What will it take?

From the Bovine

CFIA agents came to Montana Jones farm Saturday to take four lambs to be killed.
The CFIA’s seemingly on again, off again plan to kill lambs from Montana Jones’ farm was on again Saturday, as agents came to the farm and reportedly took  four lambs away, presumably to be killed and tested. The video below documents an exchange between Montana Jones and the CFIA last Thursday. We’re expecting another video to be released tomorrow.

From thebovine.wordpress.com     Saturday September 22, 2012





What does it take to get people involved in life? What has to happen before the two legged sheep realize the truth? What liberties does the average joe have to lose before interest is shown in reality?

There are two things on this planet that every living thing needs to live--food and water--but so many think that money is the third (or first if you are a part of the BigBusiness machine). I think we could all name things that are secondary to food and water -- money would be far down on the list. To really 'live' a body also needs family, friends, a good nights sleep, interesting conversations, and the list goes on.

1966 issue

History and writers say that we killed God in the sixties and we replaced belief in one thing with a belief in lies, gov't and money. All three are intwined like a breeding snake knot and has poisoned our thinking to the point where instead of caring and supportive citizens, we have a colony of shruggers. "I can't do anything about it". Shrug. "It can't be that bad". Shrug. "All politicians are crooks, what are you going to do?" Shrug. "I have to shop at BigBusiness, my money is tight". Shrug.

We stroll along safe in the belief that our personal lives are what is important and everything else be damned. We stomp along with the firm belief that this system of rewarding the big and destroying the small is the only game in town. We congratulate ourselves in being good parents; good citizens; good daughters and sons and completely forget that that is also the relationship we have with the earth, the non human creatures, and the future. We ignore that which we cannot bear to see; we use contempt as a weapon against those who can see and don't like what their vision is showing.

In these days of so-called social media and the mistaken belief that we are a global village in an age where we can communicate with others in an inclusive environment (I can personally attest to the fallacy in that!), more people actually care less than we did in the past. We know our neighbours less, we help out local people less, we have more derision and hate for people we don't know and we are communicating effectively less. We are an insular people gradually shrinking our bubble of knowledge and interaction to only include that which is 'easy', 'convenient' and 'safe'.

We have been trained like monkeys in a lab or rats in a maze to live the way BigBusiness and their puppets, government, have told us to live. We buy what the propagandizers have pushed a la commercials, ads and what 'critics' have sold us. We spend, spend, spend in the frenzy of commercialism in order to placate our growing dissatisfaction--to make us happy. Are we happy? Or just in debt? We listen to biased media, parrot the lies of others because we can't be bothered with digging in the dirt for the nugget of truth. Best to live on the surface only, right?

We are nothing but a grand experiment to see just how stupid we can be--and it isn't aliens who are doing the experiments, armed with probes and space ships. We are doing it to ourselves.

From our school systems to our food systems we are being fooled and lied to on a daily basis. We are raising our kids in a system that rewards the goose-stepping mob mentality and penalizes the individual who has the temerity to see a better way. This is life? This is the modern world?

Only if WE decide it is. Break the stranglehold and think. Break out of your prison and see the view from this side. It's a pretty one.

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A Fresh Attitude

A Fresh Attitude

“We want to teach kids that fish don’t have sticks, chickens don’t have fingers, and buffaloes don’t have wings..” Jason

Those are profound words that speak so much truth and they are the words and feelings of the owners, Jason and George of the Italian House located in London, Ontario.

It is refreshing and heartening that not only do these charming gentlemen make their products using local and fresh ingredients, make most of their foods in-house such as roasted chicken, roasted mushrooms and their sauces, they also care about our children’s eating habits and education towards food.

"...you should compare between fresh and frozen...We worry the kids don't know the difference..." George

George, with two daughters of his own, worries about children not knowing the difference, and how important that difference is, between fresh and frozen food. He comes from a family in Jordan that, like many of us born and raised here in Canada, appreciated and cooked with produce fresh picked from the garden and prepared with the hands of love, his grandmother’s in particular. His father had a large farm that provided for them and he remembers his mother and grandmother preparing food fresh everyday. When he came to Canada 6 years ago he realized that most people live in cities here and no longer grow their own food. He quickly decided that the lessons he learned at the supper table as a child would help him help others learn just how important eating fresh can be.

