News & Views

Fish is good for you! It’s low in saturated fat, good for your heart, and tastes great. It’s true that large ocean predators are high in mercury and chemicals from plastics. But the benefits of fish are bigger than the risks, according to studies. So we should eat it, right?

What a year it's been! Between our first post - proudly proclaiming that we joined a CSA - and our recent letter to Santa Claus, we've grown gardens, pickled dilly beans, and made lifelong friends. Here are just a few highlights from 2009:

James McWilliams:
Food writer, fellow, professor, blogger, and locagrarian contrarianCommunity. It’s a name for the place where we live, but also for the social connections that we live among. In yesterday's post, it was a word used by two people on two occasions to describe the benefits of opening a new food co-op in the Orono/Long Lake area, and a new farmers market in Edina.

Dear Santa:

Susan Berkson, going Homegrown for the HolidaysWe go home for the holidays. Why not go homegrown?

I spent Thanksgiving in Tyler, Texas, where I feasted on Tyler's own Greenberg smoked turkey and Scenic Waters Wild Rice I brought from Minnesota.

The other day, as I was contemplating the offerings at Lakewinds' seafood case, one of the gentlemen working there told me to consider the frozen wild salmon.

It's actually better than fresh, he said, because it's flash frozen as soon as it's caught and then vacuum-sealed to preserve the flavor -- even before it begins its journey to restaurants and stores.

I took his advice because he has steered me right in the past with other seafood purchases I've made there, such as buying, stuffing, and grilling the delicious -- and almost local -- Wisconsin trout.

Safe-food advocate and attorney,
Bill Marler, in his Seattle law office.
                       

ana Sofia joanes to DOJ:
"Free our farmers"

Photo Credit: Wall Street JournalInteresting piece in the Wall Street Journal this week about the Nestle company using fair-trade chocolate in its U.K. KitKats starting in January 2010. Here's an excerpt from the article by Deborah Ball: