Community Supported Medicine shares are awesome

Take the becoming-more-common foodie and locavore adage, “food as medicine,” and push it further. Food is medicine. Medicine is food.

"Hanging Milky Oats to dry. Oats are considered a nutritive herb help replenish the body. They are loaded with calcium. It is a nervine tonic which means it helps with stress and anxiety. This is the same plant your oatmeal comes from...just harvested at a different stage of maturity" (lancasterfarmacy.blogspot.com).

Winter is commonly heralded as an external cold and slow slumber. Thanks to children’s books about bears and butterflies, and many times our own empirical evidence, we recognize winter as a temporal space which allows for necessary but unseen incubation to enable recuperation, regeneration, and a later on outward growth.  The same could be said for Lancaster Farmacy.

"Wild Bergamont harvest with a hint of Bee Balm. The bees and butterflies love this plant and it grows in the wild. We love it so much we had to grow it at the farm. It tastes and smells like oregano, and helps with digestive problems. A poultice of it helps draw infection from things like bee stings too" (lancasterfarmacy.blogspot.com).

About four winters ago (in 2009), Casey and Eli founded Farmacy after moving home to Lancaster. With varying but complimentary backgrounds and ideological allegiances in herbalism, rewilding, community organization, grassroots activism, cooperative modeling, and farming, the Community Supported Medicine share was planted. The CSM is a crop that’s grown out of the winters away from Lancaster and the mutual labor and love on Casey and Eli’s return. Their mission was and still is to use their herbal medicine shares to heal the local community and land naturally.

Bio dynamic farmers, Casey and Eli, resist the confines of conventional, mainstream food and medicine by working to rewild their land through decisive and cooperative—both community- and environment-based—farming. Their goals are to not only supply our community with local, organic medicine but also to support our local bioregion by sustaining accessibility to food and medicine for all community members.

"Just like the sun, Calendula opens up everyday. This flower does wonders for skin ailments including eczema, sunburns, rashes, you name it. Internally great for stomach problems and makes a mouthwash for helping canker sores. The flowers are edible and we make a colorful gazpacho with it" (lancasterfarmacy.blogspot.com).

 Their CSM share is excellently unique to LFFC—healing based on the CSA model with organic herbs and local herbalist wisdom. Each share is a monthly (3^rd week of each month) delivery of 3-5 items. You can expect any of these items to be healing salves, a bunch of fresh or dried herbs, tea blends, syrups, infused oils, bath salts, tonics, or tinctures. CSM shareholders will also receive an educational guide about each share inclusion whether it’s chickweed salve, Echinacea drops, a bunch of mint julep, or tea.

Photo and Information credit: Lancasterfarmacy.blogspot.com 

Want some cheeeese with that veggie share?

Cheese share? Guaranteed, if you eat dairy, you haven't had your share of cheese until you experience our cheese share—three locally crafted, artisan cheeses delivered with your veggies every month. You may also find yourself unwilling to share the cheese you receive from cheese share deliveries ironically enough. You will be showered with a varying, once-a-monthly array of three different local, artisan cheeses made from cow’s, sheep’s, or goat’s milk. Our cooperating cheese makers are from Hope Springs Farm, Misty Creek Goat Dairy, Green Acres Farm, Conestoga Creamery, Millwood Springs Organics, De-Glae Organics, and Dove Song Dairy.

Gone are the days of eating Cheez-Itz dipped in Cheez Whiz or Ritz crackers with a dollop of high pressured, canned American Easy Cheese on top. Kraft singles anyone? Blue box blues? Okay, too-early/mid nineties and Nickelodeon. Velveeta shells and cheese? Awkwardly thin cardboard box of cheese-like substance wrapped in equally as awkward and thin foil? Check. How is this stuff labeled per USDA regulations? I’m not sure yet.

Cheese doesn’t naturally melt into a uniform mass of orangey, velvety, smooth-and-creamy goo. Though Willy Wonka wasn’t a cheese maker--only candy as far as I can remember--some other major, big box brands do make "cheese." Alas, it is cheese food, processed cheese, and pasteurized prepared (better than processed?) cheese product(s) that they make, and it is these products that do this smoothly melting wonder. Cheese food stuffs that have been emulsified with unnaturally occurring additives and sets of ingredients that vary in degrees melt well without bleeding grease--unlike their all natural, aged cheddar or other legally so-named cheese counterparts.

Next question: what is American cheese? Historically, American cheese was a blend of varieties of Colby and Cheddar. Now, beyond its ubiquitous dairy aisle and fast food presence in addition to individual (and greasy) packaging, American cheese is actually just a loose term that refers to mild flavored, smooth and creamy cheese product, food, spread, or other cheese-like consistency product which cannot legally be called only cheese. You’ll notice many of the major brands of American cheese leave “cheese” out of the labeling altogether getting straight to the marketing point with “American slices” or “American singles.” While the cheese share will not include packages of stacked, individually wrapped slices of cheese that were formed by injection molding into cellophane envelopes, we have heard rave reviews about what we do offer.

 

Try, for example, a fresh goat cheese from nearby Dove Song Dairy in Bernville, PA. The goats, and all other livestock, are turned out year round on pastures that have not been treated with pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or sludge. In addition to the goats’ organic pastures, they eat a special ration custom combined by the folks at Dove Song which consists of their own organically grown barley, spelt, and sunflower seeds. Kelp, flaxseed, minerals are also added to keep the goats as happy and healthy as possible. To this end, they’re never fed corn or soy or given antibiotics, vaccines, or hormones.

At the right, you'll notice a yellow cup of chili topped with Dove Song's fresh goat chevre aptly named Bonfire for it's wood smoked and chipotle flavor. Aside from being a welcome flavor of warmth to any cup or bowl of chili, Bonfire would also be great with a pulled pork sandwich or chicken fajita. Their chevre, Fig-a-licious, sounds delightful with organic black mission figs in a creamy, fresh goat cheese lightly sweetened with local wildflower honey and nutmeg, too. Dove Song recommends trying this as a bagel spread or compliment to fresh pear slices. Or, you might also receive Raw Feta which has been aged for two months and cured in sea salt brine. Of course, this feta is great on salads, sprinkled over soup (or white or margherita pizza!), and even equally as amazing right out of the 8 oz. container with a spoon, fork, even a spork. 

Photos and meal ideas courtesy of Dove Song Dairy's website. All other photos were ripped from Google. Many thanks. 

Roses are red, violets are blue, flowers from the grocery are dirty and ew.

Organic flower shares. Why does it matter if the flowers are organic? It’s easy to recognize the benefits of an organic diet, eating food from LFFC allows you to be sure you are in control of the chemicals you are, or in this case, aren’t, consuming every time you dish up a meal for you and your family. But what is the harm behind picking up a bunch of flowers at the local store or florist? As the daughter of a former florist and regular purchaser of the grocery store rose bouquet (prior to researching this article anyway), I have to say I never gave my flowers much thought other than to decide what color I felt like looking at for the week ahead, but there is so much more to the story.

A face mask speaks a thousand words.

The typical florist or grocery store sourced bouquet has most likely come to you by way of Africa or South America. Due to the delicate nature and temperature sensitivity of flowers, they must be transported along a cold chain of temperature controlled trucks and cold storage boxes until they have reached their final destination, requiring huge amounts of energy along the way. In addition to energy resources, conventional flower farms use enormous amounts of water. As many of the large flower farms are based in developing countries in areas where water access is not always guaranteed, there can often be clashes over priority use of water. In Kenya, one of the primary exporters of flowers to Europe and the UK, the Lake Naivasha region has faced many water issues as a result of heavy water use by the many flower farms surrounding the lake. The water volume of Lake Naivasha has dropped by half since flower farming in the area took off, and the water remaining is so polluted that the survival rate of native hippo and fish populations have decreased significantly. As a result of declining fish populations in the lake, many local fishermen have been forced to pursue alternate careers.