Jason, a culinary graduate from Fanshawe College, also has a firm belief in eating local and fresh—for taste, health and economic reasons. Supporting local farmers is big with these guys and they use local meats and produce and even go so far as to use Ontario parmesan cheese. They have recently discovered a Hydroponic grower of produce they hope to use over the winter months to keep their fresh and local 'mandate' in action. Jason's work experience in fine dining establishments has served him well in the joint creation of the recipes they use as well as sourcing suppliers. He used to operate a pizza business in Grand Bend at the Pinery Antique Flea Market where he met a lot of great farmers and people who 'got it' and decided to transfer that to London.

"...got attracted by the lure of money...went with a big corporation that paid well and then hated my life for six years..." Jason

He is scathing in his opinion of the BigBusiness pizza restaurant he worked at as they mass produced their product. There, the freezer and microwave were king. I dare say only two good things came out of that experience—his desire to operate his own responsible 'empire' and his meeting George.

1440 Jalna Blvd, London, ON

They are both working long hours--at least 90 hours each--and it is paying off. The neighbourhood knows they are there and the community is coming in. It took a little while at the start, mainly due to the inferior restaurants that occupied the spot before them. They recounted a story of watching people leave the variety store next to them with those mass produced, plastic wrapped sandwiches and the "79 cent hot dogs; nice, hot and freshly frozen" as George puts it. They couldn't stand it one day and George went out and started handing out free pizza slices. One taste and now they come to them. Various businesses and employees in the area come in all the time now, with no regrets. 

While it is not easy beginning your own business, they have been lucky with the support of their families and friends. George's wife promotes them whenever and however she can: writing and posting ads, word-of-mouth advertising and Jason's girlfriend comes in to help out 16 hours a week--just so he can spend time with her. Quality time with families in situations like this is hard to come by and both understand the importance of quality time--especially George with his two children. What little time they have, he tries to make it a good time together. 

Edit: Jason would like me to add a bit more to credit his lady, Jenny lee, with inspiring him to work as hard as he does and to thank her for the long hours she works in the present (and helped in the past at Grand Bend), to make his dreams come true. She is a hard worker herself putting in 60+ hours a week between three jobs. 

Through various friends they have access to some Italian grandmothers for ideas that Jason tweaks to make it their own. They have plans to introduce a Bolognese sauce for their calzones and quite possibly some fresh pasta. With their homemade tomato sauce, the Alfredo,(made with real butter and cream, Jason hastens to add) and the soon-to-come Bolognese,  fresh pasta is sure to be a big hit. George has a plan for Donairs and has a secret blend of spices he wants to use...as a cook myself, I knew better than to ask what that secret is!  They would also like to expand into internationally influenced pizzas as London has a vast multi-cultural makeup that they would like to showcase. So stay tuned for some international fusion pizza! I know I'll be the first in line.

These are not guys to rest on their laurels. They both have goals in mind for the future and one is to open another restaurant in North London. They realize that to keep their products local and fresh they have to match their growth with the farmers' ability to supply them. They would like success but not at the cost of compromise. Sadly, we have all seen companies go out of business for numerous reasons: wrong locations, unable to compete with bigger companies for business and expanding too quickly. Jason and George both seem to understand those pitfalls and are working hard to avoid them.

Now, I have personally tried a few items on the menu board like their big seller, the Chicken Alfredo pizza, which is sinfully delicious, their regular pizza with my favourite toppings: roasted cremini mushrooms, roasted red pepper and smoked bacon strips and their caesar salad. Given time I am sure I will make my way through the whole menu but the next item I will go for is their Muffaletta sandwich or maybe their second big seller, the Meatball. That particular gem is also their personal favourite with it's homemade foccacia bread and handmade meatballs, made of course with Ontario meat. In our house, we have adopted the 'Wednesday night is pizza night' theme and all because of the Italian House. Pizza is all the food groups represented in a delicious package--just have to make sure I share it with the other pizza lovers in this house. Sigh, it's a hard life.

