3/24/2012

Who owns YOUR favorite brand?

I'm a bit behind the times, but I finally watched Food, Inc.  Part of the film focuses on how some organic/natural food companies have sold out to bigger corporations.  Some of them did it for profit.  Others  so that they could market and distribute more effectively, thereby reaching a greater number of consumers and affecting a larger (beneficial) change to the current system of food production.  I was curious enough that I did a bit of my own research, as I do have my own list of favorite and semi-trusted brands.  Some of them I knew had been acquired by larger corporations.  Others were a surprise.  Here's what I found:

  • Back to Nature - Kraft
  • Bear Naked - Kelloggs
  • Ben and Jerrys - Unilever
  • Burt's Bees - Clorox
  • Cascadian Farm - General Mills
  • Earth's Best - Heinz
  • Kashi - Kelloggs (this one was a HUGE disappointment to me) 
  • Honest Tea - Coca-Cola
  • Horizon -Dean Foods 
  • Lightlife Foods (aka SmartDogs, etc) - ConAgra
  • Morningstar Farms - Kelloggs
  • Mother's - Quaker/Pepsi
  • Muir Glenn - General Mills
  • Naked (juice) - Pepsi
  • Odwalla Juice - Coca-Cola 
  • R.W. Knudsen - Smuckers
  • Santa Cruz Organic - Smuckers
  • Silk - Dean Foods
  • Stoneyfield Farms - Groupe Danone
  • Seeds of Change - M&M/Mars
  • Tom's of Maine - Colgate-Palmolive
I'm still trying to decide how I feel about this.  On one hand, I like a system that makes organic/natural foods affordable and accessible to more people.  But on the other hand, I hate knowing that when I buy, say, Burt's Bee's products, I'm supporting the chemical system behind Clorox.  Or that the dollars spent on my Kashi cereal go to finance the GMOs bought by Kelloggs.

Thoughts?

3/19/2012

Thought for the day

“They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast.”
– Dr. Seuss

3/18/2012

Jarhead

Today really brought home how much I love canning jars.  They're so convenient for so many things, that I can't figure out how some people live without them.  Just today I used them for:
  • "canning" maple syrup that I bought in bulk from the farmer's market.  I bought a half-gallon and repackaged it into pints so that it wouldn't crystallize before I could use it.
  • mixing up a bit of BBQ sauce in a half-pint jar to take out to the grill
  • packing up leftovers from dinner (pint)
  • repackaging honey from the store that was in a plastic jug.  I can't remember why I bought this instead of local honey, but it was starting to crystallize.  The narrow mouth of the plastic made it really hard to get to the honey, and I was hesitant to put the plastic in the microwave.
  • making sun tea (half gallon)
  • a makeshift coffee mug
 This is in addition to the jars in my fridge that hold my milk, the jars of food that I've canned, the jars of dry beans in the pantry, and the jars of soup and chili I froze in the freezer.  Seriously, I use them for everything.

3/09/2012

This year's homesteading plans

Yes, yes, I'm well aware that the year started about 3 months ago...  But the gardening season is just starting here, so it seems an appropriate time to talk about my goals.

First of all, our garden will be considerably smaller than the past two years.  Really small.  Baby #2 is set to make an appearance in mid-July, and I just don't want to be inundated with tomatoes while trying to adjust to having two littles.  I am still planning on making my own sauce and juice and canning fresh tomatoes, but I'd like to do it on my schedule.  So I will buy my tomatoes at the market in order to have some leeway with timing.  I'd hate to let tomatoes rot because I'm exhausted from a colicky baby or something.  I think I'm just going to grow dry beans, squash, carrots, onions, potatoes, and watermelon this year.  Everything should store well, so even if I'm a little slow to harvest, there shouldn't be any issues. 

My hens are going absolutely crazy laying eggs.  I've read in numerous places that a hen needs many hours of daylight to continue to lay, but my girls laid all through winter.  Production did slow down, but I never got less than 3 eggs per day once everyone started laying.  Now with the slightly longer days and warmer temps, I'm getting 5-6 eggs per day.  I love being able to feed them our kitchen scraps and leftovers that are going bad (though we've been really good about having less of those!).  No changes are planned for the girls, barring any catastrophes.

But we are going to get more chickens.  I have a friend with a barn and fenced horse pasture (out of use) who has offered to raise chicks with me!  We're going to get Freedom Rangers, as I have some ethical objections to the cornish cross hybrid (namely, I believe it is cruel to breed a bird to grow and gain weight so quickly that its legs and heart cannot support it.  I realize that sometimes this can be mitigated by withholding feed for some of the day, but I just don't feel it is responsible to breed a bird that is predisposed to so many health issues).  Our 25 chicks will arrive in late May or early June, and we will plan on butchering at about 12 weeks.  I would like to do the butchering ourselves, and another friend may have a chicken plucker built by then that we could borrow to speed things along.

I'm slowly but surely adding to my cooking repertoire.  Recently, I've made homemade Lara bars from dried dates, dried cherries, and walnuts (recipe).  Mine turned out a bit less sticky than they needed to be, but I about blew the motor on my mini food chopper, so I just left it instead of adding more dates and cherries.  I've also made broccoli cheddar soup (yum!) from this recipe.  I halved it and used all cheddar instead of "processed cheese".  I also added onion when I was melting my butter.  I had to cook it WAY longer than 30 minutes to make the broccoli less crunchy, but it was very good.  And...  I got brave and made my own pie crust to use for my chicken pot pie after learning that Pillsbury refrigerated crusts have awful ingredients and artificial colors.  Yuck.  I've always been scared of pie crusts, but decided to give it a go.  I found a recipe using 5 ingredients: flour, butter, salt, sugar, and water.  The first one was a dud (though edible), but version 2.0 was quite good.  I only used 2 1/4 cups of flour, so it wasn't so dry.  I'm impressed with myself.  If you decide to try your hand at crusts, I strongly suggest rolling it out onto a piece of parchment paper or waxed paper.  It makes transferring the crust to the dish so much easier and allows you to use much less flour.  I'm planning on making up a couple and freezing them so that they're on-hand in a pinch.

Foods I want to learn to make are yogurt, a good wheat sandwich bread, more soups, and homemade pasta.

But really, things here will just be business as usual this year.  As always, we're taking baby-steps to increase our self-sufficiency, eat healthier, support our local economy, and live more mindfully.  Some days I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything, but every time I take my lunch to work in a mason jar, I'm reminded of how far I've come.

3/04/2012

Bathroom remodel: The week in pictures

Grouted floor!  There are a few areas I'm not thrilled with, but considering how wavy our floor was, I understand that perfection just was not to be.
 

Kohler Memoirs 24" pedestal sink, Restoration Hardware medicine cabinet, and sconces from Home Depot

The throne (Kohler Memoirs with stately design)

Detail of cabinet and lights

Sink with American Standard Hampton faucet

My favorite detail: marble threshold!
T is coming back on Monday to finish mudding and sanding the drywall and to touch up the grout in the tub.  He also has to redo the caulk, as there was a lot of dust floating around the bathroom at the time, and it stuck to it and made it look permanently dirty.  I think his work will be wrapped up by Wednesday, and then Shayne will install the wainscot, baseboard, and window/door trim.  Almost there!!