By Karen Aney (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 7, 2012
Eating Locally
Another recent nutritional trend is “localvorism,” also known as locavorism. This refers to a diet comprised exclusively of locally grown and produced foods. Predominately, this is meant to reduce the carbon footprint your food has. However, it also serves to boost the economy in your area, and has positive effects on flavour and reduced instances of pesticides and other chemical agents.
Eating locally fits hand-in-hand with a trend referred to as “know your farmer, know your food.” This is a phrase that has been thrown around in conjunction with health eating for decades, but it also serves as the slogan for a recent USDA initiative to increase local industry and decrease transportation costs in the USA. The philosophy behind the phrase is that if you know where your food comes from, you know how it’s produced – in theory, you know what’s in it.
A huge advantage of local eating is the reduced use of fuel. According to Omnivores Dilemma, by Michael Pollan, the food industry in the USA is responsible for approximately one-fifth of the total petroleum consumption in the country. This number is nearly as high as that of personal automobiles. Of that total, less than a quarter is used on the farm – the majority is spent in transporting the food.
If you’d like to try to eat locally, make sure that the food is not only produced locally but also processed locally. Sometimes, often with grains and dairy, the goods can be produced on a farm, shipped to be processed at the other end of the country, then shipped back for “local” consumption. This not only defeats the environmental purpose of local eating, but also negates some of the economic impacts in your community.
Where can I go for Lower Mainland produce?
One source is just five minutes away from the Abbotsford campus. The Bakerview Ecodairy sits at 1356 Sumas Way, just across from the Starbucks. This is a family-run dairy farm that exclusively produces Vitala milk.
The farm itself is open to the public. Guests can tour the facilities, see the collection of animals and find out how the cows live. Their manager of guest services, Ingrid Epp, states that they call their cows the “princesses,” because essentially they spend the entire day doing whatever they like. They have stalls that are built on mattresses made from recycled car tires. They have an automatic cleaner—the “spa,” Epp says—that cleans them down whenever they wish to use it. They have a completely automated milker that provides them with a treat while they’re relieved of their burden. What’s more, there are large industrial fans that come on when the barn hits 21 degrees, and misters that come on if the barn hits 25 degrees. Essentially, they have better accommodations than most of us students do. Translation? These are some seriously happy cows.
Their diet is specially formulated by Vitala CEO, Bill Vanderkooi. He has a Master of Science in animal science from the University of Michigan and utilized his education to create the diet the cows feed on. Through the special components in the feed, the cows produce milk that is naturally enriched with DHA Omega-3 and CLA. These have a long list of dietary benefits: DHA Omega-3 is an anti-carcinogen, fights symptoms of depression and more. Further, Omega-3 is generally found only in oils – mostly fish oils. Fish oil or a tall glass of milk? Seems like a pretty clear choice. CLA, while it is an anti-carcinogen, has also been hailed as a great tool in both achieving and maintaining weight loss.
The farm is open for touring every day except Sunday. There’s also an on-site shop that, as of February 29, is being renovated into a second location of Nature’s Pickins. Currently, and after renovations, it will sell the milk and yogurt produced by the Bakerview cows, which is also processed locally. When the newly-renovated shop opens, they will also be selling Bakerview cheese.
Long story short, it’s five minutes from school, it’s local, and they have cows, goats, miniature horses and turkeys. It’s a great place to go between classes, especially if you’re trying to eat local.
Goat’s Pride Dairy is another option. Located on Olund Road, about a 15 minute drive from campus, this farm is located on the Circle Farm Tour. This tour is a great source for information and locations of farms in our area to visit if you’re looking to eat local and organic.
Goat’s Pride Dairy is a family-run farm owned by Peter and Jo-Ann Dykstra. Their son, Jason Dykstra, is the farm’s cheesemaker, and recently won two third-place ribbons at the American Cheese Society Cheese competition. Taking third place out of 1600 entries speaks to the quality of the cheeses produced at this local farm.
The family-run operation also sells pork. While it isn’t certified as organic, it is locally raised and butchered. The farm will also soon offer certified organic, locally-produced eggs. All the animals at the farm are given free range to roam in good weather, and have ample shelter when it’s raining and bleak. Again, these are some seriously happy animals.
Aside from the cheese, one highlight of this local farm is their goat’s milk. While it’s possible to find goat’s milk at most grocery stores today, this farm is the only one owner Peter Dykstra knows of that produces the milk in a four-litre jug. Priced at $14.50, it’s an economical way to eat local and healthy.
Grapples
While the produce section of your local grocery store provides many organic, local and otherwise healthy options, they’re also increasingly providing items like these. Grapples (pronounced “grayples”) are an apple that tastes like a grape, and a wonderful example of why you should always read the labels.
Fruits have been successfully genetically crossed in the past. An example of this is a tangelo; a cross between a grapefruit and a tangerine that was actually invented in 1911. Fruits like these are created at the genetic level: two specific strains of citrus trees are combined to produce one new tree that naturally produces one new fruit. However, Grapples are not an example of this natural process. Instead, they are apples that are soaked in grape flavour.
As explained on a 2007 episode of the Food Network’s Unwrapped, Grapples are made using mostly Fuji apples. This type of apple is used because it is highly porous: as such, it takes on flavour quite well. Before the future Grapples are chosen, they are individually checked for density using an infrared camera. As the show states, this is “to measure the sweetness, or brix.” In an interview with Marvin Record, a Grapple employee, he states that this is to ensure that “only the sweetest apples” are used. However, brix is a unit of measurement that denotes the mass of sucrose within a given item (it is also applied to wines and honeys). Thus, measuring the brix of an apple serves to demonstrate how dense an apple is – logically, it serves to demonstrate how much room there is left for Grapple flavour. What does this mean for the consumer? That the less sweet the apple, the more grape taste can be infused.
Unfortunately, that grape flavour isn’t a natural one. The grape taste in Grapples comes from methyl anthrinilate, which is an ester of anthranilic acid. For those of us that aren’t chemistry majors, it’s a chemical that is actually naturally occurring in not only grapes but oranges, strawberries, even flowers such as gardenia and jasmine. However, the levels with which it occurs in these items is substantially lower than its artificial applications. It is used to flavour grape gum and soda. It’s also used as a highly effective—and to some breeds, devastating—bird repellent.
Because of this, the USDA requires Grapples be packaged as a processed food – hence the plastic container that every Grapple is purchased in. What’s the lesson here? If it’s in the produce section and it’s packaged, it’s probably soaked in bird repellent. If it isn’t soaked in bird repellent, it’s likely processed in some other way. Educate yourself, read the labels.
