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| Village Market News | ||
| Genetically
Modified Sugarbeets Coming Soon to a Store Near You |
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| Organic Really IS Better (as if we didn't know) | ||
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Even More Bedding Plants -- May 8th, 2010 Bedding Plants return -- May 1, 2010 Dining out in York Region -- April 24, 2010 Spring Greens Already -- April 10, 2010 Introduction to the Market for Gateways Conference Participants -- March 3, 2010 Liv Tyler Shops at Village Market September 29th, 2007 “It's Liv Tyler, the girl from Lord of the Rings, she's here at the Market”, said Charlotte Hodgkins excitedly. At first I didn't catch the name and thought she was referring to the Toronto stage production, but Charlotte repeated it and eventually I clued in. And as I looked at the tall thin dark haired woman standing waiting for her crepe, I thought, yeah that could be Liv Tyler. The young people working at the Market were all abuzz with the news. “I took money out of her hand” said Tamar, who works as a cashier for farmer Mike Lanigan. Austin McQuaite, who also works for Mike, concluded that since Liv Tyler shops here, “the Market now has street cred”. And Miles Lanigan, Mike's teenage son, declared that this was the coolest thing to happen at the Market since he caught a trout in the creek here several years back. Charlotte told Ed Crabtree, who was playing guitar at the Market to play some Aerosmith, because Liv's dad was the lead singer for that band. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote years ago in Mother Jones magazine “Knowledge of the stars is western culture”. So as a self-declared student of Cultural Studies I should really pay closer attention to those ever-changing constellations than I do, but at least I did know who Liv Tyler was. And although I saw Lord of the Rings, I don't especially connect her with that film. I associate her more with the movie Empire Records and the cover story in GQ magazine from many years back. In fact, Liv is one of the few movie stars I've really taken much of an interest in. I was sitting at a table chatting with Austin's dad, as is my wont on Saturday mornings, while Liv was making her rounds, buying stuff from a lot of different vendors. Eventually I decided I should go and speak to her. She said she was in town filming the Incredible Hulk. She heard about the Market from a magazine. She politely declined my offer to sit down for a while and chat. Her child was out in the parking lot with the nanny, so she didn't want her shopping to take too long. I suggested that since she had a child she should know about Waldorf education. She knew that there was a Waldorf school in New York and that it was at the other end of town from where she lived. We talked some more before I let her get back to her shopping. Later I saw her back wandering around the Market with her child and heard from Gaille Lieberthal that she and her child had been out to the playground in the forest. As Rebecca Wylie, another of Mike's teenage helpers said, “She's just like a regular person.”. -RC |
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GENETICALLY MODIFIED SUGARBEETS TO BE PART OF PROCESSED FOODS IN 2008
Ten years ago I asked Doctor Chris Hassel why he ate organic. He told me it was because "just about everything else out there is genetically modified". As the years roll by that observation is verified by news story after news story. Sugar Beets are the latest. Check out this story (below) that was brought to our attention by Village Market farmer and vendor Gaille Lieberthal. Thanks Gaille! GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUGAR TO HIT STORES IN 2008 (scroll to the bottom of this page to take action) Background Information: American Crystal, a large Wyoming-based sugar company and several other leading U.S. sugar providers have announced they will be sourcing their sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets beginning this year and arriving in stores in 2008. Like GE corn and GE soy, products containing GE sugar will not be labeled as such. Since half of the granulated sugar in the U.S. comes from sugar beets, a move towards biotech beets marks a dramatic alteration of the U.S. food supply. These sugars, along with GE corn and soy, are found in many conventional food products, so consumers will be exposed to genetically engineered ingredients in just about every non-organic multiple-ingredient product they purchase. The GE sugar beet is designed to withstand strong doses of Monsanto's controversial broad spectrum Roundup herbicide. Studies indicate farmers planting "Roundup Ready" corn and soy spray large amounts of the herbicide, contaminating both soil and water. Farmers planting GE sugar beets are told they may be able to apply the herbicide up to five times per year. Sugar beets are grown on 1.4 million acres by 12,000 farmers in the U.S. from Oregon to Minnesota. Meanwhile candy companies like Hershey's are urging farmers not to plant GE sugar beets, noting that consumer surveys suggest resistance to the product. In addition the European Union has not approved GE sugar beets for human consumption. To send a letter to
the president of the American Crystal Sugar Company, click here: |
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| BREAKING
NEWS: IT'S OFFICIAL: Organic really is better
THE biggest study into organic food has found it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help lengthen people's lives. The evidence from the $27million four-year European Union-funded project should end years of debate and is likely to overturn official advice that eating organic food is a lifestyle choice and that there is no clear evidence that it is “more nutritious than other food”. The study will be peer reviewed and published over the next 12 months. But already one conclusion is clear: organically produced crops and dairy milk usually contain more “beneficial compounds” - such as vitamins and antioxidants believed to help to combat disease. Nutritionist and spokesperson for Australia’s largest organic body, the Biological Farmers of Australia, Shane Heaton, welcomed the study, saying, “This adds to the growing body of evidence from around the world that organic produce not only contains less of the things you don’t need, but also more of the things you do need in your diet.” “Of course, organic consumers have known this for years,” Heaton adds. “This latest research should help everyone else, including some of our leading official advisory bodies, to be better informed and catch up with the organic movement.” The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained between 20 and 40 per cent more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Australia's biggest killers. They also had higher levels of vitamin C and beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc. Carlo Leifert, co-ordinator of the EU-funded project, said the health benefits were so striking that moving to organic food was the equivalent of eating an extra portion of fruit and vegetables every day. "If you have just 20 per cent more antioxidants in every portion of vegetables, then it's simply a question of maths - eating four portions of organic fruit and vegetables is the equivalent to eating five portions of traditional fruit and vegetables," he said. Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent organic and non-organic sites on a 293ha farm at Newcastle University, plus other sites in Europe. “Organic food isn’t a luxury,” says Heaton, “It’s how food is meant to be.” Further details:
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Photo below: Fran Earle, founder of Molly B’s Gourmet Kitchen spreads the word on great tasting gluten-free organic food. Fran is a former stockbroker who is now investing in healthy futures (for people who eat her products). According to Fran, gluten intolerance is widespread, though many of the people who suffer from it have yet to be formally diagnosed.