In addition to the energy and water concerns associated with conventional international flower production, chemical use is widespread, including the use of many chemicals that have been banned in industrialized countries including the US.  DDT, Dieldrin, Methyl bromide and Methyl parathion are just a few of the toxic chemicals used on conventional flower farms around the world. A 2007 study by the International Labor Rights Fund determined that over 66% of Ecuadorian and Colombian flower workers showed signs of work related illnesses including “skin rashes, respiratory problems, and eye problems due to chronic exposure to toxic pesticides and fungicides.” A different study conducted of working conditions for Colombian flower farm workers reports workers are exposed to “as many as 127 different chemicals, mostly fungicides and pesticides” and has been linked to higher rates of miscarriages, premature births, and babies with congenital defects born to women working in the farms.

 Health issues associated with work on flower farms are not isolated to farms in developing countries. Dutch floral workers “are often exposed to 60 times the recognized safe levels” of chemicals where their indoor working environment prevents chemical residues and vapors from dissipating. As flowers entering the US are monitored not for chemical residue, but rather for insects, when imported- there is an incentive for flower farmers abroad to use large amounts of chemicals to ensure their products make their way to paying consumers. This widespread use of pesticides and fungicides in the flower industry means the flower bouquet from the grocery store that you happily shove your face in to and breathe deeply contains toxicity levels high enough to warrant being handled with gloves.  

Lovely LFFC flower shares

If you are like me, and now realize that the weekly treat of innocent flowers on your bedside table or book shelf is actually a hardship inducing poison bouquet, fear not- guilt (and chemical) free flowers are available! Our flower share contains flowers sourced from our member farms Millwood Springs Organics, Maple Lawn Organics, Lancaster Farmacy, and Windmill Farm Organics. Our locally sourced flowers make the long, high energy, and carbon emitting cold chain of transport obsolete. Using the same organic, chemical free methods of production that you have come to count on for your LFFC sourced produce, our flower shares contain none of the chemical residue you will find on the florist or grocery store bouquet which means you can feel free to breathe the wonderful scent of our local, seasonal bouquets without worry that the farmer who grew your flowers fell ill growing them for you to enjoy. 

The Incredible (Profitable and Shouldn’t be) Edible Egg

While we may not know if the chicken or the egg came first, we do know eggs do not come from the grocery store despite sales and shelving. Like milk, eggs come from cognitive animals that blink in the sun and have preferences about which of their peers they befriend or which area of their pasture is the best. Those refrigerated grocery store aisles have been expertly-designed, applauded, and promoted by the industry leaders like the American Egg Board (AEB). The AEB’s website uses rhetorically kitschy lists of 12 bullet points and 12 organizational suggestions for plan-o-grams to boost sales. Or, wait; revise that. Some eggs do come from there, and when I say there I mean there as the institution that is huge-scale, commercial, industrial, factory food production. The eggs from there are indeed eggs you may want to consider before eating.

Despite the time span of one paragraph, we probably still don’t know if the chicken or the egg came first; however, we do know where our LFFC chickens and eggs come from. A good night’s rest (preferably in flannel winter sheets) assured, the eggs laid by LFFC lady chickens are raised in a way that looks nothing like the life of chickens you read PETA horror stories about. Rather, LFFC’s eggs are laid in environments that look like the imagery conjured by “pastured”—soft, green grass, overgrown dandelions here and there, and chickens dwadalling around foraging for bugs to munch. Perhaps the areas of overgrown dandelions aren’t the dairy cows’ and chickens’ favorite area of the pasture.

Rewind it back: you may want to reconsider eating the eggs that do come from an institution/culture/misunderstanding of food/place like the refrigerated shelves near your grocer’s freezer. Those shelves are:

(1) places that have been designed to encourage consumers to buy—because once they/we buy they/we will use—eggs despite the prior irrelevant egg vacancy in their home fridge;

(2) places that assume “consumer as swayable vehicle for profit;”

(3) places that are stocked by agribusiness that completely ignore everything except the bottom line;

(4) places that are never above wielding the logically fallacious savvy from their professional PR and marketing firms in all written and codified material;

(5) and places that buy from eggmen who want the most return on the least investment.