The Italian House Pizzeria

Website: www.theitalianhousepizzeria.com

Location: 1440 Jalna Blvd, London Ontario

Phone: 226-663-2797

"We make it fresh in house from local farmers and suppliers"

"Brothers" George and Jason, proprietors 

Got a party coming up? Want to serve your guests GOOD food? Check out the Italian House for your catering options. Support a local business and please your taste buds at the same time. It's a win-win situation.

Present Promotion: Free soda with sandwich purchase. Feeling hungry yet?

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The Depraved and the Indifferent

I received more mail this morning from the bovine, as I do every morning, and the story was about the Occupy Monsanto protest in Queen’s Park in Toronto as well as the rest of the world, on the 17^th of September.  They are “unified in exposing GMO food and industry; pushing GMO’s out of our food supply; and at minimum, demanding labeling of GMO products in North America.” Apparently the turnout was not overly impressive in Queen’s Park but the necessary communications in networking were made to create progress in this issue.

photo from the bovine

While I am 100% in agreement with exposing Monsanto for the chem giants they are and educating the public about the very wrongness of a herbicide/poison making company also monkeying around with the foods we buy and feed our families, I don’t believe milling around an indifferent government office is going to accomplish anything. Today, the quickest way to being ignored or marginalized is to gather and protest. The gov’t and the media have done it’s job at turning any protest into a circus to be ridiculed and sloughed off as an irritant. While protesting will and does bring focus briefly onto the subject—from the general public who happen to be walking/driving by or who follow such issues like I do from the the bovine, every other person who has to go to work, take care of kids or elderly relatives or simply think the whole Occupy movement is ridiculous is not paying attention.

It’s a counter-intuitive stance to take but for every person standing outside with a sign and a loud shout, there are five armchair protesters who do nothing. Educating the public who are apathetic as to what is going on with their food is an uphill battle that I don’t believe starts at the top, aka the government. Yes, they are the policy makers but they are also solely concerned with money, not what the average citizen has to say.

I firmly believe, and that is why I started this blog in the first place, is that the individual is the place to start. Once we begin to learn about the very things we should be concerned about and to utilize the information within our own microcosm of the family and individual, then we can see change start to trickle UP.

The respective governments of the United States and Canada will unequivocally state that in a world with a population: land use ratio like what is a reality today, it is a necessity to make ‘designer foods’ in order to increase production to feed us. BigBusiness will, and does, try to state this in a way to make us believe that it is global concern for people and not profits that motivates them but we can just throw that out right now as a lie. Of course it is a lie. You don’t go from a 40 year monopoly in chemical warfare to altruism and hand-holding around the campfire singing folk songs. Just doesn’t happen. Monsanto and companies like them have their mission statement firmly in place and they are not looking to adopt a ‘kinder, gentler’ world vision. That does not bring home the big bucks, which we all know, or should, is the bottom line. Period.

Press conference on the threat of GM wheat

Change at the top starts at the bottom. Us. The everyday citizen. We have to remember that we outnumber the politicians, the CEO’s of too BigBusiness, the supporters of said peoples aka those whose palms are being greased and those who are waiting their turn at the lube bottle. We have the power to enforce change simply through our purchases and the level of involvement we decide to take in their world of spend, spend, spend.

Can you imagine if we took the population of just one province and educated them to the point of action—stop buying from companies that support GMO’s, heavy industrial farming and the use of dangerous pesticides—what a difference it would make? Now multiply that by ALL the provinces in Canada and ALL the states in America—these companies and Governments would have to change their standards and policies.

Right now, as things stand, education and availability of non-tampered foods is woefully inadequate. Some of us make a ineffectual stab at shopping local or we placate ourselves with lowering our meat-filled dinners or we watch the news and shake our heads at the depravity of a company’s behaviour in third world countries but we are discouraged to do more. How? By being distracted with the new and latest “innovation” brought to you by your BigGrocery store. New labels, new products carrying less of the bad and more of the good, increasing the amount of seasonal, local produce, new meats being offered with no anti-biotics but with a definite increase in the price tag, and new advertisements extolling said improvements. We allow ourselves to be soothed with empty words of false concern.

