Weekend Reading

Reading

Jill Richardson lays out our options in terms of a response to the USDA's decision to legalize genetically-altered alfafa into our food supply. Like other GE-foods, it will not be labeled in any way. I think she's right in calling for labeling -- but then I want school food labeled.

The Small Bites blog had a couple of pieces that just might convince you that Munchkins et al. are not good foods for children.  or anyone.

The same blog also posted an aisle-by-aisle guide to navigating the supermarket - in case you plan to shop this weekend.

Truthfully,  I had to look it up but it appears that the Super Bowl is this weekend.  So, if you need to bring something to a party, Eating Well has some healthy recipes ideas.  As do 366,000 other sites according to Google.

Downloads

Feeding America is offering a download of "Cookbook for a Cause" - and asking that you make a doantion to the nation's food bank network.  I have not looked at them but the recipes are billed as "easy and economical" as well as healthy.

Shopping

From Slow Food Huntington's email -

Long Island Winter Farmer’s Market
The locations alternate between Huntington and Northport
From one of our members:
-- I've been to the first market at West Hills -- the Organic Vegetables were amazing! Grows year round in high tunnels. There is also great cheese and bread, and live music!
Among the vendors are: All You Knead Artisan Bakery (Beacon, NY), Horman’s Best Pickles (Glen Cove, NY), Madura Fams (Orange County, NY), Migliorelli Farms (Dutchess County, NY), Ronnybrook Dairy (Hudson Valley, NY), Sannino’s Bella Vita Vineyard (North Fork), The Big Cheese (selling Long Island-made artisan cheese)

Huntington Farmer’s Market
Jan-April, Saturdays 9am-1pm
Sweet Hollow Hall
West Hills County Park
Melville, NY
(Off of Old Country Rd)
Dates: Feb. 5 and 19, March 5 and 19, April 2 and 16

Movies to See

Slow Food Huntington Brings you -

Movie Night at the Reconstructionist Synagogue
Tuesday, February 8 at 7pm
Food, Inc.
Film, followed by panel discussion

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.
admission: $5
Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore, 1001 Plandome Rd, Manhasset

Petitions to Sign

This email came from the Working Families Party:

When you fill up your tank at the station, have you ever been tempted to just grab the nozzle and take a swig? Thanks to hydrofracking [1], we can all be gas-guzzlers now. And you don’t even need a car.

That’s because, as a Congressional investigation just revealed [2], oil and gas companies – in their endless quest to “frack” – have pumped tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into wells that run straight into our nation’s water supply.

Now these companies want permission from Albany to bring fracking to New York. These diesel injections violate the Safe Drinking Water Act, and they put all of our communities at risk.

Will you sign this emergency petition to Governor Cuomo, asking him to put a permanent ban on hydrofracking in New York?

http://bit.ly/NoDiesel

Toluene. Xylene. Benzene. Do those sound like additives you want in your family’s water supply?

One of the companies caught in the act was Halliburton. Yep, that Halliburton. Maybe Dick Cheney asks for diesel with his tap water, but I prefer just a lemon wedge, thank you.

There’s no two ways around it – hydrofracking is dirty and dangerous to our drinking water. Thankfully, as the EPA sorts out its next moves in Washington, Gov. Cuomo can continue a fracking moratorium here in New York.

With this shocking new report, the movement to protect drinking water is gaining new momentum – but we need to make our voices heard in Albany, where oil and gas lobbyists no doubt think their money can trump our safety.

Join us in asking Gov. Cuomo to keep our state’s water safe and clean:

http://bit.ly/NoDiesel

Thanks,

T.J. & the Working Families team

Notes:
1) Hydrofracking = short for hydraulic fracturing – a dangerous natural gas drilling technique.
2) New York Times: [link]