the experience of buying five or six bags of groceries at the supermarket, only to end up throwing out a good portion when it spoils before you have a chance to eat it?

via This Video Explains How So Much Food Gets Wasted In America.

What Is Quinoa? A Breakdown For Those Of Us Who Eat It But Don’t Truly Understand It

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QUINOA

Second only to maybe kale, quinoa is the health food star of our time. The Food and Agriculture Organization named 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, after all. This tiny grain-like food is full of good-for-you nutrition and tastes great in just about anything: salads, omelettes and even cakes.

We’re willing to bet you’ve eaten a good deal of the stuff, but do you know what it really is? It’s okay if you don’t, because not many of us do. Today’s the day we change that with a few fun facts and photos that tell us about where quinoa comes from.

Here are 8 important things everyone should know about quinoa:

via What Is Quinoa? A Breakdown For Those Of Us Who Eat It But Don’t Truly Understand It.

 

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The Jolly (Micro) Green Giant | Lucky Peach

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It’s a sunny day at Windfall Farms in upstate New York, and Morse Pitts, the owner, is trying to explain to me one of the many reasons his microgreens cost so damn much: anywhere from sixteen to sixty-four dollars for a quarter pound, which barely enough to fill a bowl. But he tells me that’s still far from breaking even.

First off: every shoot sold comes from a single seed. A sunflower shoot takes up to three weeks to mature. New seeds are planted twice a week for the duration of winter—which, this past year, lasted four and a half months. To keep their stand at the Union Square Greenmarket sticked they had to plant over 750 pounds of sunflower seeds (at $185 per 50-pound bag)—and that’s one of the dozen-plus microgreens they sell. They also grow micro mesclun, mustard, pea greens, sunflower shoots, amaranth, buckwheat, Hong Vit radish, arugula, and an assortment of edible flowers. The flavor of these greens is intense (also, they’re cute), and they’re considered the gold standard by many New York chefs. But the real reason Pitts grows them is so that his dozen or so workers have something to do in the slow months.

via The Jolly (Micro) Green Giant | Lucky Peach.

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Watch the Trailer for ‘Caffeinated,’ Coming to Theaters July 14 – Eater

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The film takes viewers from farm to cup.

For those who are curious about exactly where their coffee comes from, Caffeinated attempts to tell the story. From filmmakers Vishal Solanki and Hanh Nguyen, the documentary explores America’s most populous coffee-drinking cities and producing countries, featuring interviews with both connoisseurs and farmers. Caffeinated will see a nationwide release in select theaters and streaming services on July 14. See the official trailer above.

via Watch the Trailer for ‘Caffeinated,’ Coming to Theaters July 14 – Eater.

New USDA Search Tool Helps You Find A Farmers Market Near You

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Are you looking for a farmers market in Missoula, Montana that sells both eggs and cut flowers? How about one in Birmingham, Alabama that accepts food stamps? Or one to visit while on vacation in Sitka, Alaska?

The government is here to help. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just launched a great new section on its website that lets you search a national directory of farmers markets to find exactly the one you’re looking for.

The site lets you search for farmers markets by location, available products, accepted payments and even, bizarrely, the type of location. This last option will surely be a boon to those with a strict policy of only patronizing farmers markets located in religious institutions or closed-off streets.

The USDA actually made some of this data available to developers last May, so the Apple App Store already contains a few apps that can help you find a local farmers market. And a site called Local Harvest has long collected and shared its own list of farmers markets, small farms and CSAs.

But the USDA’s new search tool is fast and user-friendly, and is closer to the source of information than any of these other contenders.

It’s also a powerful sign of how far the farmers market movement has come in recent years. Not so long ago, farmers markets were rare enough — at least outside affluent pockets of California — that there would have been no point in looking for a very specific type of farmers market, or one in a very specific place. If you even knew about the joys of farmers market shopping, you would take what you could get.

Now, though, USDA data shows that more than 8,200 farmers markets are operating across the country — enough that you really do need an app or a website to sift through them all.

via New USDA Search Tool Helps You Find A Farmers Market Near You.

 

And here’s the link to USDA site:

http://search.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/default.aspx#

 

The Least Sustainable Seafood – Fish You Shouldn’t Eat

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It may seem like the ocean is just a bottomless pit of fish sticks and sushi, but the reality is that our supply of seafood is finite. Through rampant overfishing and just generally treating the ocean like a cheap buffet, we’ve depleted the populations and ruined the habitats of some truly delicious fish.

To find out which species are in the most danger, we spoke with Reid Bogert, sustainability coordinator at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, who in addition to scaring us skate (zing!), offered some tasty alternatives. Read on to learn more about which salmon is safe, which seafood certifications to look for, and why grouper are basically screwed.

via The Least Sustainable Seafood – Fish You Shouldn’t Eat.

What the FDA’s Trans Fats ‘Phase Out’ Really Means – Eater

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e Food and Drug Administration announced its plan today to phase out trans fats from the American food industry. Two years ago, the FDA acknowledged that trans fats were probably unsafe for human consumption, but until now, there was no national policy on their use in the food industry. This new decision, designed to be implemented over the next three years, was motivated by nearly two decades of research showing major health risks associated with the food additive. In its announcement, the FDA noted that artificial trans fats “are not ‘generally recognized as safe’ (GRAS) for use in human food.” More bluntly, they’re very bad for you.

via What the FDA’s Trans Fats ‘Phase Out’ Really Means – Eater.

Why the FDA’s new ban on trans fats may be most important change in our food supply ever – The Washington Post

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When all the talk tends to center around how the U.S. food system is failing people, it can be easy to forget its successes. But one of those instances has been brought to the forefront this morning.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it will implement a new near-zero tolerance ban of partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of trans fats. Food companies will be given three years to phase the ingredient out of their offerings. The decision comes on the heels of a 2013 announcement that a ban was imminent.

And it is a very big deal.

“It’s probably the single m

via Why the FDA’s new ban on trans fats may be most important change in our food supply ever – The Washington Post.