On the surface, which is where we are only supposed to look, these ‘improvements’ seem a good thing—and they are to a miniscule extent. What they truly are is a binky, a soother we can suck on and just go away. It’s like asking your parents for an increase in your allowance and receiving monopoly money. “There, you got what you asked for, now go away, No I don’t care that you can’t spend it anywhere, it’s money isn’t it? That’s what you wanted and that’s what you got” What would you do in response? Get a job or raise a protest? Probably go your own way and get a job. That is what is necessary here—go your own way and buy the foods you know are right to eat and not what they give you; go your own way and get a job educating yourself and using that education whenever you shop.

We vote with our feet and wallets and it is high time we all realized that and DID it. It’s one thing to read about it and another to make the commitment to send a message to these companies that we are not increasing their profit margin anymore. We don’t have to gather in groups to do this, we don’t have to make enormous changes in our eating habits, we don’t have to increase our workloads to eat and shop better. We do however, have to learn—who supplies chem-free foods; who is local and small that could do with our shopping dollars, how do they raise their meat, which stores carry seasonal and local products, where do the restaurants we’re eating at get their supplies.

 It is not a difficult task, regardless how much we may be made to believe that, and it is something we can all do right down to the youngest member of the family. In the age of the internet, this information is literally at our fingertips and we can make better decisions. By doing something so simple we can send a message of NO MORE to everyone from the BigGrocery store on the corner to the BigBastards at the top of the skyscraper.

The answer does not lie in attacking the 1% or dragging them down to level the playing field. The answer lies in our pulling ourselves UP.


Something to check out:

Subscribe to thebovine.wordpress.com for news on the raw milk issue as well as other important news on the foods we eat and don't forget to support the LifeStock: A call to farms on September 30th.

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Food Freedom

Just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention. I see that most of my readers are American and Canadian with a sprinkling of Europe and Asia--and I appreciate you, trust me. However, I don't expect those of you from outside Canada to attend--you'd be welcome of course and if you happen to be visiting the area at the time, come on in. I am directing this towards my fellow Ontarians who care where their choices are disappearing and why. We all deserve the right to decide what we put into our bodies and how we wish our food sources to be raised and treated. We all deserve the right to decide where we want to put our hard-earned dollars and to what standards we deem worthy of our regard. No government should decide that BigBusiness is more important than small; that BigMoney should be making the rules for everyone else.

Montana Jones and Michael Schmidt, along with many others have been fighting the good fight on their and our behalf for a while now. It's time for us to support them.

To find out more about Montana and Michael  click here to go to the bovine. The stories are all there.

Please consider giving a donation if you cannot attend.

I will be going to cover this event for the blog and I hope to see you there. If not, come on back after the 30th and read all about it here.

Thanks
Michelle

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Cool Cuisine

available at amazon

Review: 

Cool Cuisine: Taking the bite out of Global Warming

                  By Laura Stec with Dr. Eugene Cordero

Who are they?
Laura Stec is a San Fransisco Bay area Chef and environmental advocate. She gives lectures with EcoSpeakers.com and owns her own chef/catering business.

Dr. Eugene Cordero is an associate professor in the Department of Meteorology at San Jose State University in California. He teaches courses in climate change and his research interests centre around understanding the processes behind long-term climate change. 

First Impressions:

Amongst the half-baked concepts, the deliberate audacious spouting of half-truths and the willing denials of BigBusiness, it is heartening to find a book marrying the ideas of a local-vore lifestyle and the science behind reducing our carbon footprint and to have it delivered in a non-histrionic way that neither absolves nor occludes.

Laura Stec’s writing style is clear, friendly and to the point. Her pragmatic viewpoint of our impact on our planet is neither that of an alarmist nor is it oppressive. She lays out quite earnestly the ways our food system works or doesn’t work depending on your point of view. She doesn’t leave you hanging as to HOW you can make changes in your foodstyle but offers tips and suggestions in incorporating new ideas seamlessly into your life. While I am not 100% in agreement with her suggestions, I do agree with most information you will find in this book.