 These places are designed so the eggs are on the opposite end of the milk not because of categorical belonging but because there are many other dairy somethings to need-upon-noticing between point eggs and point milk. Note: high margin items are shelved at eye level. Notice we’ve only thus far ranted on grocery stores, eggs, government-affiliated/funded (is there a difference?) organizations, and consumers. What about the birds? This is for the birds! 

With simple, rudimentary browsing of a few different, but all government-af-fund-iated, websites that the egg industry (like most I guess) is concerned less with the welfare of its parts (animals, workers, environment, communities) and more with the end to which those parts are means, is an easy conclusion. A conclusion that is gross and upsetting which many times is concluded long after already having purchased from the source or one of its af-fund-iate places. Super bummer. The good news is we never stop learning.

By and large, the white eggs that dominate the egg market are laid in cage systems. Automation is imperative in system of cages because, “care, feeding, maintenance, sanitation, and gathering all take time and money.” Lucky for the egg industry, the Single Comb White Leghorn matures early (more eggs sooner), utilizes feed efficiently (cheap to feed), are relatively small (more birds per minimum space requirements), adapts to a variety of climates (can make money for the industry in a variety of locations), and “produces a relatively large number of white-shelled eggs, the color preferred by most consumers” (money maker).

The eggs that supply LFFC’s organic egg shares are raised from rotationally pastured (not green-washed rhetoric like cage-free) chickens. The idea of rotational pasturing is that the chickens always have new grass full of bugs and yumminess to forage rather than a dry lot of dirt from overworking a particular area until all the bugs are gone. When our chickens are fed supplemental feed—supplemental—it, too, is organic wheat, corn, or soy which means the eggs are certifiable. Our chickens are never, ever de-beaked, or have their beaks trimmed as the euphemistic dishonest egg industry folks might refer to it. Savvy. 

Commercial egg-laying hens are commonly debeaked in an effort to counteract environmentally-induced behaviors like cannibalism, injurious pecking, and stress. Commercial broiler chickens, or those raised for meat, aren’t usually debeaked because they reach slaughter weight before injurious behaviors manifest. Studies have shown that reducing the size of the groups of chickens also reduces pecking and cannibalism— one of many egg industry arguments for cage systems (aside from efficiency and profit) as the cages prohibit the chickens from ever hanging out with any other chickens besides the 6 or so stuffed into each cage. However, if laying hens weren’t stashed in laying houses with hundreds of thousands of their peers in or out of cages, they may not eat each other.

United Egg Producers (UEP) is a group of industry veterans and professionals that represents about 95% of the egg producers in the country. Many UEP group members are former government officials, poultry professionals, or otherwise affiliated individuals. UEP asserts the United States’ egg farmers “provide a safe and humane environment for the flocks of hens that provide the nation’s egg supplies.” Really. I guess that’s why male chicks are ground up alive because they’re of no use for the egg or chicken meat industry. I guess that’s also why they endorse “therapeutic beak trimming” (code speak: repeated debeaking at any age despite the increased stress after a certain age) to curb “outbreaks of cannibalism.” Google “undercover investigation at hyline hatchery.” 

  

Checkmate. 

Photo Credits: Happy chickens in doorway and egg dozen with LFFC logo, CSA Files, all others borrowed from Google images.

Food, Power, and Cooperatives

“To begin the global task to which we are called, we need some particular place to begin, some particular place to stand, some particular place in which to initiate the small, reformist changes that we can only hope some day will soon become radically transformative. We start with food.”

-Kloppenburg et al., 1996

Being a relatively new member of the Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative CSA team, I find myself regularly answering questions about local food and why it’s important when chatting with curious friends and family wanting to know about the organization I work for. While I’m always happy to give the rundown on LFFC (“We’re an organic farmer’s co-op consisting of 80 plus small farms. Community Supported Agriculture is a model of local agriculture that allows community members to subscribe to the season’s harvest...”), these answers barely tell the whole story of what we do as a Cooperative and why our model of agriculture is so important as a foil to the conventional industrial model that fills so many American grocery store shelves and bellies. There are real implications for our food choices, both when we choose to participate in the corporate, industrial chain of agriculture and consumption, and when we choose to support the alternative.

In Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy (a book that helped lead me on my journey to LFFC in no small way), he reports that Philip Morris and Nabisco collect nearly 10 cents of every dollar an American consumer spends on food, just one example of the consolidation of the American food chain. This consolidation of food spending to a handful of corporations means farmers participating in the industrial model have prices dictated by the powers that be, only to have their produce transported, processed, packaged, transported again, stored, shelved, and sold- each step resulting in an additional expense passed along to the consumer for a lesser quality product, while profit is siphoned away by the many hands that helped put the item on your grocery store shelf.

While many local food venues (farmers’ markets, farm stands/markets, and CSAs) allow for increased contact between producer and consumer, it can be a challenge for farmers based in rural locations reach out to a consumer base which is large enough to support family farms. By uniting into a cooperative and delivering to regions outside of the immediate area, our farmers are able to increase access to sustainably grown, organic produce for neighboring community members while finding direct markets for their goods, allowing them to continue farming in a sustainable way, preserving family tradition, and farmland as farmland. Organic, natural farmland at that.

Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative farmers have decided to take a different path than the conventional industry. By joining forces to share storage, transportation, marketing, and administrative tasks and costs, our farmers are able to do what they want to, which is devote their energy to farming with integrity, with concern for the environment and the health of their families, their customers, and their animals at the forefront of all that they do. By eliminating industry middlemen and reducing the miles between farm and fork, LFFC farmers ensure they receive a fair price for the crops they have grown, for the hard work that keeps them busy from dawn to dusk, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter. They ensure customers receive only the freshest, healthiest food possible, food that is produced not to withstand transport and storage for thousands of miles and many days, but to nourish the body and delight the taste buds.

 The industrial food network is only able to function when farmers are paid as little as possible and forced to make cost cutting measures often resulting in worst environmental, farm worker, and animal care practices becoming standard operating procedure to ensure some profit can be squeezed out of the convoluted production chain. By cooperating to market directly to the consumer, our farmers maintain power over the food they have worked tirelessly to produce while giving you, the consumer, increased power as well. By deciding to be a shareholder with Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative, our members assert their right to fresh food, their right to food not treated with chemicals, they signal their belief in and support of the right of animals to live a pleasant and peaceful life. Our members have a direct contact with the producers of their food and if they have questions or concerns, they have the power to directly address the issue.

After Obama’s “bad spilled milk joke,” which provoked groaned utterances and a few chuckles, I started thinking about milk. Milk was on my mind. Milk does my body good, or did when I drank it, or did it? Milk. Milk. Milky white milk. Did people at one time, you know, that time during which many of our hackneyed, clichéd, and otherwise overused-to-the-point-of-lost-meaning phrases were created, really cry because they spilled a glass of milk? Were the tears for Bessie’s moo juice produced out in yonder bucolic meadow—the place we (former or ashamed) mainstreamers can at times barely imagine? Gasp, milk doesn’t come from the dairy section of the national chain grocer, from the gloved hand behind the refrigerated racks next to the “free range” eggs?

Better question: why do so many of our shareholders also elect a milk share—be it skim, 2%, or whole? Our milk, like the $10,000 efforts of said Dairy farmers to contain spillage two score years ago, is worth crying over. Har. Har. Har. Seriously though seriously, the milk used for our milk shares is amazing, local, and certified organic. The dairy, Natural by Nature, is family-owned in nearby (just over an hour’s drive) West Grove, Pennsylvania.

First, where do other milks come from—the milks next to the “free range” eggs at my local, national, multinational conglomerate grocery chain store with clothes, shoes, music, garden (Round Up), automotive, and disappointing art/crafts sections come from? Conventional dairy farms and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These types of places look very different to us and feel very different to the cows than Natural by Nature. The goals of these farms and factories, respectively, are many times to increase milk production while decreasing herd size. Conventional dairy cows have significantly shorter life spans of about three to four years due to the stress of lactating constantly as well as disease and other ailments like lameness and mastitis. Cows on factory farms give birth once a year after artificial insemination, and two to three months after calving, she is once again bred to continue her lactation.

After reading and reading and feeling repulsed, I wanted to know more about the milk we offer. Some shareholders have ordered up to six milk shares per season. That’s three gallons of milk per week, or in other words, a lot for a vegan mind to wrap around. Natural by Nature does just that: follows nature’s lead on managing the dairy herd.

Ned MacArthur had enough of the low—frustratingly so—milk prices and absence of a systemic way to sell organic milk. So he quit. For one year. By 1994, Ned and his father, Norman, started Natural Dairy Products Corporation (NDPC) which then started producing a line of milk and dairy products another year later called Natural by Nature.

Despite the four digestive compartments within their stomach region, which may seem to nod at a digestive system capable of digesting pretty much everything and the kitchen sink, Natural by Nature asserts, “Cows are meant to eat grass, not grain.” So cows eat grass, not grain. Is that why the happy cows on television commercials are always in a green meadow? Confirmation: “Pastured cows are healthier and less stressed. We strive to make fresh pasture the main diet for our cows.”

Of course, “Being grass fed is ideal. When the grass is lush and plentiful there is often no grain fed. In its best form, grass gives the cow her caloric and mineral needs. Periods of saturation or drought can compromise the feed value of the grass and necessitate the feeding for extra protein (alfalfa or clover hay) and energy (grain & haylage).”   Mind you, today’s high is 21 degrees. Farenheit. Thus, the drastic temperatures during the winter season pose a feeding challenge: “Most of our dairy herds are fed grain in the winter.” The dairy estimates that only about 10-15% of their herd’s dry matter intake (DMI) comes from winter grain rations to supplement the nutrient deficient created by winter pastures.

According to the USDA’s dairy animal organic certification standards, a minimum of 30% of a milking cow’s DMI must come from pasture turnout. Aside from hay, pasture, and supplemental grain, dairy cows at Natural by Nature are also fed haylage during the winter to feed their energy needs. Haylage is simply first-cutting hay that’s been fermented to increase its sugar content to provide energy.

Because we, humans and bovine friends alike, are what we eat, incorporating grass-fed dairy products—if you eat animal products, that is—into your diet means you’ll also be incorporating Beta Carotene, Vitamins A and E, and Conjugated Linoleic Acid into your diet as well. These nutrients are all naturally occurring in grass at higher levels than say the processed grain in the diets of dairy cows at conventional farms or worse yet, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

In addition to Natural by Nature’s commendable commitment to herd and human health and welfare, we are also proud to partner with them as friends of the environment always looking for ways to sustain best green practices. We don’t want to simply go green, we want to be, stay, live, and embody green.

Natural by Nature makes us proud when they report:

·       

     Our Avondale facility electricity is 100% wind power.  

·       We do as much as we can to help support our local organic farmers.

·       We recycle as much as possible. 

·       We are careful to run our truck routes as efficiently as possible. 

·       We’ve done away with the plastic bags in our retail store all together.  Our customers bring in their own and we recycle our used cardboard boxes by offering them to those who have forgotten to bring a bag.

·       We also have reusable cloth bags for purchase in our store. 

Natural by Nature’s mission,

"To promote and support organic farming and the sustainable use of our natural resources. To produce foods that benefit consumers and farmers alike. To use the principles of grass based dairy production as a means to improve the quality of our products, maximize the health of our cows and protect our watersheds. To make a living for our families based on these strongly held principles."

is an honorable one and strongly upheld in both theory and practice. Cows are grazers and should do so. Milk is touted as good for us and should be. Natural by Nature makes these things happen. 
Don’t feel ashamed when you cry if you spill this milk. It’s worth it. 
Photo Credit: Natural by Nature website