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| Note: The article below was published in the Summer 2006 issue of Human Spirit Magazine | ||
| Bread of Life
and Death
What does it mean when common basic foods like wheat which have sustained humankind for eons are now being implicated in allergic and even anaphlactic reactions? I should start by making it clear that I claim no professional health expertise, that my information comes from talking to people and backing it up with a bit of reading on the internet. I manage the Village Market at the Toronto Waldorf School and in the course of my work at that organic market I run into people who have taken many different “paths less travelled” in their quest for personal health, and survival. So I'm writing this as a kind of “heads up” to flag your interest. Don't take this as gospel, do your own research. Fran Earle is one of the vendors at our market. She's often tells stories of doing demos at upscale food venues like Pusateri's and Whole Foods and of having such a rousing response among the customers that it inevitably awakens the store's management to the fact that there are a lot of people out there among their customers base for whom gluten intolerance is a huge issue. And while the sad news is that so many people can no longer eat the traditional staples of life such as wheat and most breads, the consolation prize is that through her company Molly B's, Fran has used her culinary ingenuity to come up with a whole line of products which are totally gluten free and which also taste really good. Which is really good news because from what I've so far heard and read, the only known “treatment” for gluten intolerance (a.k.a. Celiac disease) is a gluten-free diet. But thanks to Fran and Molly B's that need not mean tasteless gruel. So how bad is it for the gluten intolerant? The story I'm getting is that there's an inherited genetic component which is triggered or activated by a stress factor and that the condition is a type of auto-immune dysfuction. As for prevalence, the figure I've seen is 1 person in 133. A person who is gluten intolerant will suffer damage to the villii of the small intestine when they eat foods containing gluten. As I understand it, the villii are tiny nutrient-absorbing finger-like protrusions on the inside wall of the small intestine. The further result will be that the damaged villii will then be less able to absorb nutrients and the person will experience malnutrition. Although the classic outer form of this condition is an emaciated wasting-away kind of look, Fran Earle tells me there is also a “fat” type of gluten intolerant person, which is less commonly diagnosed because health professionals are less aware of this possibility. Fran's awareness of her own condition began with a 2001 visit to New York City to ground zero where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre had been. By the time she got back to Toronto, her eyes had started burning and she stopped eating for two weeks. Then she started to crave bread. But when she ate the bread, she became violently ill. At one point she even stopped breathing (from what she later realized was anaphlactic shock) and might have died had her husband Michael not been able to give her a form of Shiatsu first aid. When, after these reactions, Michael first suggested that maybe she was gluten intolerant she couldn't accept the possibility. But later, when she did try going on a gluten free diet she not only felt a lot better and had more energy, but she also lost 40 or 50 lbs. So, the silver lining in all this is that not only has Fran learned how to keep herself healthy, she doesn't need expensive instruments to test for traces of gluten in food products. She can tell by her own body's reaction whether a food is contaminated with traces of gluten. How do I know if I'm gluten intolerant? Because the symptoms are so varied, gluten intolerance is not easy to diagnose. Often it is mistaken for other problems such as Crohn's Disease or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Sometimes the symptions are attributed to hypochondria. One way of testing is to go on a gluten-free diet and see if you feel better. Avoiding Gluten It's not easy. Gluten is not only in wheat, but also in other grains like spelt and kamut. Wheat is also used as a stabilizing agent in a wide range of processed foods including ice cream, jam, milk products, flavourings and colourings. Even steaks in restaurants are sometimes dusted with wheat flour. Contamination from being processed in the same facility as gluten-containing foods can make foods which in themselves do not contain gluten, harmful or dangerous to gluten-intolerant people. Gluten intolerance is often not well understood by those who do not have personal experence with the problem and thus products advertised as gluten free may not really be totally free of contamination. Learn More Obviously I can't cover all the relevant material in this brief article. If you'd like to learn more, check out the websites of the Gluten Intolerance Group (www.gluten.net) and the Canadian Celiac Association (www.celiac.ca) for a start. If you'd like to try some gluten-free foods, Molly B's products (including things like crepe mix) are available at the Village Market, Saturdays from 8:30 to 1:30 (www.villagemarket.ca). The Village Market is primarily a year round organic farmers market featuring fresh organic produce. We are located in the Toronto Waldorf School at 9100 Bathurst St., Thornhill. Fran's website is: www.mollybglutenfree.com Richard Chomko
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| October 27th Market News | ||
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