Throughout the book are tidbits and articles from Dr. Cordero that gives the facts behind the concepts of the various ways we are impacting the earth. These help to illustrate concretely the damage we are doing to ourselves--through our bodies and the planet those bodies live upon.

There are many issues surrounding the carbon footprints of the goods we buy, manufacture and sell. This book attempts to organize and present the topics concisely, calmly and practically. The book is divided into three parts:

• Background
• Solutions 
• Culinary How-to 

Let’s take a look at the first part of the first part. Here she illustrates the concepts behind a global warming diet and the impact upon our environment as well as outlines a partial list of what we can do to promote a ‘cool cuisine’.

Global Warming Diet…What is it?

“…it’s a machine cuisine we are eating today and it takes about 500 gallons(1,890L) of oil per person each year to produce it….we emit similar amounts of carbon dioxide eating as we do by driving…U.S. gov’t research shows our chemical fertilizer and herbicide-based food system contributes close to 20% of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.”   Page 5

What makes up the global warming diet?

• A lot of beef. It takes a lot of fossil fuels to produce a calorie of beef protein—more than ten times what it takes to produce a calorie of grain protein. 

• Importing our food and drink in copious amounts.

• Overuse of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. The US uses 22 billion pounds of fertilizer to grow the grain to feed livestock.

• Processed, frozen and prepared foods “makes up three-quarters of global food sales by price(not by quantity) and typically requires more energy to make than what we get back when we eat it.”

• Drinking bottled water. “ it takes approximately 17 million barrels of oil just to make the plastic for the 29+ billion plastic water bottles used in the United States each year.”

• High fructose corn syrup which not only comprises over 15% of an average American’s daily caloric intake, it is also the product of corn—corn which is usually a mono-cropped product and is taking valuable fertile land for vegetable growing in order to produce unhealthy sugar, useless ethanol and feed for ‘caged’ animals.

• Food waste. “nearly half of all the food harvested in the US goes to waste each year. Our food system generates 3,774 calories per person per day but we consume only approximately 2,100 calories; the rest is wasted by overeating or by just throwing it away.”

From the University of California, Davis, 2007

Largest Global-Warming Diet Contributors

• Livestock
• Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers 
• Greenhouses 
• Air freight
• Food Waste
• Consumer travel to and from store

Every day we are showing how little we value the very foods that sustain us, keep us moving and healthy and that actually taste good. We overspend on junk food, fast food and foods that are not ‘real’. Nothing compares to the taste of fruits and vegetables ripened on the vine yet we constantly purchase force-ripened or dyed foods in the mistaken belief we are ‘eating healthy’. Unfortunately with lower income families and individuals it is more often than not cheaper to buy junk foods and processed foods than to buy healthier choices. From the calories per dollar standpoint it is better to buy a 1200 calorie bag of chips than 250 calorie bag of carrots for the same amount of money. Is it any wonder we have an obesity problem in North America?

What can we do?

She does give some ideas on how to lower your carbon footprint in regards to shopping and eating. This is where my agreement with her diverges. I firmly believe we can all make changes in our foodstyle but not all of us can approach the Stage Three of her cool cuisine ideas. Most of us can handle the first two stages but to be realistic, the level of commitment each of us can give will vary immensely.

Sometimes strident goals can be a deterrent to those who want to lower their footprint but have no desire to eliminate meat from their diets—I am one of them. I am an unabashed omnivore. I think if we just followed half of her lists we would all be in a better place both in regards to the environment as well as to our health.

 I also wish she would be more emphatic as to the sources of beef she recommends we decrease ie most of the cattle-grazing and soy growing land in the six million acres of cleared Amazon rainforest are destined for the fast food, steakhouse and BigGrocery establishments, not home cooks and ‘normal’ meat eaters.

She then goes on to cover topics like how much healthy soil means to our foods, mono-cropping, and fair trade coffee and chocolate. At the end of each chapter along with some recipes, there is a page entitled Book 'n' Cook Club Ideas. I like this as she details the differing things that can be done either alone or together in a group of like-minded individuals such as videos to watch, books to read and recipes to try.

Water, water everywhere, is there a drop to drink?
Chapter 4 illustrates just what is behind our bottled water consumption and how it impacts our environment and tackles the issue of bottled vs tap in terms of taste, energy consumption and reusing your plastic bottles. I like that she conducted an experiment looking into the bacteria question of refilling a bottle without the benefit of washing it first, which is something that would occur if we were to do this at work or outside on a walk/jog/run. She hired a San Francisco microbiology lab to run the test where four PET bottles in different states of short-term use were tested for bacteria count and she included her own stainless steel bottle that hadn't been 'washed' in a year and a half. Personally, ewww.

Here are the results of the test:

Sample	Standard Bacteria Plate Count
Never used; water poured out (plastic)	1
Used once; not refilled (plastic)	58
Used once; refilled, used again (plastic)	3
Refilled for  2 ½ weeks (plastic)	4
Refilled for  1 ½ years (metal; never washed)	340,000

anomaly: assumed to be contaminated before test but still safe

While the results show that in all cases it was perfectly safe to drink out of, it is still recommended to wash your bottles with warm soapy water. And what about that large number for the metal bottle that was never washed? According to the microbiologist you could consume the same amount of bacteria eating a raw vegetable or salad, unwashed. In other words, it won't kill you.

However, it must be understood that even "newly purchased bottled water can have high levels of bacteria."  The NRDC (National Resources Defence Council) commissioned tests for over 1,000 water bottles from 103 different bottled waters and they found that most bottled water is a good quality, many were found (around 1/4) to contain over-the-limit amounts of arsenic or certain cancer causing synthetic compounds. "...about one in five of the bottled waters tested contained at least one sample with more bacteria than recommended in industry guidelines."

Making a difference

In the next section, Solutions, she illustrates 7 different companies or individuals who are making a difference-what she calls Innovative Risk-takers-and how we benefit from their endeavours.

In the final section, Culinary How-to, she demonstrates how easily we can, and do in some cases, incorporate better eating, purchasing and cooking habits into our lives. In speaking about her catering experiences of people leaving food behind that has nothing to do with the food's taste or proportions, she asked herself "Are they feeding off of more than just the food; maybe the people, the excitement and the energy adds to their feeling of 'fullness?" Which in turn led her to begin to wonder about satisfaction and what exactly it means to us. She then makes a statement that deserves some thought by every consumer:

 "If satisfaction were only about quantity, surely we would have had our fill by now. What if quality plays a more important role than we think? If satisfaction also involves quality, we would need to learn how to feed our bodies, minds, and souls. Our stomachs can be filled with food, but family, friends and feelings feed our heads and our hearts. Food is just the vehicle that brings us together so we can feed the other parts of ourselves with conversation and connection ...When cooking together and sharing food, our meals are prepared with hands of loving grace rather than with the hands of indifference..."

A good point that goes beyond merely wanting to lower your carbon footprint to learning about different foods and growing practices as well as getting to know your local farmers and food producers. It's food for the soul as well as the body.

So, do I like this book because it coincides with my own viewpoints that I have stated before? Of course. I would hardly advocate a book that was the antithesis of my philosophy. However, I strongly believe that this book could sway even those who have given next to no thought on the subject as well as the hardened proponent of machined foods, if they gave it a chance.

I had originally planned to prepare some of the recipes found in the book but I realized that I simply don't have the time to do so at the moment. It is something I will save for a later date.

My recommendations for local-vores

In keeping with the theme, let me tell you about this great new pizzeria here in town, The Italian House Pizzeria. Not only do they take great pride in their food, they also make it fresh in house using local farmers and suppliers. And it shows believe me. Our pizza had roasted cremini mushrooms, roasted red pepper strips and the best smoked bacon strips I have had in a long time-certainly not your run of the mill pizza. Finally, a place that knows what quality ingredients and community involvement means. I highly recommend it. You can find them here on Facebook and here on their website.

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