What’s Your Local Food Culture? terrior should help…

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What’s Your Local Food Culture? terrior should help…

Where ever your local may be, it’s underpinned by some kind of food culture and connection to regional biodiversity.  Wine has terrior, the central plate looks to ‘local’ as a way to better connect food system with community, culture and family.

Eating international cuisine isn’t a problem—but, as Simon Preston points out, there are benefits to having a local food culture, as well. So he asks this interesting question: is it possible to invent a food culture in the 21st century? He decided to try and create one in the rural Aberdeenshire (UK) town of Huntly:

It’s an interesting idea, especially for many American who have lost the culinary cultures of their past, due to the burgeoning influences of other cultures and food chains in their homelands. Excepting certain cities with distinctive gastronomic traditions, like New York City or Philadelphia, many American towns don’t have dishes to call their own. But as Preston points out, it’s never too late to begin examining local ingredients again: our states, counties, and cities offer us a wealth of history, terrain, crops, and animals with which to build a local food culture.

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SHORT VIDEO:  The Truth about Fat – TIME magazine

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For years, the advice from the USDA has been to reduce the level of saturated fat in your diet, in order to lower your overall cholesterol. However, a new meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine has thrown that whole approach in to question.

The removal of fats from our diet has led to an increase in consumption of carbohydrates and processed low-fat alternatives, which has contributed to record levels of diabetes and obesity.

When you consider that most low-fat or non-fat products are laden with salts, sugars and preservatives, continuing to seek out fat-free alternatives could be doing you more harm than good.

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10 things snack food companies won’t tell you!

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The growing prevalence of obesity, diabetes and other food-related health problems in the U.S. has arguably made us much more aware of what we eat. But the snack-food industry remains a major economic force. Over the past five years, the industry has grown at an average annual rate of 3.8%, and it will rake in an estimated $34.6 billion in sales this year, according to research firm IBISWorld. An IBISWorld report calls the industry’s future “promising” and notes that the improving economy will likely “lift both domestic and foreign demand for snacks.”

Things junk food companies won’t tell you:

  • big bucks spent to reach your kids
  • ingredients have a big ick factor
  • some ingredients used are banned in other countries.
  • no expiration dates
  • filthy production facilities
  • cheap energy – for cheap
  • enriched (processed) for our bottomline
  • and more

Apitronics founder Louis Thiery is on Growing Business radio show

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Apitronics founder Louis Thiery is on Growing Business radio show

On this episode of Growing Business Aaron Niederhelman and Lindsay Poole speak with Louis Thiery, founder of Apitronics. A rising star in the agricultural Business Intelligence world, Louis and team have begun unlocking the future of farming through quantitative analysis and efficiency.

Apitronics is a start-up coming out of Somerville, MA. The company has created a product to measure information on farms through sensors. The sensors are put throughout the farm, working as a network to pull information together. This gives farmers the information they need to make the best decisions for their products.

Louis says his idea for the product came directly from a need he saw not being fulfilled in the industry. After graduating college, Louis moved out to Colorado to work on a farm. He wanted to learn more about where the food he was eating was coming from. Instead he observed that farmers lacked the technology needed to monitor variables on their farms.

Cheap Drones Give Farmers a new way to improve Crop Yields | MIT Review

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Cheap Drones Give Farmers a new way to improve Crop Yields | MIT Review

Drones can provide farmers with three types of detailed views. First, seeing a crop from the air can reveal patterns that expose everything from irrigation problems to soil variation and even pest and fungal infestations that aren’t apparent at eye level. Second, airborne cameras can take multispectral images, capturing data from the infrared as well as the visual spectrum, which can be combined to create a view of the crop that highlights differences between healthy and distressed plants in a way that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Finally, a drone can survey a crop every week, every day, or even every hour. Combined to create a time-series animation, that imagery can show changes in the crop, revealing trouble spots or opportunities for better crop management.

It’s part of a trend toward increasingly data-driven agriculture. Farms today are bursting with engineering marvels, the result of years of automation and other innovations designed to grow more food with less labor. 

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New England hyper-local beerfest crushes greater Boston

Hosted by the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts, the event has grown from simply promoting the local economy and supporting local brewers to showcasing what can be accomplished with indigenous materials. For the first time in the event’s history, brewers had to offer at least one product with a local component to make it into the weekend’s lineup. It was not difficult to find contenders.

While localism within beer-making may be emerging, the phenomenon of craft brewing is nothing new to anyone who has ventured into a Massachusetts bar in the last five years.  According to the Brewers Association, the number of small and independent US craft brewers has boomed from 1,459 in 2007 to 2,768 in 2013. From 2012 to 2013 alone, there was a 15 percent increase in the market nationwide, and there are now 57 in Massachusetts.

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TED VIDEO:   Diet & nutrition fights cancer! Let’s take our clues from mother nature.

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William Li (from Cambridge MA based Angiogenesis Foundation) presents a new way to think about treating cancer and other diseases: anti-angiogenesis, preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor. The crucial first (and best) step: Eating cancer-fighting foods that cut off the supply lines and beat cancer at its own game.

“We can empower ourselves… If  mother nature has give up some clues – a new future in the value of what we eat ,and what we eat is the new future of chemotherapy.”

“Everyone can afford a health diet from a local and sustainable diet.”

20+ Food & Ag thought-leaders on ‘Growing Business’ Radio

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20+ Food & Ag thought-leaders on ‘Growing Business’ Radio

Greg Georgaklis – Founder and CEO – “Farmers to You”

John Taylor – Head chef – Panera Bread

Louis Thiery – Founder at Apitronics – a central point for farm data monitoring & intelligence

Brad McNamara – Freight Farms Founder/CEO – local food hydroponics with global reach

Adam Goldberg – Encompass Ed founder – explores the role of nutrition in the Autism epidemic

Jared Auerback – Founder at ‘Red’s Best’ – NE fisheries & food traceability expert

Kip Kumler – Master wine maker, President & Founder at Turtle Creek winery

Chip Collins – TIMO founder – 4th largest US landowner & ecology management leader

Holly Fowler – Food-system thought leader, founder at ‘Northbound Ventures’

Lisa Sebesta – ‘Fresh Source Capital’ founder and local food guru

Peter Juusola – COO at Flour Bakery & Cafe – sourcing only local/better foods

Peter Burrows – Past CIO at Adidas/ Reebok turned VT Pig Farmer

Sean Buchanan – Head of proteins & business development at ‘Black River Produce’

Ian McSweeney – Land Conservation Easement specialist from the ‘Russell Foundation’

Mike Speights – Founder Boston-based organic meal delivery ‘The Foodery’

Jessie Banhazl – CEO & founder at urban farming specialists ‘Green City Growers’

Jeff Sirlin – Board member ‘Cancer & Nutrition Consortium’ and founder at CWellness

Melissa Benedikt – Raw, Organic & Grass-fed dairy owner & ‘Land-for-Good’ agent

Lynn Schenk – Social impact investment leader & mom focused on sourcing local foods

Jan Schlichtmann – Famous Environmental Lawyer turned Gloucester fish monger

Jennifer Hashley – Tuft’s New Entry Farming Project & ‘Pete & Jen’s Backyard birds’

Chris Cronin – Executive Chef at Washington Sq Tavern – sourcing quality proteins 

Adrian Gill – Past head of Puma global footwear, branding guru & advocate for local food 

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Setting new standards, Panera leads by listening to their consumers.

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With 1800 restaurants committed to healthier and more transparent foods, Panera has ‘bet the farm’ on sourcing higher quality real food with provenance.

Panera Bread began with a simple commitment: to bake fresh bread from fresh dough each day in our bakery-cafes. That single, powerful commitment set the stage for a series of conscious, challenging decisions that have essentially made Panera what it is today.

  • Clean Ingredients
  • Transparent menu
  • Positive impact