1. This is just too sad – Farmers leave strawberries to rot as prices collapse.  The weather in Florida has been crazy this winter. First the tomatoes, now the strawberries.
2. Check out this link to  an interesting new local crop being grown in California.
3. For those of you who like Asian Pears, a new drink has been developed – link here.
4. Can’t get your kids to eat their vegetables? Here’s a story about Dutch researchers who tested children to find out what was there preferred way of eating vegetables. Steamed or boiled vegetables won out over other methods of preparation.
5. Eating healthier is certainly one of the items in the forefront of the news these day, especially given Michelle Obama’s involvement in children’s nutrition issues. It is hard to change the way you eat; expecting overnight change is certainly unrealistic. But baby steps will certainly help. Here is a column about that very issue: Confessions of a Locavore Pretender.
6. A novel idea to help Detroit’s economy: Is urban farming Detroit’s cash cow? Detroit has been on a downhill slide in recent years and much of the city is vacant. This sounds like a good way to add local jobs, produce local food and add dollars to the local economy. One of the proposed farms could be 2,000 acres. Wow!

Enjoy!

Frito Lay thinks so. The potato chip company has started a new series of ads that feature the farmers who grow the potatoes used to make the Frito Lay potato chips you find on the shelves at your local grocer.

Frito-Lay pitches its Lay’s potato chips as locally made

I am not sure that buying a bag of chips qualifies as buying local. However, you have to give Lays some credit for supporting the American farmer.

The definition of a locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally usually defined as within a certain radius such as 50 or 100 miles. With the “Buy Local” movement growing by leaps and bounds, it is not surprising to see the food companies trying to cash in, much as they did with the organic movement.

However, here is an idea for a truly local potato chip. Stop by this summer and pick up some of our delicious potatoes and make your own! Below is a recipe to show you how simple it is. I remember my mother making homemade potato chips when I was young and boy were they good!

Homemade Potato Chips

A lot of shoppers are not aware of the country of origin for their fruits and vegetables. Many of the things you would assume are grown here in the United States actually are not. I found this link – Food & Water Watch: Global Grocer – recently and it is interesting. You can select a food (everything from frozen food to canned goods to fresh fruits and vegetables) and the site will tell you what the chances are that the item you are holding in your hand is imported and what countries are the main suppliers. For example, asparagus has a 3 in 4 chance of being imported, primarily from Peru and Mexico. So sad, as this used to be a crop grown primarily in Michigan and Washington state. Check out this site, click on start shopping and see where your food is coming from.

Remember Buy Local, Buy Michigan!

With all the fuss about Earth Day and climate change that you hear nowadays, here is a easy way to go green: Going green as simple as buying local.

Besides all of the good things you do for the environment, the food tastes better and you help support your local farmers. A win-win situation for everyone involved!

Last year, we grew onions at Magicland Farms – our world famous Newaygo Newaygo sweets and sweet Spanish onions. The Newaygo Newaygo onions were a huge hit at the stand – wonderful taste and nice size but they are not an onion that will store well. The sweet Spanish onions were also tasty and we brought home some to use over the winter and they have stored pretty well. Today, I was making a BBQ Meatloaf for lunch and we came up with some sad news. The onions are about done and pretty soon we will have to find somewhere to get some onions from.

The good news about this is that the onions lasted until almost March – we are quite pleased with that. The bad news is that we don’t exactly know what to buy to keep us going until our onions come in. We are hesitant to buy onions from a foreign country and, with the salmonella/e.coli scares of the past seasons, don’t exactly trust the produce we find in our local grocery store.

This is one of the big reasons that the “buy local” movement is so important today. If you buy local, you know where your food is coming from and in a lot of instances you can get to know the farmer who grew it.

Of course, buying only local produce also has the tradeoff that you only buy what is in season and right now for us, local onions are not in season. So, the big challenge is to find a decent onion that we can grow and will store a bit longer for winter use. Maybe one of the new ones we are growing this year will be the one that will solve our winter storage problem. Let’s hope so!

On the Eat Local Challenge website, I stumbled upon a list of ten reasons to eat local. These reasons make a great straightforward case for buying from your local farmer (Magicland Farms). You can check out the whole post at this link, but here is a quick summary, with my comments:

1. Eating local means more for the local economy. This just seems to make sense. When you buy from a local source, your money stays in your local area which helps keep the local economy moving.

2. Locally grown produce is fresher. At our stand, we pick every day, several times a day. Compare that to a grocery store where their produce is shipped in after being picked when?

3. Local food just plain tastes better. Ever tasted a just picked tomato vs. a store bought one? The difference is remarkable. Or a store bought strawberry vs. a Magicland Kids strawberry? I used to think I hated strawberries, having only tasted the ones sold in the local grocery chain in Chicago. It wasn’t until I got here in Michigan that I realized the difference in taste. Need I say more?

4. Locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen. Produce bought at the grocery stores is oftentimes picked before it is ripe in order to withstand the rigors of shipping. Our produce is allowed to ripen on the vines, thereby giving you the best product we can provide.

5. Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic. The organic food in the store is shipped in from far away places including overseas. What is the impact on the environment?

6. Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons. Because of the grocery stores and the year round availability of most produce, consumers today don’t know what is in season. For example, while I am down at the stand, I have to explain to customers why we don’t have Fuji apples in June and conversely why we do have Quinte apples in July. (Quinte ripen here in mid July while Fuji not until Halloween.) Fruits and vegetables all have their seasons and learning when that is enables to you buy the freshest best tasting produce you can find.

7. Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story. Get to know us when you visit. Learn how we grow things, how we choose what we grow, what our motivation is, learn about us. We have lots of stories to tell!

8. Eating local protects us from bio-terrorism. I would add to this that buying local also helps avoid most of the contamination problems of recent months, including the peanut salmonella problem currently going on and the pepper/tomato e.coli contamination scare of last year. But bio-terrorism is also a legitimate concern.

9. Local food translates to more variety. We grow a lot of things that stores are not interested in since they concentrate on mainly the most popular varieties (Red Delicious apples are a good example). We have the freedom to grow things that you wouldn’t find in the grocery store. For example, we have close to 100 different varieties of apples (modern varieties and antique) in our orchard, many different varieties of heirloom tomatoes. We grow around 20 different varieties of sweet corn. All of these varieties have their own flavor and story. We don’t only grow green beans, but french filet beans and yellow wax beans. Our peppers reflect the colors of the rainbow, everything from white to orange to red to purple to green. I could go on but I think you understand my point.

With just the heirloom tomatoes and the apples, many of our customers get great enjoyment out of trying the different varieties and finding out how different they each taste while settling on their favorites.

10. Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. As long as Magicland Farms is in business, you know the land won’t be developed or transformed into something that destroys the rural nature of our area.

So there are lots of benefits to buying local. Hope to see you down at the stand this summer.